The notion of making classes specific to grouping and/or soloing is horrible. The player should be free to do what they like in the style (class) they see fit.
This would be an entirely separate notion to the problem of the Everquest model of playing for loot and character progression, which many of us grow tired of.
I like the concept of game where 'level' isn't as important as how a player chooses to create and use their character.
A game should be a tool that allows me to really stretch my imagination and take it out for a test drive. It shouldn't shove my creative side into a box to be stored away, so that it can be easily referenced or categorized.
The quality of games we now accept as standard or consider better than average mmorpgs is sad.
To answer your question IMO the state of mmorpgs and what we accept as a playable game to sink a monthly fee into reflects somewhat on the up and coming generation.
I want mine now. Life owes me something. Take what you can get when you can.
That mindset relates to all the changes you see to gameplay and the so called "class balance"
Its sad but when 5 million kiddies and spolied brats cry nerf in World of Warcraft not long after sudden "It was not intended to be" BS is thrown out there by the devs and Wala insta-nerf.
It does go to show you however that Blizz is listening to the playerbase, but IMO alot of the older and mature players have long since left, myself included.
Why do we play these horrible time sinks when after a few months we feel unsatisfied with the gaming experience?
There isn't much out there today IMO thatas a truly fun gaming experience where you can meet up with other players, establish a repor and go out and explore endless landscapes and dungeons with the appropriate risk vs reward.
I'm hoping alot of older Daoc players will pick up Warhammer Online, assuming its a decent game when released, and bring back that old feeling of polite and honest players grouping to have fun and explore or RvR while at the same time offering us as a mmorpg the challenges, rewards and experiences that are just plain lacking in most "So called Mmorpgs" we settel for today.
This post is not meant as a rant and as stated several times is My Opinion only on the current state of mmorpgs today.
aside from blowing people up in eve some of my best mmo memories are doing instances in wow with level appropriate people (4 people less than 33 doing sm library, those same 4 doing archades with no one over lvl 43) and GRINDING in lineage 2 in a group, yes grinding. Nothing worth remembering ever involved a quest, I guess maybe warlock fast horsie but that's it.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You? if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it. Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
Originally posted by ryotia y no progression at all, just pure sandbox where you build houses, cities, etc. the goal might be interacting with the community in a dynamic, evolving story like those WELL online developers claim they will do
Well, we all use the "sandbox" term a little loosely. Anyway, I'd love to see an MMO that does exactly what you describe here. Zero character progression, player driven content, the ability to build and create...
It already exists.... its called EVE and has all of these things.....
oh, you want another one.....
sorry but EVE does have a progression. Unless you purchase the game, log on only to pick a new skill to train every couple hours/days/weeks, and don't actually "play" for a few months... or years....
but wait, you still *suck* because you have no money to buy new ships... so you have to grind missions/mining to makee enough money to buy ships
EVE does have a progression, it's just a different kind then most people are used to in level / experience based games and it's much different then a true skill (toon skill not player skill) based game
Originally posted by ryotia y no progression at all, just pure sandbox where you build houses, cities, etc. the goal might be interacting with the community in a dynamic, evolving story like those WELL online developers claim they will do
Well, we all use the "sandbox" term a little loosely. Anyway, I'd love to see an MMO that does exactly what you describe here. Zero character progression, player driven content, the ability to build and create...
It already exists.... its called EVE and has all of these things.....
oh, you want another one.....
sorry but EVE does have a progression. Unless you purchase the game, log on only to pick a new skill to train every couple hours/days/weeks, and don't actually "play" for a few months... or years....
but wait, you still *suck* because you have no money to buy new ships... so you have to grind missions/mining to makee enough money to buy ships
EVE does have a progression, it's just a different kind then most people are used to in level / experience based games and it's much different then a true skill (toon skill not player skill) based game
you don't have to grind missions/mining, you can play the market or do trading, or you can pvp in merlins forever which requires little money at all. your idea of fun could be to scavenge loot from people npcing in 0.0, you could do it in a bantam and make enough money to buy replacement bantams. That's the whole point, you don't follow a linear path of having to be rich. you can do what's fun.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You? if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it. Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
But most people play MMORPGs to DEVELOP THEIR CHARACTER. They need that "ding" to feel that they accomplished something. And how would something like that work, because I cant think of a way it would... I can only see it where theres no levels/skills, and everything is determenied by the wealth of the character. Nothing comes to mind when you describe that, can you give me an example? And im not trying to troll or be a$$, but I don't see how a system like that would work. But am interested in how it could
i have no idea how popular that would be nor any proof whatsoever it would work. but something deep inside tells me it would be fun to play. i dont know how to eliminate grind off hand but if all we had to do was pursue money then at least we would have freedom to progress anyway we see fit
say you are lazy well then you can buy money from a farmer (yes this is bad but i dont know how to stop it)
say you are a trader then you make money from selling goods
say you are a pvper perhaps you could hold contests to win money
what do u need with money? well maybe purchase additional skills and mats for houses and costume apparel.
i never played it but noticed ppl discussing it here and it sounded like an MMO I would like to play. but i have no idea how successful it would be. maybe only veterans would play but give it a few more yrs there will be a lot of vets from WoW and other games (I hope, hope, hope)
to add to this, I am thinking if players cant 'buy' vertical power then they might not have reason to ebay? i might be naive
Right. With no character progression, money would be the focus of the game. You'd want a good, player driven economy with resources that are limited and difficult to obtain. Of course, with a game like this, you'd have to plenty of things for players to do with their money: building bigger and bigger houses, founding a city, buying prestige or rank, etc. Could be a lot of interesting things to work towards with out making new players feel as though they're worthless, since they can have the exact same avatar skills as an experienced player.
The problem i see with a game where money rules, is that this is like a currency sellers wet dream/a players worst nightmare.
It will be profitable for farmers to sell currency for real money, and if the currency goes for dirt cheap real life money, then non currency buyers are fucked.
So the company would have to be great at stopping farmers/sellers for this to be any fun
I would say mmorpgs started turning into linear single player rpgs as soon as PC's became easy to use and accessible to every ignorent a-hole that had the money for a computer.
Not because a-holes like linear single player rpgs, but because most people would rather play a single rpg than be forced to group or waste their time with a-holes. Who wants to pay a monthly fee to be forced to interract with jerks? I know I don't. Its not that people don't like sandbox games, or multiplayer games, its that its often the only alternative available to enjoy an mmorpg without the experience being ruined.
It used to be, you had to at least be educated to use a pc. And there was a certain level of respect and maturity between users because of this. When they became more maintream, that respect and maturity got replaced with attitude and childishness. As they say, 'there ain't no cure for stupidity'. So the only way to allow players to keep enjoying games at that point was to make it so you could avoid the stupidity. And the solo linear mmorpg was born.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence. Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
The problem i see with a game where money rules, is that this is like a currency sellers wet dream/a players worst nightmare.
It will be profitable for farmers to sell currency for real money, and if the currency goes for dirt cheap real life money, then non currency buyers are fucked.
So the company would have to be great at stopping farmers/sellers for this to be any fun
Well, thats a problem with every MMO, regardless of design. In MMO's with the usual character progression and the usual broken economy, players still buy money and avatars, so you're not really avoiding the issue there either.
Then you could advance your character without having to try to find a group who may or may not want your class or character level.
Ideally, if there must be these "drag your character along a rail of quests track" there would be two tracks, one where you could go on alone if you had to and still complete a quest line (different xp and reward for solo or group so you'd want a group but would not be sc***** if you couldn't find one.).
Also, single player rpgs have a richer storyline, better characterization, better level and area and map design. And you are able to develop your character without worrying that Mr. Stinkytoes the Whiner will feel his character is being hurt by the uberness of your character. So...put those in an mmo. Please.
i know in signel player RPGs i could use a cheat code to get all the money i want but that takes away all the fun for me. but i guess gamers look around at their fellow man in an MMO and see they purchased all their wealth from a farmer they get PO'ed. but really in a full blown sandbox I dont think its unfair if they do this cause everyone is equal anyway. i speak of an ideal full blown sandbox though where players stick around for the dynamic storyline
maybe that's it? the hook would have to be the envrionment and making players "care" about their environment and fellow man. lol I am not sure how you could accomplish this. I hear in Habbo Hotel players give each other quests but im too lazy to play
in city of heroes players used to have costume contests all the time but I always lost and it was more disappointing then losing a PVP fight cause i took great pride in my hero I thought he looked the best
Personally, I think the next step in the evolution of MMORPGs will come when someone creates a game where the world is proactive, instead of interactive. Let me 'splain what I mean.
In current, typical MMORPG worlds, the environment just persists. It offers essentially the same experience to player after player, character after character. A single experience will not meaningfully take into account the players class, race, religion, skills, talents, level, or most of the players past actions (excepting of course, the limited "faction" functionality offered in some). The environment never changes or if it does, it does not change radically, and certainly does not present a different experience for one player versus another. But of all the issues, the one that is the most radically boring is the fact that all games today require YOU, the player, to interact with the world in order to uncover quests, or items, etc. YOU have to go up to NPC XYZ and hail them. YOU have to travel to a place where there is a boss that spawns and kill him (and he miraculously appears again for other groups). YOU have to run around to different NPCs to unlock quests, or to buy certain items, or to interact at all with the environment. /yawn.
In a proactive world, the environment changes as a result of singular player's activity, skills, talents, and other character attributes. It also serves as a "character" in and of itself, and will seek YOU out as a player, rather than the other way around. The same event experienced by 100 different players may yield 100 different results, depending on any number of circumstances. Wow. Imagine a game where your experiences are different than anyone else's. Imagine a game where different characters can enjoy radically different experiences. Imagine a game where the world recognizes you for your charcter specifics and treats you accordingly. How could that get old? How cool would that be?
To illustrate: You are walking through a forest, and a tree falls in front of you. It narrowly misses crushing you (you saved on your reflex roll!). A group of wood nymphs jump out. They peer at you skeptically, then ask you a number of questions, which you answer, and then your screen goes black and you suddenly find yourself in a room with no windows or doors, and you have to .. do something to figure out what the heck just happened. Another player comes across this same tree, already down in the road, and is jumped by bandits who where hiding behind it. He fights them, kills a few, and the others flee. Searching their corpses, he finds a map. He has to then figure out what it means. Another player happens by this same tree, but it's being chopped up by a group of men. The player hails these men, and they respond jovially, offering to trade their firewood for our player's cloak. He agrees, and makes the trade, and finds out later the wood is enchanted and makes a fine hilt for a magic weapon. Another player comes by and the tree is gone, and he passes by this little area without incident.
While it may sound horribly expensive or terribly difficult to create this sort of player experience, it's not outside the realm of what is already being created for players by MMORPG companies. It's certianly not outside the realm of possibility, only outside of the box in terms of current game design.
In addition, in a proactive world, your activities will have consequences. For example, if you go into the woods and slaughter a few dozen wolves, you'll suddenly find it a little more difficult to gain admittance to a druidic guild or temple. However, the nearby town's Militia is suddenly more interested in hiring you for things like guard duty, something they'd not be willing to ask just anyone. And this opens up new opportunities .. perhaps you get to learn new weapon skills, or leadership skills, etc.
My point is this: games will need to change their player experience focus. Games should not be about a player walking through the same, static environment anymore. The world should come to them, interact with them, give them experiences unique to them. Make their actions and choices meaningful. Give them a chance to fully create a unique persona and gaming experience. Give them a chance to really immerse themselves in a world that cares. When your play because you're excited to uncover your next experience, because you never know what it's going to be, then playing isn't about grinding, or money, or leveling, or progressing anyore. It's simply about enjoying new and exciting adventures, that in the end, result in the progession of your character. That's not a 'grind'. That's just pure fun.
Personally, I think the next step in the evolution of MMORPGs will come when someone creates a game where the world is proactive, instead of interactive. Let me 'splain what I mean. In current, typical MMORPG worlds, the environment just persists. It offers essentially the same experience to player after player, character after character. A single experience will not meaningfully take into account the players class, race, religion, skills, talents, level, or most of the players past actions (excepting of course, the limited "faction" functionality offered in some). The environment never changes or if it does, it does not change radically, and certainly does not present a different experience for one player versus another. But of all the issues, the one that is the most radically boring is the fact that all games today require YOU, the player, to interact with the world in order to uncover quests, or items, etc. YOU have to go up to NPC XYZ and hail them. YOU have to travel to a place where there is a boss that spawns and kill him (and he miraculously appears again for other groups). YOU have to run around to different NPCs to unlock quests, or to buy certain items, or to interact at all with the environment. /yawn. In a proactive world, the environment changes as a result of singular player's activity, skills, talents, and other character attributes. It also serves as a "character" in and of itself, and will seek YOU out as a player, rather than the other way around. The same event experienced by 100 different players may yield 100 different results, depending on any number of circumstances. Wow. Imagine a game where your experiences are different than anyone else's. Imagine a game where different characters can enjoy radically different experiences. Imagine a game where the world recognizes you for your charcter specifics and treats you accordingly. How could that get old? How cool would that be? To illustrate: You are walking through a forest, and a tree falls in front of you. It narrowly misses crushing you (you saved on your reflex roll!). A group of wood nymphs jump out. They peer at you skeptically, then ask you a number of questions, which you answer, and then your screen goes black and you suddenly find yourself in a room with no windows or doors, and you have to .. do something to figure out what the heck just happened. Another player comes across this same tree, already down in the road, and is jumped by bandits who where hiding behind it. He fights them, kills a few, and the others flee. Searching their corpses, he finds a map. He has to then figure out what it means. Another player happens by this same tree, but it's being chopped up by a group of men. The player hails these men, and they respond jovially, offering to trade their firewood for our player's cloak. He agrees, and makes the trade, and finds out later the wood is enchanted and makes a fine hilt for a magic weapon. Another player comes by and the tree is gone, and he passes by this little area without incident. While it may sound horribly expensive or terribly difficult to create this sort of player experience, it's not outside the realm of what is already being created for players by MMORPG companies. It's certianly not outside the realm of possibility, only outside of the box in terms of current game design. In addition, in a proactive world, your activities will have consequences. For example, if you go into the woods and slaughter a few dozen wolves, you'll suddenly find it a little more difficult to gain admittance to a druidic guild or temple. However, the nearby town's Militia is suddenly more interested in hiring you for things like guard duty, something they'd not be willing to ask just anyone. And this opens up new opportunities .. perhaps you get to learn new weapon skills, or leadership skills, etc. My point is this: games will need to change their player experience focus. Games should not be about a player walking through the same, static environment anymore. The world should come to them, interact with them, give them experiences unique to them. Make their actions and choices meaningful. Give them a chance to fully create a unique persona and gaming experience. Give them a chance to really immerse themselves in a world that cares. /dares to dream.
Great thought. It could be accomplished somewhat if there were branching dialogues, and if the dialog initially offered depended on your skill or class, or some other actions you had already done in the game that turned out to have had far reaching in game effects. rpgs have been able to do that for a long time. Why can't the mmo worlds use that sort of engaging gameplay? Then again...if Bioware uses their new dialogue creation engine...blank mind..doh what is it called? Well maybe Bioware can take us a few steps further.
Personally, I think the next step in the evolution of MMORPGs will come when someone creates a game where the world is proactive, instead of interactive. Let me 'splain what I mean. In current, typical MMORPG worlds, the environment just persists. It offers essentially the same experience to player after player, character after character. A single experience will not meaningfully take into account the players class, race, religion, skills, talents, level, or most of the players past actions (excepting of course, the limited "faction" functionality offered in some). The environment never changes or if it does, it does not change radically, and certainly does not present a different experience for one player versus another. But of all the issues, the one that is the most radically boring is the fact that all games today require YOU, the player, to interact with the world in order to uncover quests, or items, etc. YOU have to go up to NPC XYZ and hail them. YOU have to travel to a place where there is a boss that spawns and kill him (and he miraculously appears again for other groups). YOU have to run around to different NPCs to unlock quests, or to buy certain items, or to interact at all with the environment. /yawn. In a proactive world, the environment changes as a result of singular player's activity, skills, talents, and other character attributes. It also serves as a "character" in and of itself, and will seek YOU out as a player, rather than the other way around. The same event experienced by 100 different players may yield 100 different results, depending on any number of circumstances. Wow. Imagine a game where your experiences are different than anyone else's. Imagine a game where different characters can enjoy radically different experiences. Imagine a game where the world recognizes you for your charcter specifics and treats you accordingly. How could that get old? How cool would that be? To illustrate: You are walking through a forest, and a tree falls in front of you. It narrowly misses crushing you (you saved on your reflex roll!). A group of wood nymphs jump out. They peer at you skeptically, then ask you a number of questions, which you answer, and then your screen goes black and you suddenly find yourself in a room with no windows or doors, and you have to .. do something to figure out what the heck just happened. Another player comes across this same tree, already down in the road, and is jumped by bandits who where hiding behind it. He fights them, kills a few, and the others flee. Searching their corpses, he finds a map. He has to then figure out what it means. Another player happens by this same tree, but it's being chopped up by a group of men. The player hails these men, and they respond jovially, offering to trade their firewood for our player's cloak. He agrees, and makes the trade, and finds out later the wood is enchanted and makes a fine hilt for a magic weapon. Another player comes by and the tree is gone, and he passes by this little area without incident. While it may sound horribly expensive or terribly difficult to create this sort of player experience, it's not outside the realm of what is already being created for players by MMORPG companies. It's certianly not outside the realm of possibility, only outside of the box in terms of current game design. In addition, in a proactive world, your activities will have consequences. For example, if you go into the woods and slaughter a few dozen wolves, you'll suddenly find it a little more difficult to gain admittance to a druidic guild or temple. However, the nearby town's Militia is suddenly more interested in hiring you for things like guard duty, something they'd not be willing to ask just anyone. And this opens up new opportunities .. perhaps you get to learn new weapon skills, or leadership skills, etc. My point is this: games will need to change their player experience focus. Games should not be about a player walking through the same, static environment anymore. The world should come to them, interact with them, give them experiences unique to them. Make their actions and choices meaningful. Give them a chance to fully create a unique persona and gaming experience. Give them a chance to really immerse themselves in a world that cares. When your play because you're excited to uncover your next experience, because you never know what it's going to be, then playing isn't about grinding, or money, or leveling, or progressing anyore. It's simply about enjoying new and exciting adventures, that in the end, result in the progession of your character. That's not a 'grind'. That's just pure fun. /dares to dream.
Anything involving dynamic npc/mob spawns would be great. If you have that "random" factor in the game world, then just going out and exploring is an adventure in itself, because you really don't know whats going to happen...ever. A group of bandits might spawn on the road ahead of you, an exceptionally powerful and rare monster might spawn around the next corner, you might stumble into fight between two goblin tribes, you finally manage to track down that rare mob you've been hunting with the VERY valuable hide...
Lots of possibilities there. If you take things even further, you could have npc factions that attack player run cities and villages depending on what quests the players have been completing or what mobs they've been killing.
I really loved the idea about thise dynamic events. this is so weird its like we're all zens here- all on the same page sharing the same dreams (dynamic events, sandbox) and same doubts (profit, farmers). i see many sandbox games fail in other genres though and very few make it. very few its like being a baby cub in a jungle full of vicious, grown predators that got the terriority mapoped out and claimed
but if u get that magic happening you'll be a legend like GTA. but the odds are 99% against you I guess cause sandbox games usually dont dangle carrots but rather u play them for their magic over and over.
wow killed the rpg in mmorpg. all devs can see is 8 mill. subs now.
/agree
I liked the features in the original SWG. Some things I think would have improved on them:
-- Not saying soloing and grouping should offer equal xp but the ability to do both should exist in the game...and the motivation to group should exist without "forced" grouping. Since grouping can be a pain for various reasons, it should be possible to develop a character from noob to full template (I want a game in which one picks and chooses skills without having a level attached to the character) by soloing and should not be overly frustrating compared to grouping (if I solo I can only kill things that give me 1 xp, I barely survive killing things, and I take so much damage that I must stand around for a long period of time before I can kill something else but if I group I can get 1000 xp per kill without taking damage and can run from kill to kill without even glancing at the health bar between kills...exaggeration true but you get my drift). There should be certain "elites" that can be killed solo. To encourage grouping, one should be able to get better xp in the group and one should be able to group without worrying about levels of players in group. "Solo groups" could be discouraged by having spawn depend on number of players in the group. There should be some things in the game that are impossible to solo (no, I don't consider this "forced" grouping because if a game is not a linear, quest based game then a person can play the game without ever doing the things that require grouping).
-- There should be a combination of ways to get xp...with and without quests/missions. Pre-cu had a good system of being able to doing missions from terminals or kill randon spawning creatures/lairs to get xp but quests did not tend to give much xp (if I remember correctly...weren't that many quest lines pre-cu). NGE went quest based for getting the best xp but lairs/mission terminals/kills gave crappy xp in comparison. Balance the two and let the player decide how he/she wants to level.
-- Player cities in pre-cu SWG were nice. They added to the role-playing of the game. They gave players more options on how to play the game. Some player cities were bustling with activity as the guild(s) living in them used them as a home base (a place to heal, buff, shop, get missions, learn skills....) while other player cities were practically ghost towns mainly used to display/store possessions and have the occassional crafter/shopper go through to use the local vendors. An improvement on cities would have been to offer certain benefits to server cities and certain benefits to player cities. The mixture would bring veteran players into server cities to meet new players but would also get the new players into the player cities to see what is happening there and make the environment feel more like a living world.
Sorry for basing everything on SWG, I've tried plenty of other MMOs in the past two years but SWG was the only one that I really experienced the non-linear play in and it's what frustrates me about every other MMO I've tried since then including NGE...being herded from one area to another as the player levels and having difficulty finding other people to play with because I'd outleveled them or they'd outleveled me, I was too low level for the instance they were doing, and they were tired of doing the instance I was doing plus joining with them killed the ability to get the "normal" amount of xp.
wow killed the rpg in mmorpg. all devs can see is 8 mill. subs now.
I play WoW and enjoy it for what it is but I completely agree with you. No game with a decent budget is going to try and innovate when they can just steal from the game that has 9 million subscriptions. It's really sad.
Personally, I think the next step in the evolution of MMORPGs will come when someone creates a game where the world is proactive, instead of interactive. Let me 'splain what I mean. In current, typical MMORPG worlds, the environment just persists. It offers essentially the same experience to player after player, character after character. A single experience will not meaningfully take into account the players class, race, religion, skills, talents, level, or most of the players past actions (excepting of course, the limited "faction" functionality offered in some). The environment never changes or if it does, it does not change radically, and certainly does not present a different experience for one player versus another. But of all the issues, the one that is the most radically boring is the fact that all games today require YOU, the player, to interact with the world in order to uncover quests, or items, etc. YOU have to go up to NPC XYZ and hail them. YOU have to travel to a place where there is a boss that spawns and kill him (and he miraculously appears again for other groups). YOU have to run around to different NPCs to unlock quests, or to buy certain items, or to interact at all with the environment. /yawn. In a proactive world, the environment changes as a result of singular player's activity, skills, talents, and other character attributes. It also serves as a "character" in and of itself, and will seek YOU out as a player, rather than the other way around. The same event experienced by 100 different players may yield 100 different results, depending on any number of circumstances. Wow. Imagine a game where your experiences are different than anyone else's. Imagine a game where different characters can enjoy radically different experiences. Imagine a game where the world recognizes you for your charcter specifics and treats you accordingly. How could that get old? How cool would that be? To illustrate: You are walking through a forest, and a tree falls in front of you. It narrowly misses crushing you (you saved on your reflex roll!). A group of wood nymphs jump out. They peer at you skeptically, then ask you a number of questions, which you answer, and then your screen goes black and you suddenly find yourself in a room with no windows or doors, and you have to .. do something to figure out what the heck just happened. Another player comes across this same tree, already down in the road, and is jumped by bandits who where hiding behind it. He fights them, kills a few, and the others flee. Searching their corpses, he finds a map. He has to then figure out what it means. Another player happens by this same tree, but it's being chopped up by a group of men. The player hails these men, and they respond jovially, offering to trade their firewood for our player's cloak. He agrees, and makes the trade, and finds out later the wood is enchanted and makes a fine hilt for a magic weapon. Another player comes by and the tree is gone, and he passes by this little area without incident. While it may sound horribly expensive or terribly difficult to create this sort of player experience, it's not outside the realm of what is already being created for players by MMORPG companies. It's certianly not outside the realm of possibility, only outside of the box in terms of current game design. In addition, in a proactive world, your activities will have consequences. For example, if you go into the woods and slaughter a few dozen wolves, you'll suddenly find it a little more difficult to gain admittance to a druidic guild or temple. However, the nearby town's Militia is suddenly more interested in hiring you for things like guard duty, something they'd not be willing to ask just anyone. And this opens up new opportunities .. perhaps you get to learn new weapon skills, or leadership skills, etc. My point is this: games will need to change their player experience focus. Games should not be about a player walking through the same, static environment anymore. The world should come to them, interact with them, give them experiences unique to them. Make their actions and choices meaningful. Give them a chance to fully create a unique persona and gaming experience. Give them a chance to really immerse themselves in a world that cares. When your play because you're excited to uncover your next experience, because you never know what it's going to be, then playing isn't about grinding, or money, or leveling, or progressing anyore. It's simply about enjoying new and exciting adventures, that in the end, result in the progession of your character. That's not a 'grind'. That's just pure fun. /dares to dream.
Man I have to just say ... you freaking rock! Thanks for the awesome read. I was immersed in your story, just think if it was a game. Oh the fun. I was going to add something but I can't now, I am awed.
Personally, I think the next step in the evolution of MMORPGs will come when someone creates a game where the world is proactive, instead of interactive. Let me 'splain what I mean. In current, typical MMORPG worlds, the environment just persists. It offers essentially the same experience to player after player, character after character. A single experience will not meaningfully take into account the players class, race, religion, skills, talents, level, or most of the players past actions (excepting of course, the limited "faction" functionality offered in some). The environment never changes or if it does, it does not change radically, and certainly does not present a different experience for one player versus another. But of all the issues, the one that is the most radically boring is the fact that all games today require YOU, the player, to interact with the world in order to uncover quests, or items, etc. YOU have to go up to NPC XYZ and hail them. YOU have to travel to a place where there is a boss that spawns and kill him (and he miraculously appears again for other groups). YOU have to run around to different NPCs to unlock quests, or to buy certain items, or to interact at all with the environment. /yawn. In a proactive world, the environment changes as a result of singular player's activity, skills, talents, and other character attributes. It also serves as a "character" in and of itself, and will seek YOU out as a player, rather than the other way around. The same event experienced by 100 different players may yield 100 different results, depending on any number of circumstances. Wow. Imagine a game where your experiences are different than anyone else's. Imagine a game where different characters can enjoy radically different experiences. Imagine a game where the world recognizes you for your charcter specifics and treats you accordingly. How could that get old? How cool would that be? To illustrate: You are walking through a forest, and a tree falls in front of you. It narrowly misses crushing you (you saved on your reflex roll!). A group of wood nymphs jump out. They peer at you skeptically, then ask you a number of questions, which you answer, and then your screen goes black and you suddenly find yourself in a room with no windows or doors, and you have to .. do something to figure out what the heck just happened. Another player comes across this same tree, already down in the road, and is jumped by bandits who where hiding behind it. He fights them, kills a few, and the others flee. Searching their corpses, he finds a map. He has to then figure out what it means. Another player happens by this same tree, but it's being chopped up by a group of men. The player hails these men, and they respond jovially, offering to trade their firewood for our player's cloak. He agrees, and makes the trade, and finds out later the wood is enchanted and makes a fine hilt for a magic weapon. Another player comes by and the tree is gone, and he passes by this little area without incident. While it may sound horribly expensive or terribly difficult to create this sort of player experience, it's not outside the realm of what is already being created for players by MMORPG companies. It's certianly not outside the realm of possibility, only outside of the box in terms of current game design. In addition, in a proactive world, your activities will have consequences. For example, if you go into the woods and slaughter a few dozen wolves, you'll suddenly find it a little more difficult to gain admittance to a druidic guild or temple. However, the nearby town's Militia is suddenly more interested in hiring you for things like guard duty, something they'd not be willing to ask just anyone. And this opens up new opportunities .. perhaps you get to learn new weapon skills, or leadership skills, etc. My point is this: games will need to change their player experience focus. Games should not be about a player walking through the same, static environment anymore. The world should come to them, interact with them, give them experiences unique to them. Make their actions and choices meaningful. Give them a chance to fully create a unique persona and gaming experience. Give them a chance to really immerse themselves in a world that cares. When your play because you're excited to uncover your next experience, because you never know what it's going to be, then playing isn't about grinding, or money, or leveling, or progressing anyore. It's simply about enjoying new and exciting adventures, that in the end, result in the progession of your character. That's not a 'grind'. That's just pure fun. /dares to dream.
i think what will mark the next generation of mmo's is when the AI can control pve in such a way as you describe (minus the part about wolves and druidic guilds, cause that's TBC grind). Kind of like AI not just for a mob, but the whole world. That's how I think people are going to get a PvE and sandbox in one game.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You? if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it. Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
When did MMORPGs turn into linear single player rpgs? What happened to the sandboxes we should have and player driven action? Every stupid new game that comes out has a focus on how many quest it has, or not having the "grind". Is this what people want, their online game they pay for to be finished fast as it can?
Quick answer - WoW.
The scourge of MMORPGs.
That damn game set back MMO development for 10 years...
When did MMORPGs turn into linear single player rpgs? What happened to the sandboxes we should have and player driven action? Every stupid new game that comes out has a focus on how many quest it has, or not having the "grind". Is this what people want, their online game they pay for to be finished fast as it can? These are suppose to be worlds that feel lasting. Why are so many people concerned with finishing their online game they pay monthly for? It is about the journey and that is where the developers should fill content at. All you do when you get to the end of a MMORPG is stagnate. I am also sick of being force fed quest to linear go through these games. I feel players should make their own quest. It is the devs job to make the world and interesting place and it is the player's job to explore it and make their adventures. I don't need some npc telling me to kill 10 orcs or to go kill Tom Foolery in Dungeon X. Should their not be big monsters, dragons and demons in deep caverns along your journeys in the world waiting to be discovered? There should be some treasures and rare random mob spawns through out the world as well to run into. Players should find your game interesting enough to form a group to explore dungeon X without quest to do so. Players should form groups to slay monsters in the wild to see what is at the end of the cave. Again why does everyone feel like they have to get to the end of a game to enjoy it? I find this absurd, I love the journey and would love a longer one from a game I pay monthly for. Afterall the journey is where all the character building is happening at, alot more than collecting gear at the finish line. Do people not enjoy getting more skill points to spend, or are excited about the next ability they are getting or which direction your character will be taking? What happened to real gamers rather than people who enjoy the shallow garbage that is WoW? Give us our sandbox and make it a fun sandbox. Make the journey long, make it feel like a journey that lasts. I am not going to pay $15 per month to play a online single player rpg. Thanks but I can "solo" without being connected to the internet. I want community I want a player driven world. I want encouraged player interaction such as grouping. Why again are people accepting such shallow games named WoW? I finish with, has devs forgotten why DnD was popular for so long? Character building, it was slow and fun and it was a group activity. Singler player linear garbage online? No thanks.
You won't believe this, but single player RPGs outsell mmorpgs by millions. So taking a Single Player RPG and slapping on large scale multi-player elements a-lah Hellgate London, and bam you would think instant hit.
What's stunning is that we haven't seen a single-player RPG based on the subscription model of MMOs yet; sell the box, then charge for continuing content updates. That seems like such an obvious thing to market. Not only do you get the box sales, you also get ongoing income based on the same engine. You use the same programming, largely the same art assets. All you really need are writers and a delivery method for people to download the content updates, which would actually require far less bandwidth than MMOs because people wouldn't be connected during their play, just during their download.
When I finished the second Knights of the Old Republic game, I wanted to see where the story went. I wanted my character to go out there and find Revan. I wanted to make more of those intriguing morality-based decisions that I first ran into in the Baldur's Gate series, those ethical choices I continued to love in KotOR and Jade Empire. I wanted to continue being at the center of that story. I would've paid $14.95 a month for that opportunity.
MMOs are out there when I want to group with people, but that's just not what I want to do all the time. I have to believe there are other people like me who'd enjoy a continuation of their favorite singleplayer RPGs, and would be willing to pay for it monthly rather than waiting two years for the sequel. Of course, there's also money to be made from that sequel. Instead of calling it a sequel, though, you call it an expansion pack. The business wins, the consumer wins. It seems so obvious to me, that I'm baffled nobody's tried it yet.
Comments
The notion of making classes specific to grouping and/or soloing is horrible. The player should be free to do what they like in the style (class) they see fit.
This would be an entirely separate notion to the problem of the Everquest model of playing for loot and character progression, which many of us grow tired of.
I like the concept of game where 'level' isn't as important as how a player chooses to create and use their character.
A game should be a tool that allows me to really stretch my imagination and take it out for a test drive. It shouldn't shove my creative side into a box to be stored away, so that it can be easily referenced or categorized.
The quality of games we now accept as standard or consider better than average mmorpgs is sad.
To answer your question IMO the state of mmorpgs and what we accept as a playable game to sink a monthly fee into reflects somewhat on the up and coming generation.
I want mine now. Life owes me something. Take what you can get when you can.
That mindset relates to all the changes you see to gameplay and the so called "class balance"
Its sad but when 5 million kiddies and spolied brats cry nerf in World of Warcraft not long after sudden "It was not intended to be" BS is thrown out there by the devs and Wala insta-nerf.
It does go to show you however that Blizz is listening to the playerbase, but IMO alot of the older and mature players have long since left, myself included.
Why do we play these horrible time sinks when after a few months we feel unsatisfied with the gaming experience?
There isn't much out there today IMO thatas a truly fun gaming experience where you can meet up with other players, establish a repor and go out and explore endless landscapes and dungeons with the appropriate risk vs reward.
I'm hoping alot of older Daoc players will pick up Warhammer Online, assuming its a decent game when released, and bring back that old feeling of polite and honest players grouping to have fun and explore or RvR while at the same time offering us as a mmorpg the challenges, rewards and experiences that are just plain lacking in most "So called Mmorpgs" we settel for today.
This post is not meant as a rant and as stated several times is My Opinion only on the current state of mmorpgs today.
aside from blowing people up in eve some of my best mmo memories are doing instances in wow with level appropriate people (4 people less than 33 doing sm library, those same 4 doing archades with no one over lvl 43) and GRINDING in lineage 2 in a group, yes grinding. Nothing worth remembering ever involved a quest, I guess maybe warlock fast horsie but that's it.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
Well, we all use the "sandbox" term a little loosely. Anyway, I'd love to see an MMO that does exactly what you describe here. Zero character progression, player driven content, the ability to build and create...
It already exists.... its called EVE and has all of these things.....oh, you want another one.....
sorry but EVE does have a progression. Unless you purchase the game, log on only to pick a new skill to train every couple hours/days/weeks, and don't actually "play" for a few months... or years....
but wait, you still *suck* because you have no money to buy new ships... so you have to grind missions/mining to makee enough money to buy ships
EVE does have a progression, it's just a different kind then most people are used to in level / experience based games and it's much different then a true skill (toon skill not player skill) based game
Well, we all use the "sandbox" term a little loosely. Anyway, I'd love to see an MMO that does exactly what you describe here. Zero character progression, player driven content, the ability to build and create...
It already exists.... its called EVE and has all of these things.....oh, you want another one.....
sorry but EVE does have a progression. Unless you purchase the game, log on only to pick a new skill to train every couple hours/days/weeks, and don't actually "play" for a few months... or years....
but wait, you still *suck* because you have no money to buy new ships... so you have to grind missions/mining to makee enough money to buy ships
EVE does have a progression, it's just a different kind then most people are used to in level / experience based games and it's much different then a true skill (toon skill not player skill) based game
you don't have to grind missions/mining, you can play the market or do trading, or you can pvp in merlins forever which requires little money at all. your idea of fun could be to scavenge loot from people npcing in 0.0, you could do it in a bantam and make enough money to buy replacement bantams. That's the whole point, you don't follow a linear path of having to be rich. you can do what's fun.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
i have no idea how popular that would be nor any proof whatsoever it would work. but something deep inside tells me it would be fun to play. i dont know how to eliminate grind off hand but if all we had to do was pursue money then at least we would have freedom to progress anyway we see fit
say you are lazy well then you can buy money from a farmer (yes this is bad but i dont know how to stop it)
say you are a trader then you make money from selling goods
say you are a pvper perhaps you could hold contests to win money
what do u need with money? well maybe purchase additional skills and mats for houses and costume apparel.
