why dont mmo's do this? is it just technologically difficult?
making a mmo is not cheap, you need invester, you need million of dollars. there is risk. also- how many people will play a mmo with creatures only but no humaniod? you and a couple of peep only?
a lot of time goes into balancing playable races and classes. Imagine that undertaking.
Guess what, llife is not balanced. An MMORPG does not need to be balanced. Balance is an issue only when you artificially force players to fight 5vs5 or 5vsBOSS or any fixed number.
This is the least untrue statement in all of gaming, All aspects of a game need intense mechanical balance to ensure they're worth playing, otherwise people won't ever explore the content you spent a massive amount of time on, get bored, and quit from the various frustrations commonly noted with bad broken games. (so many tabletop RPGs suffer from this.) digital life should be fair.
When you play Biowares "Neverwinter nights" on a dedicated serers as a DM you can possess any creature as you like. It works great for a game like that, but with max 128 players you usually don't have more than 5-10 DMs.
But having players controlling every creature? I don't think that is a good idea.
I just see some players getting zerged by rabbits or a horde of mice. Animals are animals and should just in rare casesattack players. Sure, a tiger could attack a human if hungry and even kill him but attacks are still very rare, most animals run when they see a human and they should as well in a game.
If you made a particular story (like when some of the ravens in the witch, the lion and the wardrobe works for the icequeen) where some of the animals works for a certain power and are intelligent it work but if all animals are like that it would just be silly.
A game where all intelligent creatures are controlled by players work fine. Even smart monsters like griffons and dragons. But not non intelligent beings.
The idea doesn't work as a mainstream game, unless completely designed from teh ground up.
This was tried before, forget the exact game, and it was a disaster.
Imagine you're level 2, trying to get to level 3.
You're out killing level 2 giant worms or something.
You wack one, get some xp, get some loot, go to the next one, like most MMORPGs.
Then, when you're down to half hit points, suddenly 5 giant worms attack you and instantly kill you.
Wow, some excitement right?
Until you come back and try to make some xp, and it happens again. And again. and again, every time you respawn and go anywhere near any mobs.
Suddenly, not so fun.
Because level 2 giant worms were designed by the devlopers to be killed by level 2 players one at a time, not 5 at a time, and they definitely weren't programmed to only attack when you're down to half hit points.
What WOULD be fun, is a server for this, just lke DAoC had an FFA PvP server.
If you just want to fool around, you jump on the "play all Mobs" server for a while.
A server or two would likely handle the demand for something like this.
a lot of time goes into balancing playable races and classes. Imagine that undertaking.
Guess what, llife is not balanced. An MMORPG does not need to be balanced. Balance is an issue only when you artificially force players to fight 5vs5 or 5vsBOSS or any fixed number.
This is the least untrue statement in all of gaming, All aspects of a game need intense mechanical balance to ensure they're worth playing, otherwise people won't ever explore the content you spent a massive amount of time on, get bored, and quit from the various frustrations commonly noted with bad broken games. (so many tabletop RPGs suffer from this.) digital life should be fair.
And the reason is, you cannot get another real life with a few clicks of a mouse, but you can install another game.
While the idea of "the more time you spend on one feature individually, the more fun it becomes" has some merit, it is certainly not very realistic.
Some fun concepts are extremely simple and don't require as many hours to make fun while some fun concepts might be extremely complicated requiring an overdose of hours to make fun. What determines this? Life. It just happens.
This is true.
But it's also true that until you reach a certain "critical mass of game mechanics" many playstyles won't be any fun at all!
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
making a mmo is not cheap, you need invester, you need million of dollars. there is risk. also- how many people will play a mmo with creatures only but no humaniod? you and a couple of peep only?
Which FF Character Are You?
This is the least untrue statement in all of gaming, All aspects of a game need intense mechanical balance to ensure they're worth playing, otherwise people won't ever explore the content you spent a massive amount of time on, get bored, and quit from the various frustrations commonly noted with bad broken games. (so many tabletop RPGs suffer from this.) digital life should be fair.
When you play Biowares "Neverwinter nights" on a dedicated serers as a DM you can possess any creature as you like. It works great for a game like that, but with max 128 players you usually don't have more than 5-10 DMs.
But having players controlling every creature? I don't think that is a good idea.
I just see some players getting zerged by rabbits or a horde of mice. Animals are animals and should just in rare casesattack players. Sure, a tiger could attack a human if hungry and even kill him but attacks are still very rare, most animals run when they see a human and they should as well in a game.
If you made a particular story (like when some of the ravens in the witch, the lion and the wardrobe works for the icequeen) where some of the animals works for a certain power and are intelligent it work but if all animals are like that it would just be silly.
A game where all intelligent creatures are controlled by players work fine. Even smart monsters like griffons and dragons. But not non intelligent beings.
The idea doesn't work as a mainstream game, unless completely designed from teh ground up.
This was tried before, forget the exact game, and it was a disaster.
Imagine you're level 2, trying to get to level 3.
You're out killing level 2 giant worms or something.
You wack one, get some xp, get some loot, go to the next one, like most MMORPGs.
Then, when you're down to half hit points, suddenly 5 giant worms attack you and instantly kill you.
Wow, some excitement right?
Until you come back and try to make some xp, and it happens again. And again. and again, every time you respawn and go anywhere near any mobs.
Suddenly, not so fun.
Because level 2 giant worms were designed by the devlopers to be killed by level 2 players one at a time, not 5 at a time, and they definitely weren't programmed to only attack when you're down to half hit points.
What WOULD be fun, is a server for this, just lke DAoC had an FFA PvP server.
If you just want to fool around, you jump on the "play all Mobs" server for a while.
A server or two would likely handle the demand for something like this.
And the reason is, you cannot get another real life with a few clicks of a mouse, but you can install another game.
This is true.
But it's also true that until you reach a certain "critical mass of game mechanics" many playstyles won't be any fun at all!
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver