Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Need one game that defies MMORPG conventions
Archlyte
Member RarePosts: 1,405
For the ease of communication I may have said "We" or "Players" in the text. I am simply doing that for the sake of sound, and I of course welcome dissent as to common perceptions.
MMORPGs are built to provide the current kind of experience using the following principles:
1) Failure is not an option. Nothing you do in modern MMORPGs has any consequence. They are merely success over time scenarios. You spend enough time and you will succeed (can be co-opted by real money for time). If something exists in game then it has to be shared with the rest of the class (see 6 No Identity). You cannot fail in anything in game given the right gear, capable allies, or cash. Furthermore, failure is not tolerated by the customers, who demand that they have no breath of failure in the game. Oh you failed to beat the boss? don't worry you have years to do it if you don't quit out of boredom.
2) Disconnection. Because everything is without consequence and context, all activities are essentially disconnected except for crafting and economy. You can use items from adventuring to craft, or you can usually buy those items from the in-game Amazon known as the auction house. Playing the auction house is the only thing that has a context, but little chance of consequence, as you can only "lose" if you buy something that does not sell. In games where there is heavy instancing this is exacerbated by the fact that actions occur insulated from the gameworld as experienced by all players at once.
This means that whatever you do you will be of no consequence to the world and therefore others. No one playing the game is affected by anything in any way other than what the devs do, which means that the rate of change and thus variation in the game world is dependent upon slow, expensive programming.
3) See-Through God. In MMORPGs the physics and nature of the game space is too well understood. The result is that all players are essentially able to predict what will happen in any situation based on stats. If you have the stats (or Stat in most games as multiple combinations was too hard to deal with for the simple minds of all involved) then you know the win condition. There is little hope or conjecture. Some stat modeling is ok if it simply serves to be something to help describe the character, but when the mechanics of all events are known it becomes a game of pokemon.
Classes and builds are a big symptom here. There has to be roles and classes because the system is so well known that characters have to fit into that machine in an overt manner. You want to use a bow? Ok you have to be a ranged DPS with few HP and maybe a pet to soak damage from NPCs that attack you. No wait, I want to use a bow but I want to be tough, and I don't like pets. So what. The mechanics say you need to be this and decades of D&D law back it up.
4) The World is a Painting that is treasured by the devs. That cup will always be on that table. That painting always tilted to the left. That farmer is always standing next to his haystack. Until there is a game with full interaction and consequence of action there will only be static worlds that are unchanging. The chief argument that is usually brought up against this is that players will essentially "wreck" the world. The idea then becomes to limit the ability of characters to interact in certain areas, and before long Dev Authoritarianism is the rule and Player freedom is gone. There are technology constraints to this problem, but the main problem is devs who are unwilling to give a world to players. For most people the novelty of wrecking stuff will wear off soon, and if there are consequences for breaking things the result is a mode of play (break and evade, break and pursue, etc.).
MMORPGs are built to provide the current kind of experience using the following principles:
1) Failure is not an option. Nothing you do in modern MMORPGs has any consequence. They are merely success over time scenarios. You spend enough time and you will succeed (can be co-opted by real money for time). If something exists in game then it has to be shared with the rest of the class (see 6 No Identity). You cannot fail in anything in game given the right gear, capable allies, or cash. Furthermore, failure is not tolerated by the customers, who demand that they have no breath of failure in the game. Oh you failed to beat the boss? don't worry you have years to do it if you don't quit out of boredom.
2) Disconnection. Because everything is without consequence and context, all activities are essentially disconnected except for crafting and economy. You can use items from adventuring to craft, or you can usually buy those items from the in-game Amazon known as the auction house. Playing the auction house is the only thing that has a context, but little chance of consequence, as you can only "lose" if you buy something that does not sell. In games where there is heavy instancing this is exacerbated by the fact that actions occur insulated from the gameworld as experienced by all players at once.
This means that whatever you do you will be of no consequence to the world and therefore others. No one playing the game is affected by anything in any way other than what the devs do, which means that the rate of change and thus variation in the game world is dependent upon slow, expensive programming.
3) See-Through God. In MMORPGs the physics and nature of the game space is too well understood. The result is that all players are essentially able to predict what will happen in any situation based on stats. If you have the stats (or Stat in most games as multiple combinations was too hard to deal with for the simple minds of all involved) then you know the win condition. There is little hope or conjecture. Some stat modeling is ok if it simply serves to be something to help describe the character, but when the mechanics of all events are known it becomes a game of pokemon.
Classes and builds are a big symptom here. There has to be roles and classes because the system is so well known that characters have to fit into that machine in an overt manner. You want to use a bow? Ok you have to be a ranged DPS with few HP and maybe a pet to soak damage from NPCs that attack you. No wait, I want to use a bow but I want to be tough, and I don't like pets. So what. The mechanics say you need to be this and decades of D&D law back it up.