its sort of what GURPs traveller had in mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game%29
i never played it but noticed ppl discussing it here and it sounded like an MMO I would like to play. but i have no idea how successful it would be. maybe only veterans would play but give it a few more yrs there will be a lot of vets from WoW and other games (I hope, hope, hope)
to add to this, I am thinking if players cant 'buy' vertical power then they might not have reason to ebay? i might be naive
Right. With no character progression, money would be the focus of the game. You'd want a good, player driven economy with resources that are limited and difficult to obtain. Of course, with a game like this, you'd have to plenty of things for players to do with their money: building bigger and bigger houses, founding a city, buying prestige or rank, etc. Could be a lot of interesting things to work towards with out making new players feel as though they're worthless, since they can have the exact same avatar skills as an experienced player.
The problem i see with a game where money rules, is that this is like a currency sellers wet dream/a players worst nightmare.
It will be profitable for farmers to sell currency for real money, and if the currency goes for dirt cheap real life money, then non currency buyers are fucked.
So the company would have to be great at stopping farmers/sellers for this to be any fun
I would say mmorpgs started turning into linear single player rpgs as soon as PC's became easy to use and accessible to every ignorent a-hole that had the money for a computer.
Not because a-holes like linear single player rpgs, but because most people would rather play a single rpg than be forced to group or waste their time with a-holes. Who wants to pay a monthly fee to be forced to interract with jerks? I know I don't. Its not that people don't like sandbox games, or multiplayer games, its that its often the only alternative available to enjoy an mmorpg without the experience being ruined.
It used to be, you had to at least be educated to use a pc. And there was a certain level of respect and maturity between users because of this. When they became more maintream, that respect and maturity got replaced with attitude and childishness. As they say, 'there ain't no cure for stupidity'. So the only way to allow players to keep enjoying games at that point was to make it so you could avoid the stupidity. And the solo linear mmorpg was born.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence.
Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
Well, thats a problem with every MMO, regardless of design. In MMO's with the usual character progression and the usual broken economy, players still buy money and avatars, so you're not really avoiding the issue there either.
I wish they *were* more like single player rpgs.
Then you could advance your character without having to try to find a group who may or may not want your class or character level.
Ideally, if there must be these "drag your character along a rail of quests track" there would be two tracks, one where you could go on alone if you had to and still complete a quest line (different xp and reward for solo or group so you'd want a group but would not be sc***** if you couldn't find one.).
Also, single player rpgs have a richer storyline, better characterization, better level and area and map design. And you are able to develop your character without worrying that Mr. Stinkytoes the Whiner will feel his character is being hurt by the uberness of your character. So...put those in an mmo. Please.
i know in signel player RPGs i could use a cheat code to get all the money i want but that takes away all the fun for me. but i guess gamers look around at their fellow man in an MMO and see they purchased all their wealth from a farmer they get PO'ed. but really in a full blown sandbox I dont think its unfair if they do this cause everyone is equal anyway. i speak of an ideal full blown sandbox though where players stick around for the dynamic storyline
maybe that's it? the hook would have to be the envrionment and making players "care" about their environment and fellow man. lol I am not sure how you could accomplish this. I hear in Habbo Hotel players give each other quests but im too lazy to play
in city of heroes players used to have costume contests all the time but I always lost and it was more disappointing then losing a PVP fight cause i took great pride in my hero I thought he looked the best
Personally, I think the next step in the evolution of MMORPGs will come when someone creates a game where the world is proactive, instead of interactive. Let me 'splain what I mean.
In current, typical MMORPG worlds, the environment just persists. It offers essentially the same experience to player after player, character after character. A single experience will not meaningfully take into account the players class, race, religion, skills, talents, level, or most of the players past actions (excepting of course, the limited "faction" functionality offered in some). The environment never changes or if it does, it does not change radically, and certainly does not present a different experience for one player versus another. But of all the issues, the one that is the most radically boring is the fact that all games today require YOU, the player, to interact with the world in order to uncover quests, or items, etc. YOU have to go up to NPC XYZ and hail them. YOU have to travel to a place where there is a boss that spawns and kill him (and he miraculously appears again for other groups). YOU have to run around to different NPCs to unlock quests, or to buy certain items, or to interact at all with the environment. /yawn.
In a proactive world, the environment changes as a result of singular player's activity, skills, talents, and other character attributes. It also serves as a "character" in and of itself, and will seek YOU out as a player, rather than the other way around. The same event experienced by 100 different players may yield 100 different results, depending on any number of circumstances. Wow. Imagine a game where your experiences are different than anyone else's. Imagine a game where different characters can enjoy radically different experiences. Imagine a game where the world recognizes you for your charcter specifics and treats you accordingly. How could that get old? How cool would that be?
To illustrate: You are walking through a forest, and a tree falls in front of you. It narrowly misses crushing you (you saved on your reflex roll!). A group of wood nymphs jump out. They peer at you skeptically, then ask you a number of questions, which you answer, and then your screen goes black and you suddenly find yourself in a room with no windows or doors, and you have to .. do something to figure out what the heck just happened. Another player comes across this same tree, already down in the road, and is jumped by bandits who where hiding behind it. He fights them, kills a few, and the others flee. Searching their corpses, he finds a map. He has to then figure out what it means. Another player happens by this same tree, but it's being chopped up by a group of men. The player hails these men, and they respond jovially, offering to trade their firewood for our player's cloak. He agrees, and makes the trade, and finds out later the wood is enchanted and makes a fine hilt for a magic weapon. Another player comes by and the tree is gone, and he passes by this little area without incident.
While it may sound horribly expensive or terribly difficult to create this sort of player experience, it's not outside the realm of what is already being created for players by MMORPG companies. It's certianly not outside the realm of possibility, only outside of the box in terms of current game design.
