I think it would be a good move to have players be able to be monsters and create lairs that are dungeons for players. If I had a say a playable dragon I wouldn't care about gear. You can upgrade in other ways.
I assume by beast races you mean, dragons, griffins or whatever legendary creature. If not there are plenty of monster/animal hybrids in MMORPG.
Look at pretty much every MMO out there. Maybe 95% or more are simply human/elves/dwarves and the standard fanstasy races. Cyborgs/Robots of some kind, sure. Some MMOs have beastfolk races. Yet, pretty much no MMO will let you play traditional monster races like undead. The ones that do basically turn them into a race that plays "pretty much like humans except you are technically undead". WoW comes to mind for this. Beastfolk races where you play as a human with fur also annoy me.
I think there are two issues you are talking about here.
1) Non-humanoid characters
The main reason you don't see many games let you play non-humanoid characters is psychology. When we play games, especially RPGs, attachment to one's character becomes one of the most critical reasons for success or failure. If you become attached to your character, you're more motivated to play the game (retention), become more involved in the story (immersion) and are more likely to tell your friends about it (sales).
There have been various studies done over the years, both by psychologists / scientists and game developers looking into this issue. They have all found, without exception, that the further away from human your toon becomes, the harder it is to become attached to them. This is obviously based on averages, not a hard and fast rule.
Therefore, making all playable characters humanoid is an easy decision: it directly leads to a better game.
Beyond that, you've got the cost implications that others have said - the more different types of playable character, the more models you need to make, the more animations you need to do etc. The cost argument, however, only applies where playable characters are sufficiently different. If you had a game where everyone could only be a spider, the cost argument becomes void yet the psychological argument remains.
This is why almost all games focus on humanoid characters. Everything tends to be humanoid, just with minor differences like fur, or horns, or skin colour.
There are also gameplay issues to take into account. If I play a spider, should I be able to climb up walls? If I'm playing a dragon, surely I must be easier to hit with an arrow than a halfling? If I'm playing a robot on wheels, should I be unable to climb stairs?
2) Evil Races
Admittedly, most MMOs I've seen do have evil playable races so not sure how much of an issue it is. Sometimes the license gets in the way (LotRO wasn't allowed proper playable evil races, only monster play, due to the license), sometimes it is the development costs (double the amount of quests and zones), sometimes it simply doesn't fit the lore.
There also tends to be problems with population imbalance. Having just two sides has always seemed like a bad idea to me as there is no room for self-balancing (two smaller sides can team up against the larger), but in life in general 2 sides is usually bad. Just look at the US - both political parties are forever getting more extreme in an attempt to distance themselves from each other, resulting in some really fucked up politics.
Kids also tend to be more drawn to evil races. When playing WAR, for example, the average order player was better than the average destruction player, but there were double the number of destruction players so they usually won in the pvp lakes.
For me personally, I love playing non-humanoid characters or near-humanoid characters (I'm particularly fond of orcs) and I much prefer games/films where there is no good or evil, everyone is morally ambiguous.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
LOTRO had an area where you'd play as a mob; I thought it was fun. I imagine if that became popular enough, they would have expanded it over the years. Any LOTRO players out there know if it is still around?
Well op sadly it would take a lot of writing to explain it in full detail. First of all i have experienced every type of game design out there,i have seen how gamer's play these games and there is definitely a common trend in every game.
Now that i got that out of the way,i can tell you that such a game exists,players don't care.They see an early gimmick but if there is not some shiny rewards at the end of the rainbow,nobody cares.So the problem is not always the developer,it is usually the gamer's. Too many players are NOT mmorpg gamer's,they want some superficial game that has nothing to do with role playing nor an MMO environment and immersion,they seem to not care one bit.
What is that trend?RACING to end level,then expecting Raids to attain the best gear,99% of the players couldn't care less about anything else.Then what happens is if the developer sees that nobody cares,they stop developing good content ideas.
Pancrase:a cool design that allows players to capture creatures in the world and use them to fight in an arena,nobody cares.
Play as the mobs?Yep and with a decent in depth design,nobody cares.They are all off running end game stuff going for that best gear,they couldn't care less about immersion or a role playing game.
Moblin maze mongers:a System whereby you can design the dungeon to some extent,it even has some rewards in the system,but guess what ,nobody cares because the end game gear is still the most desirable option.
So why would a developer waste time and resources to create lots of content and systems if all players care about is Raiding for end game loot?It is all about profits so if the majority are shallow minded gamer's ,this si exactly what we will keep getting.
Uh, lots of content? We are talking about playable monster races here, not some massive game feature. Instead of generic humans, elves, dwarves, etc, it would be some actually unique races instead.
From what i have observed, many under utilized game features that are interesting on paper are poorly implemented, which is why they are under utilized in the first place. Heres an example : I currently play a PvE focused RPG. It has PVP in it, but most players refuse to touch it except to trade wins to get a special PVP item. Why is it under utilized? Is it because players only care about end game raids? No.
Reasons why its under utilized :
-Laggy (PVP servers are hosted in another country)
-Extremely poorly balanced (devs made almost no attempt to balance the different classes)
-Boring (the game was built with PVE in mind, which meant fights against tough bosses, not squishy human players that die in a few hits)
-Rewards are terrible (almost all the rewards are pvp specific gear that are weaker than end game gear from raids, most players only do pvp to get the artifact and then never do pvp again)
Probably because for every monster race they make playable, they lose content opportunity - if vampires, for example are playable, they can't have superhuman strength and agility, night vision, a powerful bite (unarmed melee attack), etc. That eliminates several raid, quest and mob opportunities to only produce a very humanoid race that would likely play very similarly to humans for balance reasons anyway.
Humans, dwarves and elves are almost never enemies in MMOs, so from a design standpoint, making them playable doesn't remove any future content opportunities.
That is very easy to work around. Infact, its a problem that almost all MMOs have resolved as it is. How many MMORPGs can you think of that have humans as a playable race, yet they also have human enemies that are much tougher than human players? Practically all of them. The MMO always says that the human raid boss you are fighting is some kind of champion or other noteworthy enemy...while you, the player, are much weaker and have to fight the boss in a party to win despite being humans as well.
There are a number of reasons. One of them is that if all of the playable races are similar shapes, then they can share clothing models, which makes it practical for all races to have a lot of clothing options available. A race that is different enough from all others to not be able to share clothing models with them would either be incredibly expensive to produce many custom models for just that race or else have to have few clothing options available. If you're okay with all characters of a given race looking exactly the same up to colors and some size sliders, then having a greater variety in playable races is far more practical.
Im not talking about very unique monster races like, say, beholders. Im talking about humanoid monster races. Common clothing would not be a problem.
when you say monster are you referring to "beasts" or "non human" ? Most MMOs allow you to play as both actually.. from what I see at least? As others have pointed out WoW, EQ, GW2 come to mind immediately.
"Beliefs don't change facts. Facts, if you're reasonable, should change your beliefs."
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
There are a number of reasons. One of them is that if all of the playable races are similar shapes, then they can share clothing models, which makes it practical for all races to have a lot of clothing options available. A race that is different enough from all others to not be able to share clothing models with them would either be incredibly expensive to produce many custom models for just that race or else have to have few clothing options available. If you're okay with all characters of a given race looking exactly the same up to colors and some size sliders, then having a greater variety in playable races is far more practical.
That's pretty much it. Though there is one game with a good variety of non human player characters.......butthen again, they had the budget.
Pretty much the whole Horde line up is made of "Monster" Races (apart for the Blood Elves). Maybe that's another reason why WoW is/was so popular. I certainly was an Horde man, never played Alliance.
WoW is a really bad example. Yes, you can play "as an orc". Yet, you do the exact same questing (obviously the exact quests differ, but you get the idea), raiding and PVP as a human, elf or dwarf.
Do you think the world of darkness MMO would have been popular if you played "a vampire, except you do all the regular stuff that a human player does in the same game"?
Its not just the model or the name of the race or the stats that make it different...its ultimately the gameplay that sets it apart.
As an example, warhammer online. Aside from deciding whether you fight on the good or evil side, picking a particular race was more about picking the most OP class rather than wanting to play a particular race. You could be a human or a dwarf...but you would still do roughly the same quests, the same raids, and aside from slightly different class mechanics and skills, they played more or less the same. Even if you played an orc, the only real difference was that you would be fighting on a different side in PVP, your class mechanics were slightly different, and instead of being a dwarf killing NPC orcs, you would be a orc killing NPC dwarves.
At that point, you dont feel like you are an orc, you may as well just be a green skinned, burly human.
Like, one of those MMOs that have two or more mage classes that are practically identical.
when you say monster are you referring to "beasts" or "non human" ? Most MMOs allow you to play as both actually.. from what I see at least? As others have pointed out WoW, EQ, GW2 come to mind immediately.
Im referring to both, but in regards to the "non-standard armor" problem, humanoid monster races would still qualify.
Many MMOs do allow you to play some common monster races like orcs, but it pretty much stops there, and you still play nearly identically to a human, elf, dwarf, or whatever.
Ok you lost me,what exactly are we referring to here? Are we talking about playing the creatures therefor zero questing,pretty much zero content? If you immersed yourself as one of the mobs,then you would have a specific diet and really not much going for your character lmao. Hunt...eat,,,sleep,,,hunt..sleep etc etc.
I already mentioned that FFXI allowed players to play the creature races in the game.So if that is not what we are talking about ,please enlighten me lol. My point was that player base do not care,the feature might be cool,i like it but a very high majority will ignore it if there is not some REWARD dangling in front of them.
That is all gaming is right now...rewards ...rewards rewards,nobody wants an immersive mmorpg.I should narrow it down to END GAME,rewards,people are not even playing a ROLE playing game they are playing a fishing game,fishing for items and they don't care if it makes any sense at all.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
LOTRO had an area where you'd play as a mob; I thought it was fun. I imagine if that became popular enough, they would have expanded it over the years. Any LOTRO players out there know if it is still around?
Yes, it is and the last time I played, you were able to make a spider, warg, several types of orcs and depending on quest rewards, you could unlock creatures such as the battle troll which was like an elite mob.
Yep, there was a similar (or more like the same, as in "why can't we play monsters") thread earlier, with the same posts (hard to animate, difficult on cosmetics, etc.) while there's LotRO's PvMP since almost a decade Spiders (with tiny spider offsprings), wargs, orcs and Uruk-hai orcs, all with plenty of cosmetic options - sure you could still say the animation is choppy... :winky: Plus the time-limited troll play as well, as Rhoklaw said.
With city of heroes, you had the chance to play the stereotypical hero but the expansion also let people play the "bad guys" which almost never happens.
I don't know from where you got that, CoV was really popular and if you look at favourite classes threads, Mastermind is almost always listed as one... And if you check the next Cryptic game (CO), it has even more "monster" options than LotRO, you can play anything from fishes to furries or robots or zombies or rodents or anything you can imagine. True, in CO's case Quizz's above mentioned theory is mostly fitting, you can't really differ from the 2 legs / 2 arms schematics, but you can miss one limb (or even the head ) if that's what you want. And since CO has one of the most robust cosmetic systems out there, you can easily rule out the "would be hard to render the different cosmetics" theory. It can be done, if devs want it (or if their game is nicknamed as Costumes Online ).
It just seems like a really unexplored niche. Im sure there are no shortage of players who would love to play an actual vampire,
I guess you're lucky enough for missing the (ill) chance of logging in into SL?
I think you misunderstood my point regarding city of villains. I was saying that the chance to play actual bad guys almost never happens (which is why it was so popular). The ones that do let you play actual bad guys usually only have it there because the PVP component was designed for a good vs evil face off.
