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How to make MMORPGs even more like SP games ...
nariusseldon
Member EpicPosts: 27,775
Many said that devs are trying to make MMORPGs into solo-able, SP games with co-op. Let's help those devs and bounce ideas of how to do that even better!
I think many MMORPG questing feel flat, and not engaging compared to SP games because there is less stories, fewer good characters, and less good presentation of events. Here are some ideas to fix that ..
1) Forget phasing, and the open world .. put more content into instances where there is no control of events. May be the share-world shooter is another way of doing this.
2) Put more effort into writing stories and characters. Bioshock infinite is great because of Elizabeth. Dishonored also have great characters.
3) Show, don't put events/story in text. Use scripting. In Dishonored, the assassination of the queen is a piece of good story telling. It uses in-game cutscenes, gameplay, scripted events to tell the story. Voice over is only a part of it.
4) Give different gameplay options. Stealth games like Deus Ex is a good example. You can fight, hack, sneak, and stealth kill your enemies. Even D3 allows many ways of killing (with different physical effects).
5) Use of the environment (and instance helps). For example, you can pull an enemy off a ledge in many stealth games. There is reason why things like that cannot be done in an instance.
Now .. no one says every MMO needs to be like SP games .. but certainly there are enough of them .. and it would be good to discuss how to make it better if devs want to make their MMOs closer to SP games.
Comments
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I do want CORPGs .. but it is not about what i want. It is about MMO devs who want to get a piece of the CORPG market ... and if they do .. here is some discussions about how to go about improving solo-centric MMOs.
The point for whom?
The point for the devs .. who knows .. but lots of them seem to want to make MMOs more SP game like ... and may be the point is to broaden their audience and make more money.
The point for me?
If there are more SP like MMOs, there are more games for me to choose from. It is always a good thing. I am not going to promise to play them .. but i won't ignore them and if they do a good job, give them a chance.
There is no reason to refuse good entertainment just because it is under a MMO label, is there?
I'm saying what is the point for you or others who want to turn MMOs into a single player or co op experience. It already is a single player experience sadly with all the changes that have been made over the last 10 years. The point is if you don't have a lot of time, enjoy playing single player games/co op games then what are you doing in an MMO? Do you go to single player/co op games and suggest people try to turn them into sandbox games where everyone exists together and everything has to be shared? The point is each game is unique in it's own way. At least MMORPGs were unique in their own way once upon a time. Now they are just bad single player/ coop games with some instanced PvP thrown into the mix. It defeats the purpose for which they were created in the first place. That is to live in a fantasy world with other people. Not to play as a main character through a story. That is what was special about MMORPGs and what made them unique. I play single player games all the time and I like many of them to this day. I don't want that experience in an MMORPG. I want to be able to jump in and join up with a friend without worrying about matching up quests. I want to live in a world where I can see other people doing wandering around doing things. I don't want an instance all to myself.
I guess one big help would be to actually charge everyone for playing them, just like single player games, which I think is the root to all your "MMOs need to be more like single player games" threads.
You don't want to pay for your entertainment. Most MMOs are F2P. Otherwise, you'd just play Single Player games and be happy instead of trying to change a whole genre into something it was never intended to be.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Apparently that isn't as fun as getting a reaction and some attention on mmorpg.com.
Different folks, different strokes.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
See your logical fallacy here?
If they are ALREADY single player experience, there is no need for anyone to "want to turn them" into one. They are already here. It is not about wanting to turn them into anything.
It is to HELP them to be better single player experience. They are already there .. they just need to be better.
You are confused between the chicken and the egg. It is the other way around. Devs want to cater to my preference for whatever reason. It is the fact that they ARE single experience that i am interested in them. If not, i can just play SP games.
But now they ARE single player experience, let's discuss how to make them even more so, and better single player experiences.
hmm .. you are mistaken. It is true that i don't want to pay for MMOs (because there is no need). I never said i don't want to pay for OTHER entertainment. Otherwise, how would i be playing D3, Dishonored, and going to movies?
And there is no such thing as what MMO is "intended to be". They are just entertainment responding to market forces. They are already have more single player experiences .. so the devs are ignoring your notion of "intended to be". Since there are many playing these games, players are also ignoring your notion of "intended to be".
I would say .. since many MMOs are already incorporating SP experiences, let's discuss how to make that even better.
How about if Boxing decided to incorporate martial arts into it, since MMA is so popular? Sports are, after all, "just entertainment."
You admit to "the MMO genre" by making threads that desire to change the genre into another, albeit wider genre "Single Player Games." Are you seeing the fallacy of your campaign hitched with your denial that MMOs are "not supposed to BE anything", yet?
With almost every one of your over 17,000 posts (on an MMORPG site, no less), you admit that you HATE MMORPGs. Nearly every post. Yet you continually rave how GREAT D3 is and a few other games that are NOT MMOs in any shape or form, no matter what sites may cover them.