4) The World is a Painting that is treasured by the devs. That cup will always be on that table. That painting always tilted to the left. That farmer is always standing next to his haystack. Until there is a game with full interaction and consequence of action there will only be static worlds that are unchanging. The chief argument that is usually brought up against this is that players will essentially "wreck" the world. The idea then becomes to limit the ability of characters to interact in certain areas, and before long Dev Authoritarianism is the rule and Player freedom is gone. There are technology constraints to this problem, but the main problem is devs who are unwilling to give a world to players. For most people the novelty of wrecking stuff will wear off soon, and if there are consequences for breaking things the result is a mode of play (break and evade, break and pursue, etc.).
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Comments
6) No Identity. Thou shalt not be different in any way, for this promotes jealousy, that element which will cause the downfall of the universe. "Where did you get that hat?"
"I got it from a dungeon that used to exist on the frontier near Blackhaven."
"Can I get one of those?"
"No we destroyed that dungeon, but maybe you can find the same hat in another place."
TANTRUM
If there is anything that someone has that you don't, well that just can't happen. I mean what makes you so special? Why can't I have what you have? Why am I playing my guy when I really want your guy with my avatar name. It's natural that players behave the way they do because for decades devs have been helicopter parents, catering to all wishes while teaching nothing.
Well I paid 15 bucks so I should be equal!
Yeah. That's the issue, customer power wins out in the end, and thus the 15 bucks bought you a boring world. Children of the world unite. There is no immutable law of the universe that says 15 bucks = all things are available to me. There is a strong mob mentality that maintains this convention, but it does not have to be so. If a game is expressly about being able to forge your own way then the details of others' pursuits should be less important. If you spend your day wishing you had something instead of trying to get it you have wasted your day. Some people skip the attempt and just go straight to being disgruntled (see Failure is not an option).
Everyone must have the same shit given enough time in game. Ever notice how the end game characters end up being the same as each other? Yeah that's because no one can be denied anything. When everyone is special...
7) Easy Worlds, or: PvP makes me feel bad. PvP in MMORPGs is a highly charged contest of the fast fingered (connection) in a game that usually contains hours of half-attentive play. Because the play is so different, and because it is often the only time that an Immortal Immutable Avatar is challenged, getting beat in PvP can be a crushing experience for some people. This invincible character they have collected into being, and who beat Ragnaroar the Boss with his group has now been respawned in .8 seconds by a DPS character named "IeatzurMom." After nothing but coddled success against knockdown puppets, you are faced with challenge (and perhaps feel pressured by different rewards for PvP in an otherwise same same world, see the power of difference!), and against a real human no-less!
If the game world itself was less forgiving and static, PvP would not be so jarring for many. The PvE experience simply fails to prepare people for PvP, and so they find the game to be turned upside down on them when nothing is ever like that in their experience in the game. In some games this is actually done on purpose by the devs who feel that PvP is really what is important since they cannot use killer AI because of convention. hey get to essentially blame it on the other players and just hoist the Jolly Roger in the PvP zone. I would prefer that a dragon be more feared than a great PvPer, but this will never happen in current games because that player can kill that dragon easy in addition to facerolling players. When players have figts tat routinely last 15 seconds in PvE and go to getting burned down in less than a second the result is that PvP looks better to some than the rest of the game, and PvP turns off everyone who was bait and switched about combat and liked what they could do before PvP destroyed that notion.
Let's recap: Players hate change because it never happens, they are used to being equal, they are used to success in any situation given enough attempts. PvP gives them little of that, so many hate it immensely.
If a game were to come out that was successful, and could break these conventions, I think it could un-do a lot of the problems that the genre has with evolution. Leave the WoWs and the EVEs in place of course, I'm not arguing for revolution, just alternative.
Allow me to discuss your third point in isolation. There's two distinct aspects lumped into this single point, simplicity of mechanics and restrictions of classes. I'll discuss these independently.
- Simplicity of mechanics. Mechanics of games like Everquest (EQ1) are buried in code and the specifics are not directly visible to the player, only distinguishable through detailed analysis of many cases. It took players years to understand some of the order of specific combat events (dodge, parry, block, counterattack, plus class abilities, plus numerous AA effects). There are few result messages describing combat resolution events. The players have still have only a vague understanding of the exact mechanics as implemented in the server side code.
- Restrictions of classes. Allow me to suggest that classes are defined to force players into specific play styles, and make logical limitations more palatable to the player. A ranger has high ranged DPS, but isn't much good in a melee fight due to lower HPs and lighter armor. Given the opportunity, almost every play would opt for a high ranged DPS, but with higher HPs and heavy armor. Basically, one purpose of classes is to promote differences in characters, avoiding the tank-mage syndrome where each character can do everything at the absolute top level.
About this point, both your manifesto and my reply are both totally subjective opinions. I don't see systems in current game as being too simple or too complex, mostly just too familiar. There's too much transparency, too much similarity between games and not enough mystery and innovation in the industry. Classes are necessary, both now and in the future, to players from engaging in the social aspects of MMORPGs -- asking for help, selling an item, or just being individuals. Without the social interactions, these games just become exercises in solitude.Other games, like Neverwinter, are based on well-known analog systems (D&D), and the specifics are very transparent (result messages describing each combat resolution). The external rules give pretty good ideas on how the abilities are supposed to interact with combat resolution and each other.
Both systems are complex implementations. The difference is that the physics are more familiar with one system due both to an external source and specific result messages, and the other tries to be an opaque black-box system. Simplicity or complexity of the system isn't the issue. Hit points are about the simplest (and most common) system to represent health. Some systems hide the enemies HPs, while others present this information freely. Limiting information is one aspect for making a simple system appear more complex, just as providing information can make it appear that a system is simpler. The player uses the available information in their risk assessment to answer the fundamental question of 'Will this action succeed?'
But that is very highly determined on the specific implementation of the details of combat. Game systems that favor absorption of damage (plate armor of exotic materials and shields -- like D&D) over damage avoidance by movement (dodging, evading or ducking -- more like martial arts) or damage avoidance by skill (blocking, parrying -- more like fencing) provide different definitions of what is 'good' within that game. The ranger with light armor might be a superior choice in a game with a focus on damage avoidance by movement, because the light armor hampers them less than the sword and board fighter wearing heavy plate mail.
So, classes force players to accept a set of restrictions that they might otherwise not choose in ways that encourage individuality and promote interdependence between characters. This is the basis for player interaction -- one character has a skill / ability / attribute that will aid another to obtain a goal.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
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?"
So what's your point? Don't have discussions unless you are a studio?
If you are a company that will actually build a game you can't really have this discussion out in the open now can you?
Not sure if you found my ideas to be not to your tastes, or if you just feel that conversations are pointless so why have them. The lack of explanation in your post left me with that problem.
This huge OP is part of the problem of too many problems to try to solve at once. Better to start by approaching from a non-MMORPG genre or niche game instead of fixing everything wrong about MMORPGs.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The point is people can make these pronouncements stroke their f-ing ego and don't have to do anything to prove it. Massive f-ing egotism.
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?"
If you wish to discuss something, it should be done in some constructive manner...
As a SWG and UO player, the class restrictions I see in other games make sense. You could take a bit of healing, but the hybrid tax would ensure you weren't as good as someone who specialized in it, and your dps would be lower. The newer games just enforce that. The "Holy Trinity" doesn't exist in every game, and where it does it allows for more complex mechanics.
Your failure is not an option statement doesn't make any sense to me. Success over time by definition means you had to keep trying after failing, getting more skilled at the game and maybe getting better gear on the way.
Consequences in a game world such as you describe mean that if there are multiple servers, they would diverge from each other and you'd eventually have as many games as you have servers. It does sound like fun, but from a developer standpoint makes adding anything new to the game an impossible dream. Any patches would have to be written for each individual server. Until we can support hundreds of thousands of players on one codeset, it's not gonna happen. Maybe the cloud will allow for the sort of world you're looking for.
Its largely opinion however based on individual experience. I've never beaten every PVE raid, world boss, obtained every best in slot item for my characters, and my guess is neither has the OP or most others who find time to post on these forums.
So the OP is posing more of a conceptual problem and explanation on why people don't have the stones to enjoy PVP, just took a rather long winded way of going about it.
But the real fault of the OP and other threads like it is it is long on theories with little hard proof, and worse, offer no suggestions or solutions to the problems and issues raised.
OK, OP doesn't like chocolate cake? What would the OP suggest be done to improve it?
As noted, one does not have to be a professional chef (or game designer) to offer a solution.
It probably would help a person provide more valid answers as they would be speaking from a position of experience rather than someone who once spent a night in a Holiday Inn Express.
These forums are long on complaints, but few offer solutions which would be worthy of in depth discussion, and this thread is no exception.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Try work out the game mechanics for that!
I have seen tons of games come through this site's marketing and all seem the same...."ok now we are working on this class"...and "now we are working on combat"...and now we are working on quality of life improvements".
Where is the TEAM concept behind these games,why are tons of systems not being done at once and "completed"?Why are there not 2-3 guys working on textures,then some on map layouts,some on assets,some on class design,animations,sounds,formula's.it really seems to me like most of these studios although some boast 100+ only have a handful of people actually working.
Then we see something like SC for example where the leaders are off at some interview or convention or doing some movie shoot,or Blizzard execs off to some Blizzcon.Then these "businesses" need to spend a ton on lawyers,geesh SC has a lawyer as the third in ownership.
As to the last poster..."time travel".FFXi had an expansion based on going back in time to the past,before it all happened in the present when npc's were young boys and things looked different.yes they cut a lot of corners but it is most certainly doable ..IF...studios are well run and not wasting tons of money with too many execs and too many freeloaders.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
@Gamer54321 , not that hard, IMO. It's especially easily to do in a PvE environment. PvP might be a bit harder.
A better way to go about it is to discuss specific existing problems and possible solutions like "MMORPGs with consequences" or "Predictable combat good or bad in MMORPGs?" instead of a large spread of them.