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What would it take to not be just another MMORPG?
mmoguy43
Member UncommonPosts: 2,770
Try to think about this. What features, gameplay mechanics, game systems, etc would there have to be so that you wouldn't call it the "typical MMORPG"? And then, how different would the next MMORPG you'd play after that need to be?
If all MMORPGS were essentially virtual worlds would that be enough to look past similarities between MMORPGs or would there ever be enough to set them apart?
I find it odd that I could pick up any FPS game and have some fun with it even though at it's core it is mostly the same as other FPS games with new mechanics but for MMORPGs it isn't so easy. Maybe it is at the core of MMORPGs (how they are now) I just have hard time enjoying them.
Comments
Get rid of the persistent world, and put in newer multiplayer matching mechanics like Destiny?
A few things I can think of that would make an mmorpg stand out to me...
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Some atypical features I can think of (Not saying they'll be a huge success. Just what it means... atypical
)
1) Permadeath
2) Crime and Justice System
Random idea in my head. Let's say a player gets ganked by another. He can report the ganker to a town and put up a wanted poster. Other players can go on a manhunt. If they catch the ganker, they can kill him or better yet, lock him in jail. The ganker can do his jail time or call on guildies/friends to attack the town and break him out of jail (this puts him back onto the wanted list).
3) Geopolitics
Territories with particular benefits that can be controlled by players. Areas particularly rich in a type of ore vein (copper / iron / etc). Areas with soil that enables different types of crops to produce higher yields. Areas with special crafting stations like skyforges or mana looms that enable crafting of unique and powerful equipment. Areas offering mercenaries which you can hire for support into very difficult dungeons (Support on top of the party limit in dungeons). These perks only become available if your guild/alliance control the territory. Throw in FFA / factions and I'm sure it'll be pretty interesting. Lots of political intrigue.
3) Questing mechanics
Instead of killing mobs by fighting them all the time, introduce killing using environment / traps / etc
Stealth-based quests. (I remember working for my insane-in-the-membrane achievement in WoW. I had to do BRD runs pickpocketing mobs for junkboxes. Wasn't a quest per se, but finding a good circuit to stealth my way through all those mobs was pretty interesting!)
4) Questing rewards
Make quests reward you based on the type of quests you do. Is it a "fed-ex" quest? Doing a lot of running? Increase endurance maybe? Helped someone push a stuck cart? Increase strength. Quests should shape your character based on what quests you accept / decline.
- Been done(Tale in the Desert)
- Been done((Auto Assault)
I guess the stand out part would be having these things together in 1 MMO.
I think if you want to break the "typical" (not very clean what typical here mean)
then first you need to raise the role playing element (on an role playing game lol ) and the next MMORPG after that need difference setting , more complex one or place in some difference setting
Let forget about the profit come from the game and just talk about ideas
If you want to break "typicial MMORPG" the only things you need are "actors" .
In pen n paper we call them gamemaster
Next is mechanics that help actors role more effect.
I will use a small MMORPG for an example :
There are 3 role in this game:
Me : the lord of city , control over ally NPCs
My friend : the evil dragon that control over enemies .
Players : play as heroes , they side with me to fight again evil dragon .
As lord of city ,
i control over quests and what i will buy or sell to heroes (players). i give them quests to clean up monster around city and attack enemy force or some simple tasks
OF course there are the limit of gold and item since i need NPC to mine and craft item for me .
My role is build up a army lead by heroes to destroy enemy (my friend)
My friend also do the same , but his role is destroy everything i build
The fight between me and my friend will create a world where player role playing ,
That's basic concept .
The system i need for that concept are semi auto control of RTS and simulation sims game .
After all , we hit the limit of what PC can do , unless we have human like AI .
also it will create a lots of works , i think we have a lot cheap workers out here so it will be fine .
This part is a joke so don't take it serious lol .
If we don't use actor then it will be difference logic .
For example AI will build a city , quests will auto pop up from citizens and when city grow strong AI will give quests to attack enemy .
Most quest come from city are hunt neutral monsters around city or help citizens with tasks and materials they need .
maybe a system with rare quests will work .
