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The MMORPG Syndrome
jonsnow13
Member Posts: 67
UO and a few other games thought it up, we all thought it'd be cool, and now look... most people play them.
Why is it so good for a company to make an MMORPG? How can they rely on people playing a game for months and months at a time? They can't possibly add tons of content to keep players happy.
This is exactly the problem. The first thing you have to consider about a game is that the majority of people are stupid. The next thing you have to consider, is that if you create an environment or a community then people will create happiness within the game for themselves. Or in other words, if you let someone be "The One", a flying dragon, or a jedi they will most likely be happy no matter how crappy the system is.
So the first thing to consider when making an mmorpg is how you are going to time sink people (Prolong the gaming experience so they do not reach the end game, or level 50 in DAOC). The most common method used now days is just to make an insanely large experience bar, and spread your skills out amongst 50-100 levels. SO basically, you can't play the game until you get all the way to level 50. Good thing there's people out there that like to WORK for their characters. Monotonous behavior at it's best.
You're seeing all new ways to do this pop up all around the gaming community. Eve online uses a unique and very intelligent system of making a character gather experience while not even logged in at a set pace. This is a great idea since you don't have to play the game, and since skills require months to acquire you will keep your subscription active so you will still be training. After all, the longer a customer is paying the better. Eve online also plays off the community (by allowing clans, guilds and focusing on them) and it's environment which is a one of a kind MMORPG so if people want to emerse themselves in a space sim MMORPG Eve has a monopoly on this.
Some games rely more on the PvP to create enough content that the players will be immersed for months at a time. Shadowbane does this, but fails with it because the game itself is made poorly and they STILL have the leveling grind which if you've ever played Shadowbane, the monsters look like colored marshmellows, and some classes it's impossible to solo with. So, if you can't get to the end game then this game where all the content is then this is a bad system. Risk your life took another PvP/end content approach by allowing extremely quick leveling, but failed by only allowing 1-6 activated skills per class making strategy and end game pvp content limited and feeling cookie cutter. The game that plays the best of the community is The Saga of Ryzom which has the best community of any game by far. However, they failed as well by releasing a buggy game, and also by not having a very n00b friendly/easy to learn atmosphere. Lineage 2, pvp end game content but failed (for me) because the level grind and the skill system was much like Risk your Life, just better graphics/engine.
World of Warcraft, tries to do all these things and is the most successful in doing them. However, failed me because it wasn't enough of any one particular area. They tried to do every area, and I felt like everything was watered down for the mass majority of people, and so was limited. So I guess niche games are actually more to my taste, because I can go to the extreme in one area and aren't limited to what everyone else is doing.
An even more fun aspect, is that a lot of people will take pride in what they play/do. So if you put a game down or a company down for that matter, they will actually DEFEND that company/game for time sinking them, as if they matter to the company as an individual and that they are part of the company or that what they do is above all bad things. I guess you are part of the company, you're one of the sheeps on the farm. This is why I can't play MMORPG's anymore. I started with UO, and after playing MMORPG's for almost 10 years now I am completely sick and tired of being time sinked... but they're a lot of fun when you actually can play all aspects of the game!!!
The point is, we see it as a game but they see it as a money pit. An investment, if you will. They don't actually care if you have fun as much as they do about making money. They're not making a game for the gamers, they're making a game for the herds of sheep that will come and pay them to play their game catered to money making.
All these games I mentioned (and more) don't stem too far from eachother, and are all VERY simular in design. This is the problem, where is the originality and risks presented in the industry? Why can't they offer other ways of making money?
When you reply, if you could post what new ideas MMORPG's could do to make money still but also be fun (different from what they do now) then that'd be great. It's one thing to rant, but we also have to offer new alternatives.
Comments
sums it up nicely IMO
Guild Wars looks fun (at least short term), and is a forward thinking sub model, I know exactly what you mean about eve, yet i dont think its just the skill system that makes people addicted, the entire game is pretty casual.
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PvE in general is pretty lame, if you think long and hard about it. You are spending your time beating a severely gimped AI that would lose to a well trained monkey. Best not to think too long and hard why you are wasting time playing games in general actually...
LOL I really like a poll where if you disagree with what the poster wants you to think he frames the negative answer to make you look like a fool.
If you are going to create a poll at least make it resonable.
Everyone who does not agree with you is not a fool
Grow up
And where's your offer of an alternative?
You sir are a prime exemple of what I was looking for.
See, I dont feel it is painfull to earn my levels and kill 94837394573 monsters to gain 1 level. I actually like this, and the older I am getting, the more I am liking it. Sometimes I want heavy action as well, rather then long farming.
You on the other end, dont seem to like the grind at all, you despite it(which there is no correct or bad behavior toward the grind). You should not be doing the grind, period. However, because some devs are silly, they put something you like and desire AFTER the grind, wich have absolutely nothing to do with the grind.
Result: You are unhappy to have to grind. I am crying endlessly because to reach the top of my so loved grind system, I need to do the activity you where craving and which I dont desire, which will leave me with an unaccomplished feeling and a very sour taste.
Raids and PvP should not be designed around levels earned soloing or grouping. And neither should raid or PvP give solo or group rewards, they dont deserve this 1 single moment. As long as peoples will think it is fine, devs will keep such a crappy system and enforce it in WoW and EVE which are 2 prime exemple of what a crappy gameplay developpment is.
It is about time those companies start to pay for lowly devs that build the gameplay and the system rather then the uber graphics and just pacth the rest asap.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
When you reply, if you could post what new ideas MMORPG's could do to make money still but also be fun (different from what they do now) then that'd be great. It's one thing to rant, but we also have to offer new alternatives.
Games for older (single) people: play on horror, humour, sex and violence, and lots of it! But do it in a tasteful way.
What do you mean with older people? 20+? 30+? The older gamers that I know don't play the games that have sex and unnecessary violence in them, like GTA. And yes, single and married.
MMORPG's suck, they're all the same. Post alternatives, please vote while I play with my nipples.
Yeah I agree with Myko, I think GW has the right idea. No monthly fees, new content every 6-12 months (expansion packs), and very little level grinding. The very little level grinding is nice (lvl cap of 20, reachable in 20-30 hours), because when they introduce new content, they can introduce new content that the vast majority of players will have access to, since the majority of players are at the max lvl.
Currently, with most MMOs, when they release new content, they have to release new content for players of all levels, or else not everyone will get to participate unless they level up a lot or start a new character so that they can enjoy the new content that is appropriate to their level.
With a low level cap, that isn't as much of an issue, and the game becomes much less about level grinding then about exploring, PvPing, or doing missions and quests, rather than just killing the same mobs for 10 levels and then moving on to otherwise identical mobs, except that they have a different name and a different color, and maybe hit a little harder than the other ones.
I beleive the problems with MMORPGs today and is what had atrracted me to play them is that they should be making a new WORLD, a living, breathing, world. Every game(litteraly) has stated somewhere that they are creating a persistant world. This may be true in a technical standard but it should be more than that. ( In a way this is the RP in MMORPG but a specific part of the RP experience.) Things should happen all of the time. In my opinion MMOs do NOT have even close to the amount of live events that should be presented in the and that is one part in a million that should make up a real persistant world that lives up to the full potential of todays technology. MMOs today have like 100 parts of a million. Bla bla bla... im bored and can't wright anymore.
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Can someone please make me a sig. I would like it to have something to do with an eagle(the bird) Somewhere near the eagle can you put the words "Global Defense Initiative". Could you also have the line "If you can't buff up, don't step up!". Thanks!
Private Message me about it!
Guild Wars - Rorick Aurlith E/Mo pumped up with the best armor and weapon, has all his skills, and runes. PvP King!
Dark Age of Camelot - Leaton 50 Vampiir - Lamorak - Guild: Magic and Mayhem!
What i mean is, there is little point in targeting kids with a game like this, it would (i guess) be destroyed by censorship in no time.
Now actually, would you like to have an mmorpg where players can add their own and original content in the game?
MUDs had those type. And I have not ever seen this type since then.
Mabie there is some kind of an EULA aggrement that prevents that?
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Give me lights give me action. With a touch of a button!
The poll was actually to just highlight what I was saying and not to be taken seriously... I was tired, I'm sorry about posting that.
My suggestions: Just get rid of the grind and just make the game fun to play.
There's one thing to grind to be able to play, and there's another to grind while playing.
Basically, give us everything but have a working system where over a period of time weapons decay, and become less affective requiring people to buy new equipment from players, and resources are required to make new items... while NPC vendors don't supply weapons/armor. So, a simular system of Ryzom meets Horizons.
Take from guild wars it's skill system(You can actually make a class tons of different ways) and Shadowbanes city development (or any game that does this better), and make everything in the world able to be created and destroyed. This way, the world will constantly replenish itself with new content. Have a few strongholds that are impossible to destroy, so that way there is a place to hang out when the worlds gone to hell.
However, do not: Limit us in skills based on level, do not scale skills as you get stronger instead require strategy (UO does this well... everyone reached GM real quick, yet look at UO.... STILL GOING STRONG).
