MMOs typically have the same content: PvP, PvE, some type of housing or building content, crafting/gathering, and exploration. Outside of this there is nothing new or unique. Its hard to feel like each game is a unique world when you do the same thing in each one. So I ask, what new type of content would you add to MMOs to make them unique? They csn be completely revolutionary or a spin on traditional content. But how would it be separate from everything else?
It's weird to ask the question after mentioning PVP and PVE, as those two terms literally define all gameplay a game can have. A game will always have a goal, and working towards that goal will always involve competing against a player (PVP) or not (PVE). So no gameplay is "outside of this".
Of course because those terms are broad enough to encompass all gameplay, we can simply avoid pretending like two games which have PVP are offering the same gameplay, because we know TF2's gameplay is way different from LoL's and Starcraft's.
With MMOs there is quite a long list of what's possible, but the intersection of the list of what's fun tends to be quite a lot shorter.
There's also a lot of unknown space. For example in another thread I mentioned Evolve as a fun little asymmetric PVP game where 4 hunters take on 1 giant monster and it's reasonably well balanced. The asymmetry makes it feel very distinct from typical PVP games where even if you select Zerg vs Protoss in SC2 (very asymmetric races), you're still the same power level. The MMO version I described took that and reversed it with a Zombie game: 4 survivors would attempt to survive against ~16 zombie players. The "unknown" in this case being: after effort is expended to give zombies and survivors interesting abilities and give zombies sufficient rewards for merely damaging survivors (who are likely to kill them 19 times out of 20), would such a game manage to be fun long-term? The answer for Evolve turned out to be no sadly, but I don't think it's automatically a bad type of PVP (Evolve was fun enough for me to believe there's room for more asymmetric PVP games.)
Of course that skips the moment-to-moment gameplay that actually makes the game. Basically it's a FPS like Left4Dead with lateral progression. You'd unlock new characters and perks. Each match would start both sides out with very basic weapons (pistol, wood plank, basic zombies) and over the course of the match both sides would periodically get access to stronger stuff (shotgun, chainsaw, leaper zombie) with your character 'loadout' influencing how that plays out (you may need the Criminal character to pick the lock on the gun store to get inside to loot that shotgun, but the Gun Nut character can actually use the shotgun better.)
Of course just describing the bare basics of this game ate up a ton of text, so not as much room to mention the variety of RPG-style ideas that would be quite a bit different, which can run the spectrum of fully turn-based RPG combat systems like Atlantica to just being significant variations on existing real-time RPG combat systems (like how Pirates of the Burning Sea's ship combat was nothing close to the typical combat of MMORPGs.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Game wide mysteries that everyone can be working on solving. E.g., how to become a Jedi in original SWG.
That sounds fun, but in practice it doesn't end up working that way. There might be half a dozen high-level people who actively solve some piece of the mystery before it's all solved, but it never ends up being something "everyone" actually ends up participating in.
I want to help design and develop a PvE-focused, solo-friendly, sandpark MMO which combines crafting, monster hunting, and story. So PM me if you are starting one.
... Here is another problem I'm worried by. I want others' input on. A player takes a PMC quest to kill X players of faction A in zone B. Zone B has a road that everyone commonly uses. So that player makes a PMC quest that players of faction A will take. This quest will have them travel on the road in zone B making them easy targets for him to kill.
I thought of the game making these kind of quest as random quest to encourage PvP. But if a player does it, then I feel it is an exploit. To lure other players into an ambush. What do you think?
It depends how 'organic' the game world / systems are... If PlayerA is free to take a quest to kill other players and is smart enough to create a quest to attract other players to a certain area so they can kill them, then as long as those other players are free to see that PlayerA created the quest to drew them there and can A. freely kill playerA or B. create a quest for someone else to freely kill PlayerA, then it's not an exploit. i.e. There are consequences for PlayerA undertaking those actions, such as death and / or distrust of future quests they create.
The random quest idea is an interesting one, and something I have toyed with myself, but I still don't have a good answer for: A. How to balance risk, time spent, resources required, etc. with reward in a dynamic manner. B. How to make random / repeatable quests engaging.
Taking the simple approach you could have it so that reward = X * rats killed, but that is hardly engaging and why not just have a static quest for rat tails and let the player decide how many to kill?
Taking a more complicated approach you could have a large quest with lots of dynamic elements, bonus treasure, etc. etc. which could be engaging (or just a pain depending on RNG), but how do you reward it appropriately given a variance in player abilities (and skill), wants and goals?
Also, keep in mind that most people will do something once if for no other reason than to get it over with, but ask them to repeat it and they are more than likely to walk away.
