Eh , so you wasn't plan to make a clone ? What a shame .
Said about game dev subforum , it had my first posts in . *sad* . Personally i don't think the idea of cloning is bad , it just that WOW model wasn't good to clone in first place . While it easy to clone , it's expensive and wasteful . That's why most clones failed cause they don't have enough money to keep develop the contents ( quests , maps , instances) .
Like i said , WOW clone was singleplayer game (quest hubs) with multiplayer option (instances) . While disguised as MMO with persistent world (mostly not used) .
Eh , so you wasn't plan to make a clone ? What a shame .
Said about game dev subforum , it had my first posts in . *sad* . Personally i don't think the idea of cloning is bad , it just that WOW model wasn't good to clone in first place . While it easy to clone , it's expensive and wasteful . That's why most clones failed cause they don't have enough money to keep develop the contents ( quests , maps , instances) .
Like i said , WOW clone was singleplayer game (quest hubs) with multiplayer option (instances) . While disguised as MMO with persistent world (mostly not used) .
The thing with clones is that it is a time for it and a time to don't do it. And we seen a lot of people trying to clone Wow by now, the concept is too old and worn.
If someone made something new and exciting you could certainly earn a lot of cash by cloning it but MMOs msimilar to Wow have done worse and worse... LOTRO was clearly very inspired by Wow and it did fine because the genre weren't full of games just like that. But I think Rift was the last Wow clone that did acceptable, people have just tired of the concept.
And quests are not very expensive to make, they are by far the easiest and fastest content you can make, particularly if you use a lot of basic filler quests (pest control, FEDEX, escort the suicidal maniac and so on). New zones are expensive though but adding new content is not really the reason the clones done rather poorly.
People already played Wow and similar games for a long time now, eventually almost everyone tire of repeating the same thing over and over even if it is with better graphics and 13 years after Wows release is more then enough to make most people tired of it.
I personally think the MMO genre need a break from Dungeons and dragons, there are plenty of other good RPGs then D&D. A Shadowrun MMO for instance would open up for a rather different gameplay that could offer something we havn't got before. SR has no levels or focus on collecting gear like D&D but it has a rather deep storyelement mixed in with action on a level no regular D&D fantasy could. Or for that matter R.I.F.T.S would make a really cool MMO.
First, I think it is important to differentiate between a WoW-clone and a themepark. Most people use the terms interchangeably but that is not correct. Whilst WoW is a themepark, not all themeparks are WoW-clones.
For example, Loke has just called LotRO a WoW-clone but I would disagree. LotRO is definitely a themepark and so shares a lot of similarities with WoW, but certainly in it's vanilla form LotRO had some very significant differences, enough for me to not consider it a clone.
With that in mind, I believe that themeparks can still succeed in the MMO space and are more likely to succeed than straight up WoW-clones. However, I have always felt that themeparks do not match up well with the core concept of MMOs - massively multiplayer - so were I a dev I would not choose to invest my time in a pure themepark because I feel I would get a much better game (and therefore return on investment) if I explored designs that actually work in a massively multiplayer environment.
The reason that themeparks work is that it provides guided content. The developers create their "rides" and we hop on and enjoy the experiences crafted for us. It removes the need for us, as players, to be creative or make decisions about what we're going to do with our time. We just pick a ride (assuming we have a choice at all) and roll with it. These crafted experiences are often better than what we can come up with ourselves. As most humans are "sheep", we are more than happy for developers to lead us around, as long as the rides remain entertaining.
The big issues that a WoW clone would face are as follows:
Linearity - WoW opted to create a linear themepark so that it could use story as a vehicle for it's rides. You start at level 1 and then work through a very linear game. There is not much opportunity for you to choose which rides you want to do or when you want to do them - you must do them in a specific order.
Segregation - between realms, levels, classes, specs and gear, WoW does everything in it's power to segregate the community. These concepts have been largely taken from single player or coop RPGs (where they work fine) but they have a largely negative impact within the MMO space. WoW has mostly been able to avoid the negative consequences of segregation because it's community is so large that each segment is big enough by itself, but all other themeparks that use heavy segregation have suffered dramatically.
Player freedom - this is something players have come to expect more and more. This can be the way you look, the way you play, the number of people you play with, the places where you play, your tactics etc. WoW was very restrictive and I don't think a new MMO would be able to get away with similar restrictions.
Multiplayer - WoW never really found a way to make it's multiplayer features popular. This probably sounds wrong to most of you, but I want you to think about it properly. At launch it was group focused, but still mostly small scale and in an era where MMOs were all about grouping. Over the years their multiplayer offering has diminished a lot. Various dev statements have told us only a small portion of their playerbase ever did endgame multiplayer activities (roughly 15-20%). Recent expansions have been even more solo focused than ever. Yet, this is the massively-multiplayer genre! That is the unique selling point, yet WoW never embraced it.
I believe it is possible to solve all these problems within a themepark MMO and I believe a themepark MMO can still be extremely successful (just look at ESO or FFXIV), but not if you stick to specific WoW mechanics that have proved problematic.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
1. Story driven. Most of the content consist of stories aka designed adventures. Because story is the main part of the game, the game experience is locked in advance and not really optional. The player may be offered limited amounts of freedom, but only within confined areas so it is easily controllable. Story driven works really well for single player rpgs. The nature of 1 to 1 development makes it less risky as investment and easier to sell than an idea of complex mechanics and systems as the controller of game content
2. Linear. This is what is known as on-rails game experience, and it is connected with story driven content but also extends into power progression. The player is confined in a walled content path that lead the player through chosen content. Items and player power are typically tiered for better control (of the player), or at least tightly connected to the narrow path on which the player is herded. This is of course to ensure a maximum use of produced content, for cost efficiency and more quality per dollar. Story driven has high cost of development because all of it has to be handcrafted and the yield is 1 to 1, as opposed to the more free form of design where systems and mechanics make up more reusable and dynamic content; which is considerable harder to do and control and therefore also riskier to invest in.
3. Simplistic. This is again connected to being able to control the player, so unsanctioned gameplay is not happening (which is chaotic and costly to fix) and also to have the tools to easily balance the relative power of pvp as well as pve. Typically we have few abilities for the player to use and not many factors or complex mechanics to govern it. Very unque abilities are very rare and generally everything must fit generic systems. Games have gone to great lengths to try and add versatility into these simplistic systems and on the surface it kindda works, but for the more xperienced players it is a bit too easy to pick apart.
Ok I am super bored. Lacking an MMO I want to play, I thought it might be interesting to have a discussion about WoW-alikes, because they are a genre which has been fairly thoroughly explored, and might be considered 'over'. Since they are probably not most people's favorite genre, maybe we can have a conversation about them that is more academic and less passionate.
So, what are the basic traits of a WoW-alike MMORPG? Let's establish that before we talk about whether we like these traits or not.
1. This is a themepark type game where there are precreated cities and towns populated with LOTS of NPCs. The game's story is conveyed mainly through NPC dialogue and scripted quests. The NPCs convey a lot of the game's story, and NPC factions and the player's reputation with these factions also underlie a lot of the mechanics around PvP, mount acquisition, and other faction-related gear and recipes.
2. As a themepark, the game usually has an overworld where normal monsters roam in fields, forests, and in some cases underwater or in the sky. Added to this are usually instanced dungeons with elite monsters and bosses. In a few games dungeons can scale down to be solo-able, but by default dungeons are intended for a party of 5-8 players, depending on the specific game. Bosses are usually important for their drops, which may include gear, blueprints for crafting gear, ingredients for crafting gear, and gems or runes for improving gear. More rarely, bosses may reward the player with a pet, a mount, an appearance customization blueprint or consumable, an emote, or a classless skill.
3. Speaking of classes, Wow-alikes usually have both races (more accurately, species) and classes. A race probably has one or two bonuses to some aspect of gameplay, or a special ability. Some races have a penalty to offset a particularly good bonus. This aspect is a direct inheritance from tabletop games. Classes usually add a skill tree or pool on top of this, and between skills and stat points players often have two or three choices for how to build each class. The intersection between race, class, and appearance customization give players a wide enough array of options to feel that each character is an individual, which is important to the feeling of entering a fantasy world.
4. Characters are also differentiated by gathering and crafting professions. Some games limit each character to a few professions, but even in those that don't players will make varied choices about what to invest their time into. Some players really enjoy selling gear in an auction house or shop, some craft for friends/guildmates only, and some prefer to buy others' crafts. The default type of crafting is a simple process of obtaining a recipe and a crafting tool, putting ingredients in to fit the recipe, and then waiting for a craft to come out. But in some games crafting is more like a minigame, and the difference between minigames will also affect which professions each player pursues or avoids. The main products of crafting are gear and consumables, but some games include craftable costumes, dye, pets, mounts, housing, and/or appliances.
5. Gear usually includes two hands worth of weapons and/or shields, between 4 and 8 articles of armor or clothing, and accessories. In some cases pets or mounts give stat bonuses or an additional skill and can be counted as gear. Some games include ammo as a consumable equipment.
6. Xp and levelling control the pacing of players through both the locations in the game (with their gradient of monster difficulty) and the gear treadmill. Levelling up is typically rewarded with stat points as well as unlocking the ability to wear stronger pieces of gear. Crafting XP may have a parallel pacing effect on progression from lower to higher level recipes.
7. A WoW-alike game usually does not feature unrestricted PvP. Instead it may have solo or or small group arenas, large group battlegrounds, guild or realm wars, and/or PvP events. Special types of PvP like sieges or naval battles may also be involved. PvP often rewards players with tokens which can be spent at a prize shop, or territory control which gives PvE or tax bonuses to the controller of the territory. Many games also have non-fatal duels which allow allied players to test their characters against each other.
8. Speaking of "fatal" things, it is generally impossible for characters in a WoW-alike MMORPG to die in a way that's actually permanent. Instead they typically have some sort of respawn mechanic where the character comes back to life in a safe area. In addition to the time lost from dying, some games add various death penalties like loss of XP, loss of money, damage to gear durability, or dropping gear. Corpse runs are a common phenomenon where a revived player runs back to the location of their death for an opportunity to recover dropped items or experience a less costly death penalty compared to resurrecting in a safe area.
Ok, so, tell me if I missed anything about what a WoW-alike MMO is.
Sounds like an EQ2 clone to me, WOW came after EQ2. All the things you describe were in EQ2.
The big issues that a WoW clone would face are as follows:
Linearity - WoW opted to create a linear themepark so that it could use story as a vehicle for it's rides. You start at level 1 and then work through a very linear game. There is not much opportunity for you to choose which rides you want to do or when you want to do them - you must do them in a specific order.
This wasn't true until Cataclysm, where they linearized the whole world. Vanilla WoW was absolutely not like that.
Player freedom - this is something players have come to expect more and more. This can be the way you look, the way you play, the number of people you play with, the places where you play, your tactics etc. WoW was very restrictive and I don't think a new MMO would be able to get away with similar restrictions.
Again, in Vanilla you had way more freedom in character development, you could create hybrids (mixing talent trees). This was oversimplified starting with Cataclysm too.
Multiplayer - WoW never really found a way to make it's multiplayer features popular. This probably sounds wrong to most of you, but I want you to think about it properly. At launch it was group focused, but still mostly small scale and in an era where MMOs were all about grouping. Over the years their multiplayer offering has diminished a lot. Various dev statements have told us only a small portion of their playerbase ever did endgame multiplayer activities (roughly 15-20%). Recent expansions have been even more solo focused than ever. Yet, this is the massively-multiplayer genre! That is the unique selling point, yet WoW never embraced it.
This is definitely wrong to me, and actually, Blizzard have improved their grouping mechanics and made grouping more popular than ever over time. That's one of the positive evolutions of WoW compared to Vanilla.
Thanks for the response. To be clear, I don't play WoW. I gave the free trial a go about 8 years ago and hated it, so all my information comes from friends, forums and news articles. So, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm completely wrong :P
On the grouping side of things, I'm curious what they've done to improve it. The trend across the genre has been to remove grouping as much as possible. The improvements I've personally seen have had zero to do with gameplay and more to do with convenience (like group-finders) and incentives (more loot / xp).
So, with WoW I know that between adding easier versions of group content (welfare epics?) and improved group finder, participation in group content increased. But, the gameplay didn't improve, players weren't doing it for the fun, they were doing it for the rewards. Socialising didn't improve (in fact it went down) because the content was too easy to require coordination and being cross server removed any consequences for being a dick.
I've not heard anything about WoW making an effort to actually improve their multiplayer offering.
I'll give you a few examples to indicate the sort of things I'm talking about:
1) Ingame voice chat - it is impossible to do difficult content without voice chat. It simply takes too long to type commands to the rest of the raid. By adding in game voice chat, you make it extremely easy to lead group content - be it a dungeon, raid or pvp. It can still be optional, you don't have to use it, but adding such a feature improves the quality of grouping.
2) Horizontal Progression - completely removes the barriers for forming a group. Anyone can group with anyone to do content. This removes prejudice and puts the focus on player skill.
3) Ditch the trinity - it's a far too limited design paradigm, I'm shocked it still exists. No tank? Tough shit! Come back tomorrow. /facepalm. Now, I'm not saying "don't have roles", roles are important. But having only 3 restricts the game too much.
4) More variety - group content tends to be dungeon runs, raids or pvp. Thats.....pretty limited. Group content in the world mostly disappeared. Variations in difficulty are less - its mostly designed to challenge the average player. Coordination in group content mostly revolves around healing, threat and buffs - pretty limited again. Give us more! Where are my group crafting challenges? Where are my group social events? How about pure fun stuff - like swoop bike racing, card games etc? Why did LotRO get rid of hobnanigans? How about some group puzzles?
Hopefully you can see the sorts of things I would be looking for in a new themepark. In a massively-multiplayer game, the player's default setting should be "I wonder who I'll meet tonight?". Grouping with other people should be the easiest thing in the world with a vast variety of options to suit all playstyles. I'm not saying we need to force grouping, or remove solo - solo remains valid and we all need our space on occasion - but massively multiplayer is this genre's USP! Why not use it?
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
@cameltosis LoTRO have a lot in common with Wow, it uses the same base mechanics but it do have moved in a different direction then Wow since it's release.
Still, the game was clearly inspired by Wow when it was made in all aspects except the world. Calling it a "clone" might be strong since Tolkiens world differs a lot from Azeroth but the world is usually the thing that is different.
@cameltosis LoTRO have a lot in common with Wow, it uses the same base mechanics but it do have moved in a different direction then Wow since it's release.
Still, the game was clearly inspired by Wow when it was made in all aspects except the world. Calling it a "clone" might be strong since Tolkiens world differs a lot from Azeroth but the world is usually the thing that is different.
The world being different is not what I was thinking of.
WoW and LotRO both come from the same ancestor - single player RPGs - which is why they both have standard classes, combat mechanics, questing, gear progression, bosses etc. They are both also limited by technology, hence tab-targetting / toolbars / GCD like most other MMOs at the time.
So, when someone says WoW-clone, to me that means not just a themepark MMO, because there were themepark MMOs before WoW. It means the specifics that WoW introduced that didn't necessarily exist before.
