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[Column] General: Up to 90% of MMO Real Estate is Wasted

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  • NeopsychNeopsych Member UncommonPosts: 324

    I'm sorry but I just can't agree with this opinion piece as I feel it's too shallow to be qualified.

    i do not believe that territory is under used in games, merely becomes so at different points in time. In the early launch days of games, the sheer volume of new joiners and first adopters mean thee tutorials and starter zones will get the lions share of foot traffic. Of course these zones become less relevant as the new players dwindle and the last the over but by this point they have arguably returned their design value.

    many games already have design systems to promote the wider exploration of zones through POI's, deeds and achievements and its up to the player ultimately to decide their preferred play style such s content burners or explorers.

    But then you look at games such as EVE and GW2 who manage to keep zones relevant as you scale so we already have examples of devs who are tackling this cyclical issue of zone population.

     

    maybe the answer is to have broader zone level ranges. What if we stopped having 50-100 levels which levels roughly covering 10 per area nod broadened them either cover a wider range of mixed difficulty or made games with only 10 levels and differing systems to give gamers that sense of progress and achievement?

    For me personally I love it when devs add new zones to explore and would rather they did this at the high end levels to keep me playing rather than end game raids and dungeons, but this is my own particular play style.

    i also appreciate the innovation of wow remapping its earlier zones through climatic events to essential rebrand them and provide a new early level experience. Perhaps more games should adopt this fresh respray route rather than just a new content strategy?

     

    To err is human....to play is divine

  • Aison2Aison2 Member CommonPosts: 624
    Sorry but the premise seems wrong.

    Zone creation cannot be a set % of the budget. Just compare eve , swtor and some 08/15 asia grinder. They clearly have all vastly different budget allocations.
    Furthermore consider reusing assets for additional zones -it means the first zones will cost much more to produce then the next one. Additionally the creation cost will also depend mostly on tools, shitty tools will make it more expensive.


    That aside i would really love to see how you calculate the cost for a zone

    Pi*1337/100 = 42

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 44,059

    Actually, I recall almost every detail from Talking Island, the starting zone in Lineage 1 then again in Lineage 2.

    If I think carefully, I can recall almost every zone from not only Lineage 1, but DAOC as well.

    Why? Because I spent a lot of time in them, either through a slower leveling curve, or their content was just plain different depending which class I chose to play.

    It is true, current theme park design is seriously flawed, unless you feel like rerunning it in alts, you don't experience it very much.  And many games allow respecing, and multi-classing meaning you don't need to create as many alts these days.

    So sure, time for some "new" designs, oh you know, maybe along the lines of how UO or EVE and some others were designed?

    I'm wondering if Mark really played any other style game besides the standard theme park started by EQ and perfected by Blizzard.

    As others mentioned, even today there's some creative solutions to the problem as evidenced in GW2 and some others.

    I myself prefer virtual worlds, therefore I'd like the same land mass to be equally useful to all players at all times, but there are many who prefer to play more of a game...and in fact frequently you'll hear complaints on these forums (most recently regarding Neverwinter) by people saying there's no need to spend any money on the "world", just give them a way to directly jump from one dungeon to another.

     

    "True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde 

    "I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant

    Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm

    Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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    "This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon






  • indefindef Member UncommonPosts: 344
    Originally posted by black_isle
    Is this a weekly Firefall advertisement column or just a dev writing a general column who also happens to be working on a game? This shameless advertising disguised as a column is becoming very irritating. 

    This.

    This is nothing more than a shameless Firefall plug.  I've played Firefall and the game is crap.  There is no content, no open world PvP, no freedom, no permanent world changes, no player affect on the environment, no housing, no customization.

    This Red 5 studios talks the talk, but certainly can't walk the walk.

    I am just so sick of the MMO game industry.  Every company has 1 or 2 "ex-WoW' devs and they all spew the same crap just like this guy is.

    How many of you have played Firefall?  Did you know that in Firefall every time you craft an item your next crafted item takes one to ten times longer to craft?  I spent 20 minutes crafting once.  And by 20 minutes crafting I mean there was a 20 minute timer to craft one item.  Of course Red 5, being the visionaries they are, provided a button where I could pay real life money to instantly finish my crafting!

    These companies are sickening honestly.

  • beregarberegar Member UncommonPosts: 34

    You know. I've been saying this same for past 10 years or so. I don't really get why developers insist on creating level based enemies and zones as opposed to tiered enemies. Sure sidekicking that exists in some games is a step to right direction but the fact remains that rewards in lower level zones are often less even if you get sidekicked simply because lower level enemies are mechanically easier.

     

    Tiered system is much better since you basically just split the content into 3-4 difficulty tiers based on the expected difficulty and adjust the rewards based on that. Player levels change but enemies are without levels. They should however learn more skills based player level to match increased power and versatility of a higher level player (assuming levels are used to learn skills and spells). We all know that because of limited resources higher level enemies currently are just reskins of existing ones anyway so why not focus resources on making *all* zones and *all* enemies playable and rewarding regardless of the player's level.

     

    Each zone can have a theme and unique set of rewards and because no zone is better than the other everyone should be happy. This naturally mandates that rewards are without levels as well. This is actually a good thing since it means that resources spent on leveled gear is freed and all skins are available for all levels. You would still have rare gear from tougher content, time consuming scavenger hunts etc etc. and the reward from foes could increase based on the player level especially if there are some things that require more resources on a higher level.

    - Beregar

  • HomituHomitu Member UncommonPosts: 2,030

    I've posted about this exact topic many times, mostly pieces comparing Guild Wars 2's world building model with those of the traditional World of Warcraft models.  As a developer of a WoW type game, it must be so sad to see so much of your hard work get rushed through by players in a matter of hours only for it never to be relevant to them again.  This applies both to leveling zones within the current release of the game as well as all level capped content across expansions.  

    Concerning open world leveling content, it is as the author says; all of the zones and quests and stories that take place there comprise the vast majority of the current game's content at any given time.  Yet, players fly through it in the vast minority of their overall playing time.  Once they out-level the zone, they have little to no reason to ever return.  What's more, they're often left with an extremely small portion of the game's overall content to replay over and over again.  This portion has come to be known as "end game."  It's clear to see how this is not optimal for either the developers or the players.  

    Even then, an expansion comes along and renders all that end game content you've been playing for months obsolete.  All those dungeons and raids become useless, not only from a progression stand point, but also from a fun stand point.  If a group returns to a classic dungeon or raid in their new overpowered gear at their new level, the encounters become completely trivialized.  Many of the intended mechanics can be ignored.  The life is sucked right out of them.  

    Have you ever had a zone you really loved playing in that you wished you could go back to?  Have you ever wanted to run a classic dungeon for fun, or wished the game still provided you with a progression reason to run that dungeon?  In most WoW-model games, you just can't.  That content essentially doesn't exist for you anymore.  

    That's when I look at GW2 and see some promise.  Yes, it relies on downleveling mechanics, which the author of this article cites as "unsatisfying" -- and maybe there is a better way for the future -- but it's a start.  GW2's open world is as relevant as any game's I've ever played a year after its release.  Aside from the gameplay that occurs in the open world, which I personally find more fun and entertaining than any other MMO, every zone remains relevant and playable to characters of all levels. More importantly, the developers constantly guide players to various open world zones as part of the game's ongoing living narrative.  If you really love a zone in GW2, chance are you can easily spend hundreds of hours in it, not just the half-dozen or so it takes to level through it.  

    Finally, there's the instanced dungeon content.  Many of what would be considered the "end game" dungeons already scale players down to levels below the level 80 cap.  One's level in dungeons, I think, is something players have learned to ignore.  As it stands, it looks like the current dungeons are primed to remain relevant for many years down the road.  If an expansion is to hit GW2, and the level cap increases, players will still be able to run the current dungeons for their specific rewards and still be presented with a relevant challenge.   

    Now I'm not saying GW2's system is perfect.  There are many flaws that I don't have time to get into right now; but compared to something like WoW, on the topic of keeping 100% of the developed content relevant, GW2 has made tremendous strides.  

    Imagine being able to play Blackwing Lair, or Molten Core, or AQ40, or Strat, Scholomance, Dire Maul, UBRS, Karazhan, Serpentshrine Caverns, Tempest Keep, Mount Hyjal or any of the other vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King dungeons and raids today.  Imagine them still being difficult, still something worth bragging about, and still providing relevant rewards.  How HUGE would WoW be now?   Instead, WoW always remains almost exactly the same size, because, for every bit of content that is added, a similar amount of content is then swept aside never to be played again.

