This article is a mess. It is talking about a number of different things, yet somehow lumped them together in the same category:
1) How to create dynamic content in your game through GM involvement
2) How to increase customer satisfaction ratings when customers look for support
3) How to invest less money in customer support by making more efficient tools in-game
All of these are interesting points, and while I see merit in them all, I think the problem lies with this article sounding more like a gamer's unstructured ramble than a published article.
I went down to the GM area and spent a few days answering CS tickets and interacting with players. (...) Perhaps only 20% of the time was there an immediate satisfying result for the customer. I asked myself “for all the money we are spending on customer service, why can’t we be using that to add value to the game itself?”
(...) I wanted them to be greeters, guides, and actors in an online world, creating small events and content on the fly.
Congrats. You hated the job you were doing and wanted another one that'd be more fun. But someone still has to deal with all the annoying stuff. We have CS people for a reason.
I see a sort of event “template” that gets created with stock storyline text/VO, a list of monsters and NPCs ready for the GM to spawn, and rewards that are packaged and ready to hand out to players.
Don't we already have this? GW2 dynamic events or Rift's eponymous events as examples, and all without the overhead of people hitting the "spawn mega boss" button back at the office?
This article seems to hunger for things that were changed a long time ago, mostly for good reasons.
We're not running on machines anymore that made calculator watches seem like magic. A lot of stuff that might have needed manual tweaking "back in the day" can and easily is now automated.
Few people are really new to MMOs and would need the help of an introduction to the world. Those who do have typically an in-game tutorial and tons of off-line resources to help them out. You know, the internet.
Games in the old days had, as you said, dozens of players online. Looking at the popular MMOs these days, there are usually 10,000s or 100,000s of players online. How many GMs would you like to hire to reach even a small fraction?
I never played MUDs but played text based single player RPGs on an IBM PC back in the 80s. Its interface looked similar to the screen shots I have seen for MUDs. I had to use my imagination and it was completely immersive.
Nostalgia is great, there was a MUD article not while ago, I wrote there as well that it'd be great to bring back some aspects of MUDs - but highly unlikely it will ever happen, sadly. 20 years passed, that's a huge amount of time in IT and gaming.
Not to mention, from all those aspects, GM events? As neotron wrote above, it was even against the rules in many MUDs (true, I too played on a few which had a more open policy on this matter), and on the other hand it's not a rare thing today, I used to cite Codies LotRO for an example of GM events, but even at Turbine there's a few, like the Hobbit to Isengard series at the moment, or the Ettenmoors event was.
What I would love to see from the MUD / MUSH era is the totally open access to the game code. There's the Foundry in STO and Neverwinter, and it's great, but still that's only used for missions. Maybe the release of AC servers from Turbine will jumpstart the modding aspect in the genre. It won't be as free as MUDs were, simply due the tech changes. That era is gone already. C and LPC was so clean and easy, if you had the inspiration you could write a whole area with storylines and npc's and quests in a weekend. A good one, I mean.
The technology has advanced, not regressed. Check out Unreal Engine 4, and Unreal Tournament 4. The problem for an mmo is with pirate servers being set up, and with out of theme content being mixed in, it is not a technology problem.
Originally posted by dumpcat I never played MUDs but played text based single player RPGs on an IBM PC back in the 80s. Its interface looked similar to the screen shots I have seen for MUDs. I had to use my imagination and it was completely immersive.
Can anyone recommended a MUD to check out?
3k.org
3 Kingdoms is great, the quests are the best I have ever come across, in any game, ever.
I actually went and checked if the mud that I used to play before EQ1 was still alive, and, IT IS!!!
It takes place in middle-earth (Tolkien for those who don't know) and has RL death for trolls if they're out when the sun rises. Orcs have negative effects if they fight during daytime. It's 100% open world pvp, no safe zones allthough trying to chase someone inside any of the cities will most likely result in certain death. The same goes for troll tunnels and orc homes.
This was why EQ1 was so special for me once it released. It was like playing a mud but with graphics. Maybe it's why today's muds doesn't get that thrill anymore? Well, could also be that they're to easy. No danger feeling at all.
Originally posted by dumpcat I never played MUDs but played text based single player RPGs on an IBM PC back in the 80s. Its interface looked similar to the screen shots I have seen for MUDs. I had to use my imagination and it was completely immersive.
I spent several years running NWN servers and events on them, and I have worked as a MMO GM on a major game, the two require very very different skillsets although there is cross over in contextual knowledge the vast majority of GMs wouldnt be able to do it, and the vast majority of DMs (essentially what you want) would go crazy as a GM.
Its two very different sides of the brain that are required to function as either.
I admined on a merc/diku mud where things were a little more relaxed
did the usual zone creation, both original content (the Vishna'ak say 'Hi') and porting decent zones from other muds
also worked on system tweaks and game enhancements with the coder, those discussions were fun
otherwise I was usually just creating chaos, didn't hand out items, people needed to get those things themselves, but regularly ran creature invasions of random zones. could do that as often or as little as i liked
it was more fun though to load in a bunch of weak mobs, then edit one or two on the fly to turn them into fearsome engines of death & destruction, and then sit back and watch the carnage
the MUD days are over really, the world has moved on.
I played a lot of MUD's in the day (primarily LPMUD and Diku MUD's). None of the MUD's I played on had anything resembling a GM that actually interacted with the player base. There were admins (Wizards in LPMUD's for example, which I was on several) that actually built the world (LPC programming) but at least on the MUD's I played, they were strictly forbidden to interact with players in a game changing fashion.
I do think it would be awesome to have GM driven events in MMO's but given the size of MMO's and number of servers, it would be hard to achieve in a meaningful way. Today this typically is end-of-beta events which almost always turn out to be a horrible gameplay experience in terms of "fun factor". Last example is Wildstar which had devs come in and summon various bosses. There was literally 10-30 second lag, frequent disconnects and even the best computers could barely hope to go above 10 FPS at minimum quality.
As much as it would be cool to see, it doesn't seem likely that it's something that ever will exist on mainstream MMO's. It might be something indie MMO's can pull off, ones with a much smaller player base and a more intimate experience with the developers.
just to clarify it, back in the days of PEN AND PAPER RPGs the gm was the GAME MASTER. the one who usualy created and "led" people through the adventure and not some helping random without powers :P
last game (and maybe only) that really utalized that idea was basically neverwinter.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I cut my MMO teeth on Multi User Middle Earth which is still active at www.MUME.org, game is 23 years old and still going. It had a very steep learning curve and my characters first night he starved to death because the shops closed at dark and food and water were essential parts of the game. Also God help you if you were outside the city gates at night because Orcs and Goblins would PK you on sight.
I feel sorry for the MMO players who cut their teeth on follow the bread crumb MMO's. That being said l I do love my 3D graphics and have no intention of going back to the text games
Nothing like those good things you described - 'greeters, guides, and actors' - will exist until someone persistent enough create a VR where GMs are players or players at some point will influence world, creating changes through their actions. Task for a giant, that is.
Comments
This article is a mess. It is talking about a number of different things, yet somehow lumped them together in the same category:
1) How to create dynamic content in your game through GM involvement
2) How to increase customer satisfaction ratings when customers look for support
3) How to invest less money in customer support by making more efficient tools in-game
All of these are interesting points, and while I see merit in them all, I think the problem lies with this article sounding more like a gamer's unstructured ramble than a published article.
I went down to the GM area and spent a few days answering CS tickets and interacting with players. (...) Perhaps only 20% of the time was there an immediate satisfying result for the customer. I asked myself “for all the money we are spending on customer service, why can’t we be using that to add value to the game itself?”
(...) I wanted them to be greeters, guides, and actors in an online world, creating small events and content on the fly.
Congrats. You hated the job you were doing and wanted another one that'd be more fun. But someone still has to deal with all the annoying stuff. We have CS people for a reason.
I see a sort of event “template” that gets created with stock storyline text/VO, a list of monsters and NPCs ready for the GM to spawn, and rewards that are packaged and ready to hand out to players.
Don't we already have this? GW2 dynamic events or Rift's eponymous events as examples, and all without the overhead of people hitting the "spawn mega boss" button back at the office?
This article seems to hunger for things that were changed a long time ago, mostly for good reasons.
We're not running on machines anymore that made calculator watches seem like magic. A lot of stuff that might have needed manual tweaking "back in the day" can and easily is now automated.
Few people are really new to MMOs and would need the help of an introduction to the world. Those who do have typically an in-game tutorial and tons of off-line resources to help them out. You know, the internet.
Games in the old days had, as you said, dozens of players online. Looking at the popular MMOs these days, there are usually 10,000s or 100,000s of players online. How many GMs would you like to hire to reach even a small fraction?
Can anyone recommended a MUD to check out?
The technology has advanced, not regressed. Check out Unreal Engine 4, and Unreal Tournament 4. The problem for an mmo is with pirate servers being set up, and with out of theme content being mixed in, it is not a technology problem.
3k.org
3 Kingdoms is great, the quests are the best I have ever come across, in any game, ever.
Nice memories popping up!
I actually went and checked if the mud that I used to play before EQ1 was still alive, and, IT IS!!!
It takes place in middle-earth (Tolkien for those who don't know) and has RL death for trolls if they're out when the sun rises. Orcs have negative effects if they fight during daytime. It's 100% open world pvp, no safe zones allthough trying to chase someone inside any of the cities will most likely result in certain death. The same goes for troll tunnels and orc homes.
http://mume.org (Multi User Middle Earth)
Have fun if you wanna try and step into the past.
This was why EQ1 was so special for me once it released. It was like playing a mud but with graphics. Maybe it's why today's muds doesn't get that thrill anymore? Well, could also be that they're to easy. No danger feeling at all.
I recommend Aardwolf. It has a great MUD client to use as well. http://www.aardwolf.com/
I spent several years running NWN servers and events on them, and I have worked as a MMO GM on a major game, the two require very very different skillsets although there is cross over in contextual knowledge the vast majority of GMs wouldnt be able to do it, and the vast majority of DMs (essentially what you want) would go crazy as a GM.
Its two very different sides of the brain that are required to function as either.
I admined on a merc/diku mud where things were a little more relaxed
did the usual zone creation, both original content (the Vishna'ak say 'Hi') and porting decent zones from other muds
also worked on system tweaks and game enhancements with the coder, those discussions were fun
otherwise I was usually just creating chaos, didn't hand out items, people needed to get those things themselves, but regularly ran creature invasions of random zones. could do that as often or as little as i liked
it was more fun though to load in a bunch of weak mobs, then edit one or two on the fly to turn them into fearsome engines of death & destruction, and then sit back and watch the carnage
the MUD days are over really, the world has moved on.
just to clarify it, back in the days of PEN AND PAPER RPGs the gm was the GAME MASTER. the one who usualy created and "led" people through the adventure and not some helping random without powers :P
last game (and maybe only) that really utalized that idea was basically neverwinter.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I cut my MMO teeth on Multi User Middle Earth which is still active at www.MUME.org, game is 23 years old and still going. It had a very steep learning curve and my characters first night he starved to death because the shops closed at dark and food and water were essential parts of the game. Also God help you if you were outside the city gates at night because Orcs and Goblins would PK you on sight.
I feel sorry for the MMO players who cut their teeth on follow the bread crumb MMO's. That being said l I do love my 3D graphics and have no intention of going back to the text games
I miss DAoC