... Here is another problem I'm worried by. I want others' input on. A player takes a PMC quest to kill X players of faction A in zone B. Zone B has a road that everyone commonly uses. So that player makes a PMC quest that players of faction A will take. This quest will have them travel on the road in zone B making them easy targets for him to kill.
I thought of the game making these kind of quest as random quest to encourage PvP. But if a player does it, then I feel it is an exploit. To lure other players into an ambush. What do you think?
It depends how 'organic' the game world / systems are... If PlayerA is free to take a quest to kill other players and is smart enough to create a quest to attract other players to a certain area so they can kill them, then as long as those other players are free to see that PlayerA created the quest to drew them there and can A. freely kill playerA or B. create a quest for someone else to freely kill PlayerA, then it's not an exploit. i.e. There are consequences for PlayerA undertaking those actions, such as death and / or distrust of future quests they create.
The random quest idea is an interesting one, and something I have toyed with myself, but I still don't have a good answer for: A. How to balance risk, time spent, resources required, etc. with reward in a dynamic manner. B. How to make random / repeatable quests engaging.
Taking the simple approach you could have it so that reward = X * rats killed, but that is hardly engaging and why not just have a static quest for rat tails and let the player decide how many to kill?
Taking a more complicated approach you could have a large quest with lots of dynamic elements, bonus treasure, etc. etc. which could be engaging (or just a pain depending on RNG), but how do you reward it appropriately given a variance in player abilities (and skill), wants and goals?
Also, keep in mind that most people will do something once if for no other reason than to get it over with, but ask them to repeat it and they are more than likely to walk away.
Well for random, you have a base MAX reward. A $10.00 random is never worth more than that. People talk about "risk/reward" where there really isn't a risk. Let's be honest, it is about exploiting the reward for maximum gain.
For the quest, if you are saying I put out a quest to kill my character, putting a time limit on it could be the way to attract someone to a location. You have 25 minutes to complete this quest........
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I think that MMORPGs are currently limited in content for one basic reason -- the only systems that a character can engage in are combat and crafting. I think the answer to adding new content comes with adding systems that utilize new types of content. [...] Just some ideas.
Hm, I really like some of these, the others are questionable. But this is by far, my favorite suggestion.
I think MMOs should try to make the event system be, ya know, like a real events. Something that affects the entire area AND/OR the quests or events you are participating in have a reverse or mirror quest or event that another player or group can undertake, essentially making all quests be PvP in a way.
If you get the quest to kill X bad guy from some tower who took the mage that lived there hostage to make them a super spell which will destroy Y village... Another player or group can get the quest that says "Go to X mage tower, take that mage hostage and force him to make you a spell to destropy Y village.
The other group can be the BAD GUYS! PvP Questing. I'm copyrighting it
A two faction game where a gamemaster(s) control one faction and players control the other. Not sure if players should be allowed to be gamemasters or not though. I suppose it could work.
I'd like to see a mix between sandbox and themepark. One faction only, with zero world pvp. Duels or training fights would be fine. Maybe arenas, but the fokus should be 100% pve. The world would be evolving all the time via gamemasters controling the enviroment. (Main reason i'm not sure players should be allowed to be gamemasters) Ofc. the enviroment would need to be mostly controlled by AI but a gamemaster could ex. decide to launch an attack on a city and actually take it and maybe even keep it. He could decide to create a natural disaster in one part of the kingdom so players would need to help relieve the area and so on.
Player faction side you would have a political powerplay between several houses within the faction. Each player would join a house and be able to rise in rank within the house. With help from a large guild ofc it would be easier to rise in rank. At the end you may even get to lead the house and have a chair in the kings counsil helping him decide how to lead the kingdom and the war effort, move resourses away from the war more toward whatever your house is especially interested in.
The king would be a game-master and be able to call in the counsil for talks about where to direct the resourses of the kingdom. The counsil would be called together probably once a month and in case of a great threath to the kingdom the king would call in the counsil more often.
Maybe it could be done with two rival kingdoms and a common enemy to help balancing the power, but with the two kingdoms at war and the world evolving i'm worried about faction balance and one kingdom taking over the other.
Would i play this game ? I dont know. I realy like the idea of a living world. But ofc. the game itself would need to be fun too. I like the idea of a player counsil, but if the counsil realy dont have a say in how the world/game evolve then it realy doesn't matter.
Comments
Of course because those terms are broad enough to encompass all gameplay, we can simply avoid pretending like two games which have PVP are offering the same gameplay, because we know TF2's gameplay is way different from LoL's and Starcraft's.
With MMOs there is quite a long list of what's possible, but the intersection of the list of what's fun tends to be quite a lot shorter.
There's also a lot of unknown space. For example in another thread I mentioned Evolve as a fun little asymmetric PVP game where 4 hunters take on 1 giant monster and it's reasonably well balanced. The asymmetry makes it feel very distinct from typical PVP games where even if you select Zerg vs Protoss in SC2 (very asymmetric races), you're still the same power level. The MMO version I described took that and reversed it with a Zombie game: 4 survivors would attempt to survive against ~16 zombie players. The "unknown" in this case being: after effort is expended to give zombies and survivors interesting abilities and give zombies sufficient rewards for merely damaging survivors (who are likely to kill them 19 times out of 20), would such a game manage to be fun long-term? The answer for Evolve turned out to be no sadly, but I don't think it's automatically a bad type of PVP (Evolve was fun enough for me to believe there's room for more asymmetric PVP games.)
Of course that skips the moment-to-moment gameplay that actually makes the game. Basically it's a FPS like Left4Dead with lateral progression. You'd unlock new characters and perks. Each match would start both sides out with very basic weapons (pistol, wood plank, basic zombies) and over the course of the match both sides would periodically get access to stronger stuff (shotgun, chainsaw, leaper zombie) with your character 'loadout' influencing how that plays out (you may need the Criminal character to pick the lock on the gun store to get inside to loot that shotgun, but the Gun Nut character can actually use the shotgun better.)
Of course just describing the bare basics of this game ate up a ton of text, so not as much room to mention the variety of RPG-style ideas that would be quite a bit different, which can run the spectrum of fully turn-based RPG combat systems like Atlantica to just being significant variations on existing real-time RPG combat systems (like how Pirates of the Burning Sea's ship combat was nothing close to the typical combat of MMORPGs.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The random quest idea is an interesting one, and something I have toyed with myself, but I still don't have a good answer for:
A. How to balance risk, time spent, resources required, etc. with reward in a dynamic manner.
B. How to make random / repeatable quests engaging.
Taking the simple approach you could have it so that reward = X * rats killed, but that is hardly engaging and why not just have a static quest for rat tails and let the player decide how many to kill?
Taking a more complicated approach you could have a large quest with lots of dynamic elements, bonus treasure, etc. etc. which could be engaging (or just a pain depending on RNG), but how do you reward it appropriately given a variance in player abilities (and skill), wants and goals?
Also, keep in mind that most people will do something once if for no other reason than to get it over with, but ask them to repeat it and they are more than likely to walk away.
Well for random, you have a base MAX reward. A $10.00 random is never worth more than that. People talk about "risk/reward" where there really isn't a risk. Let's be honest, it is about exploiting the reward for maximum gain.
For the quest, if you are saying I put out a quest to kill my character, putting a time limit on it could be the way to attract someone to a location. You have 25 minutes to complete this quest........
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I think MMOs should try to make the event system be, ya know, like a real events. Something that affects the entire area AND/OR the quests or events you are participating in have a reverse or mirror quest or event that another player or group can undertake, essentially making all quests be PvP in a way.
If you get the quest to kill X bad guy from some tower who took the mage that lived there hostage to make them a super spell which will destroy Y village... Another player or group can get the quest that says "Go to X mage tower, take that mage hostage and force him to make you a spell to destropy Y village.
The other group can be the BAD GUYS! PvP Questing. I'm copyrighting it
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
I'd like to see a mix between sandbox and themepark. One faction only, with zero world pvp. Duels or training fights would be fine. Maybe arenas, but the fokus should be 100% pve. The world would be evolving all the time via gamemasters controling the enviroment. (Main reason i'm not sure players should be allowed to be gamemasters) Ofc. the enviroment would need to be mostly controlled by AI but a gamemaster could ex. decide to launch an attack on a city and actually take it and maybe even keep it. He could decide to create a natural disaster in one part of the kingdom so players would need to help relieve the area and so on.
Player faction side you would have a political powerplay between several houses within the faction. Each player would join a house and be able to rise in rank within the house. With help from a large guild ofc it would be easier to rise in rank. At the end you may even get to lead the house and have a chair in the kings counsil helping him decide how to lead the kingdom and the war effort, move resourses away from the war more toward whatever your house is especially interested in.
The king would be a game-master and be able to call in the counsil for talks about where to direct the resourses of the kingdom. The counsil would be called together probably once a month and in case of a great threath to the kingdom the king would call in the counsil more often.
Maybe it could be done with two rival kingdoms and a common enemy to help balancing the power, but with the two kingdoms at war and the world evolving i'm worried about faction balance and one kingdom taking over the other.
Would i play this game ? I dont know. I realy like the idea of a living world. But ofc. the game itself would need to be fun too. I like the idea of a player counsil, but if the counsil realy dont have a say in how the world/game evolve then it realy doesn't matter.