    *************************************************

    I had to edit to say that, even though I love this guy's design theory (probably because it always seems to precisely match my own), I am now much less inclined to check out this Firefall game.  Sure, he succeeded in getting it into my field of view, but that's not saying much in today's market; there are dozens of MMOs that I at least know about.  If you want to write a design column because you believe in that design and you want to get it out there, great.  Do that.  If what you have to say is well-received, you'll develop a small crowd of followers.  If you want to eventually make it known that you're also developing your own game, that's fine too.  But right now, by tagging on a little pitch about your game at the end of every article, it makes it look like the entire article was one long sales pitch, which not only makes the reader feel somewhat duped (and therefore inclined to angrily resist your pitch entirely), but it also diminishes the value of everything you had to say.  We're left wondering if the first 90% of the article's content has been rendered obsolete, so to speak.  

  • jojotheduckjojotheduck Member UncommonPosts: 19
    It may seem like wasted money but those zones get the people to the end game zones (where they spend 90% of their time.) I'm sure those end game zones cost just as much as the noob zones but the time spent in those makes up for the lack of time spent in the noob areas. I'm sure it all evens out somewhere or we wouldn't have MMO's.
  • SilynseSilynse Member UncommonPosts: 19

    I agree with Mark that something needs to be done industry wide for dynamic gameplay. however the environment isn't the solution in and of itself. And DEFINTIELY low level zones are played OVER AND OVER again. I made a TON of characters over the course of my WoW days, and EQ2, and so many others. I honestly feel in MMO's that the real problem is NOT the dynamic play. Its the CONNECTION TO YOUR CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT.  I still feel Firefall and most MMO's out there today completely miss the mark on character connection. The RPG element of the game, where the story plays out and your character creates bonds with NPC's and other Characters based on love, hate, sadness and loss, or joy. its just not there. I mean imagine an MMO, where regularly through the game you encounter cut scenes and moments akin to Aerith dying in FF7, or Raiden saving your characters hind end in Metal Gear, or even Dom dying in Gears of War in a heroic explosion....

    What makes a great RPG is the emotional connection to the characters and moments. There are ALL KINDS of games in the world. And each kind of game sells if its done in a way that creates a NEED for the player to play. An emotional attachment.  I agree that budgets are overinflated for a MMO player base worldwide that is for the most part disrespectful, unwilling to pay, and undeserving.

    However, games like Firefall (which please Mark, stop plugging your game so hard, its like every 2 days on here and its getting embarrassing, why cant you create a world event in Firefall or a game world for that matter, that creates enough buzz on its own that you don't have to use a second JOB to advertise.),  anyway, games like firefall are solid enough, but still lack the ability to make the player WANT to save the world. Or WANT take that next step. There are no levels, true enough, but the one problem with that is that the game itself feels static a lot of the time. You know that the creatures and the enemies are tapered to your level. That the game doesn't advance, YOU advance.

    My MMA instructor once said to me (as I threw up from a concussion), we only ever get as good as our opponents. Leveled worlds might be more expensive, but they have one thing a non leveled world doesn't.... dynamic difficulty. And sorry Mark, but, more enemies does not equal more difficulty. Firefall is always 100 enemies against you, and that is just plain getting old the more I play.  If you want to make a great game, you need to create a true balance. There is a few ways to do this, but I'm not in the mood to write an novel on here.

    The most important thing about it is this, the FTP model is destroying the gaming industry by creating the monster we call FREE. Its cheapening the industry in jobs, talent, and completed projects; in a genre that doesn't need a million mediocre games. It needs a few GOOD games everyone can enjoy.

    On any Friday night, it costs 40 dollars to take a date to the movies, easily. Why do we allow players to tell us they cant spend 12 or 15 dollars in 30 days to play something for hundreds of hours?  Time to go back to traditional game design models, utilizing new systems for dynamic environments, and truly dynamic leveling, and placing the responsibility for originality, dynamics, and quality squarely back on the developers, who's job it is to create a world that is truly entertaining. THE WHOLE GAME is important. Not just dynamics. This includes emotional attachment to a character, story, and if your going to voice act it, USE GOOD ACTING. Don't use craptastic acting like Guild Wars 2 did.

    In the scheme of things, the world of game design will play out the failings and ruin some great IP's but eventually come to a realization on what works and what doesn't. But hopefully a designer soon will bring back emotional connections, and create a solid system of dynamic leveling to gameplay.

  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987
    Originally posted by jojotheduck
    It may seem like wasted money but those zones get the people to the end game zones (where they spend 90% of their time.) I'm sure those end game zones cost just as much as the noob zones but the time spent in those makes up for the lack of time spent in the noob areas. I'm sure it all evens out somewhere or we wouldn't have MMO's.

    They spend 90% of their time there because they have to, the rest of the game world is useless to them.

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • whbeardwhbeard Member Posts: 1

    Very interesting article!

    But please stop suggesting that flawed game design in the form of a strictly linear zone progression is a defining characteristic of an MMORPG. It is not. For example compare SW:TOR to SWG.

  • HrimnirHrimnir Member RarePosts: 2,415
     
     

    Im sorry but this mob scaling thing fails miserably.  It is NOT a good system.  Part of playing ANY rpg. MMO or not is the feeling of your character getting more powerful.  If when you enter and old zone the mobs are just as hard as the new zone then, all of a sudden it becomes both stupid, and pointless to go to new zones.  Why should i travel to a new a place when i can just stay in the same area and kill the same mobs whose spawns i know and tricks i know and get the same XP?

    Oblivion had one of the most universally hated systems and it was pretty much as Mark Kern described.

    The solution is much simpler.  Do what EQ did.  Have high level mobs the run around the zone that low level players have to be weary of.  And stop making every zone only encompass a certain level range.  There is no reason a section deep in the zone can't have level 30 mobs in it if its normall a 1-10 zone.  So what if 10% of the zone is used for higher level mobs.  Its gives people a reason to come back.  I used to go back and kill Kizdean Gix in west commonlands in EQ1 just for shits n gigiles, help out the n00bs, whatever reason i wanted ot.

    Guess what you can also do.  Attach higher level dungeons to the lower level zones!  Holy crap the thought!.  Yes, amazing, a level 1-10 zone could easily have a set of goblin caves filled with mid 20's goblins, Who woulda thunk it.

     

    "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."

    - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • ignore_meignore_me Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,987
    Originally posted by whbeard

    Very interesting article!

    But please stop suggesting that flawed game design in the form of a strictly linear zone progression is a defining characteristic of an MMORPG. It is not. For example compare SW:TOR to SWG.

    One design is inferior to the other, so it is a flaw. Linear games are ephemeral compared to Games with horizontal progression or more activities in the game world.

    Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011

  • MarcelinoMarcelino Member UncommonPosts: 124
    Originally posted by Sanguinelust
    I can't remember if Anarchy Online had one when it came out

    Anarchy Online had "Backyards" in the main cities where new players started. I remember in Omni 1 alone there where about 20 backyards, and each new player would spawn in a different back ard so that they would'nt become over crowded. Unfortunately there was'nt a big enough playerbase to supportthese backyards, so a new starter area was made. Now they just lay empty and useless....

  • observerobserver Member RarePosts: 3,685
    Actually, i do remember my first day playing my first MMO, and subsequent MMOs afterwards.  I agree though about the wasted landmass in MMOs, but what is the solution?  It's not really about the content within them, but the incentives.  It's the same reason that people go to shopping malls, theaters, sporting events, etc.; instead of going to a farm or an inudstrial building site.  It would be very challenging to design a world where every area is occupied all the time, because there would need to be enough people to occupy the land mass.  Add to the fact, that not everyone is concurrently in the same time zone. 
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 24,429
    One way forward would be to move away from small ribbon shaped zones to larger open zones. These would be for a larger level range and so get used more. I know its a revolutionary idea, no one has ever tried anything like it before. :)
  • ZebladeZeblade Member UncommonPosts: 931

    For me this is like going to a party and saying "we need more beer".. yet the partys been over for hours.

    Add more take some away wont change a thing. Need a new mmo thats different and so far none of us have a clue what that might be. People keep changing the graphics yet model is the same.

  • blohm86blohm86 Member Posts: 43

    Weird editorial, what I dont get is why cant the dev´s use randomised terrain? Setup some parameters like monsters level, quest levels etc and let the computers do the building for em? Like Diablo, Cube World etc. If they want to make it truly dynamic, why not re-randomise the world ever say.... 3months? People keep their gear etc but have to explore "new areas". Have some new content ready so new stuff happens? That means if you have 3-4 shards, you get equal amounts of uniqe areas, then an "explorer" class actually might mean something other then using rifles and having pets.

    Anyway, probably not possible due to the devs lack of innovation these days, mostly copy-paste, noone every dares anything new. The creativity is lost. Shame on these websites encouraging and hyping mediocre games and "casualising" gaming. Shame on you

  • sunshadow21sunshadow21 Member UncommonPosts: 357
    Originally posted by Hrimnir
     
     

    Im sorry but this mob scaling thing fails miserably.  It is NOT a good system.  Part of playing ANY rpg. MMO or not is the feeling of your character getting more powerful.  If when you enter and old zone the mobs are just as hard as the new zone then, all of a sudden it becomes both stupid, and pointless to go to new zones.  Why should i travel to a new a place when i can just stay in the same area and kill the same mobs whose spawns i know and tricks i know and get the same XP?

    Oblivion had one of the most universally hated systems and it was pretty much as Mark Kern described.

    The solution is much simpler.  Do what EQ did.  Have high level mobs the run around the zone that low level players have to be weary of.  And stop making every zone only encompass a certain level range.  There is no reason a section deep in the zone can't have level 30 mobs in it if its normall a 1-10 zone.  So what if 10% of the zone is used for higher level mobs.  Its gives people a reason to come back.  I used to go back and kill Kizdean Gix in west commonlands in EQ1 just for shits n gigiles, help out the n00bs, whatever reason i wanted ot.

    Guess what you can also do.  Attach higher level dungeons to the lower level zones!  Holy crap the thought!.  Yes, amazing, a level 1-10 zone could easily have a set of goblin caves filled with mid 20's goblins, Who woulda thunk it.

     

    Sounds like Final Fantasy XI to me. Multiple levels of mobs, dungeon entrances, and well spaced out quest objectives that kept people coming back to the same zones over and over again, all without any fancy dynamic events or overly complex coding, just a good solid plan of how everything was laid out to get the maximum benefit of everything while still retaining largely static coding.

  • alvastenalvasten Member UncommonPosts: 20
    well thanks for the ad blocking the article, I can see I will not be able to read it.
  • FdzzaiglFdzzaigl Member UncommonPosts: 2,433

    I do completely agree with the author on this. I'm not sure that Firefall is doing it the right way, but there need to be new ideas out there that integrate the entire world into the whole progression scene, and stay relevant after that.

    That's also an important factor: the progression itself needs to change. Though you don't necessarily need to get rid of levels altogether.

    Guild Wars 2 had an interesting idea for that by down-leveling players when they came to lower level zones, except the incentives still weren't there enough. Having traditional MMO's change to this kind of concept and expand on it would be a start imo. A game like TOR for example would have really benefitted from down-leveling with scaling rewards.

    Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!

  • dorugudorugu Member UncommonPosts: 184

    well all i have to say is that you say yur game is so much better at doin things rly can yu prove tht?

    i thought it was up to the player to decide if a game is good/bad not the makers of the game

     

  • SharessSharess Member UncommonPosts: 293
    Meridian 59 which predates UO had no tutorial, nor did UO for that matter.

    image

    Sharess Dragonstar - Midgard
    Grievance is recruiting.
  • bcbullybcbully Member EpicPosts: 11,843

    Games with hard levels are outdated. 

     

    In Wushu, within the first couple hours of the game you can go anywhere, and hit anything.

     

    The mobs are not tough, they drop no loot, and give no XP. They're part of a larger unwritten story, not grinding, filler content. 

     

     

  • tokinitokini Member UncommonPosts: 372
    tutorial in my first mmo was old ascalon, spent an hour trying to get back to it after the 'searing' part of the story (GW1)
  • GiffenGiffen Member UncommonPosts: 276
    Originally posted by John_Grimm
    Well, i know one game that is like that, Eve Online, most of its space can be used by any lvl char.  :D

    That's because EVE has no levels.  Wasted "zones" are an attribute of level base games.  UO and EVE are two that did not have this issue because they did not have levels.

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