I'm going to keep preaching about "actual" end-game content until developers/publishers finally get their heads out of their asses and create meaningful end games... gear runs and PvP that changes nothing are not worthy content imo yet that is still all that is being offered.
Here is a decent example of meaningful end-game content:
Guilds pool resources and find an ideal location in the world to buckle down and build the Town Hall (placement/construction done by Guild Architect. Other structures can then be built to enhance the guild and its members.
Guilds must defend their towns and must have a good reason to even build them in the first place (economic and social incentives among others..).
Through object permanance, guilds can raid enemy towns and form factions with both NPC towns and other player built towns.
Servers initially populated with large NPC towns (or of varying sizes) and due to backstory, dynamic npc factions can be modified and influenced by players (player interaction++).
An automated trading system of sorts based on the building of Market Places encourages NPCs to flock to player towns and can even be the basis for a "mini game" of sorts, such as caravans that travel from one Market Place of one city to another. Caravans/convoys are raidable features that enemies can attack to try and disrupt faction economies (part of the guild incentives from point 2).
Professions can be centered around increasing overall guild functionality.
A World Progression System that advances the game's current story and decision trees that are directly/indirectly influenced by players as a whole on each server (to give the chance for each server to progress differently).
Give players the tools to influence end game and create a game that caters to its player base for a change.. instead of the other way around. Am I way off base?
I like your ideas here MacroHard. If I may add (or suggest an alt) a bit to #1. why not have a set of tools for guilds to build their own player generated dungeons (or instances, etc.), maybe one for each town (or more depending on size of town?). The tools could be used by the guilds offline and submitted to devs for (quality control, level playability, etc.) upload/implementation. I see this as a win-win for the game devs, as they get free content and the game continues to expand with new content. Before anyone says this is too hard, let me point out that there are several "develop your own dungeon games" in existence (some several years old). Guilds would also generate revenue from 'adventures' using the towns dungeons, etc. This is just an idea I had from playing the old MUDS and from reading "Another day, Another Dungeon".
These five topics are the most important aspects of an MMO to people that already fans of the genre. That is like saying representation, abstraction, form and color are dead horses in the art world. It is actually the opposite of what you imply by this list.
Well said.
I'm not sure I'd agree they are the "most important aspects", but they are aspects that are extremey improtant to players, and it seems to me that many companies aren't listening or don't want to do what it takes to figure out a better way.
One of the things I'd like companies do is express to players (potential and those who already play the game) exactly what they intend their game to be. It's amazing how little information you get from a home page for many MMOGs, but regardless of how well that's done, a "mission statement" that tells us what we should expect and what the goals of the developers are would help prevent most of us from turning legitimate topics into "dead horses" because the specific game we are playing isn't supposed to be what some players might want it to be.
Let the developers choose a direction they want the game to take, and then have them tell us exactly what that is (as near as "exactly" as they can).
I don't think they do this because it will mean excluding part of the customer base from the start. I'd say, though, it's better to exclude those who don't really want to play your game up front than it is to have them play it and tell everyone it's garbage just because it wasn't what they wanted.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
Comments
I like your ideas here MacroHard. If I may add (or suggest an alt) a bit to #1. why not have a set of tools for guilds to build their own player generated dungeons (or instances, etc.), maybe one for each town (or more depending on size of town?). The tools could be used by the guilds offline and submitted to devs for (quality control, level playability, etc.) upload/implementation. I see this as a win-win for the game devs, as they get free content and the game continues to expand with new content. Before anyone says this is too hard, let me point out that there are several "develop your own dungeon games" in existence (some several years old). Guilds would also generate revenue from 'adventures' using the towns dungeons, etc. This is just an idea I had from playing the old MUDS and from reading "Another day, Another Dungeon".
Well said.
I'm not sure I'd agree they are the "most important aspects", but they are aspects that are extremey improtant to players, and it seems to me that many companies aren't listening or don't want to do what it takes to figure out a better way.
One of the things I'd like companies do is express to players (potential and those who already play the game) exactly what they intend their game to be. It's amazing how little information you get from a home page for many MMOGs, but regardless of how well that's done, a "mission statement" that tells us what we should expect and what the goals of the developers are would help prevent most of us from turning legitimate topics into "dead horses" because the specific game we are playing isn't supposed to be what some players might want it to be.
Let the developers choose a direction they want the game to take, and then have them tell us exactly what that is (as near as "exactly" as they can).
I don't think they do this because it will mean excluding part of the customer base from the start. I'd say, though, it's better to exclude those who don't really want to play your game up front than it is to have them play it and tell everyone it's garbage just because it wasn't what they wanted.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall