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What is important to you in an mmo?
Hatewall
Member Posts: 120
This a personal project of mine that could lead to a larger project.
I am curious what features the community thinks are musts in a mmo.
For example, as an old UO player my top 3 are fun pvp (not neccessarily perfectly balanced), deep crafting/economy and housing/furnishing.
Comments
That would be a loooong list...
Some of the things I look for in a MMO:
Good background story and lore that the overall game can grow from.
Lots of choices within each major archetype of playstyle (e.g. Ultima Online's skillsets, or an evolved MMO-like version of Skyrim's skillsets.)
Lots of directions a player could take their individual character without having to step back to square one and re-do redundant, time-wasting quests as an "alt".
A PvP system that has its place, and PvP oriented servers, but choices for those that don't wish for that kind of gameplay experience.
Events and invasions take place where towns, cities, and keeps are regularly attacked.
Worlds full of risk and danger, no matter whether it's a PvP server or a PvE server.
High artistic value in environments, locations, characters, and gear.
LOTS and lots of vanity items, including numerous shades of armor dyes (or something like EQ's "Prismatic Dye").
Seasonal events and seasonal vanity items.
Player housing, guild halls, and the means to build them and decorate them in numerous shapes and sizes.
Mix and match spells and attacks for plenty of hybrid class choices.
Spells and Attack Skill creations involving training, materials, and quested artifacts, such as sacred weapons and books of lore.
I could keep going. If there's any template that I'd like to see a new MMO follow, it would be a mixture of UO, Shadowbane, Dark Age of Camelot (more than two factions!!!) but maybe take the genre into a slightly different flavor of "fantasy" that breaks from the standard canon that most "fantasy MMO's tend to adhere to.
• The MMO game must be suitable for a long term engagement, with the possibility of nonestop gaming each day as an extreme. Eve online is an example of a game that fulfills such a requirement quite well.
• The game has to have functional fantasy elements to it. Fancy imagery or use of IP material simply will not do, despite people thinking of such things as being a part of 'fantasy'. The function of fantasy is to suspend disbelief. If the player avatar simply becomes a tool for the player, then the fantasy element will not be there. In Eve online, ships are imo mostly just tools, but with capital ships and the various game mechanics, there are some fantasy elements coming into all of that I think (Eve is not great in that respect). If a player avatar can sit down at a table, then that at least is something, although woefully inadequate by itself.
• Developers has to engage in solving bugs, hacking and exploiting on a prompt and continual basis.
• No microtransaction system for anything do with decisive player options, limiting it to vanity elements.
• No wobbly animation (just a personal hate issue) for figures, making them look unnatural and goofy.
• Complex game mechanics that the developer really believes in. World of tanks is fun, but not that fun. Eve online is more like it. Battlefield 3 does have the necessary mechanics, but is ultimately based on endless repetition with no point to it all.
I agree with you, except that I think a caution about the background story is needed. The background story should stay in the background. Let the players make the "frontground"(lol) story.
Currently bored with MMO's.
1) Skill-point-based
2)Deep Crafting/resources/building/housing
3)Realism
I see your point about EVE, but quite frankly I never needed to see my character to enjoy the game. Imagination should be a part of it also. We need to suppress the laziness of having everything shown/explained to us - which is why I read as much as I watch movies.
Currently bored with MMO's.
People of like mind to play with. They can (and do) make any kind of game 100% more enjoyable for me regardless of the quality of graphics or what other fancy features they have.
I've played games that most people wouldn't even consider because the community is sound. Once the other players start detracting from my gameplay I lose interest very quickly because I play them to play with others. There are tons of high budget high quality single player games that can cater to my need for exceptional graphics, story, or what have you.
Short Version: If I feel the people suck, I don't play regardless of the other features.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I am going to have to say that most of the games I have played have good and bad sides to their communities. Sometimes it is the constant meaningless chatter that is bad and sometimes it is the constant harping about toehr players... or even the complete silence when you ask a quesiton. But usually there is 1 or 2 helpful people and you can usually block the bad players or bad channels. The only game where the community drove me away was WoW. Not trashing the game but I feel no need to play it. I think EVE has the best community - though you do need to be careful because eVE is like real life and there are people willing to swll you swampland there, but that is part of the game.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Let's just get the obvious out of the way. An attractive product. This includes well done patching system, network code, server stability and the like. This also includes attractive AAA quality GUI, UI, animations, avatars and overall graphics in teh game world. It must be attractive to the masses to be successful.
The most important thing (seeing you came from a UO background) is meaning. Meaning is the sails on the ship. It's the fuel in your machine to make it run. Without meaning, you have WoW and all other games like it.
Meaningful content. Content that is there for a reason. Such as crafting. Crafting that means something to crafters. Crafters should be able to progress without taking part in combat. Crafters should be able to become known server wide as great or shady businessmen. Not as just another adventurer that CAN craft. UO was a great example of meaningful crafting. Most players wore grandmaster crafted armor and weapons over magic items. There was a great supply and demand. In today's MMO's, crafting is nothing more than an afterthought. Why craft, when you can go raid for a few hours and get something way better? Item decay and full loot helped the process, but full loot doesn't have to be in a game for crafting to be a major driving force in the economy. Some sort of item decay does though.
Meaningful PvP. I'll use games such as DAoC to showcase what I'm talking about. There were lands that you owned and keeps on those lands that housed powerful artifacts. Those artifacts gave faction wide bonuses. Your guild could claim keeps and gain bonuses for the guild. It creates a sense of achievement and make attacking and defending points of interest more than just experience gain for better loot. It affected the entirely of your faction and helped them back in the home lands. Acquiring someone elses artifacts of power opened up dungeons and quests for your faction that become unavailable for opposing factions until those artifacts are returned. If you gain access to a dungeon and the other faction is there, there are massive fights for control of that dungeon until the owning faction removes the enemy from that dungeon. Meaning creates content that wasn't even really intended, just like that. Today, PvP is nothing more than a mini-game to further your characters advancements. There are a few games, like Warhammer that gives a little meaning, but it's nothing like DAoC. Open world PvP must be present and it must have meaning for everyone, involved or not. Faction pride is hugely missing in today's MMO's.
Meaningful PvE. We can still have quests.. but how about some real storylines like they had in UO and EQ. Trion has done a better job with it, as they are trying to get back to the MMO roots with their huge server wide events. Monsters were controlled by GM's, and thus, didn't act dumb. Getting killed by these epic monsters was expected. Real, open world bosses that can be fought over. It creates tension, politics and another mini-game to the fray. I'm fine with some instanced story content, but MMO's need to bring back some open world dungeons that are not instanced. AoC did a great job with that in some aspects. With the FFA PvP, there were good spawns that guilds fought over. It brought back a sense of meaningful PvP, and it all ties in together. You can have a little for everyone. And there must be a lot of similar difficulty mob spawns. If there are going to be fights over good ones, then there must be a lot of lesser ones for solo and small group players. You have to help account for people fighting over resources. So there must be many th choose from, making it easy to switch spots of one isn't open.
Short hit on meaningful travel. No more instant travel, with exception of mage spells. In UO and EQ, you had to pay for instant group and solo travel across great distances. It creates a sub ecnomy in the game that is meaningful as it's not even a profession intended by the developers. It's player content at it's finest. Horses, flying creatures, carts and charriots, by foot, by ship... and limited magic travel by magic users only. No LFG instant travel. No battleground popping in the middle of a dungeon. You should have to travel to the location of that event to take part in it. It creates points of interest. It creates gathering points for commerse. Unintended content again.
Harsh penalty for murder and death. More on murder, less on death. I personally feel that murder should be limited to players no less than 5 levels below you. You shouldn't be able to attack newer players unless they attack you first. I like the idea of partial loot. Inventory only, meaning that you keep everything equipped, but it takes damage in combat and upon death. It creates an item decay system that helps the economy thrive with crafters as I stated above. Levels and skill points should work together. Levels should control base stats and skill points should control efficiency of the action you are performing. Levels are only gained by PvP and PvE encounters. This would completely protect crafters, which is a huge drawback in old sandbox games. Players who aren't interested in fighting, can't avoid it. Now they can to an extent, or until they are ready. Murderers can't enter town, they can only ressurect from another player and they can be attacked with zero repercussion. All of these things will make for a safe environment. If it's not enough, add safe and contested zones similar to how WoW opened up their open world PvP over time.
