Like many others in this thread, I have to question why we should even be thinking of mmo design in terms of "pillars". When we name pillars, are we just vaguely naming game systems that we think made past games (namely WoW) more successful? That doesn't even hold; the second most successful MMORPG for a long time was EVE, and though one might say that had combat, exploration, story, etc. of some sort, they were deeply different from WoW's to the point where it would be near meaningless to say they were standing on the same 'pillars'.
Honestly, I've never even heard of anyone in the industry talk about game design in terms of these 'pillars' save the marketing team in charge of SW:TOR, so that they could play up that game's story emphasis as somehow relevant to a genre of games traditionally thought to de-emphasize or completely forego use of strong narrative elements. It wouldn't even make much sense to adopt these terms as a smart way of approaching game design, as it encourages us to think of these "pillars" as separate, isolated systems which somehow hold up the success of a game, rather than seemlessly integrated aspects.
Let's test our intuitions on the necessity of these 'accepted pillars'. Say in the future a true virtual reality MMO came about (think Star Trek holodeck style). People would have a chance to adventure through the world freely or just live a second life in some virtual settlement they built, perhaps not doing anything beyond the tasks of a regular citizen (like being an inn-keep or merchant, etc.).
There may be combat in that MMO, but we could imagine a version without it, or where combat was only a minor focus; maybe it would be more about building and maintaining a virtual society were combat was only important as a fringe element.
Just by virtue of there being a virtual world, exploration would follow, without there necessarily needing to be explicit design choice to make exploration a 'pillar' - and again we could imagine it not being especially important in this scenario.
"Progression" would perhaps be the same sort of natural progression that would mirror real life: someone could become a successful merchant just by making smart business decisions, or develop a skill through time and practice exactly the same way they would if they used those skills in real life (and thus the skills they developed in the VR world would in many cases translate directly to real world skills) - no stat systems, special 'achievements', or otherwise.
"Story" would not exist in the form of an overarching narrative; the world would have "lore", perhaps an officially sanctioned "history" to begin with, but from there the only story that anyone would care about would be the events that develop out of player interactions in the world. If there were an imposed dev narrative, most people would either complete it and then forget about it, or ignore it from the get-go.
"Time" would merely be simple temporality, the organic progression of events as recognized by players - again, just like real life. No dev interference would be especially necessary. Even in contemporary mmos, most players see continuous dev events as gimmicky and 'all the same'. You don't get genuine "time" without an event that the players themselves recognize as significant, genuinely different from what preceded it, and so on. Case in point: GW2 experienced notable population drop off despite constant introduction of new events. Why? Because (among other reasons) players did not recognize these events as significant for themselves (or notably different from one another).
My point is this: we can imagine the game I've described being called an MMO uncontroversially, even an ideal MMO, and yet lacking all of those 'pillars' you listed. Furthermore, it would be clumsy of us to describe that MMO in terms of 'pillars' as much as it would be clumsy to explain the real world in terms of 'pillars'. It would just be a "world" - an organic whole whose elements were naturally, seamlessly interwoven, influencing one another without need of added external intervention once things were setup initially and provided they were basically maintained.
I think we first have to look at the foundation of RPG before we can say any pillar is perfect. No pillar can stand without a foundation that is solid.
Solid RPG, require one thing. A solid storyline or theme. If it fails at this part, it has absolutely no chance of standing straight with its foundation, it becomes the leaning tower of piza and will someday fall like all those before it or require incredible amounts of resources to make sure it never falls.
ESO has captured the very foundation of RPG, the pillars may not be as greatly developed as in other games, but it has the foundation perfect, and that's what brings the first step of anyone going to a game.
I think the main thing that's holding back design is the idea that the first pillar is "Combat". The pillar should be "Challenge".
If you design a game with the mindset that one pillar is "Combat", then everything else becomes automatically secondary to that.
If your main pillar is "Challenge", then you have a design where you can potentially have challenging combat, challenging crafting, challenging NPC interaction, challenging world interaction, challenging commerce, challenging resource acquisition, etc. You build you game like this and it becomes a lot more interesting and lot more like a living world.
People are sick of "kill 10 rats" not only because they've killed 10 rats before, but because there is only so many challenging ways to kill a rat. Give us some other challenging stuff. Look at TSW that made it challenging to do investigation quests - was awesome. Look at Vanguard that with its diplomacy system made it challenging to have a conversation with an NPC, etc. SWG with it's entertainment professions and cantinas, made is quite interesting to do something as simple as recover energy after combat. EQ2 with its experimenation made it challenging to craft an elite item. I'm not saying those mechanics in those games were perfect, but they were the right direction to take. There are lots of opportunities.
"Kill rat", "Kill bigger rat" and "kill rat with friends" should not be the only challenges a game offers.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
Exploration and progression have been mostly dead since the first generation of MMOs.
Gear is not real progression, its temporary. The progression part of an MMORPG typically takes a couple weeks now.
Bingo. But this list also isn't enough. There needs to be more ways to progress than any of the five items on this list. Other things to do. Most games have stopped giving us other things to do (like housing) because they don't think it's necessary.
Originally posted by JAFA Like most MMO players I suspect the pillar that attracts & hold me the strongest is the one unmentioned, The Skinner Box aspect.
MMOs are the Box and the Pillars (K, A, S, E) are the reinforcement. So they are ALL mentioned. Please don't sleep in class. Read the book, don't roll it.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
“but game reviewers ask, are games missing inventive opportunities by too often sticking to what has worked?” I feel sorry for such game reviewers. They clearly missed out on their true career path, that of out of work homeless person. Hopefully time will correct that. The trinity represents the needs and/or wants of Bartle’s K, A, S, E. To remove the trinity is an attempt to remove the four types of gamers or deal with a select few (the pure K’s). The segment of the gaming population that can’t work with the trinity, can’t work with others. There is no shortage of healers, those gamers who can’t find one are being shunned. Before I get another mod warning on this, there is published research mater.
“Though we’ve also seen horizontal progression grow in popularity where players progress by expanding their abilities and weapons.” If the progression provides an advantage over new player based on time played it is a vertical progression. Again when a segment of the gaming population can’t compete with the rest of the community, they blame levels. When these players join a game they expect to be on a level playing ground. If there is any advantage to be had, it must be theirs and theirs alone. This kind of player doesn’t want to invest the time or effort required to reach end cap. They want leveling to be as fast and easy as possible, and are responsible for the recent dumbing down of MMOs.
“thus putting in place windows of opportunity to do different things over their lives and reap rewards fitting to that age in time.” Two points here. What is the Return On Investment for content that can only be experienced by a few? Again there is a segment of the gaming population that wants exclusive content. I don’t mean titles, classes, or gear. They want Non-instanced in game territory, and quests exclusive to themselves.
FYI, WoW has an achievement that only a single player has achieved.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Originally posted by mmoguy43 All these pillars and not one focused on improving the multiplayer experience.
Good point, that should be a pillar unto itself, but I would call it Interaction, to show that say trading with someone and grouping are both multiplayer.
I think the "pillers" of a game should be based off of the game.
In a game like EvE
Economy should be one of the pillars, where as story is almost non-existent.
What about a game like That Jane Austin MMO that was kick-started.
There is no real combat, No economy. That game is all about social interaction and exploration.....
Yes that's an extreme example, but it proves the point that not every MMO idea is a copy paste quest grinder. There are ALOT of MMO's floating around out there now. With concepts that are Far removed from the standard fare. Most of them are terrible, but that wont always be the case.
It's human nature to try and put everything into neat boxes, but it doesn't really work out that way most of the time. Every case is a special case.
"RPG designers often refer to the four pillars (Combat, Progression, Exploration, and Story)" - I think that's the problem with this article. These may very well be true for a (single player) RPG. An MMO is a different beast altogether.
Geesuz christ, I am not a personality type, i am complicated.
The answer is simple. You streamline everything to make your lives as developers simpler, because you are lazy imcompetent and the wrong people in charge of game development. All you care about is pumping out your content in a straight forward simple process that presents linear BOREDOM then blame it on the players, and what they want when you fail... Then you even quit doing quality because you are afraid..
You can't have the artists in charge of the game, which is 100% reverse of when games were fun and good. We are not bored of the same ole thing..Thats a ignorant cop-out. There is no same old thing. You take questing and you made it a straight line.. it was never that.. you took LOOT and you created the most boring, know what you are going to get system and even further made it level based 1-10, 11-20 You took character customization and made it again level based.. Now levels 1-49 outta 50 SUCK, no one cares..... we know what we are going to get at 500 so why enjoy 1-49. You make items in game that don't even matter.. WTF?!? grey items that fill up my bag and do nothing but piss me off? LAZY LAZY LAZY What happened to Diablo like item drops, where the same items can have different stats and you search for a better one...look how much fun it is in EQNLM to get a good pickaxe... we had these systems years ago, but today we get one item, with a few attributes.. because you suck at what you do.
You streamlined everything and you forget about the most important parts of the MMO..
1. The world must be more than an individual.
2. Adventure... Hiding a gem in a circular path of overgrown trees twisted jumps and mountains is not adventure. Going out in a realm prepared to face whats there, and challenge yourself into finding some mystery item very few posses from clues planted around the area and rare drops presents adventure....
sorry, i got interrupted with a phone call while i was raging lol..
further more, i could go on all day..
You took combat and butchered it, you dont even get the basics anymore of what is wrong with the system..
In the old days when games were fun, ya see, there was something called a Bestiary, remember it? Remember the days you bought the D&D Book just to check out all the monsters, the cool pictures, but most importantly the Stats.. you learned how to tackle that creature, its strengths, its weaknesses, you prepared for the encounter...
Now the combat is this... you have 15 skills... you kill the red spider with attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
Now you are level 2, you now face a wolf, you attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
now you are level 3, you now face a blue spider, you attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
now you are level 4, you attack a goblin, you attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
its the same fucking process, you don't even realize what you area fighting anymore, you don't care... what kind of game is this?
Its a poorly made system streamlined to complete and utter shit... i can tell in 2 days if a game is worth my time, let me save you the 6 years of development, if you streamline like this.. DONT BOTHER
Any time I see an mmo developer talk about pillars in an interview, it's like an allusion to the future that the mmo is going to die in a burning fire. Beware Dev's that talk about pillars...
The problem with MMORPGs today is that they have tried to innovate too much and ended up breaking down one or more of these holy pillars.
Guild wars 2 absolutely took a crap on the progression pillar and lost half its player base in the first month or two because of it. It also took a good chop at the combat pillar by trying to remove healers, and next to no one enjoyed that.
World of Warcraft is directly responsible for killing, then dancing, and then spitting on the corpse of the exploration pillar by creating a game that you fly far above the content and other players, you queue into instanced mini-games that chops up the "world" into smaller games, when in fact they should all be connected.
The MMORPG genre needs to look at the past decade and realize what "innovations" harmed the four holy pillars, and UNDO it. Get rid of instancing, get rid of flying mounts, get rid of LFD and LFR, get rid of progressionless systems (horizontal), etc.. The MMO genre is dying because it is being diluted by having its foundational pillars assaulted by these "innovations" that undercut what made MMORPGs a great genre of game in the first place. It's time to go back to Everquest 1 and start improving from there.
Geesuz christ, I am not a personality type, i am complicated.
The answer is simple. You streamline everything to make your lives as developers simpler, because you are lazy imcompetent and the wrong people in charge of game development. All you care about is pumping out your content in a straight forward simple process that presents linear BOREDOM then blame it on the players, and what they want when you fail... Then you even quit doing quality because you are afraid..
You can't have the artists in charge of the game, which is 100% reverse of when games were fun and good. We are not bored of the same ole thing..Thats a ignorant cop-out. There is no same old thing. You take questing and you made it a straight line.. it was never that.. you took LOOT and you created the most boring, know what you are going to get system and even further made it level based 1-10, 11-20 You took character customization and made it again level based.. Now levels 1-49 outta 50 SUCK, no one cares..... we know what we are going to get at 500 so why enjoy 1-49. You make items in game that don't even matter.. WTF?!? grey items that fill up my bag and do nothing but piss me off? LAZY LAZY LAZY What happened to Diablo like item drops, where the same items can have different stats and you search for a better one...look how much fun it is in EQNLM to get a good pickaxe... we had these systems years ago, but today we get one item, with a few attributes.. because you suck at what you do.
You streamlined everything and you forget about the most important parts of the MMO..
1. The world must be more than an individual.
2. Adventure... Hiding a gem in a circular path of overgrown trees twisted jumps and mountains is not adventure. Going out in a realm prepared to face whats there, and challenge yourself into finding some mystery item very few posses from clues planted around the area and rare drops presents adventure....
Can't believe you don't consider player class design a pillar ! It most certainly is and one on which many fail. Then to top it off you call it a holy trinity and totally neglect the support classes. It is a quadruplet not a trinity.
In addition to player class design being a pillar, I would say balance is a pillar because without it games fail. People just play the most op'd class and making groups becomes difficult with the game just not being fun.
Comments
Like many others in this thread, I have to question why we should even be thinking of mmo design in terms of "pillars". When we name pillars, are we just vaguely naming game systems that we think made past games (namely WoW) more successful? That doesn't even hold; the second most successful MMORPG for a long time was EVE, and though one might say that had combat, exploration, story, etc. of some sort, they were deeply different from WoW's to the point where it would be near meaningless to say they were standing on the same 'pillars'.
Honestly, I've never even heard of anyone in the industry talk about game design in terms of these 'pillars' save the marketing team in charge of SW:TOR, so that they could play up that game's story emphasis as somehow relevant to a genre of games traditionally thought to de-emphasize or completely forego use of strong narrative elements. It wouldn't even make much sense to adopt these terms as a smart way of approaching game design, as it encourages us to think of these "pillars" as separate, isolated systems which somehow hold up the success of a game, rather than seemlessly integrated aspects.
Let's test our intuitions on the necessity of these 'accepted pillars'. Say in the future a true virtual reality MMO came about (think Star Trek holodeck style). People would have a chance to adventure through the world freely or just live a second life in some virtual settlement they built, perhaps not doing anything beyond the tasks of a regular citizen (like being an inn-keep or merchant, etc.).
There may be combat in that MMO, but we could imagine a version without it, or where combat was only a minor focus; maybe it would be more about building and maintaining a virtual society were combat was only important as a fringe element.
Just by virtue of there being a virtual world, exploration would follow, without there necessarily needing to be explicit design choice to make exploration a 'pillar' - and again we could imagine it not being especially important in this scenario.
"Progression" would perhaps be the same sort of natural progression that would mirror real life: someone could become a successful merchant just by making smart business decisions, or develop a skill through time and practice exactly the same way they would if they used those skills in real life (and thus the skills they developed in the VR world would in many cases translate directly to real world skills) - no stat systems, special 'achievements', or otherwise.
"Story" would not exist in the form of an overarching narrative; the world would have "lore", perhaps an officially sanctioned "history" to begin with, but from there the only story that anyone would care about would be the events that develop out of player interactions in the world. If there were an imposed dev narrative, most people would either complete it and then forget about it, or ignore it from the get-go.
"Time" would merely be simple temporality, the organic progression of events as recognized by players - again, just like real life. No dev interference would be especially necessary. Even in contemporary mmos, most players see continuous dev events as gimmicky and 'all the same'. You don't get genuine "time" without an event that the players themselves recognize as significant, genuinely different from what preceded it, and so on. Case in point: GW2 experienced notable population drop off despite constant introduction of new events. Why? Because (among other reasons) players did not recognize these events as significant for themselves (or notably different from one another).
My point is this: we can imagine the game I've described being called an MMO uncontroversially, even an ideal MMO, and yet lacking all of those 'pillars' you listed. Furthermore, it would be clumsy of us to describe that MMO in terms of 'pillars' as much as it would be clumsy to explain the real world in terms of 'pillars'. It would just be a "world" - an organic whole whose elements were naturally, seamlessly interwoven, influencing one another without need of added external intervention once things were setup initially and provided they were basically maintained.
We are talking about RPG in your story right?
I think we first have to look at the foundation of RPG before we can say any pillar is perfect. No pillar can stand without a foundation that is solid.
Solid RPG, require one thing. A solid storyline or theme. If it fails at this part, it has absolutely no chance of standing straight with its foundation, it becomes the leaning tower of piza and will someday fall like all those before it or require incredible amounts of resources to make sure it never falls.
ESO has captured the very foundation of RPG, the pillars may not be as greatly developed as in other games, but it has the foundation perfect, and that's what brings the first step of anyone going to a game.
I think the main thing that's holding back design is the idea that the first pillar is "Combat". The pillar should be "Challenge".
If you design a game with the mindset that one pillar is "Combat", then everything else becomes automatically secondary to that.
If your main pillar is "Challenge", then you have a design where you can potentially have challenging combat, challenging crafting, challenging NPC interaction, challenging world interaction, challenging commerce, challenging resource acquisition, etc. You build you game like this and it becomes a lot more interesting and lot more like a living world.
People are sick of "kill 10 rats" not only because they've killed 10 rats before, but because there is only so many challenging ways to kill a rat. Give us some other challenging stuff. Look at TSW that made it challenging to do investigation quests - was awesome. Look at Vanguard that with its diplomacy system made it challenging to have a conversation with an NPC, etc. SWG with it's entertainment professions and cantinas, made is quite interesting to do something as simple as recover energy after combat. EQ2 with its experimenation made it challenging to craft an elite item. I'm not saying those mechanics in those games were perfect, but they were the right direction to take. There are lots of opportunities.
"Kill rat", "Kill bigger rat" and "kill rat with friends" should not be the only challenges a game offers.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Bingo. But this list also isn't enough. There needs to be more ways to progress than any of the five items on this list. Other things to do. Most games have stopped giving us other things to do (like housing) because they don't think it's necessary.
MMOs are the Box and the Pillars (K, A, S, E) are the reinforcement. So they are ALL mentioned. Please don't sleep in class. Read the book, don't roll it.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
“but game reviewers ask, are games missing inventive opportunities by too often sticking to what has worked?” I feel sorry for such game reviewers. They clearly missed out on their true career path, that of out of work homeless person. Hopefully time will correct that. The trinity represents the needs and/or wants of Bartle’s K, A, S, E. To remove the trinity is an attempt to remove the four types of gamers or deal with a select few (the pure K’s). The segment of the gaming population that can’t work with the trinity, can’t work with others. There is no shortage of healers, those gamers who can’t find one are being shunned. Before I get another mod warning on this, there is published research mater.
“Though we’ve also seen horizontal progression grow in popularity where players progress by expanding their abilities and weapons.” If the progression provides an advantage over new player based on time played it is a vertical progression. Again when a segment of the gaming population can’t compete with the rest of the community, they blame levels. When these players join a game they expect to be on a level playing ground. If there is any advantage to be had, it must be theirs and theirs alone. This kind of player doesn’t want to invest the time or effort required to reach end cap. They want leveling to be as fast and easy as possible, and are responsible for the recent dumbing down of MMOs.
“thus putting in place windows of opportunity to do different things over their lives and reap rewards fitting to that age in time.” Two points here. What is the Return On Investment for content that can only be experienced by a few? Again there is a segment of the gaming population that wants exclusive content. I don’t mean titles, classes, or gear. They want Non-instanced in game territory, and quests exclusive to themselves.
FYI, WoW has an achievement that only a single player has achieved.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Good point, that should be a pillar unto itself, but I would call it Interaction, to show that say trading with someone and grouping are both multiplayer.
I think the "pillers" of a game should be based off of the game.
In a game like EvE
Economy should be one of the pillars, where as story is almost non-existent.
What about a game like That Jane Austin MMO that was kick-started.
There is no real combat, No economy. That game is all about social interaction and exploration.....
Yes that's an extreme example, but it proves the point that not every MMO idea is a copy paste quest grinder. There are ALOT of MMO's floating around out there now. With concepts that are Far removed from the standard fare. Most of them are terrible, but that wont always be the case.
It's human nature to try and put everything into neat boxes, but it doesn't really work out that way most of the time. Every case is a special case.
Then you don't know everybody. I know people who love the storylines and lore, who actually research the world they are playing in.
A world is rather one dimensional if you don't know it's story.
Everyone is different.
