For MMORPG's to have true longevity

Billius8

They need to give a player a reason for starting over at level 1 again.  Once the low level population of a game declines, the entire game declines.  Seems the strategy most designers use is to increase high level content and more zones to adventure in.  However, this makes starting a new character at level 1 all the less meaningful.  Who wants to grind solo in empty zones just to catch up to the gaming community.  Perhaps expansions should focus on the low level content rather than the high level stuff.

ianubisi

I disagree. People become very attached to their avatars...that's what the RP in MMORPG is all about. People want to have a contiguous career, that evolves and continues and constantly moves forward.

As an alternative, there might be better ways to construct the "advancement" of characters so that it's not purely linear. Expansions shouldn't have to increase level caps and make mobs harder to keep people going, but that's the only way it works in most MMOGs where the advancement is linear. This is the "leveling treadmill" and many people definitely want to see another way, but very few games have shown a better way of accomplishing it.

Enigma

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Originally posted by ianubisi

 This is the "leveling treadmill" and many people definitely want to see another way, but very few games have shown a better way of accomplishing it.

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EVE does not have a linear leveling treadmill at all.

If you want, I can throw a free three day trail your way (I know...not a long time) but you dont need to enter any cc number or anything.

Lemme knw if interested.  The best way to describe EVE's leveling system is to try it out yourself.  You actually get skills being learned while offline

Papa_Sody

I would tend to agree. Sometimes, starting over at level 1 is alot of fun. My wife and I do that all the time.

EQ, now, has a series of newbie armor quests for nearly every race/class combination. We often will start a pair of new characters, and play together through about level 15, collecting all the newbie armor. Then, sometime before level 16, we delete them and start over.

EQ, however, has gone through and "revamped" alot of zones and made them higher level zones. They took out a few of the really fun midlevel dungeons and made them high level dungeons, with one small problem...they don't compare to existing content.

For example, Cazic Thule, Droga and Nurga used to be 30ish level dungeons. They are now 50+ dungeons. However, the experience in those 3 dungeons in no way compares to the experience one can get in ANY Planes of Power zone. So the only reason anyone who have to go to those 3 dungeons would be to get an item that drops there. But the drop rates are slow, so people tend to not even bother going at all. Now, those 3 zones may have 1 group in there screwing around, but for the most part, they are empty.

Even the new content hasn't added anything to the lower level game (other than newbie armor quests). Panieel and The Hole were added. A new newbie zone and a 45+ dungeon. The Hole was later revamped to be more liek a 55+ dungeon. The Warrens and Stonebrunt were also added, a level 5-15 dungeon, and a 15-30ish outdoor zone. The Warrens gets some use, but Stonebrundt does not.

Veksar was added, 50+. The entire expansion of Legacy of Ykesha was 40+, most of it 50+. So basically, the 3 best mid 30's dungeons no longer exist and most of the new content was/is geared for higher level people. People now trudge through the 30's with one thought in mind...get to 50+ as quickly as possible.

The problem, of course, is anytime they DO add lower level content, the player base tends to whine about the waste of time that should have been spent adding more high end content. Not enough people take enjoyment from the under 50 game. They are all about getting to level 65 as fast as possible. In other words, not enough role players play MMORPGs.

TaskyZZ

I agree with the original poster.  If there was a reason to start over, or if it was fun to start over, then the game would have more longevity.  If every class didn't have to go through the same basic go kill monsters system then people would have a reason to start over.

If a thief could get XP for being sneaky and sneaking into places successfully and stealing stuff, or pickpocketing from an NPC deep in a hostile dungeon or other such thing, then players would make a thief to try that life.  The problem is, you start a warrior, you go kill monsters.  You start a thief, you go kill those same monsters, you start a wizard, you go kill those same monsters.  People don't want to have to do the exact same thing again.  Give each class it's own lifestyle and purpose, and watch the players switch classes and start over like mad, just to experience another life within a world they love.

 

Lypheus

The best way for a game to have longetivity is to avoid "levelling" altogether and find other ways for character development to be interesting.

I think the best game that I have experienced which meshed leveling and skills together was SWG, but even then theres a certain disappointment after you master something, because you hit the proverbial "glass ceiling". I know from experience, I mastered the toughest class in the game - Master Bounty Hunter (Kettemoor).

Now my solution is twofold : (1) remove the concept of visible numeric class/skill development entirely and (2) incorporate alternate methods of "advancement".

Let me explain myself with an example:

(1) You start the game and find yourself in a fringe city. Deciding you want to be a ranger you buy a bow and some leather armour (your particular image of what a ranger is) and some traps. As you get outside the city you start to look around for some game and come across some tracks. They are NPC tracks of something you determine, and start to track the animal until it comes into view. Slowing your pace you attempt to sneak up on what you recognize as a Deer. After a moment the animal catches your scent and darts off, you use your bow to try and take the deer down, nailing him on the second try ...

Ok in the above segment I can see that our "ranger" has started developing a "tracking" skill, a "bow" skill a "stealth" skill and perhaps a "leather armour" skill.

But this will vary from player to player.

What if they had started tracking a PC? They might gain a different kind of "tracking" skill, perhaps we could think of them as an "assassin" now instead of a ranger. Maybe the find themselves tracking in a city more, making them more a "bounty hunter" (city based assassin) vs. outdoor tracking which we could say makes them a "stalker" (outdoor based assassin).

Even the bow skill can go different ways. Do they use the bow mostly standing still (i.e. bonuses to accuracy while still, fire rate and perhaps specials like a "head shot" or "snare" develop) or do they tend to kite and strafe (i.e. reduced movement penalty while firing, specials like a "trip" or "knockdown" might develop).

As you progress you can give some indication of learned skills by having some new player "created" or "found" ability come up so they can short cut it (manual)... alternately you can have all skills fairly passive (i.e. track "activates" when you come across some footsteps, backstab "activates" when you initiate an attack from behind and head shot "activates" when you fire a shit at the head.

I suspect some mixture of the passive/manual would be most appropriate.

What would be cool is that some players might develop their own skills in a special way, so then we could have some notion of "mentoring" a student in some desireable skill (i.e. perhaps Ginwyn the Archer has come up with a variant of head shot -> blind shot, and since they are from the same sphere another player could become a "student" and try to remold his head shot -> blind shot, so he is better able to fight mages perhaps?).

(2) Ok so the other half of the equation is that we need to move away from focusing so much on individual PC development. You see, IMO, the main enjoyment we get in an MMORPG comes from sharing or competing with our advancement in a persistent setting. Currently most games do this in a very primitive way - you have a level 30 wizard I have a level 20 wizard, you are crafting good blasters or perhaps your guild has 200 members vs my guilds 2000 members.

This is superficial in the extreme, and it falls down on many levels but most importantly it fails to address the core problem of moving away from "treadmilling" as the primary mode of advancement. I respect games that are trying to move this out more (Ryzom seems a very positive step in the right direction if they are half what they claim).

Games like Shadowbane make a good attempt at displacing the treadmill effect with empire building, but since the world surrounding Shadowbane is STATIC this fails and devolves into more of a gangk-fest than a viable "virtual world". In fact SWG fails on a similiar level, though dynamic in nature (i.e. spawn pts are randomized instead of fixed) the core components are static as well : theme parks, jabba will always be there dishing out same garbage, no matter how many raids you make in Coronet there will always be a rebel recruiter, etc...).

Now people will cite the problem as being that if you allow Imps to raid the heck out of rebels and remove the recruiters, how can rebels become rebels or get faction points?

Well the problem is not that Imps could raid and conceivably do this but that the rebel recruiters and empty script based shells that proxy rebel faction pts into tangilble goods.

The answer lay in providing the NPC world with guides and/or respectible AI. I don't know if anyone is familiar with an old AD&D based game named Stronghold, but imagine playing in THAT kind of environment on a MMORPG scale? I am sure there are far better examples, though they elude me.

So in short : In order for a MMORPG be have true longetivity it must have both a dynamic form of PC development AND a dynamic environment for that player to challenge.

As an analogy think of a game (i.e. Super Sprint, Spyhunter, etc) where you only move the car (it is dynamic) but there is only one track and it never changes (or scrolls). This is the state of every MMORPG out there I have seen. Now take that same game and add in changing maps, the ability to not just buy upgrades but the fact that they too are dynamic (get better, different abilities, etc), and animations or surprises like pedestrians, wind and oil slicks.

You get the idea.

BTW If you want to write a real mmorpg and have experience in graphics development (both artist and developer) I wouldn't mind tackling writing the game engine itself.

Omol

If you think about it wiether your working up levels or working up skills your still in a treadmill. It takes time to eventually do both. To some longevity comes with content. Why do you think EQ has lasted so long. They continually give people more and more content. And with that new content comes new opertunities to make your character grow.

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Omol da'Ox
The Blooded

Lypheus

The reason EQ is popular is because it captured a critical mass of users and for many introduced them to MMORPG's in general. Because it has a strong audience and has continually evolved (not only content but modifications to the engine itself) it has survived and flourished. EQ is an example of a successful product that has maintained itself because more likely than not the audience is not aware of anything better (frankly that because most games are simply variants today sadly enough).

Yes, fundamentally every game is a treadmill in that regard. Real life is even a "treadmill" taken in that context. The point is not to try and eliminate PC development entirely, but to try and make the MMORPG non-treadmill centric. I think one way of doing this is by de-emphasizing all the numerics in a PC and the predictability that comes with it (i.e. 85 Sword Skill).

Consider for a moment, in real life we find the environment has a huge impact on our lives, which is what makes life so interesting. I liken most MMORPGS to being trapped in a large room with untouchable ornaments and the same selection of music/movies.

No matter how interesting the people are around you, you'll eventually want to leave and go explore things elsewhere.

That is where a truly significant MMORPG will start, is opening that door ....

Ramonski7

You know a idea that I have been dwelling on for the last 5 or 6 years is a 'timed' system.

You make a character and a timer begins to count down. So you have so much time to essentially build your character's legacy. Build a wealth of gold, collect items, build power in hopes of one day passing it on to your son/daughter. And the timer would tick even if you log off. After so much time has passed your character would come to pass and then you would have to determine what you will leave behind for your next character: Skills- A book of knowledge, Wealth- A hoard of gold or One item- (sword, cloak, ring)

This would not only go to build a character that actually means something, but also would have history behind him/her.

 

digitydarkman

Skill based mmorpgs are much better. EX. UO Style games where you can have a 15 minute old char and kick someones ass whoes like 7xgm, unlike AO style.. a lvl 1 vs a lvl 200 cant happen

aLeX666

Obviously, most of you seem to think that to progress you must level or get better items... which are done by... killing monsters over and over and over.

I only have one word to describe that : BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRING

Clever_Glove

Longevity often has little to do with gaining new players and everything to do with retaining current players. AC/UO for example, If they do not have longevity nothing does.

variety keeps people playing. People often beget new players. The best plan for longevity seems to be retention. Allow your current player base to recruit new members.

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