So, WoW had the trinity and all combat was based around that. LotRO went further, with 3/7 classes being dedicated support classes. That, in and of itself, changed the entire feel of group combat.
WoW went for massive vertical gear progression. LotRO didn't. Stat gaps in LotRO were minuscule and success or failure was based almost entirely on player skill.
WoW went for total accessibility, with quest guides, mostly solo content, easy tactics etc. LotRO didn't. You had to read every quest to figure out what to do. Quests weren't in hubs, but spread round everywhere. You had to explore. You couldn't reach the cap without doing the majority of the group content: if you avoided the group content, you had to grind roughly 20% of your levels on standard mobs, making it very slow.
To sum up, it felt that whilst both WoW and LotRO were themepark MMORPGs, the underlying ethos and design philosophy were extremely different - one being focused on the looting and progression (wow) and the other being focused on the world and social aspects (lotro).
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
As far as linearity, I only played WoW pre-cataclysm, and at that time the game wasn't restrictively linear for the first 20 levels, but narrowed to a single quest path somewhere around level 30. Non-linearity is one of the things that divides up the population of same-level players, though. So it has an up-side and a down-side. There's also the possibility for a story to be linear yet interactive, vs. a story which is non-linear but non-interactive. Personally I'd prefer the first of those two options. MMOs in the past have done very little with interactive stories (except for things like Star Wars choice between dark and light paths). But the ability to write interactive stories into games n a way that is cost-efficient and not bug-ridden has been slowly evolving, and we may see more story interactivity in MMOs in the future, unless it goes out of fashion again.
Sounds like an EQ2 clone to me, WOW came after EQ2. All the things you describe were in EQ2.
That may be so. I never played EQ2 myself, but certainly EQ1 was one of a few games that WoW's developers would have played and used as research for their design, so it would make sense if they shared a lot of elements. I'm not under the illusion that WoW was amazingly original. It's mainly useful as a reference point.
Post edited by sunandshadow on
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.
Hopefully you can see the sorts of things I would be looking for in a new themepark. In a massively-multiplayer game, the player's default setting should be "I wonder who I'll meet tonight?". Grouping with other people should be the easiest thing in the world with a vast variety of options to suit all playstyles. I'm not saying we need to force grouping, or remove solo - solo remains valid and we all need our space on occasion - but massively multiplayer is this genre's USP! Why not use it?
I agree with a lot of these points, like in-game voice chat and perhaps replacing the trinity, though I'm not entirely sure what would be desirable in a replacement system, other than maybe classlessness. But I quoted this bit because I wanted to argue that the term "massive" does not apply to small group content. Small group content is great when it's easy and not forced, but "massive" as a term usually refers to raids, realm v realm or guild v. guild battles where each side has 20+ people, and server-wide PvE events like a monster invasion. As such, "massiveness" is arguably overhyped and not suitable as a main gameplay activity.
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.
The world being different is not what I was thinking of.
WoW and LotRO both come from the same ancestor - single player RPGs - which is why they both have standard classes, combat mechanics, questing, gear progression, bosses etc. They are both also limited by technology, hence tab-targetting / toolbars / GCD like most other MMOs at the time.
So, when someone says WoW-clone, to me that means not just a themepark MMO, because there were themepark MMOs before WoW. It means the specifics that WoW introduced that didn't necessarily exist before.
So, WoW had the trinity and all combat was based around that. LotRO went further, with 3/7 classes being dedicated support classes. That, in and of itself, changed the entire feel of group combat.
WoW went for massive vertical gear progression. LotRO didn't. Stat gaps in LotRO were minuscule and success or failure was based almost entirely on player skill.
WoW went for total accessibility, with quest guides, mostly solo content, easy tactics etc. LotRO didn't. You had to read every quest to figure out what to do. Quests weren't in hubs, but spread round everywhere. You had to explore. You couldn't reach the cap without doing the majority of the group content: if you avoided the group content, you had to grind roughly 20% of your levels on standard mobs, making it very slow.
To sum up, it felt that whilst both WoW and LotRO were themepark MMORPGs, the underlying ethos and design philosophy were extremely different - one being focused on the looting and progression (wow) and the other being focused on the world and social aspects (lotro).
And you didn't think "this feel a lot like Wow" when you tried it? I did after 10 minutes in the beta at least. It did not feel like Everquest, DaoC, AO or other themeparks at the time. Yes, it is very similar to other themeparks that came out after it but they were all very influenced by Wow. And I think LoTRO was the fist game that came out that felt a lot like Wow, there have been many since but if there was any before I just missed them.
There was a very different feeling in early themeparks like M59 and Everquest, those games were aimed at a very different audience and you noticed that when you played them.
Funny enough was EQ2 initially it's own game closer to EQ (not strange since it released before Wow) but got revamped into a Wow clone clone with time, LoTRO have more gone the opposite way and gotten further away from Wow.
A trinity game doesn't have to be a Wow clone, Meridian 59 already had a rather basic version of the trinity and EQ had the most advanced version of it to date. Wow was made by people who played EQ (Kaplan played in the same raid guild as Morhaime), no EQ, No Wow.
But No Wow and LoTRO would have been a rather different game, probably far closer to EQ and AC then it was even if it has less focus on gear then even vanilla Wow.
Hopefully you can see the sorts of things I would be looking for in a new themepark. In a massively-multiplayer game, the player's default setting should be "I wonder who I'll meet tonight?". Grouping with other people should be the easiest thing in the world with a vast variety of options to suit all playstyles. I'm not saying we need to force grouping, or remove solo - solo remains valid and we all need our space on occasion - but massively multiplayer is this genre's USP! Why not use it?
I agree with a lot of these points, like in-game voice chat and perhaps replacing the trinity, though I'm not entirely sure what would be desirable in a replacement system, other than maybe classlessness. But I quoted this bit because I wanted to argue that the term "massive" does not apply to small group content. Small group content is great when it's easy and not forced, but "massive" as a term usually refers to raids, realm v realm or guild v. guild battles where each side has 20+ people, and server-wide PvE events like a monster invasion. As such, "massiveness" is arguably overhyped and not suitable as a main gameplay activity.
In terms of replacing the trinity, you can either choose to add more roles (what i normally refer to as trinity+) or you can have less roles (classlessness). I personally prefer having more roles - buffers, debuffers, cc, off-tanks, pullers etc.
The goal of having more dedicated roles is to open up flexibility and options during combat. For example, you are facing a boss with lots of adds in a 6man group.
In a trinity system, your tactic is have the tank grab the boss and the adds, then have your 4 DPS focus the adds whilst your healer attempts to keep you all alive. You may have the odd buff/debuff/stun knocking about to help, but this tactic is what you'd call the "brute force" tactic - you're getting through it by pure numbers, rather than tactics.
Now, imagine you're doing the same fight with a dedicated CC class. Rather than taking on the boss and the adds at the same time, your CC can disable most of the adds before they reach you. Your DPS can then kill them one at a time, making the whole fight a lot easier assuming everyone does their bit correctly. The downside is the additional time it will take.
Now imagine you're doing the same fight without the CC, but with a buffer and debuffer. You still have to take on all the adds at the same time, but the buffer makes you all harder to kill, so the healer has an easier time, and the debuffer also reduces their damage whilst making them easier to kill. So, the healer still has an easier time and you are a safer group, but you only have 2 DPS so they need to be better at timing their big skills with the debuffs for maximum effect.
Now imagine there is no tank available. In a trinity game, that's it, try again later. With trinity+, you can now bring buffer, debuffer and cc, along with 2 dps and healer. By carefully coordinating CC and debuffs, 1 DPS can tank the boss whilst the other works through the adds one by one. It may take a while to complete, but by playing well together as a group using your unique roles, you can still complete the content and have fun!
The difficulty is balance. In this scenario, what's to stop a group bringing 2 tanks, 2 dps and 2 healers? It would be slow, sure, but pretty safe and easy. You can opt for things like enrage timers - this is the easiest to implement but indicates the designers aren't very good. You can do things like respawns - if you are too slow at clearing the adds, you'll get the second wave too early, then the third, until eventually you are overwhelmed by pure numbers. You can also introduce proper resource management. Get rid of this stupid 10s regen for resources. Give us a pool and give it a slow regen, so that if we take too long we run out of resources. This gives you almost like a soft enrage timer, but also allows you to develop ways to manage resources - using potions, maybe class skills that increase regen, or do something cool like LotRO's fellowship manoeuvres.
The point is, more roles = more options = deeper, more engaging combat.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
If you stripped all the people who play WoW out of habit out of the equation, you would have a dead MMO just like every other dead MMO out there. Ever wonder why no clone has never stripped the WoW zealots away? Because the zealots have no intention of playing anything else. If Wow were to be released tomorrow in the form that it is now, NONE of these zealots would be playing it as religiously as they do now. NONE OF THEM. It's the habit factor that keeps them playing, that's it.
WoW is their favorite bar to hangout in. That's right folks, they play the game because it's part of their daily routine and has been for years and will continue to do so until it gets shut down.
Making a new WoW fails because the people that make up the preponderance of the WoW player base don't care to play anything else, under any circumstance. I know a lot of people who have recurring subscriptions that hardly ever log in... they just visit every once in a while. They don't play anything else either. They're not looking to play anything else.
In terms of replacing the trinity, you can either choose to add more roles (what i normally refer to as trinity+) or you can have less roles (classlessness). I personally prefer having more roles - buffers, debuffers, cc, off-tanks, pullers etc.
The goal of having more dedicated roles is to open up flexibility and options during combat. For example, you are facing a boss with lots of adds in a 6man group.
In a trinity system, your tactic is have the tank grab the boss and the adds, then have your 4 DPS focus the adds whilst your healer attempts to keep you all alive. You may have the odd buff/debuff/stun knocking about to help, but this tactic is what you'd call the "brute force" tactic - you're getting through it by pure numbers, rather than tactics.
Now, imagine you're doing the same fight with a dedicated CC class. Rather than taking on the boss and the adds at the same time, your CC can disable most of the adds before they reach you. Your DPS can then kill them one at a time, making the whole fight a lot easier assuming everyone does their bit correctly. The downside is the additional time it will take.