I'll add more later
/Agree with most of your points. Id also like to add my take on this and why the logic you so rightly point out has been the cause of so many problems in MMO's.
Companies get upset about "unnatended macroing" and "bots" but they fully bring this behaviour on themselves. MMO's are GAMES....Dictionary dot com defines a game as being, among other things :
So insterted into these tools for amusement are activities that are so stupidly boring and repetetive that they could only be described as WORK
Now like most work the old saying applies "if you were meant to enjoy it you wouldnt get paid for it".
So we have these games that are meant to be fun, punctuated with activities that are meant to be dull as dishwater. These activities form the bulk of the timesinks etc mentioned by the original poster and its not just trade skills, dungeon room grinding is just as bad sometimes.
Now in this day and age most people are going to play the fun part and macro the dull part, its human nature. Instead of addressing these skills and attempting to make them fun the developers go on the backfoot and label anyone who doesnt think becoming a braindead zombie in order to acheive things in their game is a good idea, as a cheat.
At the end of the day, if you were a dev, wouldnt you find it a bit embarrasing that you couldnt design a system that was both fun to use and acheived the goals of that skill within the game ? I know I would, thats why I dont design games because Im prepared to admit Im not capable. Whereas other people kid themselves they are capable then come up with stuff that is so mind numbingly stupid that it only deserves to be used by bots and macros because no human would be stupid enough to sit there and do this action for the amount of hours it takes to acheive anything.
The simple solution to bots and macros (on a large scale) is to go back to making things FUN! No one is going to macro something that is enjoyable to do. Think of your most favorite game, would you macro the most fun part of playing it ?? Of course not, your too busy enjoying it, thats what its for, its a GAME!
So many MMO's have completely lost sight of this. They see the"grind" as like a right of passage to the fun elements beyond. Imho this has to change because there is no excuse for games not to be fun except that they are virtual mouse wheels for us to run around on generating revenue.
Im no mouse and I dont think most of you are either
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
Hmmm, you mean like NWN or Morrowwind? I know that neither of these games are MMOs, although at least you could play NWN online.
Personally, though, I think it's a great idea to have an MMO in which players can actually change and influence their world. Take for example Shadowbane; if nothing else, players could actually build towns complete with NPCs, including vendors and guards that would attack people of opposing factions. Of course, this idea could be taken much further, but I think it's in the right direction at least.
Actually, I think it could be done with an MMO, although I'm not exactly sure how it would be done. Perhaps just release a toolset to the users, and then have contests in which players would submit their creations, and the devs could choose some of that content to include in the game.
Alternatively, you could have private servers, although in that case you'd be going more the NWN route than an actual MMO.
Another idea would be for the players actually to create their ideas in-game; i.e. to build a dungeon by gathering resources, trapping monsters, etc., and then hiring NPCs or someone to actually build it for you. Sort of like building castles in UO. It might cause technology issues, however, and there's always the problem of limited space in any game world. Eventually, if players were allowed to create their own world, their wouldn't be much world left to create in.
Second Life lets you create your own stuff, it's a neat idea but i found it incredibly laggy and the object creation procedure was unintiutive (for me at least). I e-mailed customer support to see if there were any plans to allow you to import models created in 3d apps (like maya) to be told that there were no plans
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PvE in general is pretty lame, if you think long and hard about it. You are spending your time beating a severely gimped AI that would lose to a well trained monkey. Best not to think too long and hard why you are wasting time playing games in general actually...
Problem with some is to want to get "everything" out of a MMORPG while missing the main things. The point is that you pay for your entertainment. If you like only a part of the game, only play that part of the game. If the part happens to be PvP combat you are in the wrong game and are bound to end up grinding on something you don't like. Go play some random console PvP game which are nowadays always playable in some sort of live version.
I personally find hunting boring as hell, the way skills systems are designed exactly the same. There is not much left but community and roleplay. Even if this community requires me to work from time to time, it's work put in with pleasure. The roleplaying part of the mmorpg, fact being that I have a community job and am interacting with people in a different imaginary environment is what keeps me playing. If I just want a level-up system, well I'll go play morrowind, daggerfall or some other single player rpgrinds.
I fell in love with the mmorpg's quite some time ago. They offer possibilities and they don't force you in a specific direction. If you are having a feeling of grind, then you are not playing the right game or maybe not the right type of character. I love being able to achieve things that have a true effect on your character and the way you develop your character. That is what playing an MMORPG is about, it's not about getting to that new content as fast as possible. While discovering new things is usually rewarding and more entertaining a MMORPG doesn't force you to reach that content. If you are happy living in the town you started in living the life of a simple farmer, it can be a challenge with every day something new to experience.