The only reason I can see why you do this is that you are cheap. You HAD to pay for D3. You HAD to buy Dishonored. You get most MMOs for free, so I really cannot see why you would want them to be what other games (that you HAVE to pay for) already cover, usually better.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Well they are already doing a fine job at making M/SPRPG. Especially ESO is doing a fine job where PVE is now a singleplayer experience. There are also already games that is SPRPG with multiplayer in it, no need to begin and call them a MMO.
WoW forexample is one of the MMO's besides GW2, that has many different quests compared to most of the MMO's that are even newer(Lotro,FF14, ETC..)
Well grouping is fun in a MMO if you can find a group that is nice or if you even can find a group.. That is why many devs has changed it to solo play.
I think EQNext will do a fine job at doing different things you can do solo or if you prefer group:-) Ive seen some things from movies and it looks alot different than ESO. An MMO is really about character development and great combat with great skills. There are many MMO's that has good story but if the combat sucks your not gonna play it for long(TSW,Lotro,FF14).
well, do "switching up to teenage wiz" makes them more enjoyable for a lot of the audience? If so, go for it. If not .. not.
Just like .. if a large audience like SP experience in MMOs, devs will put it in.
And yeah .. The Avengers and Iron man are just entertainment. (What else can they be?). I am curious to see what new things Marvel can do with them next.
I don't think they are doing a fine job. The SP experience in MMOs clearly can be improved if more instances and scripting can be used.
And whatever they are called is just a convenient label. I am totally find if you can make another name stick.
Because he is a troll, I think it's obvious. I mean the guy comes to mmorpg.com and complains about mmo's and argues everything for co-op or singleplayer games. Why else would a coop/single player advocate be in the mmorpg forums?
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Destiny has cheated me
By forcing me to decide upon
The woman that I idolise
Or the hands of an automaton
Without these hands I can't complete
The opera that was captivating her
But if I keep them, and she marries him
Then he probably won't want me dating her
I do think that the boundaries between the types of games will further dissolve and that we will get more variety.
I agree that if we already have instancing/phasing in place, the next logical step is to use it as an advantage in terms of gameplay instead of only using it for personalized story telling.
The sky is the limit. Almost anything that works in single player games could work in a hybrid MMO too if implemented well.
What does or does not make sense for a specific game depends on the target audience and the overall concept.
In some ways we are already playing hybrids anyway. We have dungeon and PvP queues (a nice hello from the lobby game category), action combat, FPS targeting, etc.
Personally I prefer oldschool MMORPG games or sandbox-ish setups, but that doesn't mean I want to see the MMO genre stagnate or only produce those. Innovation, variety and freedom of choice are good things.
Sorry, but no. We have different types of games for a reason, to serve different audiences or play styles. You get some cross over, but if you cross over too much, you no longer have a traditional mmo, so this is like saying, lets flavor steak to make it taste more like chicken! People like both, but what is the point in trying to make a game something it isn't.
If you are just talking about making lobby mmos more casual, fine, but I do not think traditional type mmos need any more of this, if anything they need less imo.
Then again, someone also thought let's put cheese into meat. And voilà... Cordon Bleu. Yum.
By your way of thinking it wouldn't exist.
Would be a shame. Like really. It's good.
I must of missed where they turned cheese into meat, the pairing of solo play already exists, OP wants to practically kill what the traditional mmo stood for and make it a lobby mmo, or your Cordon Bleu with cheese and different flavored cheese that replaces your meat, eliminating the pairing.
So by my thinking, your sandwich would exist, his it wouldn't, you would only have one food type, whichever the majority that day thought tasted the best, and that would be the one everyone should make, and if you made something other than it, we should try to figure out how to make it taste more like the most popular type.
its like this guy's complete existence revolves around trolling mmorpg fans.
anyway all they need to do to completely destroy the genre is make it so everything else is solo except cities and instanced pvp. iow, d3 without the ability to join other ppls games.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
On the up-side, if there is a big enough target audience for a genre, games will be made for this audience and the genre can't be destroyed.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
if they are still around .. they are not killed. Transformed .. or evolved will be better words. Sure you don't like it .. but MMOs are not made just for you.
Because the old identity is not working, and the devs are moving to a new one? It is not like I am the first to propose more solo experiences in MMOs. It has been pushed by devs for the last 10 years. I am just here to talk about how to make it better.
And yes "traditional" type mmos don't need any more of this. But i am not here to talk about "traditional" mmos. This is mmorpg.com, not "tradition" mmorpg.com. Don't tell me you are allowed to talk about old ideas like sandbox and i am not allowed to talk about newer ideas like solo experiences in mmos (which are already in many).
Turning cheese into meat? Where did he say that? This is about COMBINING cheese and bread .. putting SP experiences into MMO. It is not like it is a new concept .. nor that MMO elements like a city lobby or a AH is gone.
And no .. i don't want anything .. devs are already killing traditional mmos (and yes, i am all for it .. i like new mmos, not traditional ones) and we are talking about how to make the solo experience even better.