In addition, in a proactive world, your activities will have consequences. For example, if you go into the woods and slaughter a few dozen wolves, you'll suddenly find it a little more difficult to gain admittance to a druidic guild or temple. However, the nearby town's Militia is suddenly more interested in hiring you for things like guard duty, something they'd not be willing to ask just anyone. And this opens up new opportunities .. perhaps you get to learn new weapon skills, or leadership skills, etc.
My point is this: games will need to change their player experience focus. Games should not be about a player walking through the same, static environment anymore. The world should come to them, interact with them, give them experiences unique to them. Make their actions and choices meaningful. Give them a chance to fully create a unique persona and gaming experience. Give them a chance to really immerse themselves in a world that cares. When your play because you're excited to uncover your next experience, because you never know what it's going to be, then playing isn't about grinding, or money, or leveling, or progressing anyore. It's simply about enjoying new and exciting adventures, that in the end, result in the progession of your character. That's not a 'grind'. That's just pure fun.
/dares to dream.
wow killed the rpg in mmorpg. all devs can see is 8 mill. subs now.
Great thought. It could be accomplished somewhat if there were branching dialogues, and if the dialog initially offered depended on your skill or class, or some other actions you had already done in the game that turned out to have had far reaching in game effects. rpgs have been able to do that for a long time. Why can't the mmo worlds use that sort of engaging gameplay? Then again...if Bioware uses their new dialogue creation engine...blank mind..doh what is it called? Well maybe Bioware can take us a few steps further.
Lots of possibilities there. If you take things even further, you could have npc factions that attack player run cities and villages depending on what quests the players have been completing or what mobs they've been killing.
I really loved the idea about thise dynamic events. this is so weird its like we're all zens here- all on the same page sharing the same dreams (dynamic events, sandbox) and same doubts (profit, farmers). i see many sandbox games fail in other genres though and very few make it. very few its like being a baby cub in a jungle full of vicious, grown predators that got the terriority mapoped out and claimed
but if u get that magic happening you'll be a legend like GTA. but the odds are 99% against you I guess cause sandbox games usually dont dangle carrots but rather u play them for their magic over and over.
/agree
I liked the features in the original SWG. Some things I think would have improved on them:
-- Not saying soloing and grouping should offer equal xp but the ability to do both should exist in the game...and the motivation to group should exist without "forced" grouping. Since grouping can be a pain for various reasons, it should be possible to develop a character from noob to full template (I want a game in which one picks and chooses skills without having a level attached to the character) by soloing and should not be overly frustrating compared to grouping (if I solo I can only kill things that give me 1 xp, I barely survive killing things, and I take so much damage that I must stand around for a long period of time before I can kill something else but if I group I can get 1000 xp per kill without taking damage and can run from kill to kill without even glancing at the health bar between kills...exaggeration true but you get my drift). There should be certain "elites" that can be killed solo. To encourage grouping, one should be able to get better xp in the group and one should be able to group without worrying about levels of players in group. "Solo groups" could be discouraged by having spawn depend on number of players in the group. There should be some things in the game that are impossible to solo (no, I don't consider this "forced" grouping because if a game is not a linear, quest based game then a person can play the game without ever doing the things that require grouping).
-- There should be a combination of ways to get xp...with and without quests/missions. Pre-cu had a good system of being able to doing missions from terminals or kill randon spawning creatures/lairs to get xp but quests did not tend to give much xp (if I remember correctly...weren't that many quest lines pre-cu). NGE went quest based for getting the best xp but lairs/mission terminals/kills gave crappy xp in comparison. Balance the two and let the player decide how he/she wants to level.
-- Player cities in pre-cu SWG were nice. They added to the role-playing of the game. They gave players more options on how to play the game. Some player cities were bustling with activity as the guild(s) living in them used them as a home base (a place to heal, buff, shop, get missions, learn skills....) while other player cities were practically ghost towns mainly used to display/store possessions and have the occassional crafter/shopper go through to use the local vendors. An improvement on cities would have been to offer certain benefits to server cities and certain benefits to player cities. The mixture would bring veteran players into server cities to meet new players but would also get the new players into the player cities to see what is happening there and make the environment feel more like a living world.
Sorry for basing everything on SWG, I've tried plenty of other MMOs in the past two years but SWG was the only one that I really experienced the non-linear play in and it's what frustrates me about every other MMO I've tried since then including NGE...being herded from one area to another as the player levels and having difficulty finding other people to play with because I'd outleveled them or they'd outleveled me, I was too low level for the instance they were doing, and they were tired of doing the instance I was doing plus joining with them killed the ability to get the "normal" amount of xp.
Man I have to just say ... you freaking rock! Thanks for the awesome read. I was immersed in your story, just think if it was a game. Oh the fun. I was going to add something but I can't now, I am awed.
i think what will mark the next generation of mmo's is when the AI can control pve in such a way as you describe (minus the part about wolves and druidic guilds, cause that's TBC grind). Kind of like AI not just for a mob, but the whole world. That's how I think people are going to get a PvE and sandbox in one game.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end
The scourge of MMORPGs.
That damn game set back MMO development for 10 years...
THIS SHOULD BE STICKIED IN DEV FORUM!!!!!!!!
What's stunning is that we haven't seen a single-player RPG based on the subscription model of MMOs yet; sell the box, then charge for continuing content updates. That seems like such an obvious thing to market. Not only do you get the box sales, you also get ongoing income based on the same engine. You use the same programming, largely the same art assets. All you really need are writers and a delivery method for people to download the content updates, which would actually require far less bandwidth than MMOs because people wouldn't be connected during their play, just during their download.
When I finished the second Knights of the Old Republic game, I wanted to see where the story went. I wanted my character to go out there and find Revan. I wanted to make more of those intriguing morality-based decisions that I first ran into in the Baldur's Gate series, those ethical choices I continued to love in KotOR and Jade Empire. I wanted to continue being at the center of that story. I would've paid $14.95 a month for that opportunity.
MMOs are out there when I want to group with people, but that's just not what I want to do all the time. I have to believe there are other people like me who'd enjoy a continuation of their favorite singleplayer RPGs, and would be willing to pay for it monthly rather than waiting two years for the sequel. Of course, there's also money to be made from that sequel. Instead of calling it a sequel, though, you call it an expansion pack. The business wins, the consumer wins. It seems so obvious to me, that I'm baffled nobody's tried it yet.