Non-combat MMOs, why aren't there more?

Zeroxin

EDIT: Thanks for all the comments guys. Maybe 'non-combat MMO' is too heavy a word... let's go with "creative encounters that don't necessarily require a weapon that removes health bars" MMO.

How's that? Because the reality is, you can still have encounters, but it doesn't have to revolve around healthbar swatting, right? Developers can get creative.

I thought up another MMO idea (just to give you an example); Goonies x World of Warcraft. Instead of having to beat down your opponent with swords, shields and spells and what not, you're actually trying to disable your opponent in order to win the encounter; slick shoes, rocket skateboards, trip wire, and escaping with the loot is an option for "winning" the encounter because you're kids! 

I just want a little more creativity in my MMO guys! 
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ORIGINAL POST:

Are there any non-combat MMOs out there? I know there are a few. But I feel there is a shortage of good ones and that is a problem. Developers and many players are so focused on combat and skills and spells to the point of over-saturating the MMO market with copies of the same game that only have a slightly different shade. I find that the most wonderful ideas could come from developers stepping out of that mold.

Have you guys ever thought about any cool ideas for MMOs without combat? What do you think would happen if developers actually did move toward no combat or limited combat MMOs? Would the industry be invigorated again? Share your thoughts.

What would a non-combat MMO look like? And what ideas could work? A suggestion I have is a game idea i nicknamed Project J.A.M.I.E. (don't ask me what each of those letter mean). The premise borrows from other indie games and starts off generic; crash-landed pilot on a strange planet, needs to fix ship nothing is working except the power in the ship, his Ai companion and (here's the twist) the cloning machine. Our pilot, Jamie, decides that the only way he's going to get things fixed (and fast) is if he clones himself several times over and sends his clones on missions to make different parts for him to fix the ship (that's where the players come in. They are his clones). 

The issue is, he's on a timer, currently the planet he's on is going to pass by the sun, currently keeping it warm but once it moves far enough away from the sun, it will get too frosty for all involved. 

Well that's the premise and you can already imagine what can be done with it. These are the kinds of ideas I'd like to see for MMOs. Enough of the "We are doing Full loot Open PvP, it's going to be great!!!" and more "Let's get creative and wild!!"

alkarionlog

because its boring,

Ungood

Trove is an amazing MMO that allows you to spend endless time just building, crafting, and world shaping.

While it does have combat, like all other MMO's, it's fully destructible worlds, and open build plan for your home instance or guild hall, are second to none.

The only downside to Trove is that it is Voxel, and that does not sit well with some people.

But if you were looking for a MMO where the crafting, building, and non-combat activities are just as involved as the combat ones, Trove is a game to check out.

Gaendric

Combat is a widely used proven concept, investors will be drawn towards the project using it "Because that's what players want". 
Unfortunately nowadays with budgets being so huge, risktaking is not high on the list.

It's certainly doable though, if someone does actually take the risk and finds a way to make these other activities as complex, variable, unpredictable, challenging and fun as combat.

Keep in mind, combat is not just the pewpew, it also branches out into subcategories like maximizing your char efficiency and purposeful speccing into combat skill trees, gearing up and all the collecting, buying, crafting, etc that is part of it, learning all the enemies and their combat styles, strategizing for both solo and group combat, group coordination and group setups, knowing the terrain layout and how to use it to your advantage (usually crucial for pvp), and so on. (there is a lot more you could add)

The devs would have to find other activities that also branch out far in order to have such a huge depth. Combat has more under the hood than most people think.
There are already nicely complex crafting and building systems, that's surely one approach.
I do hope someone cracks the non-combat formula.

madazz

Probably harder to monetize. People may not be as competitive in garden growing competitions in big budget mmos. They can make just as much cash and spend less by making half assed non mmos like farmville.

Ungood

madazz said:

Probably harder to monetize. People may not be as competitive in garden growing competitions in big budget mmos. They can make just as much cash and spend less by making half assed non mmos like farmville.

Not really.

In Trove players will spend all kinds of money on patterns, materials, frameworks, and tools like mounts that allow them to harvest or build faster.

So it can be monetized very easy.

I saw that Camelot Unchained had crafting Classes, which, if that is the way things go, crafting might become very competitive in that game, and the more competitive something is, the more you and monetize it.  

Quizzical

Because the ones that have been made didn't sell well.  Genres often get created by one game selling really well and then a bunch of other companies wanting to copy that success.

If A Tale in the Desert had gotten a few million subscribers at its peak, we'd probably have lots of non-combat MMOs by now.  But no one wants to copy a game whose peak was a few thousand.  That's the only strictly non-combat MMORPG that I can think of off hand.

The next best thing is MMORPGs that do have combat, but have lots of other things to do so that the game doesn't have to be almost entirely about combat if you don't want it to be.  The only game I can think of that fits that description and has ever been all that successful is Black Desert, and even that is pretty heavy on combat, especially with the non-consensual PVP.

Most other games that tried for a heavy emphasis on non-combat activities flopped.  Maple Story 2 is shutting down about a year and a half after it launched.  Puzzle Pirates would have shut down when the company that made it got closed except that some employees got permission from Sega to keep the keep the game running on their own rather than being ordered to pull the plug.  Uncharted Waters Online has survived for a long time, but had the Western publisher drop the game and force Tecmo-Koei to find a new publisher repeatedly.  Ungood mentions Trove, which does have a good amount of non-combat activities, but I'd think of that as a game that is mostly about combat.  And it even then, it wasn't successful enough to keep Trion viable as an independent company.

One might surmise that the problem with MMORPGs that aren't mostly about combat is that they weren't good enough.  I say that UWO is the second best game ever made.  Ever, any genre, not just MMORPGs.  If that kind of quality isn't good enough to be a runaway commercial success that inspires lots of copycats, the problem is the lack of a market, not the lack of quality.

Ungood

Quizzical said:

Because the ones that have been made didn't sell well.  Genres often get created by one game selling really well and then a bunch of other companies wanting to copy that success.

If A Tale in the Desert had gotten a few million subscribers at its peak, we'd probably have lots of non-combat MMOs by now.  But no one wants to copy a game whose peak was a few thousand.  That's the only strictly non-combat MMORPG that I can think of off hand.

The next best thing is MMORPGs that do have combat, but have lots of other things to do so that the game doesn't have to be almost entirely about combat if you don't want it to be.  The only game I can think of that fits that description and has ever been all that successful is Black Desert, and even that is pretty heavy on combat, especially with the non-consensual PVP.

Most other games that tried for a heavy emphasis on non-combat activities flopped.  Maple Story 2 is shutting down about a year and a half after it launched.  Puzzle Pirates would have shut down when the company that made it got closed except that some employees got permission from Sega to keep the keep the game running on their own rather than being ordered to pull the plug.  Uncharted Waters Online has survived for a long time, but had the Western publisher drop the game and force Tecmo-Koei to find a new publisher repeatedly.  Ungood mentions Trove, which does have a good amount of non-combat activities, but I'd think of that as a game that is mostly about combat.  And it even then, it wasn't successful enough to keep Trion viable as an independent company.

One might surmise that the problem with MMORPGs that aren't mostly about combat is that they weren't good enough.  I say that UWO is the second best game ever made.  Ever, any genre, not just MMORPGs.  If that kind of quality isn't good enough to be a runaway commercial success that inspires lots of copycats, the problem is the lack of a market, not the lack of quality.

Trion had a lot of other issues and problems that did a lot of damage to their bottom line, they were the kind of company that could have flopped WoW if given the chance.

Let's not blame Trove, for Trions problems.

iixviiiix

You can't P2W without combat .

Cryomatrix

EVE allows you to be completely non combat if you want. SWG private server you can be non combat. 

Project entropia you can be non combat, but i wouldnt recommend the game unless you have money and like casions. 

Wizardry

I think the only chance for a quality game with no combat would be in the Sim City type games,the simulation builder games.

I have not played a couple i recently watched and do not even know if there is any combat but you can check for yourself.

Some Russian game called Workers and resources or something like that.

A franchise game ..ANNO 1800 not sure if combat but seems pretty good.

A game i think looks cool/promising Ostriv.

kitarad

I played Black Desert as a non combat MMO mainly. I did the main quest part with the black spirit. I spent most of the time trying to travel to nodes and opening them up. I bred horses and I grew crops that I used my worker empire to turn to trade items. I spent a considerable amount of time planning out where to place my workers and I logged in each day and did not do any combat at all. In fact I rode around doing trade and even made boats for that purpose and fishing must not forget fishing. It was fun. I was never killed by another player either no matter where I went.

Last I checked Black Desert is doing well. It's up to you to decide how to play the game. You can find a non combat MMO by doing what you find as fun in a game if there is a possibility of doing it without combat. 

You can also do this in Archeage however I would not recommend becoming a trader there because the energy restrictions in that game make it unbearable.

If you cannot find it then make a space for yourself in a game that allows you the freedom to do so.

H0urg1ass

I know people who have played EVE Online for 10+ years and never participated in combat stuff once.

There's so damn much industrial stuff you can do that it's not funny.

Ungood

As I said. Non Combat can be Monetized, and quite frankly, last I looked people don't like it when combat is actually monetized.

Something to do with fairness and all that.

Anyway, I think it's very easy to mix building games with combat games, As I said, Trove is a great example of this. You don't need to do combat in Trove to build, and you don't need to build to enjoy combat.

But they can blend together very well, as you kill mobs you get trophies you can decorate your Corner Stone with, or your home instance.

You can pick up recipes from mobs and dungeons, and of course, the normal, round around and blow up the landscape for materials and ingredients. 

Also they sell a lot of stuff in the store to help crafters. Everything from Harvesting Mounts to building mounts.

However, one of the largest drawbacks of most games is that there are no real crafter classes, everyone plays a combat class and just opts to craft with that class. 

In Camelot Unchained, again they have crafting classes listed, so, I will be looking into that to see how that plays out.

anemo

Boundless is pretty great if you like a Minecraft style building system, and don't mind STRONG consumables (two or three consumable items shoved into to your body can multiply your effectiveness 5 to 10 times)

Ungood

anemo said:

Boundless is pretty great if you like a Minecraft style building system, and don't mind STRONG consumables (two or three consumable items shoved into to your body can multiply your effectiveness 5 to 10 times)

I was looking at Boundless, and for the life of me, I could not tell how it was any better or uniquely different than Trove.

cameltosis

Zeroxin said:

Have you guys ever thought about any cool ideas for MMOs without combat? What do you think would happen if developers actually did move toward no combat or limited combat MMOs? Would the industry be invigorated again? Share your thoughts.

So, I'm going to get a bit "dense" here, apologies in advance for lots of text and badly explained ideas......

The goal of most games is to let their players experience "fun". If a player is having fun, they'll continue to play and spend money.

Fun is achieved when the activity is something the player wants to do and the activity requires the player's attention. The pinacle of this could be said to be when you are "in the zone", when everything else in the world disappears from your consciousness and you are 100% engaged with the game.

There are many factors to take into account when trying to capture the player's attention, including (but not limited to) difficulty, decision making and feedback. Every player has different requirements as we all have different motivations and skill levels, but in an over-simplified way it's about matching the "intensity" with the player's abilities.

With all that in mind.......

Combat is a great way to provide players with fun. It often requires your attention, as you are required to use a skill every second or so, plus movement and situational awareness on top of that. There is usually a range of difficulty built into the game, so players can match their ability against the game to find the most compelling / "fun" situations. Combat also provides great feedback, in terms of numbers / crits / health / kills, which really helps our brains enjoy the moment and hone in on the perfect combat encounter. (feedback is essential to teaching us our own skill level and thus give us the tools to find the perfect difficulty level in a game).

