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Beyond combat
Chimborazo
Member UncommonPosts: 146
I've been a casual-is theme park MMORPG player for the past decade, several thousands hours put into few games. During this time, my tastes in many things (games included) have evolved, as well as my lifestyle (like the general amount of free time I have). In the past year, I've been playng discontinuously and superficially with GW2, thinking that I probably won't be able to get attached to another theme park MMO in the future.
Out of curiosity, I started checking some other developing games, more in the sandbox way. Read a bit about Chronicles of Elyria, which wants to be a complete and deep fantasy simulator, where everyone can pick up a role to play out on this vast interconnected world.
This is where my reflection started: you could say that fighting (or "directly competing" if you also want to include sport games like FIFA or Need for Speed) cover almost the entirety of the time spent by any person on front a console or PC. I find myself hard to imagine having fun for many hours by simply being a swordsmith or a tavern keeper, even if you put some nice minigame in it. I fail to see this kind of activities put out as a viable stand alone option for many players, for prolonged times.
My question is : do you think that the idea of having a full sandbox, with many roles player driven economy etc does indeed benefit the majority of the average playerbase, therefore justifying the effort of the developers?
Or do you think that an MMORPG should be more focused about a "target role" and try to build some layers around of if?
Out of curiosity, I started checking some other developing games, more in the sandbox way. Read a bit about Chronicles of Elyria, which wants to be a complete and deep fantasy simulator, where everyone can pick up a role to play out on this vast interconnected world.
This is where my reflection started: you could say that fighting (or "directly competing" if you also want to include sport games like FIFA or Need for Speed) cover almost the entirety of the time spent by any person on front a console or PC. I find myself hard to imagine having fun for many hours by simply being a swordsmith or a tavern keeper, even if you put some nice minigame in it. I fail to see this kind of activities put out as a viable stand alone option for many players, for prolonged times.
My question is : do you think that the idea of having a full sandbox, with many roles player driven economy etc does indeed benefit the majority of the average playerbase, therefore justifying the effort of the developers?
Or do you think that an MMORPG should be more focused about a "target role" and try to build some layers around of if?
Currently on: Guild Wars 2
Comments
Yes there should be many layers to the game and no i do not like labels such as Themepark or Sandbox.
An rpg mmo is already a THEME,it is a role playing game with multi player design built into it.Sandbox will only pretend to be a fully equipped tool because it would take a massive undertaking to design a true sandbox.
So it is very simple,stick to the THEME of your game,be it a role playing game or a shooter,whatever.All the layers should MAKE SENSE around that theme.Removing or ruining immersion does NOT make sense.
It is most certainly possible for a developer to give us a true AAA mmorpg but they all refuse to because they want higher profit margins and way less risk.However,we the consumer control the market,simply stop paying for crap,force these cheap ass devs to make a great game and not just a simple cash shop game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I once spent a year in an EVE Online corporation that was attached to a PVP alliance, but our corporation didn't PVP a lot (except for me!). Instead, most of our corporation were focused on crafting all of the things that the corporation used on a weekly basis.
We had guys who made ammunition, ships, modules, fuel... you name it and they crafted it. We kept the entire alliance supplied with fighting material for our wars and everyone enjoyed it.
The problem with crafting in almost all theme park games, is that you don't really need any of the crap that crafters can make. If none of your gear ever breaks or is lost in combat, and all of the best gear comes out of dungeons, then the market is usually just crap.
It's best when the industry feeds the players and the players feed the industry and create a feedback loop for both crafters and adventurers.
Now, is this kind of game ever really going to be the norm? I don't think so. Most players who have grown up on a steady diet of WoW, ESO and GW2 are going to absolutely recoil in shock and horror at the thought of having to replace their gear if it gets broken, damaged or destroyed in a dungeon. It's why games like EVE and Perpetuum were such niche games in the market with mostly small player bases.
While you are forced in to roles, you can switch role by switching character.
That being said, it is pretty boring being forced to just do one thing.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
I think vast majority of players don't want to be crafters, otherwise the industry would've moved heavily toward this kind of games. Many people would maybe appreciate a sprinkle of crafting in their hunting / fighting gaming experience.
In addition, you can imagine a situation where there's a crafter in a game that make weapons, and the time requested to make a sword is far less than the time after which the sword needs to be replaced. So in an hour a craftsman makes 20 swords for 20 different players that will last for few hours at least. Scaling up this example, I can't see a scenario where the full time crafters who enjoy the related mechanics are more than 10% of the total population.
The fact that you can craft with the same character you use to fight or use an alt is not the point, the point is how much your "extra combat" systems are enjoyed (and therefore played) by the playerbase.
How to offer another level of complexity to the classic themepark that can be enjoyed by the vast majority of the players
- 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
I really can't imagine many people having fun by constantly making swords and stuff, even if you add some sort of minigames.
As an alternative you could set up a game where everybody has to do a bit of crafting for themselves, but that should remove the whole "player driven economy" aspect.
As long as the swords are things people want and there is an alternate value-holding good, if the swords are too difficult to make it will result in an increase in the price of the swords.
Suddenly, it takes 8 Fluid Formable Silksteel Alloy instead of 4 to get you to part with your 10 Corvus Widowmakers.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
In real world (few decades ago with less automation works better as example) a big part of the world population was "producing" because ad humans we have tons of needs that must be fulfilled, not sure how you could translate this inside a game
I think I do get the notion of a single role type of game, where you don't casually re-play the game, in different ways in a new role, but such an idea, seems very vague and fuzzy.
Instead, if game devs relied on making an adventure, as opposed to some hack n slash fest, they can make whatever game they want for all I care. I personally enjoy games that makes you get invested in playing the game, not in the hype and bullshit (Star Citizen), or the cutscenes (CP2077?) or huge worlds with gimmicky gameplay Witcher 3 (overly simplistic, and undermining immersion).
The only game I really seem to like, is playing some multiplayer variant of Arma, not because I like moving around shooting other players, but because I get move around on a huge map and make lots of critical decisions during gameplay (Sa-Matra Wasteland which used to be popular, until people just played Sa-Matra King of the hill, maybe because it was new and nobody played Wasteland anymore). I strongly dislike Arma as a game, but the gameplay is fun I think.
I should also point out that I don't think you can always make a clear distinction between "fighters" and "crafters"; rather, there will be some people who only fight, some people who fight most of the time but also do a little crafting, people who craft most of the time and do a little fighting, people who only craft, and any given player may swing along this spectrum over their lifetime course of playing the game.
As to whether or not crafting is 'fun': I think this is somewhat beside the point. Some people find it fun, obviously. It's not just about crafting, it's about interaction. It's about bartering a deal with another player which benefits both parties (to borrow a concept from Smith, I may have a comparative advantage in procuring Reinforced Bulkhead but be low on credits: therefore I sell to Joe Entrepreneur at a price the market will bear).
It's also relatively easy to build in some safeguards to prevent total market crashes or meltdowns: for example, have a tier of "swords" that are not subject to scarcity: you can buy as many as you want whenever you want as long as you have the currency, but make the non-scarce swords not quite as good as the ones players produce.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Coming back to the initial post, I feel like I want to move away and find something with added level of depth, but then I seem to find only sandboxes that prides about having a world with deep crafting where everything is done by players, but If I don't have a deep interest in crafting (and by following the first paragraph I wrote, you could assume many people would see it this way) these aspects don't add much to my game experience.
You hinted at a way to move forward imho : find a system that extract the real "fun" and "added value" of extra combat activities and serve a system that could be enjoyed by the vast majority of players that are mainly focused on fighting / hunting / exploring.
The act of crafting itself, even with minigames, becomes boring to the vast majority of players if done for more than sporadically.
The idea of becoming a full time crafter / entrepreneur / merchant doesn't appeal many people imho, so the resources (that are not infinite, which is the whole point of this discussion) put in developing this complex systems for the benefit or few is not great.
What I think that are aspects of crafting that might be enjoyed by most? The idea of finding materials, the idea to combine and experiment, the idea of being versatile and not wasting time by selling stupid cheap swords you find after having killed a couple of bandits.
It fits well in explaining, in my opinion, what sort of game is needed.
Most people seem think that it all has to be coded as a special "system", but that's only a small part of it. You need a game that's got lots of world interaction (using things and doing things with items and the world). You take these interactive things, and add a little extra code to use them in a specific "system."
It's been a long night and I hope I'm making sense, lol.
There were a lot of RPers, mainly because the game was built for them, besides being a great game except for the rampant PKing.
The lack of game designed Auction Houses was offset by a more social design with players having NPC Merchants that sold their goods at their own houses. (Like SWG)
So shopping players often ran into the house owner, and the owners/Crafters often made a point to talk to the passerby to see if they could improve their products or offerings.