Point is you wanted an alternative, a solution to all your problems while playing an mmorpg. Stop considering an mmorpg as a competition to get somewhere faster then the person you just met that had 2 months more of playtime. Start enjoying a game without cheating, every single player based game was designed the same way, an mmorpg is no different. Grow into the game at your own rhytm, explore, discover,... Don't think that if everyone else does it, you might as well. The first quest I did in GTH was a specific lesson on that, goal of the quest was basic grind kill x number of monster and bring the items back, at the end of the quest the npc said something to the extent of "Why did you kill those monsters, don't be mindless". A lot of what you do in game is what goes on inside your head, maybe try and yot down the important facts in your character's life, write a story about your character. Interact with people on a different level, offer them things to do while they are with you, offer to do things with them that have no "experience" value.
The goal of an mmorpg is not to reach max level and just pk every person you catch in sight. In a sense you can not reach the maximum in an mmorpg as the largest part of the intent of such a game is to be creative. As long as you have at least one other person playing an rpg with you, you should never reach the end of content. Use your imagination, give a meaning to certain things in the world around you. As a silly example you could invent a religion and start performing ceremonies on a daily basis. Up to you to fill in how these ceremonies go.
I find it sad to see that some of you go to a role playing game with the intent to have your hands held. Use your imagination in the setting provided by the devs. You are bound to get disappointed in the end if you don't create your game experience with what you have. I myself tend to host player run events at least once a week and try to participate in others. Each of these events have rewards set out by the organizing party. Usually events are hosted by clans, guilds etc. with the involvement of players of the said organizing party. This is a community way of having fun but I can easily imagine creating content for myself if I were a pure solo'er.
As I tend to explain to my students who need to learn the basics : don't be the person looking at the computer screen, you are inside of it. When you lift your nose next to this rose graphic you will smell a sweet scent of roses. If you just look at it from outside your computer screen it'll always just be a rose graphic. When I look at a pebble I ask myself how big a rock it used to be, I ask myself why I stumbled upon it... I don't think to myself what I could create out of a pebble to make it look like an "itam that pwnz" and leave it be if there were nothing to be created from it.
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Wouldn't totally free 3d model import be a problem in a mmorpg? Some people would just fill the world with 10000 Cola bottles, or Volvo cars, or a huge ad for their own crappy web site? Maybe even steal models from other games. There would have to be some sort of content validation from the company running the game. I think player created content will be a very interesting option with the right game, tools and rules.
Ok, about attaching meaning to things and using your imagination.
If I took your advice, I wouldn't need an MMORPG I could just role play in a MUD. Same thing. Human beings attach emotions to everything to give them meaning, which means if I was able enough with my mind to convince myself that Lineage 2 was a game and not a job, then I guess I would have still played lineage 2 after beta, or I could enjoy playing Eve Online because I'd be like, "Haha I'm a space pirate! Arrrr!!!" all the way home from a stargate an hour away and I'm on autopilot.
This is the thing, a good game... a quality game shouldn't make you feel like it's a job. That makes you lose the imagination and the meaning to things. For instance, on diablo 2 I never once felt like anything about that game was a job. I EVEN played it on hardcore. Lets look at guild wars, when I played it during beta I got the same thing... Or when I used to exploit in shadowbane in order to level I loved it because I could have my druid macro earthquake and gather loot from tons of mobs in an hour and make 5-10 levels, and when Risk your life used to have really quick exp in beta I didn't notice I was working because the combat system was kind of neat (at first, then you get past level 20 and realize it's a job.)Same thing goes for The Saga of Ryzom, I was deeply in love with the game until about level 20 where the exp tapers off and you start to notice that you haven't got a level in a long time.
This is the problem right here. I don't think any of the developers actually play the game they made, because they know what it was made for. To make money. Back in the day before P2P games used to be made to be fun because otherwise they wouldn't sell, but now days people don't need to make a fun MMORPG game because there's people out there who will pay extra money to play a really crappy game. Like I said earlier, majority of people are stupid and developers are realizing this. However, what they aren't concidering is that there are a good majority of smart people out there who are going to make posts about their games and influence, or at least give the knowledge to those not so smart people. Eventually you have the dumb becoming a little more wiser through the knowledge of others. After all, ideas are how we change and adapt to new things and so we spread ideas around as an adaptive measure to improve our lives.
Well, maybe one day when I get my Media Arts degree and my double major in whatever else I decide, I will get the chance to make an MMORPG that has some really great ideas implemented well. I've already been writing out sketchs and plans for what would make a really original, easy to do system. Here's hoping for the future.