Now imagine you're doing the same fight without the CC, but with a buffer and debuffer. You still have to take on all the adds at the same time, but the buffer makes you all harder to kill, so the healer has an easier time, and the debuffer also reduces their damage whilst making them easier to kill. So, the healer still has an easier time and you are a safer group, but you only have 2 DPS so they need to be better at timing their big skills with the debuffs for maximum effect.
Now imagine there is no tank available. In a trinity game, that's it, try again later. With trinity+, you can now bring buffer, debuffer and cc, along with 2 dps and healer. By carefully coordinating CC and debuffs, 1 DPS can tank the boss whilst the other works through the adds one by one. It may take a while to complete, but by playing well together as a group using your unique roles, you can still complete the content and have fun!
The difficulty is balance. In this scenario, what's to stop a group bringing 2 tanks, 2 dps and 2 healers? It would be slow, sure, but pretty safe and easy. You can opt for things like enrage timers - this is the easiest to implement but indicates the designers aren't very good. You can do things like respawns - if you are too slow at clearing the adds, you'll get the second wave too early, then the third, until eventually you are overwhelmed by pure numbers. You can also introduce proper resource management. Get rid of this stupid 10s regen for resources. Give us a pool and give it a slow regen, so that if we take too long we run out of resources. This gives you almost like a soft enrage timer, but also allows you to develop ways to manage resources - using potions, maybe class skills that increase regen, or do something cool like LotRO's fellowship manoeuvres.
The point is, more roles = more options = deeper, more engaging combat.
I don't think fixed roles really are neccesarily for that, just a system that allows the players to use their skills and abilities together.
Almost no pen and paper RPG have trinity but the player will constantly work as a team if they plan to stay alive and there are other ways to do that then just fix them with very a limited role.
The keywords to any kind of group dynamic is co-operation and timing. Reward that and it wont be a problem. You certainly can't just cut down all players to self healing DPS players because that is just chaos, not co-operation.
All classes needs skills and buffs that works together with other skills and buffs from the other players. It is harder if those thing aren't a simple fixed thing (like tanking) but it is also more rewarding when you learn it.
And preferably should the entire group work together as a well timed machine to win harder fights.
You certainly can do that with a more advanced trinity like EQ did but there are other ways doing it as well. Far too many games that have skipped the trinity missed the importance of group dynamics and made it too weak or none excistant but that does not mean you can't make good group dynamics without fixed roles, just that you actuually need to work to pull it off.
And yes, more options means deeper more enganged combat, which is why I rather have less fixed roles myself. You should have those otions in combat as well as when you specc your character.
Comments
Said about game dev subforum , it had my first posts in . *sad* .
Personally i don't think the idea of cloning is bad , it just that WOW model wasn't good to clone in first place .
While it easy to clone , it's expensive and wasteful . That's why most clones failed cause they don't have enough money to keep develop the contents ( quests , maps , instances) .
Like i said , WOW clone was singleplayer game (quest hubs) with multiplayer option (instances) . While disguised as MMO with persistent world (mostly not used) .
If someone made something new and exciting you could certainly earn a lot of cash by cloning it but MMOs msimilar to Wow have done worse and worse... LOTRO was clearly very inspired by Wow and it did fine because the genre weren't full of games just like that. But I think Rift was the last Wow clone that did acceptable, people have just tired of the concept.
And quests are not very expensive to make, they are by far the easiest and fastest content you can make, particularly if you use a lot of basic filler quests (pest control, FEDEX, escort the suicidal maniac and so on). New zones are expensive though but adding new content is not really the reason the clones done rather poorly.
People already played Wow and similar games for a long time now, eventually almost everyone tire of repeating the same thing over and over even if it is with better graphics and 13 years after Wows release is more then enough to make most people tired of it.
I personally think the MMO genre need a break from Dungeons and dragons, there are plenty of other good RPGs then D&D. A Shadowrun MMO for instance would open up for a rather different gameplay that could offer something we havn't got before. SR has no levels or focus on collecting gear like D&D but it has a rather deep storyelement mixed in with action on a level no regular D&D fantasy could. Or for that matter R.I.F.T.S would make a really cool MMO.
And yes, it was a shame about the dev forum.
For example, Loke has just called LotRO a WoW-clone but I would disagree. LotRO is definitely a themepark and so shares a lot of similarities with WoW, but certainly in it's vanilla form LotRO had some very significant differences, enough for me to not consider it a clone.
With that in mind, I believe that themeparks can still succeed in the MMO space and are more likely to succeed than straight up WoW-clones. However, I have always felt that themeparks do not match up well with the core concept of MMOs - massively multiplayer - so were I a dev I would not choose to invest my time in a pure themepark because I feel I would get a much better game (and therefore return on investment) if I explored designs that actually work in a massively multiplayer environment.
The reason that themeparks work is that it provides guided content. The developers create their "rides" and we hop on and enjoy the experiences crafted for us. It removes the need for us, as players, to be creative or make decisions about what we're going to do with our time. We just pick a ride (assuming we have a choice at all) and roll with it. These crafted experiences are often better than what we can come up with ourselves. As most humans are "sheep", we are more than happy for developers to lead us around, as long as the rides remain entertaining.