Naval warfare and seige warfare must be included. Private housing, boats, guild housing and boats must be included. Social activities and locations need to be within the game. A wide range of professions must be included. UO and Skyrim have the right ideas with skills. So on and so forth. The rest of the detials are easy, but the main points that I mentioned must be there and must have meaning. They must all tie together.
I want a hybrid themepark sandbox game that is developed for the western audience. I feel there are millions of people who would throw their hand in on this, at least once. I feel that it would be very successful. And who is anyone to tell me it won't be, as no developer has actually tried yet. Archage is the closest, but slightly different and designed for the eastern market.
Community
Customization and loads of it. I like to play for incentives and if a MMO has large variety of armors, weapons and cosmetic stuff along with cutomizable skill pool..it will be gaming heaven for me.
Having a good time dungeon running with friends. not doing daileys for gear. not grinding for gear. HUGE world . Taking more then 3 days played to hit max lvl. Like old EQ not seeing the whole world for a few months.
1. Community- Grouping, raiding and socializing.
2. The grind... sandbox or sandbox features please! Yes, I want skills and spells and other things that are not automatically purchased from a class trainer at every level.
3 Specifc Well define class or build your own class from the skills you train. No class that can switch to everything.
4. Continuing xp beyond max level. I need a reason to continue to xp and play my main... not an alt.
5. Crafting that is done by people who love crafting... not everybody because it is not even a task to max it out.
1) good combat mechanics
2) polish and good graphics
3) scripted dungeons & boss fights (good content)
4) phasing to add stories into the game
5) LF dungeon/raid tools to speed up gameplay
6) good progression (level, talent, gear ...)
This is a point worth talking about. In much MMO I've played, the end game consist of (not exclusively of course but mostly) of daily quests/missions and raids which are "fun" for a little while but are getting boring pretty fast. Don't get me wrong, I like questing and raiding but when it's the only thing worth doing after caping, after a week or so I start watching more closely on future updates and contents and if there's nothing on the way in short terms, I start looking for another game.
In SWG (before bashing me, I don't promote how great SWG was, it's just that's the MMO I have the more experience with), the amount of different things to do was impressive. The most immersive crafting system ever (by far), space combat/harvesting/looting/exploring, player city, housing with a great way to put my stuff in it, are just some examples.
Pre-cu, the social aspect was present everywhere, med center and hospital to remove wounds, cantina for battle fatigue, hunting party (not questing, hunting), the infamous 10 minutes we had to wait for the shuttle but we had so much fun in those 10 minutes, smugglers with their armor and weapon slicing and I could go on and on.
Even post NGE there's been some interesting ideas that came out like the player missions builder (I know it's been done elsewhere but that's where I saw it for the first time), even the casino (roulette game) and the card game had some potential. Of course all of those things were flawed in many ways but the principle is there, there was a lot of different things to do else than fighting for daily quests and raids.
I can resume all this in 2 words: avoid repetition
The "with no point at all" mentionned above is another concern. Why do I do those daily quests and raids? Gearing my toon... that's it. Of course, like I said, the first couple of times are fun but after 2 or 3 weeks (even months in some cases), no one will make me belive that it's still fun, not for me anyway. But what if doing quests and raids had a direct impact on the world. For example, what if the fact that controling a planet in SWG would've results in the impossiblity for the other faction's member to instal harvesters on that planet, or at least make those harvesters destroyable by patrols. I could give dozens of examples like that, but the point is I feel like all I do in a MMO has no incidence other than on my little self. I would like to see a MMO world that change and evolve constantly, otherwise, had a multiplayer mode on Skyrim and Mass Effect and it will do the job.
So to answer the original poster's question:
I would like to see my actions worth doing, when I join a faction I want to help it grow and not just joining to have an adversary in PvP.
