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Why programmers arent able to make good mmorpg?
oby1sky
Member Posts: 40
The fact are two: or i m not a good sercher or programmers aren't realy able to make good moorpg
I cant understand why seams so diffucult to find a good idea to make them .I cant understand it becose to my eyes look so easy. You take the engine of every good first shooter game like for exemple call of duty . You ambient it in a village. You are a citizen of it and you live there. You will be a wood cutter or a butcher or every thing the ppl have always done olso in the real life . So you grow in this village and you work in this village but you can move too to see how the near villages are, or you will be able to become the citizen of another willage. In those willages election will take place and you will be able to become the Mayor.
You will decide the politic of this village and you will decide that this village will have good relashion or bad relascion with the others. You will be able to invade the other village and conquer them. You will be able to fight with enemies and friends ( in the real life you can kill your neighbor right? ) .you will be arrested from the "police" if you will be catch from it after have done something bad . You will have your home and why not your shop. if you die ppl will be able to loot you . I want to fight using the mouse for pointing enemies like a normal first shooter. You dont like this ambient? Place all those things in the future in another planet or bring this in a fantasy world but dont change this base. In the normal life you dont grow with items that you will never be able to sell to someone else or give to someone alese ( souldboud ? what is that? ). In the real world you will be able to fight enemies and friends . In the real world you will be able to work or have a house to built as you like . you dont kill someone just to ern point to be able to "buy a pvp armor. What is the point of it?you do pvp for new armors and you make pve for new armors instead WoW you could call it World of Walentino ( or if you prefer Wersace).In a serius game you shoud be able to loot ppl you have killed. In the real world you dont have the look of a starship ALWAYS ( will you ever get down from it ? ) someone can tell me why ,who make games ,just think them as they shoud have as target only little babys that would start to cry and quit after they have been looted from his enemie or friend? Istance shoud exist just for lvling but not as the only target of the game . Im starting to hate those stupid istance . Some game consider them just the funniest thing to do. What is the point of them? just to go in the mainplaza of the game to screem that you have killed the last boss? or you like it just becouse you will show to the others your last loot of the boos you killed? THIS IS BORING . WHAT ABOUT STARTING TO MAKE A NICE GAME? after Neocron no more realistic game was ever done.
P.S. sorry for my english , but i believe that my italian would be less understandable
Comments
I feel there's multiple reasons which conspire to push the bar very, very high for most new MMOs.
In my opinion, programmers aren't able to make good MMO's because most MMO's continue to try and copy WoW. The next "big" MMO will not be a WoW clone - it will be something new and different that totally consumes its playerbase. Other factors why programmers aren't able to make good MMO's include the rush to market, unfinished games, broken promises, lack of fun factor, and primarily the feeling of deja vu.
I'd be more inclined to ask why develpoers can't develop good mmorpgs. Programmers only code and implement what they are told to by the developers.
Mostly this. I think the biggest issue plaguing our genre right now is that there are no more REAL developers anymore. Everyone sees how successful WoW has been, and it's attracted a massive following of what Penny Arcade refers to as "carpetbaggers" - businessmen who know that MMOs are growing and just want to cash in on the craze for a quick buck.
Only one sentence is needed to properly and completely answer your title question
"Because they do not listen to what their potential customers tell them what they want in a game" !
Exactly. It has nothing to do with programmers, but the companies that hire them. They can't just make what they want, but have ot listen to the suits who are telling them "Yes, making this game JUST LIKE WoW will net us BILLIONS of dollars!"
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
I've played quite a few very good MMOGs, so I believe your theory is false.
They are either too busy copying/cloning other games and/or listening to the whiners too much that probably aren't even playing their game anymore.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
This is my view and only my view on it.
Most Games in general (SPRPG and MMORPG) have pushed the graphics more than the design. Some newer released games are design around the engine and not around actual ruleset. The ruleset is taking a backseat to the pixels in other words. After the game actually hits the public do the developers actually sit down and say "ohh.. I should have added this rule." or "Shit, didn't think a player would need to do that."
For a well designed game with few bugs, it needs to be well thought out and documented with all the ruiles in place and coded before the actual world gets built.