When you think about an RPG, what activities outside of combat are able to provide that level of fun?

I can't think of any. Almost all of them are just too low intensity, leaving you with too much attention to think about other things. These activities can still be fun for short periods of time, and they can still be relaxing for long periods of time, but the lack of intensity means sustained fun is impossible.

This is why non-combat MMOs that are still based on RPGs tend not to be that successful: the activities just arent designed to have fun.

So what would work?

Absolutely anything!

Take any activity / theme you want, and it could be turned into an MMO and designed to be fun. Take crafting for example. The way it is designed currently is not fun - there's fuck all decision making, fuck all interaction, just a lot of mindless gathering of mats and then inputting those mats into recipes. Boring! After questioning many dedicated crafters, I've yet to meet any who actually enjoyed crafting......what they loved was selling! And that makes sense, because selling requires a lot more attention and decision making than the crafting. You have to examine the market, analyse prices, set your own price accordingly. You get feedback in terms of the sales you make.

To make the crafting more enjoyable, you just need to increase the intensity of the decision making and make it require the player's full attention. Maybe they need to control individual hammer blows when forging a blade. Maybe they need to take direct control over the forge / fuel to maintain temperature? I don't know specifics, but im sure there are plenty of ways to make actual crafting more engaging than currently, without resorting to a crappy mini-game.

Look at other genres.

Nearly all the most successful genres are ones where the main activity requires your full attention, has a range of difficulties to match to your own skill, and has good feedback. Any of those things could be scaled up to be an MMO, however it would be difficult.

Look at sports games.

One of the most popular genres, has good intensity, good feedback mechanisms and adjustable difficulties. Take those principles and scale them up to massively multiplayer numbers. Sure, you couldn't scale up the numbers for a game of football as there's only 22 a side, but you could take the principles of the sport and invent a new massively multiplayer version.

How about racing?

Satisfies the requirements for fun, so you could possibly scale it up to massively multiplayer numbers. I'm not sure what a race with 500 drivers in it would look like, or what the course would look like. Perhaps it's just an open world, like burnout paradise, with 1000s occupying it, but the races are still just 2-20 drivers?

What about city building / sim games?

These types of games are usually nothing but decision making, from building transport networks to placing buildings or making stuff look good. The intensity is totally in the player's hands - you can build as quickly or as slowly as you want, depending on your own skill. I have no idea how you could scale this up to MMO size but as long as the basic gameplay loop was kept in tact, im sure it would work nicely and be fun. Perhaps each player is a planner or some sort, and missions are to improve / upgrade small sections of a massive world that we all share? For example, a mission might be to reduce traffic conjestion at a junction, you're given £1m and can change anything within 200m of the junction?

Anyway, enough of my wall of text, congrats if you made it this far!

TL;DR: you can take any activity and turn it into a fun, successful MMO, as long as you design those activities properly. The problem is existing attempts haven't been designed that well, hence the lack of mainstream success

Sovrath

cameltosis said:

When you think about an RPG, what activities outside of combat are able to provide that level of fun?

I can't think of any. Almost all of them are just too low intensity, leaving you with too much attention to think about other things. These activities can still be fun for short periods of time, and they can still be relaxing for long periods of time, but the lack of intensity means sustained fun is impossible.

This is why non-combat MMOs that are still based on RPGs tend not to be that successful: the activities just arent designed to have fun.

hmmm you had something up to this point.

that's what happens when you use your preferences as the measuring stick for everything else.

There are people who LOVE crafting - as it currently is designed -  in these games. Are you saying they aren't having fun?

Not everyone is looking for high intensity. What they are looking for is to be engaged on a level that is meaningful for them. Whether that's the "I need my adrenaline pumping group rawrrrrrrrrrrrrr" or the "I happily paint carved ducks" group, something in the activity resonates with them.

ChildoftheShadows

There are 2 driving forces in game development. 

1. Making something people will play
 2. making something you want to play

 sometimes there is a combination of the two, but in general this is it. People ask, “why do developers make pvp games?”  The answer is simple, they like pvp games. You ask, “why are there no non combat mmos?” Because the developers don’t want to make them and not enough people want to play them.  

Ungood

ChildoftheShadows said:

There are 2 driving forces in game development. 

1. Making something people will play
 2. making something you want to play

 sometimes there is a combination of the two, but in general this is it. People ask, “why do developers make pvp games?”  The answer is simple, they like pvp games. You ask, “why are there no non combat mmos?” Because the developers don’t want to make them and not enough people want to play them.  

I disagree with this, mainly because, the Era of the Developer being some gamer and making the game they want to play is past. 

Modern Developers and Game Companies are not made up gamers, they approach game development as a academic or trade professional pursuit akin to psychology, where someone does not need to be crazy to know how to work with or handle people who are. That is what happens when companies become multimillion dollar business, as opposed to some niche product made as a labor of love, like the first MMO's were.

This is why we have so many modern games that seem to be what we call "Check Box" games, where they are checking off what worked, or what it is accepted that players want, and not looking at what makes the game fun from a players perspective.

Often if any feedback on that comes to them, it either comes post launch, or from their QA department.

This might also be why many games are "Launching" earlier in development, because the dev's are not gamers, they don't play these games, as such they have no idea what is actually fun. They look at metrics, mechanics, and chart statistics, as opposed to just getting in and playing the game.

So the notion of "Making something they want to play" is not really a sound stance.

They make PvP games because it's easier in overall development, as the players themselves are the content, and PvP is what sells, if you look at games like Overwatch, LOL, and Fortnight, PvP is where the big money is at.

So I highly doubt any of these Dev's make a PvP game because THEY directly want to play a PvP game or invest any real time into one.

cameltosis

Sovrath said:

cameltosis said:

When you think about an RPG, what activities outside of combat are able to provide that level of fun?

I can't think of any. Almost all of them are just too low intensity, leaving you with too much attention to think about other things. These activities can still be fun for short periods of time, and they can still be relaxing for long periods of time, but the lack of intensity means sustained fun is impossible.

This is why non-combat MMOs that are still based on RPGs tend not to be that successful: the activities just arent designed to have fun.

hmmm you had something up to this point.

that's what happens when you use your preferences as the measuring stick for everything else.

There are people who LOVE crafting - as it currently is designed -  in these games. Are you saying they aren't having fun?

Not everyone is looking for high intensity. What they are looking for is to be engaged on a level that is meaningful for them. Whether that's the "I need my adrenaline pumping group rawrrrrrrrrrrrrr" or the "I happily paint carved ducks" group, something in the activity resonates with them.

By intensity im purely talking about how much attention is required. To achieve the desired effect (full immersion), everyone will require different levels of intensity.

For some, even low intensity activities will provide that full engagement, either because they're a bit slow, or maybe they've had a hard day's work and dont have much energy left, or maybe the activity is just difficult for the way they think. The ability to pick and choose your desired intensity is the key to finding the fun.

Think about typical MMO combat.

You can keep it low intensity: go solo, pull only one at a time, choose the level of the enemy.

Pick up the intensity: pull more than one, take on something higher level, maybe try an elite

Go higher: do some group combat, interact with other people

Keep going: raids, pvp etc

With combat, devs have designed a system with a broad range of intensities so that players can find the right balance for themselves, find that level of fun or relaxation depending on their mood and ever-changing skill level. That is what is missing from crafting at the moment: in most RPGs, crafting has only one level, one way to do it, and it's very low intensity so it doesn't appeal to many players as a main activity. only as a side activity, something to relax doing after they've already had fun elsewhere.

