1. You queue up only if the WvW zone you want to enter is overcrowded. But you have 3 other zones to choose from. It's the same as queuing for an overcrowded server.
2. As I recall, DAoC's RvR took place in specially designated zones. Just like GW2. And unlike in DAoC you can go and meaningfully RvR (WvW) from level 2... So, GW2's open PvP is actually more "open" than DAoC's.
1) If it was "open", anyone could walk in at any time, overcrowded or not, as you could in the RvR zones. Putting an artifical cap on the number of people immediately indicates that it is an access-restricted area, and not really open.
2) Yes, it was in specifically design zones, but you could go there at ANY time, at any level. Wether or not you were effective isn't the point. No, it did not scale up your level, so you were little more than cannon fodder, but you could most definitely walk in to any RvR zone if you wanted.
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions.
What do you mean by its still scripted pvp? It seems that if you want open "ganking mess" world pvp with sanctions you end up with what you seem to be calling scripted pvp.....
Neither DAoC nor GW2 has open world pvp. It's all instanced or "dedicated zone".
I want a game where the ENTIRE WORLD is the battleground. EverQuest II's Nagafen PvP did this to a very mild extend. There were no guild bases to take down or anything, but pvp was certainly more exciting that this "expected" pvp balogna.
hmm that sounds like a good helping of gank fest to no end......fun...
You're right. Let's go play Huttball for the 10,000th time.
5 - 100% voice acting IS NOT innovative to me. Just an other way of bringing the story to the player and a way to remove the <click-till-ACCEPT> way of questing for a lot of players.
3 - Foundry innovative..? I agree, let players build their quests is indeed an innovation (EQ2 included it as well last expansion), but STo was not the 1st MMO to bring it - Ryzom was (or was it Dark & Light?)
Of all the things that GW2 is doing, I'm suprised that WvW was selected as the most innovative, especially since it really isn't that much of innovation at all. Dynamic events completely replacing questing and removing the holy in trinity in favor of a much more fluid and flexible system, are far greater game changers.
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions.
What do you mean by its still scripted pvp? It seems that if you want open "ganking mess" world pvp with sanctions you end up with what you seem to be calling scripted pvp.....
Neither DAoC nor GW2 has open world pvp. It's all instanced or "dedicated zone".
I want a game where the ENTIRE WORLD is the battleground. EverQuest II's Nagafen PvP did this to a very mild extend. There were no guild bases to take down or anything, but pvp was certainly more exciting that this "expected" pvp balogna.
hmm that sounds like a good helping of gank fest to no end......fun...
You're right. Let's go play Huttball for the 10,000th time.
Dang, I never thought I would say this.....but I prefer huttball.....
I keep telling myself I'll get around to prodcuing a foundry mission just to try it out. I'm not real creative, but the draw of telling a story in the Star Trek universe is appealing.
I gotta say... for the halibut I tried a couple foundry missions in STO this weekend, and I was really impressed! I was expecting them to have alot of the same issues that the COX player built missions had, but at least in those 2, the plots were very well thought out and clearly made with the intent to be interesting rather than to grind XP/loot.
They were easily on par with the episode missions, only without the cutscenes.
I guess that's the lesson I learned after dismissing the system for so long without trying it. If you have a beloved, rich IP, and you remove the XP/loot incentive(from my experience, anomalies are turned off and there are no EoM reward options) from the picture, people JUST MIGHT make some cool stuff.
There were some missions in the list that I was shy of... where they said "don't try if you don't like reading" and had puzzles, etc. I can't help but consider my experience with some hardcore trekkies, and I'd wager they would stick a little factoid in at the beginning where "Naz Kahn Drogg received the medal of Vorpalkickassness in 2392 while wearing a Zebonoidinal chastity belt manufactured on Chevyvega 5 during the celebration of the running of the Nemoidian Bulls", and then, an hour into the mission, have to recall the name of the 3rd bull that ran out of the pen and 5 dozen other things to continue.
I´m pretty sure Age of Conan did voice acting first in massive scale,swtor just pushed it over the edge,or who wants to hear huttball opening ceremony 100 times per day ?