Programmers can do a good job coding an MMO. They just need a ridiculous amount of time to make it all perfect. The current game market is trying to do way too much with the technology it has. We are not advanced enough in our internet technology to make perfect action packed MMO that are easily bug free.
There are just way too many varioables in an MMO that can go wrong. I think there is double the amount of features and variables in an MMO than in a single player game.
The fact these games are on computers makes it worst. Most console MMO games turn out really well. Usually they have no bugs.
I strongly believe the MMO market should do the same thing that the FPS market does. Buy and sell gaming engines to companies. The comapnies then use the engines to give them a 1 or 2 year headstart on their MMO title. All they have to do is edit code.
Oh come on. WoW did have a lot going for it, but compared to The Matrix, LotR, or frikkin STAR WARS? They died (not LOTRO) for various programming related reasons. The Matrix because of a pitiful launch, tons of bugs, and generally... hell, no one plays that anymore. Star Wars Galaxies died because of a horribly unfun combat system and various bugs and imbalances which kind of snowballed into them cutting apart the game and then doing unmentionable acts to the corpse. LOTRO just left people feeling like they were playing WoW, but with Hobbits.
WoW just managed to make an MMO that, when released, was just head and sholders above everything on the market. Maybe not in every area (hell, DEFINITELY not in every area) but it was reasonably well polished, well balanced, entertaining, a good mix of difficult and easy content, and overall just entertaining.
And the OP is right. Programmers are failing at making good MMOs. You can't look at things like Tabula Rasa, Hellgate, or AoC limping to market and tell me these guys know what the hell they are doing. It's like someone made Wolfenstein, then Doom, but then instead of making interesting new FPS games, they all decided "Hell, lets make crappy Doom knockoffs or absolutely unplayable games that we can claim are different from Doom because they have swords and crap." We're stuck in an endless cycle of Heritic and Hexen for, from what I can tell, no good reason.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
I'm going to respond to what I got from your post (and sorry if it's already been said, I didn't bother but read 2-3 replies in this thread). What you are assuming is that programmers are the ones that do the design, storyline, or such? No, no, and no. The conceptual aspect is what game directors, designers, and writers are for. By no means should the concept or design of the game be credited upon the programmers. Programmers do just that: PROGRAM. They write lines of code that interact with the computer. Blame poor design on the designers, not the programmers.
Here is the problem and the only problem....
Companys are looking for a big group of people .. This in tern makes them have to aproach the game in a wide spectrum Instead of focusing on a single aspect . B y this i mean there trying to add great pvp and great pve with economy and and balancing and what ever else you can think of. This all relates to one thing They are trying to make a game were all these aspects and trying to round them out dulling down each point that made them fun in the first place, to try and make a game thats accessable to everyone. This ideal of thinking just wont work. Every aspect of a game takes a major amount of time in itself, and there trying to round out all these aspects in the same amount of time and with the same budget it would take to make a fantastic game with just one of these.
You heear fps producing companys say it all the time (and its true) the way to make a great game is to make 30 seconds of fun then managing to multiply it across the entire length of the game. And now-a-days there adding little by little to them to make them fantastic and more customable to the player.
RPG's on the other hand was not evolving, now there trying to evolve it at a rate that just tears the fun out of it. And apart from companys being to scared to take a chance and make something unique does not help the situation any at all eaither.
Kind of the point I was trying to make myself but I missed the mark. The programmers do what the game designers relay to them and nothing more and the designers are building the games now days for pixels and not based on decent well though out rules.
Don't blame the companies, blame the customers for eating their shit and says it's good.
______________________________
The Sceptics, yes they're special but we've need them to.. I guess.
And if they're put more effort MMORPG.com can create a 'Team Sceptic'
and send them to the Special Olympus.
The topic sounds as if mmos are still made by a few lone guys in the basement that are coding away
. As several posters have pointed out, that is no longer the case...
I guess companies design a game that they think will sell well and start designing a game like wow and don't dare to think too far out of box as there is too much money at stake.
you are right , i had to talk aboout game designers instead programmers but my english is realy poor.
You are right whene you say that the companies choose just looking at money. What im asking my self is : there would be so few ppl that would like to play a more realistic game like the one i was talking in my first post?