I'd love to meet someone who does have fun crafting in MMOs though and find out exactly what it is they enjoy. As I mentioned earlier, everyone I've ever met who says they enjoy crafting....doesn't. They enjoy selling, crafting is simply the hoop they have to jump through in order to get to the selling bit that they enjoy.

Theocritus

I can't remember the name of hte game now, but there was a MMO that had no combat (not A Tale in the Desert)......It had a single word name and you went around and explored different areas and gathered information that you could share with other players....You learned crafting recipes and other skills this way. Unfortunately the game didn't catch on, but it did show me that it is possible to make a game with no combat.

Iselin

No combat MMOs are like decaf and non-alcoholic beer. Sure there's a market, but a tiny one compared to the real thing.

Sovrath

cameltosis said:

I'd love to meet someone who does have fun crafting in MMOs though and find out exactly what it is they enjoy. As I mentioned earlier, everyone I've ever met who says they enjoy crafting....doesn't. They enjoy selling, crafting is simply the hoop they have to jump through in order to get to the selling bit that they enjoy.

Thanks for the clarification. Some sort of "engagement" makes more sense.

As far as liking crafting, while I despise DESPISE crafting I have actually enjoy two instances of crafting.

Elder Scrolls Online and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

I love picking a style applying an effect and then improving it. I wish there were more components to creating that style (might not be an Elder Scrolls thing but I liked the Neverwinter Nights Module (for the single player game) where you could pick parts of weapons or armor as well as the colors.

In Dark Messiah I liked the realism.

that's all I got!

Mendel

My take:  like all other forms of fiction, an MMORPG needs a source of conflict.  Combat simply happens to be far, far easier to abstract and implement than more esoteric forms of strife.  What about a theological debate or a character vs ethics crisis?  Sticking a sword in the other guy is easier to understand and delivers more of a psychological payoff when your weapon is embedded in the opponent's lifeless corpse.  Winner.  Loser.  No grey area.

After all, if D&D could make millions with its simplistic rule set (mostly, if the GM says it works that way, it works that way), why should our game do anything different?  It's all about maximizing the money.

ChildoftheShadows

Ungood said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

There are 2 driving forces in game development. 

1. Making something people will play
 2. making something you want to play

 sometimes there is a combination of the two, but in general this is it. People ask, “why do developers make pvp games?”  The answer is simple, they like pvp games. You ask, “why are there no non combat mmos?” Because the developers don’t want to make them and not enough people want to play them.  

I disagree with this, mainly because, the Era of the Developer being some gamer and making the game they want to play is past. 

Modern Developers and Game Companies are not made up gamers, they approach game development as a academic or trade professional pursuit akin to psychology, where someone does not need to be crazy to know how to work with or handle people who are. That is what happens when companies become multimillion dollar business, as opposed to some niche product made as a labor of love, like the first MMO's were.

This is why we have so many modern games that seem to be what we call "Check Box" games, where they are checking off what worked, or what it is accepted that players want, and not looking at what makes the game fun from a players perspective.

Often if any feedback on that comes to them, it either comes post launch, or from their QA department.

This might also be why many games are "Launching" earlier in development, because the dev's are not gamers, they don't play these games, as such they have no idea what is actually fun. They look at metrics, mechanics, and chart statistics, as opposed to just getting in and playing the game.

So the notion of "Making something they want to play" is not really a sound stance.

They make PvP games because it's easier in overall development, as the players themselves are the content, and PvP is what sells, if you look at games like Overwatch, LOL, and Fortnight, PvP is where the big money is at.

So I highly doubt any of these Dev's make a PvP game because THEY directly want to play a PvP game or invest any real time into one.

You are referring to reason number 1. Making something people will play. 

Reason 2 is your typical indie developer. And yes, most of the pvp mmos currently come from passion and no I’m not talking about having pvp IN an mmo I’m talking about pvp focused mmos.