I would like to have something different to do if I don't feel like fighting.
Another thing I like is having choices. I dislike class system because you're stuck with what goes with it. I play SWTOR these days and I hate the fact that as a sith warrior I can't use lightning, why not? I could've decide training myself to use lightning instead of choke, a bit like in fallen earth. I'd like to build my character the way I want.
3) I may be wrong but, wouldnt a scripted dungeon be too linear? i think thats what we have in mmos in the last years. Maybe a mixture of both scripted and nohn scripted content would be better? not sure if its possible but im just saying.
4) in my opinion this was a big mistake Blizzard did with Cataclysm and they admitted it in a recent Q&A. Too much Phasing to add certain story split gamers so the game becomes less multiplayer. Not very good for mmos but i think its fine IF the phasing involves a personal story only.
1) Community: great, polite and helpfully
2) a good and various end-game, with a non tiered FvF (with almost three factions)
3) a good mix of quests and sandbox features
4) open build classes: let me create my own class. For example, The Rift classes features is a good starting point, But if people want build a war/mage/healer class, why not? Oh: skills, not levels
5) a very good and fun crafting, that allow me to create useful items and not that are crap after two dungeons because the new tier is better. So: no WoW allowed
6) No Elves Allowed (lol)
7) in game voice chat such as LOTRO
8) only one armour, that you can have doing a long, long, long and hard quests progression (such as DAoC vanilla)
9) hard not istanced mobs (who remember dragon raids on DAoC? Or Llyn Balrog - Britannia zone - groups? As those kind of mobs, raids and parties)
10) no PvE servers
11) a great LORE for RP servers
12) EEvents, events and events
13) u wanna be a fisherman and not a warrior? A merchant instead a rogue? A chef instead a mage? I can, because all ppl can be useful
14) guild hall (but not player housing, i don't like it anymore)
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
Wel..In the past polls I voted community so Ill stick to that.
Community!
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I really enjoy reading everything you folks took the time to post.
Nice, only thing I would change would be graphics are a nice to have for me, and I would be happier with player created factions like EvE rather than only 3 set factions like DAOC.
By the way Jake Song of XL games has always said ArcheAge was designed with the western market in mind.3) What is "too linear"? If it is fun, there is no "too linear". There are plenty of good FPSes that are VERY linear. So "linearity" is not necessarily bad. It is all down to implementation.
4) Not too much, but some is definitely good to show changes in the world.
Too linear means there is only one way to play the game. An MMO should be more open where the world is there for the players to play in, not follow the tracks from one place to the next. Let the player choose what to do and where to do it rather than force them down one path.
Skill vs Class based is something that should be avoided for debate. The best option is a combination of the both.
Levels and gear should not be everything to a character and the player behind it. A lessened power curve(difference between 1 and 50 strength) and gear curve (gear deciding fights outright is not proper for an MMO) leads to a much more enjoyable PvP experience.
Being in college I have a hard time just listing things, but I can easily debate anything you may want to throw against the Hate"wall". There are many pros and cons to various things and how they interact/fit together.
#1 thing to avoid, Free-for-all PvP. It isn't necessary and detracts from the enjoyment for a large portion of MMO players. The best solution I have found to make things a bit more "on edge" is to maintain a Thief profession and they would be the targets of random assaults, not innocent players. Make the criminals the hunted, not the innocent. Pros and cons of being a thief, you can steal stuff, but you become the target of retribution killings. Is it worth the risk?
Ahhh, back to college work.
Freedom, open dungeons and huge world no limitations to freely explore ala Skyrim.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Ah yes, open dungeons. Instances should be rare for only the most specific of encounters.
You can always have areas of a dungeon become inaccessible while encounters are active to avoid further player additions to the fight if you deem necessary.
Dungeon control could also be a game mechanic if you want to limit opposing faction players from entering if controlled by a specific faction.
EQ UO or DAOC Back in the day is what I want.
And this:
Don't do gear binding!!! Oh my terrible business. There can be some gear that is bound to a specific player, but in general gear should be able to be traded as seen fit, even after being used.