Thing is that you are not playing the right type of games if you are going to an MMORPG (visual version of a MUD) and expect it to be a full PvP-fighting game with kill mobs as an option. Find an MMOG to fit your needs. A lot of the devs efforts go into creating a background roleplaying setting for an MMORPG, apparently you don't need that setting so go look for a game where it is not an important part. To me it seems you enjoy fighting things that are a real threat to your avatar as you state from your "hardcore" diablo2 experience.
An RPG simulates life and therefor there will be jobs, nothing forces you to do a job you do not like. It creates a setting to live another life. Why does it become different when it becomes a visual MMO ? The fact that it's visual opens up the possibilities of role play to a larger public, people who have it harder to imagine something that's only written on paper.
Levelling is not the goal of an MMORPG it is the most common mistake, go find the thread on levelling has no place in a modern mmorpg to understand. In a perfect MMORPG the numbers would be hidden redefine your goals, you're not playing a single player rpg which is basicly only a level grind with a background setting. People make the mistake to transplant the idea they have about a single player rpg like Morrowind to a mmorpg. Fact is if you are only levelling in your single player rpg you're not playing the game to it's full extent. It is much harder to grasp the concept that you are playing a role in a single player game as the npc's you interact with have no valuable reactions (i.e. they will say the same thing again and again in the exact same words). Quite frankly, grabbing the loot is something you can do in just about any mmorpg, just take into account that you are not the only player in there and that resources need to be balanced, so you're not going to get a massive spawn of monsters with the expensive things as you could have in a single player game.
I know for a fact that there are developpers that play their game. Trouble is that these games tend to become niche games as the dev created his perfect world instead of pleasing the masses.
I hope you get your double degree and that you'll be able to create a game with your view on a MMOG, there are players like you to be catered too and I must say you are the vast majority. You don't care about the role you play in the game, you care about the rewards you get from levelling and looting. That can be a goal of a game certainly and it can be fun as well especially if the levels aren't capped.
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I don't think it's the work necessarily that bothers me, since in reality any game is "work" if you think about it... going from one boss to the next, one monster to the next... or ONE player to the next.
However, it's all up to the devs to make the work fun. For instance, the reason WoW failed me was because a lot of the time spent playing was either resting after I killed a few mobs (which creates a sense of oh god I hate monotonous/no activity points in games). Also, another thing that killed me in WoW was the constant running around and spending literally hours (probably 1/10 of my 14 days I played WoW or more were spent just running around). Like would it have been so hard to put teleport devices in Org so that you could just go to one of the many sections of the city? Instead of actually having to run back and forth to do certain things...
Also, what killed it for me with shadowbane : The monotonous activities like beating on a tower in order to try to get pvp... you'd spend a good hour or two just knocking down the HP of a tower...
I mean there's so many things in these games that are just so monotonous... and like you said, if it wasn't for the role of you and the community, I doubt I would have stayed in these games as long as I did. The point is, if you can see that the game is work, then it has failed in design. If the game continues to be fun and has a sense of content generator like the guy who created the sims said during one of his speechs, "A good game is a game that has a game inside itself, like in battlefield 1942 you could climb in a jeep if you wanted to and just try to run people down for fun and this actualy became a mini game you could do inside of a game. Options like this for players to create mini games is good design." Ok so I butchered what he said... but he said something like that
Also, counter-strike used to be the same way... I used to knife all the time in counter-strike as my little mini game and come up with 21/7 (kill/death) ratios all the time... with just using my knife, I was damn good and thousands of people know who I am in counter-strike because i'd go from server to server. Then a patch came out that fixed this mini game, it made the knife buggy as hell to the point where it was less reliable then a gun (if a player is running away from you and you run towards them, you can NEVER hit them with backstab), a player also could run just as fast as you with a gun in their hand, a player could also outrun you if you bumped into them while chasing them, even if you hit them with your knife, and jumping was slowed down to the point where dodging bullets through jumping tactics (jumping from object to object) was no longer there. I can barely stand CS anymore because of all these dumbing down of actual skillful tactics, the majority of the populace just camps now leading to 2-3 min long rounds. But wait, counter-strike isn't an MMORPG... so yes, this applies to not just MMORPG's, it applies to every game ever made.
I'm probably rambling on now, since I just woke up... but you get my drift, majority of MMORPG's create a monotonous boring aspect to the games to time sink you in order to keep you playing longer, but in reality keeps a lot of us playing shorter... Usually only catering to those who are there to role play a jedi in SWG or a space pirate in Eve... etc. Just like you said.
--Ha, Pwned--
Pvp = godliness
Playing: WoW
Waiting on: Gods and Heroes