1. You queue up only if the WvW zone you want to enter is overcrowded. But you have 3 other zones to choose from. It's the same as queuing for an overcrowded server.
2. As I recall, DAoC's RvR took place in specially designated zones. Just like GW2. And unlike in DAoC you can go and meaningfully RvR (WvW) from level 2... So, GW2's open PvP is actually more "open" than DAoC's.
1) If it was "open", anyone could walk in at any time, overcrowded or not, as you could in the RvR zones. Putting an artifical cap on the number of people immediately indicates that it is an access-restricted area, and not really open.
Lol, so no online game ever created was "open" by your yardstick. Lol. If the server is overcrowded it either closes up or crashes. Period. End of story. That's it. The server can't handle any more. It has nothing to do with game design but the fact that there are technical limitations still present in the genre.
2) Yes, it was in specifically design zones, but you could go there at ANY time, at any level. Wether or not you were effective isn't the point. No, it did not scale up your level, so you were little more than cannon fodder, but you could most definitely walk in to any RvR zone if you wanted.
I´m pretty sure Age of Conan did voice acting first in massive scale,swtor just pushed it over the edge,or who wants to hear huttball opening ceremony 100 times per day ?
Forsaken world has WvW too. About "no armor snobery", well, we had Chronicles of spellborn, Coh and so on.
Those are the best examples of innovation you can come up with? Your list seems to be more about picking a feature in a high-profile game than searching for innovation. It's kind of like how college football's Heisman Trophy supposedly goes to the "most outstanding player", but usually only goes to a pretty good quarterback or running back on one of the top few teams, so it's the most outstanding player from a group of about ten, rather than about ten thousand or so players in Division I-A.
#5) Voiceovers in MMORPGs are hardly new. Saying we're going to voice over everything isn't so much innovation as stupidity. And besides, Wizard 101 had already done it.
#4) A nice enough idea. Champions Online already did it back in 2009. Guild Wars came not far away from it years before that even. For that matter, A Tale in the Desert did that about nine years ago.
#3) Cool idea. City of Heroes already did it.
So your first three examples of innovation are basically, game X copied something from some other game(s). Now, I'm hardly against copying good ideas. But that's not innovation.
I'm not familiar with your #2, and I don't think we can really gauge how innovative #1 will be just yet.
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It's not like there aren't any examples of innovation to point to. How about Spiral Knights grouping system? Dozens of games before it had struggled to make grouping with other players practical, and mostly failed at it. Spiral Knights actually fixed the problem.
How about the adventuring system in Uncharted Waters Online? Go out into the world and discover things--including much of the game's best gear. I've never seen anything else remotely like it in any other game, MMORPG or otherwise.
How about Vanguard's diplomacy system?
Or how about A Tale in the Desert's... well, just about anything in A Tale in the Desert.
As has previously been mentioned point 3 and 4 are wrong. They were both beaten to that by Ryzom(3) (and according to some here even CoH) and The Chronicles of Spellborn (4). Sadly 2 great games that could have been so much more but still had some pretty nice features in them.
These games are not exactly new and shiny but the fact that they have/had these features really ruins the point about these features being new and truly innovative.
Continued here since the edit button does not work for me.
These games are not exactly new and shiny but the fact that they have/had these features really ruins the point about these features being new and truly innovative.
Good list if you are focusing on primarily themeparks. There are many innovations of sandboxes that are notable. Specifically... gene systems, hunger/thirst systems, in-depth crafting and refining systems, territory control systems, exploration incentives(investigation missions tsw, exploration in uwo) etc.
Things like dungeon finder were innovative , but also close alot of open worlds and makes them impersonal.
Lol, so no online game ever created was "open" by your yardstick. Lol. If the server is overcrowded it either closes up or crashes. Period. End of story. That's it. The server can't handle any more. It has nothing to do with game design but the fact that there are technical limitations still present in the genre.
Nice twist on my words, but you're missing the spirit of my point. And you know good and well I didn't mean to make the comparsion of a zone to an instance at EVERY level, because every game uses several servers to present their world, open or instanced.. Even UO.