The big issues that a WoW clone would face are as follows:
I believe it is possible to solve all these problems within a themepark MMO and I believe a themepark MMO can still be extremely successful (just look at ESO or FFXIV), but not if you stick to specific WoW mechanics that have proved problematic.
I doubt that they ever learn . More like : MMO (aka WOW) time is over , let move to the mobile and make more WOWs .
1. Story driven. Most of the content consist of stories aka designed adventures. Because story is the main part of the game, the game experience is locked in advance and not really optional. The player may be offered limited amounts of freedom, but only within confined areas so it is easily controllable. Story driven works really well for single player rpgs. The nature of 1 to 1 development makes it less risky as investment and easier to sell than an idea of complex mechanics and systems as the controller of game content
2. Linear. This is what is known as on-rails game experience, and it is connected with story driven content but also extends into power progression. The player is confined in a walled content path that lead the player through chosen content. Items and player power are typically tiered for better control (of the player), or at least tightly connected to the narrow path on which the player is herded. This is of course to ensure a maximum use of produced content, for cost efficiency and more quality per dollar. Story driven has high cost of development because all of it has to be handcrafted and the yield is 1 to 1, as opposed to the more free form of design where systems and mechanics make up more reusable and dynamic content; which is considerable harder to do and control and therefore also riskier to invest in.
3. Simplistic. This is again connected to being able to control the player, so unsanctioned gameplay is not happening (which is chaotic and costly to fix) and also to have the tools to easily balance the relative power of pvp as well as pve. Typically we have few abilities for the player to use and not many factors or complex mechanics to govern it. Very unque abilities are very rare and generally everything must fit generic systems. Games have gone to great lengths to try and add versatility into these simplistic systems and on the surface it kindda works, but for the more xperienced players it is a bit too easy to pick apart.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Sounds like an EQ2 clone to me, WOW came after EQ2. All the things you describe were in EQ2.
On the grouping side of things, I'm curious what they've done to improve it. The trend across the genre has been to remove grouping as much as possible. The improvements I've personally seen have had zero to do with gameplay and more to do with convenience (like group-finders) and incentives (more loot / xp).
So, with WoW I know that between adding easier versions of group content (welfare epics?) and improved group finder, participation in group content increased. But, the gameplay didn't improve, players weren't doing it for the fun, they were doing it for the rewards. Socialising didn't improve (in fact it went down) because the content was too easy to require coordination and being cross server removed any consequences for being a dick.
I've not heard anything about WoW making an effort to actually improve their multiplayer offering.
I'll give you a few examples to indicate the sort of things I'm talking about:
1) Ingame voice chat - it is impossible to do difficult content without voice chat. It simply takes too long to type commands to the rest of the raid. By adding in game voice chat, you make it extremely easy to lead group content - be it a dungeon, raid or pvp. It can still be optional, you don't have to use it, but adding such a feature improves the quality of grouping.
2) Horizontal Progression - completely removes the barriers for forming a group. Anyone can group with anyone to do content. This removes prejudice and puts the focus on player skill.
3) Ditch the trinity - it's a far too limited design paradigm, I'm shocked it still exists. No tank? Tough shit! Come back tomorrow. /facepalm. Now, I'm not saying "don't have roles", roles are important. But having only 3 restricts the game too much.
4) More variety - group content tends to be dungeon runs, raids or pvp. Thats.....pretty limited. Group content in the world mostly disappeared. Variations in difficulty are less - its mostly designed to challenge the average player. Coordination in group content mostly revolves around healing, threat and buffs - pretty limited again. Give us more! Where are my group crafting challenges? Where are my group social events? How about pure fun stuff - like swoop bike racing, card games etc? Why did LotRO get rid of hobnanigans? How about some group puzzles?
Hopefully you can see the sorts of things I would be looking for in a new themepark. In a massively-multiplayer game, the player's default setting should be "I wonder who I'll meet tonight?". Grouping with other people should be the easiest thing in the world with a vast variety of options to suit all playstyles. I'm not saying we need to force grouping, or remove solo - solo remains valid and we all need our space on occasion - but massively multiplayer is this genre's USP! Why not use it?
LoTRO have a lot in common with Wow, it uses the same base mechanics but it do have moved in a different direction then Wow since it's release.
Still, the game was clearly inspired by Wow when it was made in all aspects except the world. Calling it a "clone" might be strong since Tolkiens world differs a lot from Azeroth but the world is usually the thing that is different.
WoW and LotRO both come from the same ancestor - single player RPGs - which is why they both have standard classes, combat mechanics, questing, gear progression, bosses etc. They are both also limited by technology, hence tab-targetting / toolbars / GCD like most other MMOs at the time.
So, when someone says WoW-clone, to me that means not just a themepark MMO, because there were themepark MMOs before WoW. It means the specifics that WoW introduced that didn't necessarily exist before.
So, WoW had the trinity and all combat was based around that. LotRO went further, with 3/7 classes being dedicated support classes. That, in and of itself, changed the entire feel of group combat.
WoW went for massive vertical gear progression. LotRO didn't. Stat gaps in LotRO were minuscule and success or failure was based almost entirely on player skill.
WoW went for total accessibility, with quest guides, mostly solo content, easy tactics etc. LotRO didn't. You had to read every quest to figure out what to do. Quests weren't in hubs, but spread round everywhere. You had to explore. You couldn't reach the cap without doing the majority of the group content: if you avoided the group content, you had to grind roughly 20% of your levels on standard mobs, making it very slow.
To sum up, it felt that whilst both WoW and LotRO were themepark MMORPGs, the underlying ethos and design philosophy were extremely different - one being focused on the looting and progression (wow) and the other being focused on the world and social aspects (lotro).
That may be so. I never played EQ2 myself, but certainly EQ1 was one of a few games that WoW's developers would have played and used as research for their design, so it would make sense if they shared a lot of elements. I'm not under the illusion that WoW was amazingly original.
There was a very different feeling in early themeparks like M59 and Everquest, those games were aimed at a very different audience and you noticed that when you played them.
Funny enough was EQ2 initially it's own game closer to EQ (not strange since it released before Wow) but got revamped into a Wow clone clone with time, LoTRO have more gone the opposite way and gotten further away from Wow.
A trinity game doesn't have to be a Wow clone, Meridian 59 already had a rather basic version of the trinity and EQ had the most advanced version of it to date. Wow was made by people who played EQ (Kaplan played in the same raid guild as Morhaime), no EQ, No Wow.
But No Wow and LoTRO would have been a rather different game, probably far closer to EQ and AC then it was even if it has less focus on gear then even vanilla Wow.
The goal of having more dedicated roles is to open up flexibility and options during combat. For example, you are facing a boss with lots of adds in a 6man group.
In a trinity system, your tactic is have the tank grab the boss and the adds, then have your 4 DPS focus the adds whilst your healer attempts to keep you all alive. You may have the odd buff/debuff/stun knocking about to help, but this tactic is what you'd call the "brute force" tactic - you're getting through it by pure numbers, rather than tactics.
Now, imagine you're doing the same fight with a dedicated CC class. Rather than taking on the boss and the adds at the same time, your CC can disable most of the adds before they reach you. Your DPS can then kill them one at a time, making the whole fight a lot easier assuming everyone does their bit correctly. The downside is the additional time it will take.
Now imagine you're doing the same fight without the CC, but with a buffer and debuffer. You still have to take on all the adds at the same time, but the buffer makes you all harder to kill, so the healer has an easier time, and the debuffer also reduces their damage whilst making them easier to kill. So, the healer still has an easier time and you are a safer group, but you only have 2 DPS so they need to be better at timing their big skills with the debuffs for maximum effect.
Now imagine there is no tank available. In a trinity game, that's it, try again later. With trinity+, you can now bring buffer, debuffer and cc, along with 2 dps and healer. By carefully coordinating CC and debuffs, 1 DPS can tank the boss whilst the other works through the adds one by one. It may take a while to complete, but by playing well together as a group using your unique roles, you can still complete the content and have fun!
The difficulty is balance. In this scenario, what's to stop a group bringing 2 tanks, 2 dps and 2 healers? It would be slow, sure, but pretty safe and easy. You can opt for things like enrage timers - this is the easiest to implement but indicates the designers aren't very good. You can do things like respawns - if you are too slow at clearing the adds, you'll get the second wave too early, then the third, until eventually you are overwhelmed by pure numbers. You can also introduce proper resource management. Get rid of this stupid 10s regen for resources. Give us a pool and give it a slow regen, so that if we take too long we run out of resources. This gives you almost like a soft enrage timer, but also allows you to develop ways to manage resources - using potions, maybe class skills that increase regen, or do something cool like LotRO's fellowship manoeuvres.
The point is, more roles = more options = deeper, more engaging combat.
WoW is their favorite bar to hangout in. That's right folks, they play the game because it's part of their daily routine and has been for years and will continue to do so until it gets shut down.
Making a new WoW fails because the people that make up the preponderance of the WoW player base don't care to play anything else, under any circumstance. I know a lot of people who have recurring subscriptions that hardly ever log in... they just visit every once in a while. They don't play anything else either. They're not looking to play anything else.
Almost no pen and paper RPG have trinity but the player will constantly work as a team if they plan to stay alive and there are other ways to do that then just fix them with very a limited role.
The keywords to any kind of group dynamic is co-operation and timing. Reward that and it wont be a problem. You certainly can't just cut down all players to self healing DPS players because that is just chaos, not co-operation.
All classes needs skills and buffs that works together with other skills and buffs from the other players. It is harder if those thing aren't a simple fixed thing (like tanking) but it is also more rewarding when you learn it.
And preferably should the entire group work together as a well timed machine to win harder fights.
You certainly can do that with a more advanced trinity like EQ did but there are other ways doing it as well. Far too many games that have skipped the trinity missed the importance of group dynamics and made it too weak or none excistant but that does not mean you can't make good group dynamics without fixed roles, just that you actuually need to work to pull it off.
And yes, more options means deeper more enganged combat, which is why I rather have less fixed roles myself. You should have those otions in combat as well as when you specc your character.