Factions are a huge part of creating a virtual world, and a huge short-coming of many modern mmorpgs. I actually mentioned this in a thread yesterday.
Without factions, worlds become lifeless. There is no story or purpose behind many npcs. In EQ, you constantly had to consider people around you to determine whether they were hostile. Most games have relegated this to flagging mobs aggressive or passive usually based on whether you are on Team A or Team B. No other underlying motivations that determine what an npc does. Everquest had racial factions, city factions, class factions, deity faction and all of them regarded other factions differently. Whether people know it or not, factions played a huge role in giving Everquest that immersive feel that the world was a cloth of many threads.
Crafting Factions (Different types of factions allowing you to learn new recipes)
Player Factions (Faction points incorporated into gameplay somehow)
Animal Factions (Animals can be hostile to each other (and players) in the world and attack depending on faction status, e.g. Wolf randomly attacking a Rabbit if within aggro range)
Royal Faction (Heads of states or lands like Kings, Queens etc. for specialty factions)
Sphere Faction (Earning reputation/faction for Adventuring, Crafting or Harvesting etc, becoming known for your preferred play style)
Class Faction (Earning class faction for melee, ranged, spell, healing or tanking etc. to earn reputation in those fields)
Mount Faction (Earning skill or reputation for looking after/becoming more experienced in mount handling, riding etc.)
Pet Faction (Earning skill or reputation for looking after/becoming more experienced in pet handling/raising etc.)
General Factions (Earning skill, reputation or faction in a number of general groups/areas of the game.
Other:
I'm pretty excited to see that Pantheon is being built the same way.
I like all those factions except I'm not certain if I like the idea of having a reputation for being good at x. I take faction to mean what you believe in more then anything. It's likely that choosing a certain classes would almost be like choosing to believe in certain things that exist in the world. If you choose to be a Ranger that worships Tunare (or something of that nature) you would likely believe in helping the innocent, loving nature, exploring. Likewise you would be against those who are opposed to those core beliefs. It is all intertwined together.
Faction is used almost interchangeably with reputation at times. Then faction also can be more of an organization you are involved with. I think Crafting factions are great because it will just be one more "dynamic" thread in the cloth. Think about it, you become renown for your tradeskill and that will locally or universally affect the way npcs interact with you depending on how much depth they give the system. Vanguard had crafting factions for each city if I recall correctly.
People talk about EQ Next and its system of the world following your actions and responding to you accordingly. All that is just a beefed up faction system thats tied to individual npc factions. They are just adding more faction variables to whats existed for a long long time and repackaged it with storybricks.
Factions are a huge part of creating a virtual world, and a huge short-coming of many modern mmorpgs. I actually mentioned this in a thread yesterday.
Without factions, worlds become lifeless. There is no story or purpose behind many npcs. In EQ, you constantly had to consider people around you to determine whether they were hostile. Most games have relegated this to flagging mobs aggressive or passive usually based on whether you are on Team A or Team B. No other underlying motivations that determine what an npc does. Everquest had racial factions, city factions, class factions, deity faction and all of them regarded other factions differently. Whether people know it or not, factions played a huge role in giving Everquest that immersive feel that the world was a cloth of many threads.
Crafting Factions (Different types of factions allowing you to learn new recipes)
Player Factions (Faction points incorporated into gameplay somehow)
Animal Factions (Animals can be hostile to each other (and players) in the world and attack depending on faction status, e.g. Wolf randomly attacking a Rabbit if within aggro range)
Royal Faction (Heads of states or lands like Kings, Queens etc. for specialty factions)
Sphere Faction (Earning reputation/faction for Adventuring, Crafting or Harvesting etc, becoming known for your preferred play style)
Class Faction (Earning class faction for melee, ranged, spell, healing or tanking etc. to earn reputation in those fields)
Mount Faction (Earning skill or reputation for looking after/becoming more experienced in mount handling, riding etc.)
Pet Faction (Earning skill or reputation for looking after/becoming more experienced in pet handling/raising etc.)
General Factions (Earning skill, reputation or faction in a number of general groups/areas of the game.
Other:
I'm pretty excited to see that Pantheon is being built the same way.
I like all those factions except I'm not certain if I like the idea of having a reputation for being good at x. I take faction to mean what you believe in more then anything. It's likely that choosing a certain classes would almost be like choosing to believe in certain things that exist in the world. If you choose to be a Ranger that worships Tunare (or something of that nature) you would likely believe in helping the innocent, loving nature, exploring. Likewise you would be against those who are opposed to those core beliefs. It is all intertwined together.
Faction is used almost interchangeably with reputation at times. Then faction also can be more of an organization you are involved with. I think Crafting factions are great because it will just be one more "dynamic" thread in the cloth. Think about it, you become renown for your tradeskill and that will locally or universally affect the way npcs interact with you depending on how much depth they give the system. Vanguard had crafting factions for each city if I recall correctly.
People talk about EQ Next and its system of the world following your actions and responding to you accordingly. All that is just a beefed up faction system thats tied to individual npc factions. They are just adding more faction variables to whats existed for a long long time and repackaged it with storybricks.
It depends on what the faction means.
Lets take a Ranger as an example again. Does the class faction mean that other Rangers will look at you as a Ranger favorable for raising your skills? I suppose this could work as long as the Ranger skills would force them to act Rangerly. The other way to do it would be to have repeatable quests like track x mob, or find your way to x area from the middle of the forest, or get rid of x menace along x path. They wouldn't have to be abundant and they wouldn't need to be given by NPCs with ! over their head. They could be given by (in this example) Rangers hanging out in their forest hideout by going around and talking to them to see what they have to say. It could work in a similar way for crafting I guess.
Find an NPC that gives a quest (No "!'s" Just greet NPC's to find hidden quests) to find the guys brother that has gone missing. Last seen going NW of town to collect cave moss for a medical potion that will save his ailing wife's life. Blah blah blah...accept and head NW. Find a cave and figure it's there. Deep inside, after fighting through droves of spiders, you find the guys brother slumped against one of the caverns walls. You inspect the man to find him dying.
He tells you he stumbled upon a band of goblins within the cave and overheard them talking about a large impending attack on Town B found through the other side of the cave and to the SW. They discovered him ease dropping and attacked, leaving him for dead. He wants you to deliver a message to Town B warning them of the coming attack set for the next evening.
From here, you are given options.
1. Tell him you will deliver the message, here by accepting the quest. (Dying man goes on a long respawn timer)
2. Ignore his request, take the dying man's coin, and continue on your own adventures. (Dying man goes on a long respawn timer). Spiders attack you while making noise looting the dying man. Possible Spider queen spawn upon killing X amount of spider drones.
3. Take the dying man's sword and medicine pouch to show to his brother as evidence of his brother's demise.
Possible outcomes to each decision:
1. Continue through the cave and find the exit, get to the village in question and warn them via the town Mayor. The Mayor will fortify the town walls with NPC soldiers, will start the attack shortly after. You can accept another quest for reward by helping fend off the attack, or choose not to. Other players can help fend off the attack as well. Any player in the village will have a quest pop up on screen for it and choose it or not.
2. Quest givers wife dies. Wife is on a long timer to respawn. Original quest giver (The guys husband) has a quest to find out what happened to his brother, tells you if you discover foul play..find the offenders and get revenge for him and bring back evidence. The village is still attacked upon you turning in..but it is attacked unprepared due to no warning. Players can attack the goblins as they attack. Goblin Captain spawns for the attack.
3. Quest giver mourns his brother, but thanks you for telling him. He gets the moss from the pouch, makes the potion, and heals his wife. She also thanks you and gives you a reward (Whatever decided on). The village is still attacked upon you turning in..but it is attacked unprepared due to no warning. Players can attack the goblins as they attack. Goblin Captain spawns for the attack.
I know this is complicated...but imagine quests like this.
*Random events*
Like if the had a boat travel system like EQ did to go between continents. What if pirates attacked randomly. Sea monsters, bad storms that throw the boat off course to a different continent, or maybe discovers an island, etc.
* Mini games*
If players want to unwind a bit with friends between quests, raids, etc. What if they incorporated a card game like in FF8 with collectible cards. Win them from other players and collect them all for a further reward. Even talk to NPC's and maybe discover they play and have rare cards you can win. Etc, etc.
*GM events*
Random orc raids on towns, bandits along travel paths. Wolf pack attacks, giants attacking, Dragons, etc, etc.
This boils down to player freedom vs immersion for me. I commented on this issue earlier, but did not get into enough detail. Seeking a mage for instant transportation does encourage player interaction, and immersion to some level. But ultimately takes away individual player freedom. If it were say, a craftable item that could only be produced through limited resources, (which would automatically make it expensive) by a magic user; then anyone could use it. I realize, a auction house would get rid of most of the player interaction with this method though, hence the original statement.
I do agree that limiting the amount of places you can fast travel to, is a good idea. This restricts freedom, but for (in my opinion) good reasons. And allowing magic users the ability to fast travel without said item, would just be another bonus for wielders of that art.
I understand the point of view, and generally agree. I enjoy player freedom, too. But sometimes, I get really sick of the "player freedom" mantra. Why should everyone be able to do everything? Where are the differences? Is the only difference going to be character models?
"Player freedom" is just another one of those passive aggressive terms that people throw around to shame you into changing your position on something.
Just like "forced grouping".
Pay no mind to that bull feces.
"Perceived player freedom", Is a important part of MMOs, albeit only one of many to consider; but no less vital. I was not trying to shame anyone. He presented a point of view on the issue, and I offered another one; while giving my reasons for seeing this issue the way I do. And as I hinted at earlier, thank goodness I am not being paid to try and balance all these concepts(in a attempt to attract as many players as possible), and at the same time; keep everything from becoming mediocre. He and I can remain diametrically opposed on this subject and still have a friendly conversation about it.
As I said to another poster in here, maybe I am just not as passionate about my hobby as you.
That's just the wrong way to look at it. If you want the "freedom" to teleport around, you pick the class that has that ability. If a player chooses to play the game and play a class that doesn't have this ability, that was their choice. They either chose the wrong class, or chose the wrong game. Take your pick.
Thats like me playing a first person shooter and complaining that I don't have a ray gun and space goggles that let me see through walls. Just because one game might have that feature doesn't entitle you to have it in every game.
Throwing around terms like that are akin to people who claim everything they don't like is discrimination.
More importantly, you create social and economic interactions as people ask and or pay for teleports from friendly wizards and druids. The same as people asked rangers for help in tracking named mobs or necros for tracking or summoning corpses. You can create conveniences and still have them serve a community purpose by limiting who gets what and forcing people to share abilities as well as resources with each other. Bards were the perfect social class.
I'm sorry, but hasn't action combat been around since the Atari 2600? I'm pretty sure that controller based gaming has been around just as long. There is nothing new or innovative about the "modern" MMO. All of those combat systems have been done before. Those limited sets of skills and spells have been around in single player games for decades. You don't represent the future of gaming any more than we represent the past. We all merely have different tastes for mechanics and content that has been around since the dawning of the computer game.
Even when they create virtual reality games, you'll still be dealing tropes, paradigms and plots that have been around since man first invented the idea of entertainment. The point being that very little out there is original, the best we can do is present it in slightly different ways with each iteration.
The future of this genre is in the realization that chasing the "masses" is less effective than appealing to multiple niche audiences. There are many reasons why we have distinctive genres in music, tv, movies, books, computer games and eventually in MMOs.
I'm sorry, but hasn't action combat been around since the Atari 2600? I'm pretty sure that controller based gaming has been around just as long. There is nothing new or innovative about the "modern" MMO. All of those combat systems have been done before. Those limited sets of skills and spells have been around in single player games for decades. You don't represent the future of gaming any more than we represent the past. We all merely have different tastes for mechanics and content that has been around since the dawning of the computer game.
Even when they create virtual reality games, you'll still be dealing tropes, paradigms and plots that have been around since man first invented the idea of entertainment. The point being that very little out there is original, the best we can do is present it in slightly different ways with each iteration.
The future of this genre is in the realization that chasing the "masses" is less effective than appealing to multiple niche audiences.
I'm playing a 100% blizzlike Wrath of the Lich King right now with thousands of players all over the world. This has nothing too do with "nostalgia" at all. People that say it does are making that excuse because they're happy with the simplified, dumbed down games of today that cater to people like them who don't want to think or use their mind and learn something.
This WoTLK I'm playing right now is 10x better then the current retail Wow. (Even back in 2008 it was considered a dumbed down version of WoW) There are hundreds of thousands of people like me playing older versions of MMORPG's online because they find the current retail MMORPG's simplified, boring, and a waste of time to play. Even SWG PRE CU was a better, more indepth, complex fun Star Wars game then SWTOR ever was. Even the old SWG PRE CU has it's own following online.
Nostalgia is an excuse for the ignorant young gamer who had no idea what these games were like back then, or for the 30 - 40 year old gamer who wanted everything done for him and didnt find any enjoyment because he felt all pc games should cater to his every need of entitlement and complaints even when most gamers who were playing these games did not have a problem to begin with because they could read a manual or take 5 mins too do some research to learn the mechanics of the game they were playing.
I'm sorry, but hasn't action combat been around since the Atari 2600? I'm pretty sure that controller based gaming has been around just as long. There is nothing new or innovative about the "modern" MMO. All of those combat systems have been done before. Those limited sets of skills and spells have been around in single player games for decades. You don't represent the future of gaming any more than we represent the past. We all merely have different tastes for mechanics and content that has been around since the dawning of the computer game.
Even when they create virtual reality games, you'll still be dealing tropes, paradigms and plots that have been around since man first invented the idea of entertainment. The point being that very little out there is original, the best we can do is present it in slightly different ways with each iteration.
The future of this genre is in the realization that chasing the "masses" is less effective than appealing to multiple niche audiences. There are many reasons why we have distinctive genres in music, tv, movies, books, computer games and eventually in MMOs.
Originally posted by GeezerGamer "I remember when you had to actually go somewhere when you wanted to actually do omething."
"85% of the people travel someplace they've already been. Where's the fun in that?"
For that, throw in maybe 2 classes of players that do have teleport abilities (like EQ's Druids and Wizards). Now, you have the very limited ability to fast travel to specified points, but have to go through another player in order to do so, not simply everyone clicking on a point on their map.This creates player interaction and reasons why it is a multiple player online game :)Maybe I should refine my point to "unlimited fast travel sucks."
This boils down to player freedom vs immersion for me. I commented on this issue earlier, but did not get into enough detail. Seeking a mage for instant transportation does encourage player interaction, and immersion to some level. But ultimately takes away individual player freedom. If it were say, a craftable item that could only be produced through limited resources, (which would automatically make it expensive) by a magic user; then anyone could use it. I realize, a auction house would get rid of most of the player interaction with this method though, hence the original statement.I do agree that limiting the amount of places you can fast travel to, is a good idea. This restricts freedom, but for (in my opinion) good reasons. And allowing magic users the ability to fast travel without said item, would just be another bonus for wielders of that art.
I understand the point of view, and generally agree. I enjoy player freedom, too. But sometimes, I get really sick of the "player freedom" mantra. Why should everyone be able to do everything? Where are the differences? Is the only difference going to be character models?
"Player freedom" is just another one of those passive aggressive terms that people throw around to shame you into changing your position on something.Just like "forced grouping".Pay no mind to that bull feces.
"Perceived player freedom", Is a important part of MMOs, albeit only one of many to consider; but no less vital. I was not trying to shame anyone. He presented a point of view on the issue, and I offered another one; while giving my reasons for seeing this issue the way I do. And as I hinted at earlier, thank goodness I am not being paid to try and balance all these concepts(in a attempt to attract as many players as possible), and at the same time; keep everything from becoming mediocre. He and I can remain diametrically opposed on this subject and still have a friendly conversation about it.As I said to another poster in here, maybe I am just not as passionate about my hobby as you.
"Perceived Player Freedom"... I like that term
Be assured I was not offended or felt belittled
- 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
Originally posted by Stone_Fountain When you don't care about your character, what happens to them or death in general, there is far less connection or concern for your comrades. And thats what we are really talking about. You can play, have no emotional attachment, pwn then move onto the next thing. Very sad.
This! Right here! This one line is the key to my happiness in an MMORPG. Help me care about my character
- 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
Older games DO have better things in them, a lot of them. The issue is that those older 'good' elements are so outdated and stale as they were. Instead of improving on them or developing them out, they were just often tossed out. I think a good example of showing what NOT to do was Wildstar. Taking on the style of an oldschool MMo wasn't bad the fact it just left it as is with its flaws really hurt the game. Final fantasy 14 ARR, on the other hand, found a way to bridge the gap far more keeping those old school elements but doing so in a way that didn't feel so tedious.
I feel that if an MMO can find the right balance taking the good from the old and improving it, as well as using actual good elements of newer games (which there are good elements) it can be a strong contender, at least as much in a saturated market place as possible.
I'm playing a 100% blizzlike Wrath of the Lich King right now with thousands of players all over the world. This has nothing too do with "nostalgia" at all. People that say it does are making that excuse because they're happy with the simplified, dumbed down games of today that cater to people like them who don't want to think or use their mind and learn something.
This WoTLK I'm playing right now is 10x better then the current retail Wow. (Even back in 2008 it was considered a dumbed down version of WoW) There are hundreds of thousands of people like me playing older versions of MMORPG's online because they find the current retail MMORPG's simplified, boring, and a waste of time to play. Even SWG PRE CU was a better, more indepth, complex fun Star Wars game then SWTOR ever was. Even the old SWG PRE CU has it's own following online.
Nostalgia is an excuse for the ignorant young gamer who had no idea what these games were like back then, or for the 30 - 40 year old gamer who wanted everything done for him and didnt find any enjoyment because he felt all pc games should cater to his every need of entitlement and complaints even when most gamers who were playing these games did not have a problem to begin with because they could read a manual or take 5 mins too do some research to learn the mechanics of the game they were playing.
Cheers,
-Trash
Yet you play a dumbed down version of WoW? Wrath is not any more complicated than MOP was. It was dumbed down to hell - LFG, piss easy levelling and no raid progression whatsoever (every patch made the previous raid tier obsolute). I wouldn't call it 10x better than retail. The only major difference between Wrath and current WoW I can think of are the new talents and maybe the new classic zones which Cata crapped all over.
That one was the first expansion which appealed to the casuals so they can see some raiding action beyond the introductory raid ;D
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Yes, in many respects EQ would be an improvement over current games - but some things can and have definitely been solved better than EQ did them.
- EQ means classes with a single task, and few abilities, and a lot of downtime between combat to regenerate your mana and health, and to me as a healer player it also means sitting down DURING battle, to regenerate mana faster, which is passive and boring and silly.
I want Vanguard, which had a much better combat system. Sitting down did NOTHING except you graphically sat down. Except for the poor solo Warrior, nobody had real downtimes.
And the classes usually had two tasks, one primary and one secondary, except maybe some truely pure damage dealer classes (like Sorcerer), and all classes have been very complex and not easy to master. I loved how even after having a playtime of friggin 100 days, I still had ideas how to improve my gameplay with my Cleric. Not to mention that I had maxleveled my Sorcerer and still felt not sure how to exactly play him, because there are just so many possibilities.
- I also want a truely seamless world. Vanguard didnt have that either. Vanguard was seamless, but had chunks, and getting over a chunk border meant you had a delay and would for example also lose any mob that previously chased you. Instead, I want much smaller chunks, and all eight chunks around your current position would always be loaded, so if you crossed a chunk border, you wouldnt know at all, since there is no delay, and the game would simply load the five new chunks that are next to the new one and arent loaded yet in the background(*) and of course mobs should be able to chase you indefinitely over any number of chunks.
- And yes, the world should be open, no "questing on rails".
- I want questlines that are long and tell a great story. I dont want a "travel quest" that just sends me all over the world. Well, okay, SOME quests might certainly be this way. But that should be the exception.
- I want some solo content. Yeah dungeons are off limits unless you are totally uber, okay. But there should be some possibilities to travel the world on your own and still have fun.
- I want NO MAXLEVEL at all. Or a maxlevel you cannot possibly reach, ever. I simply dislike the very idea of "maxlevel" and "endgame". The game should start the very moment you start playing, not later. Just make leveling get slower and slower and slower and make it reap less and less and less benefits. So a level 50 might challenge a level 80 and still stand a chance, even if its just 25%. While the level 30 kills the level 20, easily.
- Also, yes, slow leveling. Vangards was too fast.
- I do NOT want crafting as it is in Vanguard. Yes maybe Vanguard is superior to any other game - but that still was a hell of an uber boring grind. I want crafter level linked to adventurer level - your crafter level could be at most 10 above your current adventurer level - and you have to solve questlines to level your crafter.
- I also would like to be able to work for five minutes on a sword and its average, or 10 hours on a sword and its awesome, possibly returning to the task the next day to make it even better. Same of course for the mats - you can just buy regular mats from the shop, or you can travel the world for rare and improved mats, and with a lot of luck or time, even get absolutely exceptional materials. In short, you can work on items as long as you want, though your efforts will face diminishing returns.
- I also like the idea of mass crafting. Many players can combine their efforts to create a single legendary item. Its some sort of guild buff and really requires a lot of combined work from a lot of players.
And... another one of "those" games: Unrestricted Combat: Players may engage each other anywhere using an attack/block combat system without auto targeting.
- 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
I think the problem is not only with the MMORPG genre. Latelly, most Single Player games have the same issue for me. They have no "deph", I cant get into them, everything seems too shallow and they are not as immersive as they used to be.
Take Skyrim, for example. Its an ok game, but not even close to what Morrowind or Oblivion used to be. But most young gamers love Skyrim because they have never played anything better before.
The same example goes with Diablo 3. D3 can't be compared to Diablo 1 or 2. That would be heresy. I am not saying D3 is a bad game, but its not even close to what his older brothers were.
The only games that actually got me hooked to playing them in this new generation, were the Dark Souls series, and the Witcher 2. Those games were really good for me, and thats it.
I'm sorry, but hasn't action combat been around since the Atari 2600? I'm pretty sure that controller based gaming has been around just as long. There is nothing new or innovative about the "modern" MMO. All of those combat systems have been done before. Those limited sets of skills and spells have been around in single player games for decades. You don't represent the future of gaming any more than we represent the past. We all merely have different tastes for mechanics and content that has been around since the dawning of the computer game.
Even when they create virtual reality games, you'll still be dealing tropes, paradigms and plots that have been around since man first invented the idea of entertainment. The point being that very little out there is original, the best we can do is present it in slightly different ways with each iteration.
The future of this genre is in the realization that chasing the "masses" is less effective than appealing to multiple niche audiences. There are many reasons why we have distinctive genres in music, tv, movies, books, computer games and eventually in MMOs.
MMORPGs using action combat is a new combination of old ideas. That's how innovation works. If you wanted to waste your own time, you could claim any innovation wasn't innovative by pointing to the root ideas it's based on. (Although really I wouldn't equate "new MMORPGs" and "action combat" as things like ESO still aren't going to be characterized as an action game by most people.)
You picked the wrong-sized genre to want lots of niche products. The business realities of MMORPGs mean that it will serve a lot fewer niches than all the smaller genres out there. If someone wants to serve a niche, they're just going to be more successful not creating an MMORPG. Tiny indie games serve a huge breadth of niche audiences.
