Seen this request a bit over the years and more so in recent discussions.
OPEN WORLD DUNGEONS.
But lets say hypothetically speaking, this new MMO is a large densely populated MMO like WoW/GW2 etc
How would you design these Open World Dungeons to be a fun experience?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
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Well I guess, the best way to do it, would be doing it the way these players remember and want to go back to.
That being said, if you still insist to have open world dungeons in your game you better make them so big and complex that those players won't often even see each others in there. Include trapdoors and stairways, locked doors, teleports, etc. Make them like 3d versions of Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder.
In more general level, dungeons have been very underwhelming experience in the latest MMO games. They are too small, too linear, and too similar to each others and the whole run revolves around killing the final boss and getting the loot. There sure is room for improvement on that area.
I've never played EQ dungeons so I can't comment on them. I love Lineage 2 dungeons. They were fun, there were other players about, you sometimes had to be careful about enemy clans/alliances. I suppose that made them more fun.
Innovation can mean that the mobs/rooms act-react to what the players are doing and how many there are.
It could mean having a theme on one day when certain bosses roam the halls with their minions, it could mean that the rooms might move/slide around changing things and changing how the players enter, leave.
Also, it's important to note that "some" players want innovation (which is a misused word and sometime people don't know what they want) but it's ok to find something that's fun and not mess with it.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Imho, OW Dungeons are pretty bad idea in general at our current mmo playerbase disposition and i can hardly think of a way to implement it even if it was the best thing ever, what makes a dungeon a dungeon? If it's just clearing objectives/story and killing a boss at the end to loot rewards then pretty much all gw2 dlc maps are OW dungeons, no? You do pre-quests, events and then meta to fight the big bad boss and take the prize. Making OWD a thing where it's an open area monster nest? Bdo has that idea implemented already and it's just another grind spot for geared people. Rather than remaking the wheel of dungeons, start thinking about how degraded and cheap MMO dropped nowadays that they're literally reskined old <2010 assets with just refreshed and changed story and art... Needs something new and big to shake the market, but MMO's are too much work for current AAA studios and knowing that p2w is mandatory in games nowadays(in one way or another, skipping 500h of grinding and having that +100ap vs a pleb is p2w in my eyes, but don't want to debate on this shit cuz it's already complained everywhere and it's sadly ain't going anywhere.) just waiting for already known is a nightmare.
Add new objectives for going into dungeons. Being the fastest way to some towns, and a different dungeon being a shortcut to the halfway point to other dungeons. Are probably the easiest examples.
Adding "long cuts" for smaller groups or solo players could be useful. Especially if they feed into points that those people could hang out in for a while productively before joining forces. Long cuts for nonoptimal teams could be useful as well.
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All that sounds like way more work than cross server automated matchmaking. So we won't see it.
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The dungeon is just another area similar to the open world. Just a bit more difficult mob, and higher density.
This has more to do with how they are implemented and what is expected of these bosses.
So, more to do with game design. They could make it so the leveling is why one runs dungeons but bosses are actually a huge nuisance and something to be scared of. You run from them, don't want to tangle with them. Maybe they are immortal spirits or some such thing.
Or you can have players have to earn their boss instance within an open dungeon by collecting x amount of hearts or some such thing and then doing a ritual.
Or make it that the longer you camp an area the more enemies and stronger enemies consistently appear before the boss itself.
I mean, many things can be considered.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Open world dungeons offered another access with player involvement, meeting people on the fly, helping people out, for pvp games offering pvp opportunities, etc.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
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Also, can't those rules be enforced by the game itself or no?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Oh and lest I forget the mobs in EQ1 dungeons respawned.
Many "more modern" mmos actually include "older style" dungeons - they tend to be called, something like, public instances. They also tend to have open world boss encounter type mechanics as well that spawn on some sort of timer.
These mechanics are in addition to instanced "dungeons" - or in some cases instanced mini-zones (as far back as CoH for example, also pre-WoW). ESO's PvP campaign "instances" are for c. 6,000 people and they are not "instant" either being on e.g. a weekly timer. So what is an instance?
Well its worth remembering that "servers" are just a form of instance. Whether its 50 or 200 servers for 200 or 20,000 people per "server" that is 50 or 200 instances of the game straight away. And the population is often further divided between zones, or regional locks or some splits. Such divisions may not be called "instances" but that is what they are; one of the things that marked EVE out - just the one server; not many dungeons in EVE though!