It's one thing if the hardware is physically incapable of supporting more than X players. Perhaps the number for DAoC was so high, it was never reached. However, in DAoC, there was never a mechanism of any kind that said "You can't go into this open, non-instanced (read: Not balanced, persistant) RvR zone." for any reason. Level, capacity, didn't matter. BG's, yes, open RvR zones, no. If you could log on to the server at all, and the zone itself was up and running, you had unfettered access to it.
So if for any other reason than "This will melt the hardware/degrade peformance/ insert technial explaination here", they are directly manipulating the balance, which makes a closed system in the sense that not anyone and everyone can join in a WvWvW zone at any point. The potential for imbalance is always present if it were truly open. If it's hardware, fine. If not, it's a rigged zone.
The number I heard for GW2 was around 100 per side, so 300 people at most. I don't remember where that number came from, so by all means, I am probably wrong, and I would like to know what that actual number is if anyone has it. It could very well have been mentioned because of hardware, but again, not sure.
Your description for 'Instant Action Raiding' does not match up with what the feature actually does. It doesnt let you experience endgame in any way, shape or form. Just because you are with 20 people doesnt make it a raid, its just a zerg fest of exploring high level zones (that you have already explored). Its a cool feature, but it does NOT do what you described it does.
Looking For Raid, however, does.
The article seems like you wanted to say something positive about 5 recent games, and you reached heavily to get them in.
things like: but it’s refreshing to know that it’s all for looks and each person can choose their own fashion statement without being underpowered at the same time
that describes pretty much every game on the market ever since appearance gear was introduced (eq2 maybe?)
#5: Story = Not my story. The story in SWTOR became so long-winded and boring that I had to resort to creating an elaborate leveling macro because I couldn't take it anymore. There is nothing innovative about sitting through 5 minutes of speech just to collect bantha paws.
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions.
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Here is my list of "innovative".
#1. LoTRO's playable instruments. = Nope it was not,that goes to Vanguard which released in Jan 2007,lotro released in April 2007
#3. WAR's deep achievement journal and public raiding.
#4. EQ2's "Aesthetic Slot" system. This let players have two slots of equipement: one for stats and the other for how your character will look to others. I'm not sure if EQ2 developed this idea, but it's a must in every MMO.
#9. SWG's "social classes", e.g.., entertainer, musician, dancer, image designer, politician, merchant. I've met players who have played for years and have never fired a shot.
#10. WoW's flying mounts. I'm not sure if they are first to do this, but the feature is fantastic. Vanguard had flying mounts before WOW had them,plus Vanguards could be used anywhere. Pretty sure WOW flying mounts were only usable in a certain area to start with.
"5. Fully Voiced Quests – Star Wars: The Old Republic – Bioware
I know that this horse has been beaten to death and some who play SWTOR are tired of every quest in the game being voiced but even they have to admit that this is something new in the MMO genre. Never before has any other MMO done so extensive a job in breathing life into a game world. Love it or hate it, the fact that BioWare brought this to the table is something unseen in the current generation of MMOs."
Really? Why does everyone think BioWare was the first to do this? SoE had the same ambition for EQ2 years ago, and it proved too costly for them to maintain. Its amazing how quickly people forget.
Yup,EQ2 had fully voiced long before SWTOR.
SWTOR bought nothing new to the genra,it expanded on certain things but bought nothing it was nothing new
Lol, so no online game ever created was "open" by your yardstick. Lol. If the server is overcrowded it either closes up or crashes. Period. End of story. That's it. The server can't handle any more. It has nothing to do with game design but the fact that there are technical limitations still present in the genre.
Nice twist on my words, but you're missing the spirit of my point. And you know good and well I didn't mean to make the comparsion of a zone to an instance at EVERY level, because every game uses several servers to present their world, open or instanced.. Even UO.
It's one thing if the hardware is physically incapable of supporting more than X players. Perhaps the number for DAoC was so high, it was never reached. However, in DAoC, there was never a mechanism of any kind that said "You can't go into this open, non-instanced (read: Not balanced, persistant) RvR zone." for any reason. Level, capacity, didn't matter. BG's, yes, open RvR zones, no. If you could log on to the server at all, and the zone itself was up and running, you had unfettered access to it.