In fact the designer of Civ4 is in the building next door making Offworld Trading Company, an RTS with zero combat but all economic competition. It still has a bit to go before it feels final, but I've playtested one of his other projects (unreleased) and it shaped up pretty quick into something I was really excited about personally. But the main point is it's a small team building a small game, which opens up the possibility for them to make big innovations! Big teams with big games (MMORPGs) don't have that luxury.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Are you also fine with dramatically cutting the number of quests?
100 non-branching quests you can do in any order.
OR 50 faction-specific quests (in a 2-faction game)
OR 25 faction-specific branching quests (ie choose 1A or 1B)
OR ~8 two-stage branching quests where choosing 1A then leads to branching quest 2A/2B while 1B leads to 3A/3B.
These numbers are from the player's point of view. In the first case a new player can literally play 100 different quests. In the last case, a player will experience at most a total of about 8 quests.
Basically we're saying the team is going to work on 100% of quests, and any given player will only experience 8% of that work.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I agree with OP whole hearty. When I look at some of the complaint of the new mmo player, I saw stuff like no storyline, no achievement system, no leaderboard, no end game, etc. These are all expectation from people that mainly play console and single player game. I mean cmon, EQ had almost zero story progression. The orc never invade the elf tree town, they just frozen in time setting up camp at the downhill. Nobody complaint about end game because the leveling IS the game. There is no crap excuse like the game only start at level xx.
I fault WOW for all this, for making mmo mainstream, for bringing in console and single player game player to the genre. Sadly, all mmo company are blinded by the 12 millions subs count. They totally forgotten that EQ at its peak only have around 500k subs. When a company willing to create a game cater to this 500k player, that's when the golden age of mmo reignite
Comments
They did not demand the game change. The devs decided to change the games to keep them.
There was billions of dollars that were being left on the table or vanishing from the industry.
Getit. The devs are targeting them. The players are not targeting the devs. They are justleaving.
Faction is used almost interchangeably with reputation at times. Then faction also can be more of an organization you are involved with. I think Crafting factions are great because it will just be one more "dynamic" thread in the cloth. Think about it, you become renown for your tradeskill and that will locally or universally affect the way npcs interact with you depending on how much depth they give the system. Vanguard had crafting factions for each city if I recall correctly.
People talk about EQ Next and its system of the world following your actions and responding to you accordingly. All that is just a beefed up faction system thats tied to individual npc factions. They are just adding more faction variables to whats existed for a long long time and repackaged it with storybricks.
It depends on what the faction means.
Lets take a Ranger as an example again. Does the class faction mean that other Rangers will look at you as a Ranger favorable for raising your skills? I suppose this could work as long as the Ranger skills would force them to act Rangerly. The other way to do it would be to have repeatable quests like track x mob, or find your way to x area from the middle of the forest, or get rid of x menace along x path. They wouldn't have to be abundant and they wouldn't need to be given by NPCs with ! over their head. They could be given by (in this example) Rangers hanging out in their forest hideout by going around and talking to them to see what they have to say. It could work in a similar way for crafting I guess.
Some other things that would be nice to see....
* Branching quests.* Example...
Find an NPC that gives a quest (No "!'s" Just greet NPC's to find hidden quests) to find the guys brother that has gone missing. Last seen going NW of town to collect cave moss for a medical potion that will save his ailing wife's life. Blah blah blah...accept and head NW. Find a cave and figure it's there. Deep inside, after fighting through droves of spiders, you find the guys brother slumped against one of the caverns walls. You inspect the man to find him dying.
He tells you he stumbled upon a band of goblins within the cave and overheard them talking about a large impending attack on Town B found through the other side of the cave and to the SW. They discovered him ease dropping and attacked, leaving him for dead. He wants you to deliver a message to Town B warning them of the coming attack set for the next evening.
From here, you are given options.
1. Tell him you will deliver the message, here by accepting the quest. (Dying man goes on a long respawn timer)
2. Ignore his request, take the dying man's coin, and continue on your own adventures. (Dying man goes on a long respawn timer). Spiders attack you while making noise looting the dying man. Possible Spider queen spawn upon killing X amount of spider drones.
3. Take the dying man's sword and medicine pouch to show to his brother as evidence of his brother's demise.
Possible outcomes to each decision:
1. Continue through the cave and find the exit, get to the village in question and warn them via the town Mayor. The Mayor will fortify the town walls with NPC soldiers, will start the attack shortly after. You can accept another quest for reward by helping fend off the attack, or choose not to. Other players can help fend off the attack as well. Any player in the village will have a quest pop up on screen for it and choose it or not.
2. Quest givers wife dies. Wife is on a long timer to respawn. Original quest giver (The guys husband) has a quest to find out what happened to his brother, tells you if you discover foul play..find the offenders and get revenge for him and bring back evidence. The village is still attacked upon you turning in..but it is attacked unprepared due to no warning. Players can attack the goblins as they attack. Goblin Captain spawns for the attack.
3. Quest giver mourns his brother, but thanks you for telling him. He gets the moss from the pouch, makes the potion, and heals his wife. She also thanks you and gives you a reward (Whatever decided on). The village is still attacked upon you turning in..but it is attacked unprepared due to no warning. Players can attack the goblins as they attack. Goblin Captain spawns for the attack.
I know this is complicated...but imagine quests like this.
*Random events*
Like if the had a boat travel system like EQ did to go between continents. What if pirates attacked randomly. Sea monsters, bad storms that throw the boat off course to a different continent, or maybe discovers an island, etc.
* Mini games*
If players want to unwind a bit with friends between quests, raids, etc. What if they incorporated a card game like in FF8 with collectible cards. Win them from other players and collect them all for a further reward. Even talk to NPC's and maybe discover they play and have rare cards you can win. Etc, etc.
*GM events*
Random orc raids on towns, bandits along travel paths. Wolf pack attacks, giants attacking, Dragons, etc, etc.
Add your own to this conversation.
More importantly, you create social and economic interactions as people ask and or pay for teleports from friendly wizards and druids. The same as people asked rangers for help in tracking named mobs or necros for tracking or summoning corpses. You can create conveniences and still have them serve a community purpose by limiting who gets what and forcing people to share abilities as well as resources with each other. Bards were the perfect social class.
I'm sorry, but hasn't action combat been around since the Atari 2600? I'm pretty sure that controller based gaming has been around just as long. There is nothing new or innovative about the "modern" MMO. All of those combat systems have been done before. Those limited sets of skills and spells have been around in single player games for decades. You don't represent the future of gaming any more than we represent the past. We all merely have different tastes for mechanics and content that has been around since the dawning of the computer game.
Even when they create virtual reality games, you'll still be dealing tropes, paradigms and plots that have been around since man first invented the idea of entertainment. The point being that very little out there is original, the best we can do is present it in slightly different ways with each iteration.
The future of this genre is in the realization that chasing the "masses" is less effective than appealing to multiple niche audiences. There are many reasons why we have distinctive genres in music, tv, movies, books, computer games and eventually in MMOs.
[mod edit]
I'm playing a 100% blizzlike Wrath of the Lich King right now with thousands of players all over the world. This has nothing too do with "nostalgia" at all. People that say it does are making that excuse because they're happy with the simplified, dumbed down games of today that cater to people like them who don't want to think or use their mind and learn something.
This WoTLK I'm playing right now is 10x better then the current retail Wow. (Even back in 2008 it was considered a dumbed down version of WoW) There are hundreds of thousands of people like me playing older versions of MMORPG's online because they find the current retail MMORPG's simplified, boring, and a waste of time to play. Even SWG PRE CU was a better, more indepth, complex fun Star Wars game then SWTOR ever was. Even the old SWG PRE CU has it's own following online.
Nostalgia is an excuse for the ignorant young gamer who had no idea what these games were like back then, or for the 30 - 40 year old gamer who wanted everything done for him and didnt find any enjoyment because he felt all pc games should cater to his every need of entitlement and complaints even when most gamers who were playing these games did not have a problem to begin with because they could read a manual or take 5 mins too do some research to learn the mechanics of the game they were playing.
Cheers,
-Trash
Be assured I was not offended or felt belittled
- 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
- 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
Older games DO have better things in them, a lot of them. The issue is that those older 'good' elements are so outdated and stale as they were. Instead of improving on them or developing them out, they were just often tossed out. I think a good example of showing what NOT to do was Wildstar. Taking on the style of an oldschool MMo wasn't bad the fact it just left it as is with its flaws really hurt the game. Final fantasy 14 ARR, on the other hand, found a way to bridge the gap far more keeping those old school elements but doing so in a way that didn't feel so tedious.
I feel that if an MMO can find the right balance taking the good from the old and improving it, as well as using actual good elements of newer games (which there are good elements) it can be a strong contender, at least as much in a saturated market place as possible.
Yet you play a dumbed down version of WoW? Wrath is not any more complicated than MOP was. It was dumbed down to hell - LFG, piss easy levelling and no raid progression whatsoever (every patch made the previous raid tier obsolute). I wouldn't call it 10x better than retail. The only major difference between Wrath and current WoW I can think of are the new talents and maybe the new classic zones which Cata crapped all over.
That one was the first expansion which appealed to the casuals so they can see some raiding action beyond the introductory raid ;D
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Well ... for the record - I do NOT want EQ.
Yes, in many respects EQ would be an improvement over current games - but some things can and have definitely been solved better than EQ did them.
- EQ means classes with a single task, and few abilities, and a lot of downtime between combat to regenerate your mana and health, and to me as a healer player it also means sitting down DURING battle, to regenerate mana faster, which is passive and boring and silly.
I want Vanguard, which had a much better combat system. Sitting down did NOTHING except you graphically sat down. Except for the poor solo Warrior, nobody had real downtimes.
And the classes usually had two tasks, one primary and one secondary, except maybe some truely pure damage dealer classes (like Sorcerer), and all classes have been very complex and not easy to master. I loved how even after having a playtime of friggin 100 days, I still had ideas how to improve my gameplay with my Cleric. Not to mention that I had maxleveled my Sorcerer and still felt not sure how to exactly play him, because there are just so many possibilities.
- I also want a truely seamless world. Vanguard didnt have that either. Vanguard was seamless, but had chunks, and getting over a chunk border meant you had a delay and would for example also lose any mob that previously chased you. Instead, I want much smaller chunks, and all eight chunks around your current position would always be loaded, so if you crossed a chunk border, you wouldnt know at all, since there is no delay, and the game would simply load the five new chunks that are next to the new one and arent loaded yet in the background(*) and of course mobs should be able to chase you indefinitely over any number of chunks.
- And yes, the world should be open, no "questing on rails".
- I want questlines that are long and tell a great story. I dont want a "travel quest" that just sends me all over the world. Well, okay, SOME quests might certainly be this way. But that should be the exception.
- I want some solo content. Yeah dungeons are off limits unless you are totally uber, okay. But there should be some possibilities to travel the world on your own and still have fun.
- I want NO MAXLEVEL at all. Or a maxlevel you cannot possibly reach, ever. I simply dislike the very idea of "maxlevel" and "endgame". The game should start the very moment you start playing, not later. Just make leveling get slower and slower and slower and make it reap less and less and less benefits. So a level 50 might challenge a level 80 and still stand a chance, even if its just 25%. While the level 30 kills the level 20, easily.
- Also, yes, slow leveling. Vangards was too fast.
- I do NOT want crafting as it is in Vanguard. Yes maybe Vanguard is superior to any other game - but that still was a hell of an uber boring grind. I want crafter level linked to adventurer level - your crafter level could be at most 10 above your current adventurer level - and you have to solve questlines to level your crafter.
- I also would like to be able to work for five minutes on a sword and its average, or 10 hours on a sword and its awesome, possibly returning to the task the next day to make it even better. Same of course for the mats - you can just buy regular mats from the shop, or you can travel the world for rare and improved mats, and with a lot of luck or time, even get absolutely exceptional materials. In short, you can work on items as long as you want, though your efforts will face diminishing returns.
- I also like the idea of mass crafting. Many players can combine their efforts to create a single legendary item. Its some sort of guild buff and really requires a lot of combined work from a lot of players.
And... another one of "those" games:Unrestricted Combat: Players may engage each other anywhere using an attack/block combat system without auto targeting.
- 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
I think the problem is not only with the MMORPG genre. Latelly, most Single Player games have the same issue for me. They have no "deph", I cant get into them, everything seems too shallow and they are not as immersive as they used to be.
Take Skyrim, for example. Its an ok game, but not even close to what Morrowind or Oblivion used to be. But most young gamers love Skyrim because they have never played anything better before.
The same example goes with Diablo 3. D3 can't be compared to Diablo 1 or 2. That would be heresy. I am not saying D3 is a bad game, but its not even close to what his older brothers were.
The only games that actually got me hooked to playing them in this new generation, were the Dark Souls series, and the Witcher 2. Those games were really good for me, and thats it.
MMORPGs using action combat is a new combination of old ideas. That's how innovation works. If you wanted to waste your own time, you could claim any innovation wasn't innovative by pointing to the root ideas it's based on. (Although really I wouldn't equate "new MMORPGs" and "action combat" as things like ESO still aren't going to be characterized as an action game by most people.)
You picked the wrong-sized genre to want lots of niche products. The business realities of MMORPGs mean that it will serve a lot fewer niches than all the smaller genres out there. If someone wants to serve a niche, they're just going to be more successful not creating an MMORPG. Tiny indie games serve a huge breadth of niche audiences.
In fact the designer of Civ4 is in the building next door making Offworld Trading Company, an RTS with zero combat but all economic competition. It still has a bit to go before it feels final, but I've playtested one of his other projects (unreleased) and it shaped up pretty quick into something I was really excited about personally. But the main point is it's a small team building a small game, which opens up the possibility for them to make big innovations! Big teams with big games (MMORPGs) don't have that luxury.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Depth is the number of meaningful decisions that need to be made.
There really is no difference in depth between missy old games and most new ones.
You liking one more than the other does not mean more depth.
Are you also fine with dramatically cutting the number of quests?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I fault WOW for all this, for making mmo mainstream, for bringing in console and single player game player to the genre. Sadly, all mmo company are blinded by the 12 millions subs count. They totally forgotten that EQ at its peak only have around 500k subs. When a company willing to create a game cater to this 500k player, that's when the golden age of mmo reignite
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.