For example sometime guard will give quest to save some citizen kidnapped by monster , and player accept that quest will teleport to special maps , after the quest done , player will return to city's save points .
That's difference system and need more research before i think i can compete tell how will it work.
I never said they were original just that they stood out.
And being a raid or guild leader is not even remotely similar to controlling the team yourself. I was thinking more along the lines of Atlantica Online.
I played Eve Online for three years. I'm retired. Perpetuum is Eve with mechs. Again, I'm done with Eve, can we try something else?
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
As someone who only plays MMORPGs with persistent worlds you would kill my hobby with that suggestion.
They have barely even tapped the possibilities with current MMOs. Imagine a MMO where everyone played as different animals, on land, in the ocean, and everything interacted. Just the amount of themes alone, western, horror, gothic, anime, fantasy, sci-fi, modern, historical, mythical or any unique IP that could be a MMORPG. A MMO based on controlling the weather to terraform the land with rain, lightning, volcanoes, etc. A MMORPG entirly underground, or on a huge space station.
The possibilities are endless. The potential is limitless.
That's why the four pillars of MMORPG design are rubbish. You could make an MMORPG out of pretty much anything and have so many different mechanics and features. If the best you can come up with to make a MMORPG stand out is getting rid of the world it's pretty cringe worthy but not as bad as the copy WOW game design some of these MMORPGs have. How hard is it to do something creative and innovate?
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/A crazy sandbox pvp style mmo that incorporates physical character traits that reflect your character build but also impacts game play. an example: You create a smart mage type, in doing so each point you put into intelligence makes your head bigger, each time your head gets bigger, your coordination goes down and you fall over easier when hit. Another example: You're an arms warrior type, each point into strength you put in adds true mass to your character making you easier to hit, and you become slower all the way to the point that its ridiculous, your huge, your strong but slower then a slug. Never set hard caps, only soft cap all traits by having this physical trait trade off . Sky is the limit in this sandbox mmo:)
For me any MMOs that isn't based on D&D or EQ/Wow (which have D&D in the base as well) isn't a typical MMO.
The problem, as games like Spellborn and TSW have shown us, is that unique mechanics just isn't enough to keep that many players. The game needs also to be fun to play for more than a short period of time.
Why not take a pen and paper RPG and translate it's mechanics into a cumputer game? UO and Meridian 59 did that (even if they borrowed from more than one game and invented a lot themselves) and they both felt very fresh back then.
Take a game like Shadowrun or the classic Call of Cthulhu, they would both work very well as MMOs.
Neither have levels but characters progress in their own way. Interesting worlds (and CoC would need some mechanics that makes the world looks more freaky if you have a low sanity score), a very different player experience then D&D and many possibilities for the players.
Heck, Shadowrun doesn't even have hitpoints but I still think the system would work excellent in a MMO.
Right now it seems like we have 3 alternatives: games with levels that feel like D&D, sandbox games like UO and SWG and FPS MMOs. And yes, Eve so say 4 alternatives. That is still not much when you consider how many MMOs there are.
And don't tell me that levelbased questgames like Wow and ESO is what everyone wants because so few have really tried something else that most people don't even know the alternatives. In pena and paper RPGs there are loads of interesting mechanics and you can pick and choose between a huge bunch of different mechanics and worlds.
Well said.
I wouldn't. No one says we have to play the same games.
And i can't play possibilities, I play games.
It is not hard to be innovate at all. There are plenty. LFD/LFR, instances, phasing, shared world shooter, MOBAs .... all are new and innovative at one point. You may not like them, but you can't argue they weren't innovative when they were new.
Oddly, I think the lack of certain overused elements (replacing them with almost anything less overused) is more important than the addition of new ones. Getting rid of classes chosen at character creation, gods, epic wars, the ubiquitous bland medieval setting, and combat built around one avatar and one monster beating on each other with little strategy or a party of avatars and one boss beating on each other, those would all be a great start.
I would really enjoy an MMO which had tactical turn-based combat using a team of capturable and breedable pets as units.Well the first is not since FFXI has ANY game been a predominant Grouping game which is what a MMO should be.
Realistic stuff like Eco systems,eating/drinking/housing ect ect,it is SUPPOSE to be a ROLE playing game,it should act like one.
Honestly every game VERY minutely touches on good game design but they are ALL doing it within a very cheap budget.I look at it this way,you can't build a Mercedes out of Kia parts and try to sell it off as a triple A game/car.
NPC's are still miles from being a realistic feature inside these worlds,they are just static pieces with a trigger tied to them.Creatures in the wild should move about and should not spawn so fast.
We need to lose levels,i have no idea where that idea came from but it has no realism to it what so ever as it does not simulate aging,which again would be a role playing idea.
If you start with a brands new world,EVERYTHING should have to be discovered and crafted.a Bear should not drop a shield when killed nor should a rabbit drop a sword.Drops should be exactly what you see on the creature.
As talked about on that panel discussion AI needs to be a LOT better.The entire panel missed the point ,they simply took that question as meaning Tough to beat or easy to beat and that is NOT what AI is all about.
Maybe more important than any is questing,it should act like a quest would be and not some instance with a few triggers and a boss to kill.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
So what? I don't want my games real. I have rl for that. I want them to be fun. And there is no such thing as what a MMO "should be". There are only player preferences .. and for my preference, they better not be predominantly grouping games .. otherwise, i am out of there.
Imo game developers tend to be bad at designing games in general:
- poor control over abstractions (poor models, bad animations, general lack of interactivity with the environment, shallow world design)
- unimaginative mood or theme (magic is trivialized, other things act like magic as a gimmick like feats).
- poor world building or none at all
- poor understanding of 'pacing', trivializing gameplay or turning "rpg" gameplay into arcade style gaming
- lacking a fundamental understanding of a 'fantasy' experience, not to be confused with 'fantasy' genre. Mixing everything 'meta' into things that otherwise make for a compelling and immersive experience into a fantasy world (be it about cars, medieval time or modern fps games)
- pointless circle of accomplishments (slay monsters, collect gold, level up, buy items, repeat forever)
- meaningless motivations for playing a game (be a hero!, level up!, look at the graphics!, hear voice acting!)
The next amazing thing in MMO games would have to avoid being shit and thus avoid ending up having degenerate game design elements as listed above.
"And then, how different would the next MMORPG you'd play after that need to be?"
Worring about what comes next seems pointless. Besides, I think it is safe to say that the things about anything 'modern' tend to rely on things from the past, so rarely ever something truly new and original I think.
Can't really judge until we see and try the implementation. From what I've read and from what I've experienced with Landmark, I believe EQ Next may have what it takes, to not be just another MMORPG.
Of coarse SOE could just go and fuck it all up, we'll just have to wait and see.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
An MMORPG based on the real Elder Scrolls series, pre-Skyrim.
- Skill based progression. (No general XP.)
- Factions/Guilds galore that are the main source for questing.
- Well defined classes with the option to create your own with the skills you want your character to use.
- Skills that matter to character development, other than combat.
And most importantly: The ability to FAIL.
- 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
You can fail in all MMOs today. In fact, try going to a raid, and wipe it every time, and see how the raid leader will make you feel your failure by verbally belittle you.
Half the problems that MMOs have can be placed on the doorstep of those that play the game. Things such as dungeon finders, fast travel, these stupid damn pets and mounts as well as all the immersion breaking outfits are in MMOs because the players want them. I personally don't want these things there and many people in this forums don't want them, but there are enough people who do and game developers are often willing to oblige. Same goes for solo content, easier leveling, quest hubs and all the usual MMO troupes. Most players expect these things from MMOs and would probably be appalled if some of these features were missing. So these features are in every-damn-game that has been out in the last five years. Now games are so dumbed down that even idiots think it's too easy.
Maybe I'm just jaded.... but sometimes I feel that there is too much game and not enough world.
Yes he's serious (judging from his previous posts), and I feel the same way. Do not want pressure to play in a group. :P