Geesuz christ, I am not a personality type, i am complicated.
The answer is simple. You streamline everything to make your lives as developers simpler, because you are lazy imcompetent and the wrong people in charge of game development. All you care about is pumping out your content in a straight forward simple process that presents linear BOREDOM then blame it on the players, and what they want when you fail... Then you even quit doing quality because you are afraid..
You can't have the artists in charge of the game, which is 100% reverse of when games were fun and good. We are not bored of the same ole thing..Thats a ignorant cop-out. There is no same old thing. You take questing and you made it a straight line.. it was never that.. you took LOOT and you created the most boring, know what you are going to get system and even further made it level based 1-10, 11-20 You took character customization and made it again level based.. Now levels 1-49 outta 50 SUCK, no one cares..... we know what we are going to get at 500 so why enjoy 1-49. You make items in game that don't even matter.. WTF?!? grey items that fill up my bag and do nothing but piss me off? LAZY LAZY LAZY What happened to Diablo like item drops, where the same items can have different stats and you search for a better one...look how much fun it is in EQNLM to get a good pickaxe... we had these systems years ago, but today we get one item, with a few attributes.. because you suck at what you do.
You streamlined everything and you forget about the most important parts of the MMO..
1. The world must be more than an individual.
2. Adventure... Hiding a gem in a circular path of overgrown trees twisted jumps and mountains is not adventure. Going out in a realm prepared to face whats there, and challenge yourself into finding some mystery item very few posses from clues planted around the area and rare drops presents adventure....
Regards,
Killcrit
Twitch: Killcrit
Twitter: Killcrit
sorry, i got interrupted with a phone call while i was raging lol..
further more, i could go on all day..
You took combat and butchered it, you dont even get the basics anymore of what is wrong with the system..
In the old days when games were fun, ya see, there was something called a Bestiary, remember it? Remember the days you bought the D&D Book just to check out all the monsters, the cool pictures, but most importantly the Stats.. you learned how to tackle that creature, its strengths, its weaknesses, you prepared for the encounter...
Now the combat is this... you have 15 skills... you kill the red spider with attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
Now you are level 2, you now face a wolf, you attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
now you are level 3, you now face a blue spider, you attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
now you are level 4, you attack a goblin, you attack 1, followed by a 3, followed by a 2, then a 1, 1, 1 then 4 for the crit kill.
its the same fucking process, you don't even realize what you area fighting anymore, you don't care... what kind of game is this?
Its a poorly made system streamlined to complete and utter shit... i can tell in 2 days if a game is worth my time, let me save you the 6 years of development, if you streamline like this.. DONT BOTHER
Regards,
Killcrit
Twitch: Killcrit
Twitter: Killcrit
Bringer of Eternal Darkness and Despair, but also a Nutritious way to start your Morning.
Games Played: Too Many
The problem with MMORPGs today is that they have tried to innovate too much and ended up breaking down one or more of these holy pillars.
Guild wars 2 absolutely took a crap on the progression pillar and lost half its player base in the first month or two because of it. It also took a good chop at the combat pillar by trying to remove healers, and next to no one enjoyed that.
World of Warcraft is directly responsible for killing, then dancing, and then spitting on the corpse of the exploration pillar by creating a game that you fly far above the content and other players, you queue into instanced mini-games that chops up the "world" into smaller games, when in fact they should all be connected.
The MMORPG genre needs to look at the past decade and realize what "innovations" harmed the four holy pillars, and UNDO it. Get rid of instancing, get rid of flying mounts, get rid of LFD and LFR, get rid of progressionless systems (horizontal), etc.. The MMO genre is dying because it is being diluted by having its foundational pillars assaulted by these "innovations" that undercut what made MMORPGs a great genre of game in the first place. It's time to go back to Everquest 1 and start improving from there.
You are a hero, I agree with every point.
Can't believe you don't consider player class design a pillar ! It most certainly is and one on which many fail. Then to top it off you call it a holy trinity and totally neglect the support classes. It is a quadruplet not a trinity.
In addition to player class design being a pillar, I would say balance is a pillar because without it games fail. People just play the most op'd class and making groups becomes difficult with the game just not being fun.