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Making an MMO World Seem More Worldly
PokemonTrainerRed
Member UncommonPosts: 375
One thing I've noticed with MMOs is how little they feel like a world anymore and I think it might be just due to growing up with them. From the invention of the MMO world, where and NPC stands there infinitely with that explanation above his head. Never eating. Never resting. Never changing. Looking back on it, I think that's why I liked Tabula Rasa - the NPCs usually got kicked out of various places and tried to fight to get them back.
So what could a MMO world consist of to make it more worldly, more realistic?
- NPCs that have lives, they move around the world doing their day to day business. They sleep at night, they eat breakfast and dinner, they converse with other players and NPCs.
- Seasons and weather. Outside of seasonal events, the season and weather rarely changes. Weather is more implicated these days, and I would relate it back to NPCs who actively seek to stay out of bad weather or attempt to enjoy good weather.
- Quests and missions that make sense on a group level. For the most part, an NPC with give out the same quest a hundred times, to help with that one old NPC over there to fetch some water. Well realistically, that woman most likely has an ocean's worth by now. Dynamic events are part of the solution to this, the other is for NPCs to recognise that you are a cog in the machine. You are a hero...just like everyone else.
- Difficulty and challenge. MMOs have one commodity on their hands, and that's time. Players are there to spend as much time as possible in the world. And why should everything be easily accessible? Make world creatures that are too strong to be killed, places that are very difficult to access. MMOs are supposed to be the height of challenging gaming. Games that are challenging enough that people need to work together.
Any more ideas and suggestions?
Comments
Thanks OP.
I liked your thoughts here. I do believe we'll begin to see some development toward this more worldly approach to creating an immense and diverse environment. As for market strategies and surveys? Not so sure they always are "gospel". I more or less am over this idea that mmo studios necessarily seek "millions and millions" of people that think exactly the same way when it applies to how they game or what they will appreciate in an mmo.
Gamers are as unique as finger prints. So, I shall keep the faith that one day what the OP has put forth might become reality.
Alyn
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Just gimme some truth
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Most MMO worlds these days are simply too small for my tastes, and usually in MMOs these days every square inch of the game world seems to be used for some quest, and there is little or no wilderness or opportunity to explore. Zones also make the world feel less open and far less real, particularly when you factor in zone walls, artificial barriers, etc (this was one of the big problems I always had with the world in EQ1).
For me, the best MMO world I've ever played in was Asheron's Call 1. Huge world with countless areas to explore, no loading screens (other than going through a portal), monthly changes to the world, etc. I'd love to see a game world like this again.
If it was done well? Yes, I think millions of people would play a true open world sandbox/sandpark MMO. The current choices are all made by low budget indy dev teams, or are a completely broken pile of shit. If a AAA dev team ever gets the sack to make a game like this and does it right, then the sky is the limit IMHO.
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Well what makes the world worldly? Size and the inability to see it all.
Travel is too easy and immediate in MMO's. In real life, even in regards to an extremely popular destination like Paris or New York or Tokyo, you can ask someone, "Have you ever been to ____?" And even if they have, it may have only been once or twice. In MMO's if you ask someone if they've been to ___ major city, the answer is of course an absolute yes. Not only that, but they go there constantly for vendors and trade purposes.
This is also why people are "sick of elves" and stuff like that. Because everything has become a trope to satisfy accessibility. In LOTR, it's an important moment when they go to Rivendell, seeing a race of people's who are generally reclusive and seeing architecture that is abjectly foreign to you is what makes the world feel large and wonderous.
But if you go there every 5 minutes and all races/classes are constantly intermixing, then you'll never feel that sense of awe. For example, if you're a white person and you travel to rural southeast asia, people look at you like you're some kind of mythical beast. And you kind of are. They rarely (if ever) interact with us, they have only heard about us on tv/radio/newspapers, we're basically just a collection of sound-bytes to them. But if you go to Canada, you're just some dude.
A large, difficult to traverse world, could actually be it's own endgame. Rather than having people on a gear treadmill, what if you and your small guild, decided you would make the trek in some random direction to see what you might find. Would you find other players, would you find rare NPC's and so on? It would be awesome. Or at least, to me it would.
I don't think so .
First of all , you don't need NPC to give quests .
Just create big world fill with monster (challenge) and stuffs (reward) to discover and play with .
If you like to have quests , just add some bounty quests on request board .
Though add some NPC to "talk" with is interest lol .
Let players interface with players is better than player interface with NPC .
Believe or not , simple design still better in many way .
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The biggest problem with market surveys like that, is that there are very few players (and developers) that can imagine a great open world game. We just simply all lack the imagination of what could be.
The first developer that can open with that trick, will beat WoW.
To beat wow, need to be more addict then wow it self, I think any new mmo try to beat wow will have a there work cut out. But I think there many good mmo out there. Just there don't catch on like wow did, there not more addict to keep them away from wow.
It's not about the imagination or ideas not being there, it's about suits, money and profits (*and in a big part what can be done in reality). We have had games like Ultima Online but the big studios want the big WoW money and try to copy it. You don't have to look at the feature list of UO too long to figure out that more modern games are cutting things left and right. Crafting, housing, skills, gathering, and the world itself with multiple cities and dungeons.
If Minecraft is anything to go by for the lowest bar of an open world and sold over 20 million copies. I would say there is a huge market for it. There are tons of block based knock offs and Minecraft itself has a world size 7 times the surface of the Earth. Then you have EQ:Next that will be using a voxel based world and have not only huge continents but also depth that you can dig down into, like Minecraft, while also populating the world with player made structures.
How about DayZ sold over a million copies and it's just an alpha with a 20km square map. Sony is even going to copy that with H1Z1.
Then there are tons of indie/crowdfunded stuff like Life is Feudal, Project Gorgon, The Repopulation, Shroud of the Avatar, Shards:Online, No Mans Sky, Star Citizen...
There is an entire process to making an idea a reality. How well it can be executed and what compromises will need to be made is much more involved than just saying "We just simply all lack the imagination of what could be."
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Why the H$#% do so many threads on mmorpg.com get turned into sandbox selling point!
OP, I would like massive sized worlds where we get to explore. Not just areas or corridors filled with quest objectives.
I was talking with friends the other week and one of the things we all agreed upon that we miss from older games was the ability to just spend some time exploring games.
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How would difficulty and challenge make a MMO, or any game, seems more worldly? Diablo 3 can be very challenging at high greater rift levels, and the challenge has zero to do with being "worldly".
And MMOs are not supposed to be anything .. much less the height of challenging gaming. I think that goes to e-sports.