So if for any other reason than "This will melt the hardware/degrade peformance/ insert technial explaination here", they are directly manipulating the balance, which makes a closed system in the sense that not anyone and everyone can join in a WvWvW zone at any point. The potential for imbalance is always present if it were truly open. If it's hardware, fine. If not, it's a rigged zone.
The number I heard for GW2 was around 100 per side, so 300 people at most. I don't remember where that number came from, so by all means, I am probably wrong, and I would like to know what that actual number is if anyone has it. It could very well have been mentioned because of hardware, but again, not sure.
Well, they're saying that they want to keep the game playable and that's why they are putting caps on the WvW zone populations. It is quite logical that these caps are per-faction because otherwise the system could be abused quite badly (say a midnight raid which fills up the player cap and thus prevents the opponents from joining in)
At the moment the cap is 500 players PER ZONE. There are 4 WvW zones which gives you 2000 players in WvW or 666 per side total (heh). The devs said that these numbers are temporary and that they'll very probably raise them as the game is optimized and they see how the game behaves in RL (hence the upcoming stress test beta). These are quite decent numbers and a far cry from "100 per side, so 300 people at most".
Actually I'm not sure if this 500/zone number translates directly into 500/3factions = 166 players/faction/zone. It is quite possible that this per faction cap is a bit softer so it could be 200players/faction/zone or even more. The solid info is "500 players/zone. Each zone has its separate cap and each facion has a cap as well." We'll see.
Imo the smart detail is that that each of the 4 zones has a separate population cap. Considering that players tend to flock towards the largest fight, this actually forces the population to spread around more and thus accomodate more players overall. If they had a single pop cap for all 4 zones, all players would eventually end up in one of the zones and thus crash the server.
Imo they could have said "no caps" at all and very probably they'd really like that, but when faced with very real possibilities of server meltdowns, especially at launch, imo they made a right choice.
Amzed Rift gets credit for something finally and it is not 40 comments of hating on it. Funny how 2/5 out of the 5 innovations are from games not even released and we have no god given clue if they will not be disasters and the other is so damn expensive no company will ever be able to do it again.
I think innovative is something that can be easily copied by another dev like x-server LFG/LFR or a ward drobe tab.
So glad GW2s "dynamic" events werent included in this. They are just quests with invisible triggers and no NPC quest giver. Watching the preview videos has made me think this even more, especially with the occasional NPC (cant remember the proper name) who points you to the dynamic events happening close by. Its not dynamic, its scripted. Once you have seen the cycle a couple of times for each event it will get boring
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
#1. Guild Wars' WvW does seem like a cool idea. However, it's ultimately still scripted pvp. In MMO games, I yearn for unpredictability. We need an elaborate World PvP setting with meaning and proper sanctions.
What do you mean by its still scripted pvp? It seems that if you want open "ganking mess" world pvp with sanctions you end up with what you seem to be calling scripted pvp.....
"...with meaning and proper sanctions."
Basically, you have described EVE Online. Maybe you should look into it. (And I do agree, every other version of pvp is essentially scripted or, at least, becomes highly predictable in a matter of days.)
Comments
1) If it was "open", anyone could walk in at any time, overcrowded or not, as you could in the RvR zones. Putting an artifical cap on the number of people immediately indicates that it is an access-restricted area, and not really open.
2) Yes, it was in specifically design zones, but you could go there at ANY time, at any level. Wether or not you were effective isn't the point. No, it did not scale up your level, so you were little more than cannon fodder, but you could most definitely walk in to any RvR zone if you wanted.
"...with meaning and proper sanctions."
You're right. Let's go play Huttball for the 10,000th time.
Nice list... BUT...
5 - 100% voice acting IS NOT innovative to me. Just an other way of bringing the story to the player and a way to remove the <click-till-ACCEPT> way of questing for a lot of players.
3 - Foundry innovative..? I agree, let players build their quests is indeed an innovation (EQ2 included it as well last expansion), but STo was not the 1st MMO to bring it - Ryzom was (or was it Dark & Light?)
Of all the things that GW2 is doing, I'm suprised that WvW was selected as the most innovative, especially since it really isn't that much of innovation at all. Dynamic events completely replacing questing and removing the holy in trinity in favor of a much more fluid and flexible system, are far greater game changers.
So what are "proper sanctions"?
Dang, I never thought I would say this.....but I prefer huttball.....
I gotta say... for the halibut I tried a couple foundry missions in STO this weekend, and I was really impressed! I was expecting them to have alot of the same issues that the COX player built missions had, but at least in those 2, the plots were very well thought out and clearly made with the intent to be interesting rather than to grind XP/loot.
They were easily on par with the episode missions, only without the cutscenes.
I guess that's the lesson I learned after dismissing the system for so long without trying it. If you have a beloved, rich IP, and you remove the XP/loot incentive(from my experience, anomalies are turned off and there are no EoM reward options) from the picture, people JUST MIGHT make some cool stuff.
There were some missions in the list that I was shy of... where they said "don't try if you don't like reading" and had puzzles, etc. I can't help but consider my experience with some hardcore trekkies, and I'd wager they would stick a little factoid in at the beginning where "Naz Kahn Drogg received the medal of Vorpalkickassness in 2392 while wearing a Zebonoidinal chastity belt manufactured on Chevyvega 5 during the celebration of the running of the Nemoidian Bulls", and then, an hour into the mission, have to recall the name of the 3rd bull that ran out of the pen and 5 dozen other things to continue.
I´m pretty sure Age of Conan did voice acting first in massive scale,swtor just pushed it over the edge,or who wants to hear huttball opening ceremony 100 times per day ?
Let's internet
Almost forgot, I'm pretty sure the Mission Architect from CoX predates the Foundry by a year or two. Wouldn't that make CoX the innovator?
Forsaken world has WvW too. About "no armor snobery", well, we had Chronicles of spellborn, Coh and so on.
Those are the best examples of innovation you can come up with? Your list seems to be more about picking a feature in a high-profile game than searching for innovation. It's kind of like how college football's Heisman Trophy supposedly goes to the "most outstanding player", but usually only goes to a pretty good quarterback or running back on one of the top few teams, so it's the most outstanding player from a group of about ten, rather than about ten thousand or so players in Division I-A.
#5) Voiceovers in MMORPGs are hardly new. Saying we're going to voice over everything isn't so much innovation as stupidity. And besides, Wizard 101 had already done it.
#4) A nice enough idea. Champions Online already did it back in 2009. Guild Wars came not far away from it years before that even. For that matter, A Tale in the Desert did that about nine years ago.
#3) Cool idea. City of Heroes already did it.
So your first three examples of innovation are basically, game X copied something from some other game(s). Now, I'm hardly against copying good ideas. But that's not innovation.
I'm not familiar with your #2, and I don't think we can really gauge how innovative #1 will be just yet.
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It's not like there aren't any examples of innovation to point to. How about Spiral Knights grouping system? Dozens of games before it had struggled to make grouping with other players practical, and mostly failed at it. Spiral Knights actually fixed the problem.
How about the adventuring system in Uncharted Waters Online? Go out into the world and discover things--including much of the game's best gear. I've never seen anything else remotely like it in any other game, MMORPG or otherwise.
How about Vanguard's diplomacy system?
Or how about A Tale in the Desert's... well, just about anything in A Tale in the Desert.
As has previously been mentioned point 3 and 4 are wrong. They were both beaten to that by Ryzom(3) (and according to some here even CoH) and The Chronicles of Spellborn (4). Sadly 2 great games that could have been so much more but still had some pretty nice features in them.
These games are not exactly new and shiny but the fact that they have/had these features really ruins the point about these features being new and truly innovative.
Continued here since the edit button does not work for me.
These games are not exactly new and shiny but the fact that they have/had these features really ruins the point about these features being new and truly innovative.
Otherwise good concept for an article.
No TSW Investigation mission? LoL, they even have an in-game browser....
Good list if you are focusing on primarily themeparks. There are many innovations of sandboxes that are notable. Specifically... gene systems, hunger/thirst systems, in-depth crafting and refining systems, territory control systems, exploration incentives(investigation missions tsw, exploration in uwo) etc.
Things like dungeon finder were innovative , but also close alot of open worlds and makes them impersonal.
Nice twist on my words, but you're missing the spirit of my point. And you know good and well I didn't mean to make the comparsion of a zone to an instance at EVERY level, because every game uses several servers to present their world, open or instanced.. Even UO.
It's one thing if the hardware is physically incapable of supporting more than X players. Perhaps the number for DAoC was so high, it was never reached. However, in DAoC, there was never a mechanism of any kind that said "You can't go into this open, non-instanced (read: Not balanced, persistant) RvR zone." for any reason. Level, capacity, didn't matter. BG's, yes, open RvR zones, no. If you could log on to the server at all, and the zone itself was up and running, you had unfettered access to it.
So if for any other reason than "This will melt the hardware/degrade peformance/ insert technial explaination here", they are directly manipulating the balance, which makes a closed system in the sense that not anyone and everyone can join in a WvWvW zone at any point. The potential for imbalance is always present if it were truly open. If it's hardware, fine. If not, it's a rigged zone.
The number I heard for GW2 was around 100 per side, so 300 people at most. I don't remember where that number came from, so by all means, I am probably wrong, and I would like to know what that actual number is if anyone has it. It could very well have been mentioned because of hardware, but again, not sure.
Your description for 'Instant Action Raiding' does not match up with what the feature actually does. It doesnt let you experience endgame in any way, shape or form. Just because you are with 20 people doesnt make it a raid, its just a zerg fest of exploring high level zones (that you have already explored). Its a cool feature, but it does NOT do what you described it does.
Looking For Raid, however, does.
The article seems like you wanted to say something positive about 5 recent games, and you reached heavily to get them in.
things like: but it’s refreshing to know that it’s all for looks and each person can choose their own fashion statement without being underpowered at the same time
that describes pretty much every game on the market ever since appearance gear was introduced (eq2 maybe?)
So couple of things that are wrong in your post.
Yup,EQ2 had fully voiced long before SWTOR.
SWTOR bought nothing new to the genra,it expanded on certain things but bought nothing it was nothing new
Well, they're saying that they want to keep the game playable and that's why they are putting caps on the WvW zone populations. It is quite logical that these caps are per-faction because otherwise the system could be abused quite badly (say a midnight raid which fills up the player cap and thus prevents the opponents from joining in)
At the moment the cap is 500 players PER ZONE. There are 4 WvW zones which gives you 2000 players in WvW or 666 per side total (heh). The devs said that these numbers are temporary and that they'll very probably raise them as the game is optimized and they see how the game behaves in RL (hence the upcoming stress test beta). These are quite decent numbers and a far cry from "100 per side, so 300 people at most".
Actually I'm not sure if this 500/zone number translates directly into 500/3factions = 166 players/faction/zone. It is quite possible that this per faction cap is a bit softer so it could be 200players/faction/zone or even more. The solid info is "500 players/zone. Each zone has its separate cap and each facion has a cap as well." We'll see.
Imo the smart detail is that that each of the 4 zones has a separate population cap. Considering that players tend to flock towards the largest fight, this actually forces the population to spread around more and thus accomodate more players overall. If they had a single pop cap for all 4 zones, all players would eventually end up in one of the zones and thus crash the server.
Imo they could have said "no caps" at all and very probably they'd really like that, but when faced with very real possibilities of server meltdowns, especially at launch, imo they made a right choice.
Amzed Rift gets credit for something finally and it is not 40 comments of hating on it. Funny how 2/5 out of the 5 innovations are from games not even released and we have no god given clue if they will not be disasters and the other is so damn expensive no company will ever be able to do it again.
I think innovative is something that can be easily copied by another dev like x-server LFG/LFR or a ward drobe tab.
So glad GW2s "dynamic" events werent included in this. They are just quests with invisible triggers and no NPC quest giver. Watching the preview videos has made me think this even more, especially with the occasional NPC (cant remember the proper name) who points you to the dynamic events happening close by. Its not dynamic, its scripted. Once you have seen the cycle a couple of times for each event it will get boring
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Basically, you have described EVE Online. Maybe you should look into it. (And I do agree, every other version of pvp is essentially scripted or, at least, becomes highly predictable in a matter of days.)