Players (mostly through Guilds) put together Fishing Guild run Events, Rune Libraries, Trade Fairs, Historical trips to show the things left behind from old GM events, Museums to show rare items, Dungeon Runs, Chess Tournaments, PvP Tournaments, horse races, put on plays from RL, had campfire story nights, and ran their own Taverns (with events).
Now, some of this worked really well, and other things didn't. But it's amazing what players will do if they are given the tools and the opportunity.
And with today's budgets, I can easily see this sort of stuff being much bigger and better.
The KEY THING about it all is that UO was a SANDBOX game. Player knew each other in a much broader sense than other types of games.
With that, many players called a city, or a grouping of houses put together by guilds and given city names, "home." And it gave players that sense of citizenship.
I can't stress enough the benefits of Sandbox games with lots of little "tools", such as "drop items on the ground" as just one.
Once upon a time....
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
The stars and planets would modify Magical Creations on items, but only at certain times and in certain places.
The mysteries would have clues in-game (in tomes, dungeon wall carvings, etc.), but very hard to figure out for the best magical effects. Trial and error would play a part as well, once a player figures out some of but not all of the clues to, say, a constellation's affects.
Meteors could also be visible signs of a portent, something special that's coming.
There's all sorts of things the night sky can be used for the add life to an MMORPG.
Once upon a time....
That's something I can see enjoyed by most!
The crafting process isn't a zero IQ process. It isn't simply 'slam two things into the crafting window and get sword' like so many other games.
First off, in order to craft something you need blueprints, which you need to collect. Those blueprints are very very basic and can craft things, but they are inefficient and use a lot of crafting materials, so you can either start building stuff right away, or you can research them in order to reduce material costs.
Then, some materials in some crafting have to be built from other materials that don't exist naturally. So you have to harvest base materials, transform those into the building materials, then use those building materials to build the item.
There are probably hundreds of building materials in the game that can all be harvested in different ways and used to build different things. I've never counted them all, but just in planetary mining alone, produces something like
The Planetary Mining Process
If you click on that link and hover your mouse on Wetware Mainframes on the far right of the list, then it shows you all the different materials you need to craft them starting from the far left. You can either start at the far left and harvest them all yourself and refine them into the things you build the mainframes from, or you can simply by the tier 3 crafting materials and do the final step.
In fact, most players aren't involved in the whole process of producing something. Some players just focus on one part of the process and sell their materials to someone who does the other part.
For instance, I mine planets for natural resources on my characters and then I used those character to turn those resources into other resources, but they aren't the final product. I simply sell a product that is about 75% finished to other players who take those materials and turn them into the final product.
If you want to be a crafter in EVE, then it takes a lot of planning a lot of setup and a lot of time to do correctly, but in the end its extremely rewarding to see your products actually being used in the game to effect the game world.
Offering the role of "stargazer" is something, requires a lot of effort to make the system worthy for many hours, and this must be done for a ton of other roles.
I don't know how SWG pre NGE or UO were able to pull it off, in the last decade I feel like you either had theme parks, or sansboxes that aimed to be like an immersive fantasy "sim" that did many things poorly with bugs and lag, or vaporware.
I feel like probably it's not a thing that's gonna be pulled off in the next few years, but in the meantime I feel like I want more from an MMO that my classic theme park.
You as a player explore to find good gathering spots, fight to secure them maybe, decide what to make using what, creates recipes and stuff like that. Now the process of going near a rock, press "X", stay still for 10 seconds, go back to a crafting station and start to drag and drop and press "craft" buttons just seem boring and make me (and probably many people more) lose the will to craft: I'd rather make it automated (like working npc or machines if you are in a Sci - fi setting).
Once you do this you might add something that might be appreciated by most, instead of fighting some mobs to get a random drop of a sword or some tokens to buy a sword that you like, you fight to open a way to a node that you can gather over time, having to defend it maybe etc etc
There is almost no crafting in the game that can be done solo except for the most basic items, and even then you'll be producing them less efficiently and making far less money selling them.
The genius behind EVE's crafting system is that it practically demands that you do it as part of a group or guild. Since you're doing it as a group activity, it's far less boring. If you have a group of friends that you play the game with, then all of the stuff that would normally be boring can be quite fun.
I've mined for hours before while chatting away with the other guys and gals, trading memes in discord, talking about the latest movies.. etc.