I dont want to believe that i would be one of the few ppl that would buy a game realistic as the one i described you before.Something more attached to the rules of the real life. I talked about Wow and indirectly about all the game like eve whene i was talking about playing always over a starship, but i could go on talking about everquest or Guild wars. They are 2 opposit game but the target is always the some Take down the big boss in a PVE istance or kill the best fighter in a pvp fight . What you get is an armor or a weapon to show to the other friends like a Manager do going around the city with his Ferrari , or in the second case you win a battle and you become the first fighter in a list over a webpage on internet. Is this RPG? How can you call those, RPG? The armors or the wepons you get from a constructor shoud be just a tool to get to the real target , defend your village and the ppl that live inside it from invasions . This is an RPG. Or you use the weapons and the armors to attack another village if this is the decision taken from the mayor you elected togheter with the other citizens of your village. or you kill your Mayor becouse you dont accept the rules he give you . You make the story of the game in this way. Instead with the actual MMORPG "getting the tool" has become the target . In wow everquest and all the clone of them you live a story just written from someone else That monster will die in the upgrade of the story olso if noone will never be able to finish that istance . This isnt an RPG this is another way to read a book or looking a film called "WOW "
The OP is proposing a really interesting concept in gaming, however, it's not MMORPG based imho. All successful MMO's to date have either successfully implemented an existant lore that people want to *experience* in a gaming setting -- role play within, but stay within the realm of the lore concept (LOTRO, WoW for example) or created their own lore base (everquest) and so the story unfolds. This style of game play is generated from first person RPG's that are always story based and back to text based MUDs, and first person text based games from the 80's all the way back to Paper and Pencil. The kind of game the OP is describing -- imho -- is more of a simulation style game that allows a lot more freedom than Sims. That's just my opinion though
Also the numerous comments about make MMO"s like FPS games or if they were on consoles they'd be more successful again alienates a TON of the community. I don't own a console doubt I ever will -- I dislike consoles immensely, the games designed for them, etc -- just not my cup of tea. So no I don't feel an MMO would be superior on a console by any stretch of the imagination -- as far as generated an MMO with a FPS combat system -- I bet it would get a good following but it wouldn't be the overwhelming success predicted -- I wouldn't even try it whatsoever.
I love how everyone thinks that all games are immitating WoW just because it has the largest player base when I"m sure it's been said before but WoW owes a lot of their ideas to Everquest -- actually as the OP points the raiding and reward system that WoW uses is identical to Everquest practically -- it only evolved a PvP component. All games currently are useing a WoW quest based system -- but EQ2 and WoW generated a similar system simultaneously -- EQ2 slightly different if you care to dig a little deeper and most games have utilised similar ideas since then. I've often said that LOTRO's quest system is more similar to EQ2 but EQ2 and WoW have such similar systems that it really doesn't matter. The point is it was generated as a response to earlier games that didn't have marked NPC's and had poor in game quest descriptions and made quests pretty hard to follow. The system was successful for both games so why not implement it in future games?
The only other thing I'd say is that most MMO's really don't start to develop a unique identity until the higher levels -- but the main uniqueness is generated by the lore not the UI. It seems most criticts just stop at the UI and say all of the play the same -- but they don't take the time to look in to the game's lore, see what people are RPing about, and look in to raid instances and what the stroy is behind kiling the bosses.
An MMORPG will not and can not be 30 seconds of fun generated through the whole game like an FPS because there's too much lore and story involvement. My advice -- read the quests, don't just click accept, level toons closer to the end game so you can see where the lore is going and hang out around RPers and see what they are accomplishing/doing.
Anyway just some thoughts and my opinions -- the only other thing is that it's going to be very hard to generate an MMO that has universal appeal. World of Warcraft's success was based on timing, an evloution of a simpler user interface and keeping things technilogically assessible to the majority -- EQ2 coming out at the same time failed to be technilogically assessible to the majority it required machines that most people just didnt' own and that effect game play in a major way. That's why Wow took off and EQ2 didn't -- it was a time when there were fewer titles as well so most folks migrated to the same game that had the best playability. It was not the most unique and definately not a developmental miracle -- just better implementations, etc
Play Mount & Blade to see the ground work for an awesome MMORPG engine. Just tweak M&B to play MMORPG style and tada - greatest MMORPG ever made!
I disagree with some of your reasons on why wow got big like because you said Blizzards name was on it,Battle.net etc. While I agree that some fans came over from that the real reason WoW is what it is today is simply Blizzard knew when to release their game.Think About it,SWG had just completly ran off most of their playerbase with the CU upgrade,EQ2 had recently made changes to their game that ran off alot of their gamers,AC2 was in desperate mode among many other games that had irritated their player base.WoW comes along and releases at the Optimon time and gained a tone of players from those games at release along with their own faithful crowd. They in turn told their friends about the game and word spread that there was a decent game out and the rest is History.
I think you may be on to something here. There is no way to satisfy everyone. Everyone is different and likes different things. Trying to make everyone happy just makes a mess of a game. I think either you need to focus on PvE/Crafting/Dungeons/Quests or on full out PvP/full looting/realistic world. There might also be a group in there for PvPers who don't like full looting as well. You concentrate on one of these aspects for your game, but not all of them. You make sure you do what you do well instead of having a little of everything, but having everything be mediacorely done.
I think that as soon as a game need so much quests to be interesting , then isnt a realy good game. I think that the quests shoud come out by itself in a game. Think for exemple in the real life: inst a machine to tell you to go to collect 20 items , is the life it self that give you the quests. You work as a wood cutter? well will be your clients to ask for some wood and here it is the quest : go and collect enought wood for your clients.Probaby you are a joung cutter and you started to work for someone one that was juast a wood cutter? well he will order to go to take some wood , and if he will be an "A.SH.E" you shoud have the ability to kill him . Are you a soldier? some weapons are required for the new villagers , so need to be built new weapons , so need someone to take some iron and a blacksmither is needed for building them. here is the quest. You want gooder weapons and you know that in the next willage there is a better blacksmither ? you go there to make your weapon and perhaps you bring the blacksmither of your willage with you. Probably the old blacksmither will let him learn how to make weapons better. Those are quests.but shoud be the playes to be the charaterof all those things not some stupid NPC with some question point over the head
Wow and all the clone of it need quests just becouse the comunity it self doeasnt realy exist. Few guild think at their members realy. DHP system is just a way to give to everyone items. Without it ppl would fight each other ( olso if they can't) to have that peace. in the actual system wow let the players think more for their self instead for the group. everyone think first for its own just becouse the only pint in those game is to show the last cool loot you have taken from the rare boss . In the system i'm describing every villager would try to have better neigbor becouse whene war will come the more they will be good the better will be for everyone.
Is the system of wow & company it self to give a "solo system" of play.The quests in a game like im describing would come from life it self and from GMs that shoud have special charater for let the story have a particulary backgroud . i dont know, for exemple GMs could have heros charater or god charaters to lead villagers in epic battle but at the end the result of the batle and so the story line shoud come from the actions of players.
Another thing to think about is the fun element.
How many games have spells and abilities that are in the game more for fun then for a practical combat purpose? I believe that WoW and Everquest are to two top games in terms of having neat abilities that are just for fooling around.
How much humor is in the game? Again there were side jokes and story throughout both WoW and Everquest. This adds to the fun of the game as you see something like this and it lightens the mood while you are playing the game.
I would guess with the money MMOs cost and how much control coperations have over the game it isn't easy to get these type of things into games.
Because we are held back by... reality checks! Having great ideas is one thing, actually making them work is the hardest part.
And it's actually a programmer's worst nightmare, heh. Having a great idea, and knowing you can't work it out. And if you do try to work it out, people call it vaporware (Darkfall).
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
You are perfectly right. The reason why im writing those things is to do something to let my dreams come true. Im not a programmer or someone that could make a game. I just played many games and i know how i would like mine. I know that the game that went closest to my wish is Neocron and that Reaktor killed that game with Neocron 2 . I know olso that Reaktor shoud have solved the lag problem instead pushing inside new stuff. I realy hope that one day someone will be able to make a game like this one or leven better... p.s. Neocron 2 will probably close but if someone shoud want to live it again now is free. dunno for how many time more