I think you misunderstood my point regarding city of villains. I was saying that the chance to play actual bad guys almost never happens (which is why it was so popular). The ones that do let you play actual bad guys usually only have it there because the PVP component was designed for a good vs evil face off.
There's DCUO, sure not "entirely" an MMO more like a console action game with some MMO topping (don't get me wrong, it is fun and I like it - just being accurate ), you can play the villain side there, roll a bad guy, and not only for the pvp component, it's part of the story. But since it's a brawler, the pvp is there obviously, SOE even stol... was inspired by the CoH/CoV shared missions
(and the mentioned LotRO monster play, while its main purpose is pvp, has a nice PvE part as well, with fun missions and small stories)
You always have the monsters minding their own business and some fucking white knight in their shining armor comes along and starts pew pewing the poor beasts, for nothing more than laughs and giggles.
You tell me! Who are the real monsters?
Monster Races are always getting the shitty end of the stick.
You always have the monsters minding their own business and some fucking white knight in their shining armor comes along and starts pew pewing the poor beasts, for nothing more than laughs and giggles.
You tell me! Who are the real monsters?
So true As Kevin Smith said it (through Randall) in Clerks, about the second Death Star with contractors like plumbers and roofers: "All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract
comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia -
this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All
of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out
everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have
no personal politics."
Look at pretty much every MMO out there. Maybe 95% or more are simply human/elves/dwarves and the standard fanstasy races. Cyborgs/Robots of some kind, sure. Some MMOs have beastfolk races. Yet, pretty much no MMO will let you play traditional monster races like undead. The ones that do basically turn them into a race that plays "pretty much like humans except you are technically undead". WoW comes to mind for this. Beastfolk races where you play as a human with fur also annoy me.
It just seems like a really unexplored niche. Im sure there are no shortage of players who would love to play an actual vampire, think something along the lines of what the world of darkness MMO would have been like before CCP's incompetence killed it (just read up on that story if you want to know what poor project management is). Humans/Elves/Dwarves have been way overdone and I cant remember the last time I saw an actual creative attempt at them.
You don't need to make quest lines involving killing helpless women and children anymore than you need to make quests involving killing helpless orc babies. I mean, look at the city of heroes villains expansions, you had the chance to play a villain but it wasnt about recreating hitler or anything over the top stupid. With city of heroes, you had the chance to play the stereotypical hero but the expansion also let people play the "bad guys" which almost never happens. There was an obvious niche there which they exploited.
But with most MMOs its just the standard fantasy races fighting some ancient evil (or each other). I cant think of any where you actually get to play the monsters instead of "humans who are evil" or "humans who are evil and with green skin". Why is nobody exploiting this niche?
I'm specifically excluding simple text based MUDs, RPG maker, etc from this. Think of something at least on the scale of something like BDO, Tera, Aion, etc.
VO will supposedly allow players to use quadrupedal character models, meaning you can be a snake or horse person.
The only problem is the odds of VO amounting to anything is slim.
You can also choose to be bad or good depending on your actions
Other than that I cannot think of anything else, unless it is a fighting game like MvC where you can select the villains.
Comments
I assume by beast races you mean, dragons, griffins or whatever legendary creature. If not there are plenty of monster/animal hybrids in MMORPG.
1) Non-humanoid characters
The main reason you don't see many games let you play non-humanoid characters is psychology. When we play games, especially RPGs, attachment to one's character becomes one of the most critical reasons for success or failure. If you become attached to your character, you're more motivated to play the game (retention), become more involved in the story (immersion) and are more likely to tell your friends about it (sales).
There have been various studies done over the years, both by psychologists / scientists and game developers looking into this issue. They have all found, without exception, that the further away from human your toon becomes, the harder it is to become attached to them. This is obviously based on averages, not a hard and fast rule.
Therefore, making all playable characters humanoid is an easy decision: it directly leads to a better game.
Beyond that, you've got the cost implications that others have said - the more different types of playable character, the more models you need to make, the more animations you need to do etc. The cost argument, however, only applies where playable characters are sufficiently different. If you had a game where everyone could only be a spider, the cost argument becomes void yet the psychological argument remains.
This is why almost all games focus on humanoid characters. Everything tends to be humanoid, just with minor differences like fur, or horns, or skin colour.
There are also gameplay issues to take into account. If I play a spider, should I be able to climb up walls? If I'm playing a dragon, surely I must be easier to hit with an arrow than a halfling? If I'm playing a robot on wheels, should I be unable to climb stairs?
2) Evil Races
Admittedly, most MMOs I've seen do have evil playable races so not sure how much of an issue it is. Sometimes the license gets in the way (LotRO wasn't allowed proper playable evil races, only monster play, due to the license), sometimes it is the development costs (double the amount of quests and zones), sometimes it simply doesn't fit the lore.
There also tends to be problems with population imbalance. Having just two sides has always seemed like a bad idea to me as there is no room for self-balancing (two smaller sides can team up against the larger), but in life in general 2 sides is usually bad. Just look at the US - both political parties are forever getting more extreme in an attempt to distance themselves from each other, resulting in some really fucked up politics.
Kids also tend to be more drawn to evil races. When playing WAR, for example, the average order player was better than the average destruction player, but there were double the number of destruction players so they usually won in the pvp lakes.
For me personally, I love playing non-humanoid characters or near-humanoid characters (I'm particularly fond of orcs) and I much prefer games/films where there is no good or evil, everyone is morally ambiguous.
You can play a 'monster' in PVP area still
From what i have observed, many under utilized game features that are interesting on paper are poorly implemented, which is why they are under utilized in the first place. Heres an example : I currently play a PvE focused RPG. It has PVP in it, but most players refuse to touch it except to trade wins to get a special PVP item. Why is it under utilized? Is it because players only care about end game raids? No.
Reasons why its under utilized :
-Laggy (PVP servers are hosted in another country)
-Extremely poorly balanced (devs made almost no attempt to balance the different classes)
-Boring (the game was built with PVE in mind, which meant fights against tough bosses, not squishy human players that die in a few hits)
-Rewards are terrible (almost all the rewards are pvp specific gear that are weaker than end game gear from raids, most players only do pvp to get the artifact and then never do pvp again)
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
Many MMOs do allow you to play some common monster races like orcs, but it pretty much stops there, and you still play nearly identically to a human, elf, dwarf, or whatever.
Are we talking about playing the creatures therefor zero questing,pretty much zero content?
If you immersed yourself as one of the mobs,then you would have a specific diet and really not much going for your character lmao.
Hunt...eat,,,sleep,,,hunt..sleep etc etc.
I already mentioned that FFXI allowed players to play the creature races in the game.So if that is not what we are talking about ,please enlighten me lol.
My point was that player base do not care,the feature might be cool,i like it but a very high majority will ignore it if there is not some REWARD dangling in front of them.
That is all gaming is right now...rewards ...rewards rewards,nobody wants an immersive mmorpg.I should narrow it down to END GAME,rewards,people are not even playing a ROLE playing game they are playing a fishing game,fishing for items and they don't care if it makes any sense at all.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
(and the mentioned LotRO monster play, while its main purpose is pvp, has a nice PvE part as well, with fun missions and small stories)
You always have the monsters minding their own business and some fucking white knight in their shining armor comes along and starts pew pewing the poor beasts, for nothing more than laughs and giggles.
You tell me! Who are the real monsters?
Monster Races are always getting the shitty end of the stick.
Always have.... Always will...
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
"All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia - this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics."
Or a few years later Myers in Austin Powers 2
VO will supposedly allow players to use quadrupedal character models, meaning you can be a snake or horse person.
The only problem is the odds of VO amounting to anything is slim.
You can also choose to be bad or good depending on your actions
Other than that I cannot think of anything else, unless it is a fighting game like MvC where you can select the villains.