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What do you think can be done to radically change how MMORPG are played?
Vermillion_Raventhal
Member EpicPosts: 4,198
Barring tech like VR, AR or being plugged in... what do you think could be the biggest game changer?
I think having fluid, player reactive content would change how we play. A system developing stories on it's own based on player action.
I think having fluid, player reactive content would change how we play. A system developing stories on it's own based on player action.
Comments
If an unconventional game like Uncharted Waters Online or Wakfu had had that kind of success, it would have changed our view of what MMORPGs are. Those are hardly the only MMORPGs to do a lot of things very differently from the norm, but it's unpredictable when a game will catch fire and redefine a genre.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
The passing of time in game.
This would change the game immensely, simply having time pass, NPC's growing older, getting married, having children, and dying, and life happening in the game. around the players.
Sure.. you saved the world.. but.. the world going on around you, with or without you, I think would change the whole way players interact with a game.
Too many MMO's are static, stuck in a single moment of time, forever frozen, but having it so that time moves on around the player. The sun rises, the sun set, the seasons change, and the people change would really make people rethink their game world.
Allowing players also to be a part of this, allowing them to build and add to the world around them, and thus way, someone that comes into a game they become a part of that, but they are also living the history, they started their character when the King has just died, his Son took the throne Last month.. and this is not Last Month 6 years ago when the game launched.. this was just last month, and 2 years later, that King has grown old, and passed, and player is at this funeral thinking "I remember when this NPC was just a child on the throne"
It gives the world a sense of wonder.. to age and grow like that.. unlike current MMO's that feel very Plasticine.
Make it so the PC character also agess (maybe slower to justify their status as a PC), and you have a bold world there... it would be something very new.
In my opinion that has been the largest detriment with the most significant impact to online gaming. The creators, the technologies, & the resources spent over the at least last half decade have all been within a primarily focused vision of creating casino games with lots of moving parts to catch our eye, exciting sounds, & bright lights getting players to spend more not on the game but for a chance at something for the game, but just a chance. That focus has taken away from innovation that is involved with creating better gaming & expanding online gaming.
I'm not against the microtransactions of any kind including ones with random/gambling elements, cosmetic or game altering, however the odds should be posted. If such mechanics became more regulated, like a casino, I think the focus would slowly return to the interest of making compelling games & advancing that venue through coding innovations, story telling, & refining technology. We have games now, even top-rated & good games, built around the gambling mechanic, where a stage show (the game) is fun & entertaining, but behind the curtain is an online casino, which that is the trick to accomplished & the customer doesn't even realize.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
To add a comment on what this game changer should not have, there are things proven to be huge negatives that it must avoid in order for it's new system of play to succeed.
A short list of prime examples of what not to include:
-Wide open PvP with no restrictions
-Cash Shops
Once upon a time....
Once upon a time....
The biggest issue you will have is players feel like they should be able to experience all content. I believe GW2 has this problem.
If the whole world went forward, it would have been different, but, in GW2, what made things off, was that while Lions Arch changed, just one Zone north, in the Gendarran Fields, everything was as it always was.. nothing changed. Just like they had this whole huge event with refugees moving into Holbrak and the Iron Citadel.. and Poof.. they are gone.. story is over... no progression of the story.
See building a living world, where time passes, lets say a Volcano erupts, and NPC's die, suddenly, many people in other cities talk about lost family members, new people come to the remaining cities for a new life, they open shops, thus new shops appear, they talk about their plight and struggles, they talk about the destroyed city.
Now, a place Players can go visit, and see the passing of time there as well. The once inferno, becomes smoldering ruins, and finally just charred remains. Maybe mobs move in, build their own nests into the frame works of the old buildings.
Or players can sift and salvage and recover lost heirlooms to return to the surviving families, and get rewards for that, the items they return, become mounted to walls, or worn by the NPC's, and when the player returns, that NPC remembers them, thanks them, and that NPC grows old, dies, and their child now knows and talks fondly of the hero that went to the smoldering ruins to recover their family crest, which they thought was long lost, but now sits proudly on the wall behind the counter of their shop.
Building a world like that.. where time.. and events pass.. where the player impacts the game. would totally change the way players approach MMO's.
Yes.. by the end of next year (Say 1 year is 20 years game time) the now burnt ruins are covered in hives of mobs, almost all that was there has been salvaged, but you never know.. there could be one last item buried in the rubble if you are willing to take the risks.
Also seeing a starting smith that at one time only offered basic swords, but the player kept selling them junk weapons to smelt and forge, and now the shop offers better quality weapons, and goes from "NPC's Fine Wears" to "Master Weapon Maker NPC's Emporium" .. and now you can buy better things. Also, over time, the NPC starts to know you.. remember you, maybe chats with you "Welcome back my friends, good to see you, do you have a new pile of things for me, or will you be buying something today, I'll give you 10% off because you always come to me" and then later, it's 15%, or maybe |I can't today, sales have been slow" or some such.. that feeling of things are not static.. time moves on.. and what you do.. matters, maybe not world splitting.. maybe you didn't save the family crest, but they still know of you.. in their own ways.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests