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What makes a game really NextGen
mdpeden
Member Posts: 19
There is a lot of talk about Next Generation MMO's, and has been for years. I want to know, what really makes a game Next Generation?
To me, a Next Generation game is not just a rehash of older games, but from what I read, that seems to be exactly what a lot of developers are calling Next Generation.
So, what do you think would make a game a Next Generational MMO?
Comments
I'll know when I actually see one.I'd have to say that it would need something never before seen. Something so completely new that people are flabbergasted and in the beginning don't quite know what to think. It should be innovative, with new mechanics. I'm pretty sure that we will not see the "next gen" game until we see a "next gen" technology. Once technology catches up to the vast imagination of the individual that will be the next generation.
No required quests! And if I decide I want to be an assassin-cartographer-dancer-pastry chef who lives only to stalk and kill interior decorators, then that's who I want to be, even if it takes me four years to max all the skills and everyone else thinks I'm freaking nuts. -Madimorga-
I think that most of the time "next generation" gets defined more by the engine on which the game is built rather than actual game content. Usually there is a big buzz about some new engine and what it can do and what it offers in possibilities for the designers, companys lease the rights to the engine make a medocire game and call it next gen. I do not think that there is one single thing that can be pointed to to define a game as next generation, it is a combination of game play, graphic, options for new things that have not been seen in a game ect. I think that there are a lot of factors but imo lately it has been update the graphics, make it play like wow (or an attempt at this) call it something epic, hype it and push it out.
this definition also depends on the player and their point of view and since no two people like exactly the same things we will not list the limitless things that may differ in opinions towards a game. In all next gen needs to be a combination of everything learned bad and good from previous games then analyzed to attempt to make it better or more creative and more fun to play slap some updated graphics on that bad boy then maybe you have a next gen game.
Having BOTH ninjas and pirates in it.
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Mobs A.I. being as smart as the real player
An online world that is far larger than in any other current MMO (WoW:s world is about the size of London without suburbs)
Cyber realism...being physically placed into the game via gaming goggles..sort of the old 3-D effect...but much higher tech!
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Mobs A.I. being as smart as the real player
Impossible, mob A.I are limited by the human mind, the dev in charge of scripting the AI woulld simply have to be smarter then the collective playerbase.For a game to be next gen it has to truely take what has been done, then expand on it, take the impossible and make it work.
Currently what would we concider impossible to do in an mmo:
Aging - Players, creatures
Totally Destructable Enviorments
Reshapable Worlds
An on going story - No respawning main protagonists, once they die they die, then the story moves on
Diversity - lets face it, every mmo to date is a clone war because the time it would take to add diversity would span over years easily.
Whether /seasonal changes affecting the world, combat, player, enviorment, monsters
Living economy - a world that actually lives, not jus a bunch of npc waiting for you to talk to them, day night cycles, work scheduals, etc.
Feel free to add to this list, there are a lot more. And yes, some of these things are really close to becommng a reality, warhammer already spoke of the living economy, cryptic touched on diversity with CoX, no doubt their marvel mmo will be next gen interms of diversity.
A game isnt next gen if it is only pretty graphics, if they bring absolutly nothing to the genre they are just taking up space.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I agree with previous posts in that a next gen game should include:
Plus other things mentioned. Unless things like this can be provided I don't see how it can be next gen, imo.
AKA - Bruxail
Hmm.. So if I see this right..
Some people think the Next Generation of computer games is going to be completely 100% different... but generation is part of the name... Shouldn't it be building off of past games but adding some new and innovative? (Combining Pirates and Ninjas would be new... sorta.)
Smarter AI.. I like this idea. An AI that progressively gets smarter, until it dies. But I would include an AI that can actually respond if someone near them suddenly dies... sounds alarms... Can decide the fight is a lost cause and either flee earlier, or call for reinforcements.
High-Tech goggles... Actually, I remember playing a couple of games with goggle. They were uncomfortable at the best, and distracting the rest of the time. We do not have a functional technology, and I do not think that developers should hold off on working on a next generational game just to wait on them.
Destructible environment... The problem with this, is that you have to develop a way to get the players to construct the environment also. Otherwise the game becomes a wasteland, or it becomes a world that spawns barrels and buildings all of a self-repair. While that would work in a SciFi game where everything is made of nanites...
Aging is interesting... But what would be the advantage or disadvantage of it? Characters which get killed and rezzed over and over would just die of old age all of a sudden? Might work on a single death per character game.
Reshapable Worlds... How do you mean? Reshaping the landscape, or construction of towns/villages etc...
Weather, Seasons and Living economy are all good ideas... Any more?
It all has to do with time limitations. We all have ideas of how OUR game would do things but not what some of this would cost, or the time it would take.
The car is a perfect example, since it's creation there have been leeps and bounds in HOW its made, how it's shipped, how it's fixed, how it's improved. BUT it still has 4 wheels, uses an engine, and is limited to the ground.
In short:
- a game with the complexity and the many things like EQ2
- a game which is generous in quest rewards and fast to get to the fun like LOTRO
- a game with the diversity in classes, races and places like VG
- a game which has a fast-paced, dynamic gameplay not the long-winded need to prepare with monthly schedules as EQ2
- game which looks as great as LOTRO (in terms of landscape)
- a game with many character customizations like CoH or SWG
A game which brings together all the various best things from MMOs, thats what I feel would be really next gen.
In long:
www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/150762
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
You guys think too much about it. Next Gen is showing an obvious difference based on experiences from the previous generation whether good or bad. The only 3rd gen mmo I have seen released thus far is Granado Espada with its MCC system, and more single player rpg elements added. Its also obviously not 2nd gen, although it did have some issues that were oversighted in the design, and might be taken into consideration with 4th gen mmos.
Mobs A.I. being as smart as the real player
An online world that is far larger than in any other current MMO (WoW:s world is about the size of London without suburbs)
*Ding..Ding..Ding* And we have a winner..
You'll know the first true next Gen game when you go to camp out and that camp of mobs you just obliterated's sends footsoldiers after you.
I can't wait....
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
The designation of Next Generation is placed usually by the developers themselves in order to attract publicity or hype. It rarely has to do with leaps in technology or advancement in gameplay. HOnestly, I dont care about the "Next generation" designation. Give me a game thats fun and enjoyable...new or old school...I'll be there.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
The problem with reshapable worlds is they're not maintainable.
That is, if you reshape your world on server a, the players on server b reshape it differently.
Then the developers can't apply a solution to a problem with the world that will be the same on each server. All the sudden you need to start maintaining a code base for each server.
Unless you've somehow designed a way out of this at the fundamental level of the world engine, of course. Good luck with that working out...
You see this issue when the devs try to insert new POIs for quests, etc, into the world, and what works on one server just fine doesn't work on another because someone planted a guild hall on the proposed spawn point on another server. Blizz gets around this by not allowing the players to have a permanent impact on the world.
It's just not going to happen.
SWG has run into this problem with character transfers and server mergers. Each server's world is unique, with its own set of resources. You can't take resources from Bria to Chilastra when you transfer your toon. "Merging" servers would be impossible as the player housing on Ahazi isn't laid out as the player housing is on Chimaera. Then there's the issue of toon names having to be unique on each server. You cannot have two "Sky Lukewalkers" on Intrepid. There can only be one "Sky" on each server.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi