I was serious about developing that game, joe. Would you believe that I wrote a 3D head to head FPS game before Doom was released? It was split screen and ran on MS-DOS. Then a couple years later Quake comes out with network head to head gameplay. Had I stuck with the game and developed it into something polished it would have been Aganazer you read about rather than John Carmack. I could have had my own Aganazer-Con with world record breaking lan parties. I'm waiting to play JoeBalls Online when it hits the store shelves. I'm sure it will be a huge hit.
The line of yours that I quoted is ironic and it made me laugh. TCoS is very different than most MMOG's. Most of the people who come here can't handle the change needed to adapt to TCoS's combat system. Its ironic that you're accusing the fans of the game of not handling change because that is exactly what we have done. Its the folks who can't break away from the same old mechanics of EQ, WoW, LotRO, and WAR that can't handle change.
I agree that it is ironic. Yet when I first played the trial, it felt like any ol' mmo that I've played over the past 8 years. So I don't understand what these guys are talking about. It's still fedex delivery, clicking through dialog, picking flowers, killing 10 bunnies, etc, etc. What's so different? Are you talking about 'having to aim at your target' and 'the spinning bar'? lol
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I know what you mean. There is no way I'd take a pay cut, work twice as much, and then be so sick of my own game by the end of it that I don't even want to play it anymore.
But it would have been nice if you offered some ideas rather than 100% criticisms. Give me an example of a quest that would not be a kill quest or a fed-ex quest. Its not easy. Most of the time, the best we can hope for is that they disguise the kill quests and fed-ex quests in way that makes it compelling enough that you don't realize you're doing the same old stuff. If you take the time and read some of the quests, TCoS attempts to do this. Perhaps more so than most MMORPG's.
And the combat system IS different. If you didn't notice that then you were doing it wrong. Mobility as a core concept in combat has only been attempted in a few MMOG's and TCoS is one of them. Also, you may not have played enough to have noticed, but the enemy AI is doing much more than it typically does in most MMOG's.
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I know what you mean. There is no way I'd take a pay cut, work twice as much, and then be so sick of my own game by the end of it that I don't even want to play it anymore.
But it would have been nice if you offered some ideas rather than 100% criticisms. Give me an example of a quest that would not be a kill quest or a fed-ex quest. Its not easy. Most of the time, the best we can hope for is that they disguise the kill quests and fed-ex quests in way that makes it compelling enough that you don't realize you're doing the same old stuff. If you take the time and read some of the quests, TCoS attempts to do this. Perhaps more so than most MMORPG's.
And the combat system IS different. If you didn't notice that then you were doing it wrong. Mobility as a core concept in combat has only been attempted in a few MMOG's and TCoS is one of them. Also, you may not have played enough to have noticed, but the enemy AI is doing much more than it typically does in most MMOG's.
Oh, so you want some ideas, eh? Hmm, ok. Let me give it a try.
Rather than listening to some boring story and then finding out that you need to kill 10 teddy bears that have been terrorizing Mrs Jones, your game starts out with you waking up in a dark, cold, wet basement, chained up by the ankles and wrists with rats pecking at your feet. You look all around and you can't figure out how to break free. You start tugging your arms and legs, but you just can't break free. Suddenly you hear something that sounds like a muffled argument upstairs. Then you hear a fight break out. Lots or banging around and groans. Then after one final crash and a thud, it becomes silent. After a few seconds you hear someone walking. Then you hear the basement door rattle open and someone slowly walking down the stairs towards you. The rats scurry away... you can't make out the face in the darkness. Suddenly the face hits the light from the candle and the man asks if you're alright. He explains to you what happened as he sets you free. He tells you that a baby has been taken from the "family" and that this baby is special (in a magic sort of way). He then goes on to explain to you why you're down in the basement which is somehow related to the kidnapping. Your first mission is to put on some clothes, grab some weapons, grab some food, and take the man's horse and go track down the kidnappers. Once you get to the point where you've mounted your horse (i.e. part of the tutorial), you hear an indicator sound that shows you on your map where the last known location of the kidnapper was. You head in that direction, and once you get there, you start asking witnesses questions about the kidnapper, you find clues, your threaten people, etc. With each question answered, a meter starts to grow (this is the knowledge meter). The higher the meter, the more knowledge you have to the whereabouts of the perpetrator. The map will then start to change colors, giving you more indications of where you might want to continue searching.
Rather than getting in too deep about game mechanics here, hopefully you can start to see what this is. It's more about tracking, stealth, bounty hunting, rescuing, getting rewards, and changing the flow of the story. Where you're tracking (right from the start) a boss level character. A person of interest. Not a group of funny looking creatures. This type of intro would raise your emotions right from the get-go. This way, you will not click through all the dialog just to get to the next mission. You have a purpose in this world that's respected, not pushed aside.
This is just my idea of the tutorial area, and it's also the area where you create the look of your character (i.e. in the world, not before you enter the world).
If that was the first 15 minutes of a new game I just downloaded, I think I'd want to continue playing it.
There's one thing I don't understand about some of these mmos. Why are the tutorial areas so boring? The game designers should know that the tutorial area is where every game really needs to shine (very bright). This should be the place where the game gets the gamer engaged in the story and/or gameplay. This is the area that should have the biggest impact; that lures the gamer in and gives them that wow-factor that we're all looking for when playing a fresh, new game. When I start a new mmo and the first thing is to "go talk to so-and-so to learn about this", or "go deliver captain Johnson this letter", or "go collect 5 herbs from the garden and give them to Mr Smith", or "Go kill 20 goblins in Mrs Jones' basement and bring back goblin dung for proof of the killings", I really just get turned off and don't even want to play anymore. When I quit the game, I have no feeling to go back. Whatever happened to those games that you think about all day long and can't wait to go home and play? After World of Warcraft, I haven't been able to find an mmo that makes me want to come back and play. Do you know why? Because I don't want to play World of Warcraft again!!!! I did it for a long time and I don't want to do it again! I don't care how different this game is, it's starts off like all the others so I'm totally turned off. This genre really needs to shift or it's going to fizzle out very soon. So with all that said, what I would change in this game is EVERYTHING. Mmos support thousands of players on a server. Is this all that the game designers can think up? Delivery quests, mob grinding, group hack-n-slash, tedious and repetitive crafting, dropped loot that you sell back to the vendor 99% of the time, clicking through quest dialog to quickly fill up your quest log, and /dance? Sheesh, there's no wonder why ganking can be fun.
I'm with Joe on this one......and I think everyone else is being too harsh on him with their responses (.....says the grouchy git who moans all the time himself lol). Seriously though all Joe is pointing out is the lack of clever game design which is prolific in mmos.......and he's right. I guess this is because every mmo has its fans and they hate to see any form of critisism even when its of a constructive kind.
This is the internet. We're not playing single player games when we come online and yet thats exactly how they are all designed. These games could be a LOT more dynamic and yet they never are. Players should be able to influence the occurence of changes in the game world and yet none of us can do anything that makes any difference to the game. I realise that this would require a lot more hard work than what is involved in making a single player game but then if a games company is going to take on the challenge of making a game for the internet then shouldnt it be striving to actually take advantage of this fact?
I like Spellborn. Its a fun game and its certainly much better than all the competition. The combat system is more interesting and requires more player interaction which is a step forward and it approaches things from a slightly different angle to other mmos. The quest text is quite well written too and I am fortunate to be in a nice friendly guild who helps to keep me entertained. For these reasons I am currently playing the game. However I am not blinded to the fact that its mostly just more of the same.
I have had the same negative response from people when I point out the massive flaws in mmo game design as well. The most common response is "Oh well its impossible to do it any other way" and "Oh well maybe mmos are not for you then" which is pretty ridiculous really. If you dare to suggest that games can improve then you get told to shut up and shove off.
Mmos are still being designed just like single player games and I think there are plenty of ways that this can be changed. Afterall as these so-called game WORLDS are being inhabited by thousands of players then whats the point in making them static and unchangeable like single player games? I keep wondering about a system where each and every little area in the game has a number of different "states" which it can be in, and it switches between these states based on what the players do in the game. Here is an example.......and I'm going to use Spellborns starter area Hawkslanding........
The first npc you see is always asking players to collect reports from all the guards nearby. There is also another npc nearby who wants you to kill bears and there is another guy who wants you to deliver a present to his lady love. They are all frozen in time and will NEVER say anything else to the players no matter how long you play the game for. This is single player game design. However each of those npcs could have a large (or small) variety of optional "states" that they can fall into and each state changes the quest they give.....and the quests they give change the states of other things elsewhere in the game.
If 100 bears or more have been killed then the npc with the bear quest could stop giving out that quest and instead will ask players to deliver bear pelts to a tanner in Hawksmouth. Once 100 bear pelts have been delivered he will switch back to asking players to kill bears again. Thats a simple one. However this "bear kill counter" can effect a variety of other situations in the game world. Once that bear kill counter goes over 500 then a number of Champion Bear Spirits will start to spawn in all the locations that have bears in them. These spirit guardians are immune to all forms of harm and will only vanish once the "bear kill counter" has dropped to below 20 (it goes down a set amount at the end of each hour). Otherwise they will continue to chase and maul players that attack the other normal bears. Players will have to leave the bears alone until the spirit guardians have gone or........they could take the new quest which has suddenly been offered (which also gets triggered by the 500 bear kill counter) by an npc up in the Hunters camp to the north. This involves a number of players performing certain actions to appease the bear spirits (eg giving the normal bears food) which knocks the bear kill counter down by a set amount each time.
This is just an example of course and I'm sure I havent thought it all through properly so there are no doubt a number of loop holes. However by applying a simple counter system to just one of the creature types in the starter area of the game it would be quite possible to create the illusion of a changing game world. If this was implemented throughout the entire game then we would have a game world where the npcs change what they say and do in reaction to what is going on around them. Players actions would actually mean something as opposed to what we currently have where what we do doesnt count for shit because its all just a story which is set in stone and will never change.
It would be more complex to make a game like this but its certainly well within the boundaries of possibility. People keep saying that its impossible to have an mmo with quests that work in any way other than what we have already been seeing for years and it just isnt true.
So yeah Joeballs dont let other peoples close minded responses get you down simply because you arent as easily pleased as they are. Online gaming has a HUGE amount of potential and what we are currently seeing is just the tip of the "Iceberg" (a wink to Vesavius).......even if other people cant see it. Unfortunately for it to live up to its full potential requires skilled and talented individuals with great vision to be working in games development which is why mmos have been stuck in this unoriginal rut for a good number of years. Its far easier for games companies to just keep copying what has been done before.
The Chronicles of Spellborn might not be the pinacle of mmo game design but it does at least step up the quality of the mmo genre a few notches with some of its features. Yes its basicly just more of the same but it has enough of a twist to it to keep my attention for a while........although I certainly wont be playing through it all a second time and I definately wont be playing it for years like so many other lunatics. Afterall its just a single player game in multiplayer co-op mode so why would I want to do that? lol
But yeah I'm still waiting to see a BIG change in mmo game design. I'm afraid we've probably got many many years to wait.
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I know what you mean. There is no way I'd take a pay cut, work twice as much, and then be so sick of my own game by the end of it that I don't even want to play it anymore.
But it would have been nice if you offered some ideas rather than 100% criticisms. Give me an example of a quest that would not be a kill quest or a fed-ex quest. Its not easy. Most of the time, the best we can hope for is that they disguise the kill quests and fed-ex quests in way that makes it compelling enough that you don't realize you're doing the same old stuff. If you take the time and read some of the quests, TCoS attempts to do this. Perhaps more so than most MMORPG's.
And the combat system IS different. If you didn't notice that then you were doing it wrong. Mobility as a core concept in combat has only been attempted in a few MMOG's and TCoS is one of them. Also, you may not have played enough to have noticed, but the enemy AI is doing much more than it typically does in most MMOG's.
Oh, so you want some ideas, eh? Hmm, ok. Let me give it a try.
Rather than listening to some boring story and then finding out that you need to kill 10 teddy bears that have been terrorizing Mrs Jones, your game starts out with you waking up in a dark, cold, wet basement, chained up by the ankles and wrists with rats pecking at your feet. You look all around and you can't figure out how to break free. You start tugging your arms and legs, but you just can't break free. Suddenly you hear something that sounds like a muffled argument upstairs. Then you hear a fight break out. Lots or banging around and groans. Then after one final crash and a thud, it becomes silent. After a few seconds you hear someone walking. Then you hear the basement door rattle open and someone slowly walking down the stairs towards you. The rats scurry away... you can't make out the face in the darkness. Suddenly the face hits the light from the candle and the man asks if you're alright. He explains to you what happened as he sets you free. He tells you that a baby has been taken from the "family" and that this baby is special (in a magic sort of way). He then goes on to explain to you why you're down in the basement which is somehow related to the kidnapping. Your first mission is to put on some clothes, grab some weapons, grab some food, and take the man's horse and go track down the kidnappers. Once you get to the point where you've mounted your horse (i.e. part of the tutorial), you hear an indicator sound that shows you on your map where the last known location of the kidnapper was. You head in that direction, and once you get there, you start asking witnesses questions about the kidnapper, you find clues, your threaten people, etc. With each question answered, a meter starts to grow (this is the knowledge meter). The higher the meter, the more knowledge you have to the whereabouts of the perpetrator. The map will then start to change colors, giving you more indications of where you might want to continue searching.
Rather than getting in too deep about game mechanics here, hopefully you can start to see what this is. It's more about tracking, stealth, bounty hunting, rescuing, getting rewards, and changing the flow of the story. Where you're tracking (right from the start) a boss level character. A person of interest. Not a group of funny looking creatures. This type of intro would raise your emotions right from the get-go. This way, you will not click through all the dialog just to get to the next mission. You have a purpose in this world that's respected, not pushed aside.
This is just my idea of the tutorial area, and it's also the area where you create the look of your character (i.e. in the world, not before you enter the world).
If that was the first 15 minutes of a new game I just downloaded, I think I'd want to continue playing it.
Thats a good description for the start of a game and I like it a lot. However what you have failed to address is the fact that thousands of players will be playing an mmo. Will they ALL have the same beginning? If so then it wouldnt make any sense at all. You would just be back to square one with loads of players all running around the woods and towns looking for the same boss. Then when they find him they will all have to camp the area waiting for him to reappear so they can have a go at kicking his head in. Thats the ridiculous setup we currently have in mmos and I dont see how your idea addresses that.
I have highlighted parts of your description above. The blue text is pure game dialogue and animations which has nothing to do with player actions. There can be no controls for "tugging my arms and legs on the chains" for example. We're limited to the use of a keyboard and mouse remember. Everything you have described there is already covered in the quests in Spellborn by the quest dialogue (eg npc tells you to go and look for someone and gives you a reason for doing it etc). If you want it to all be fully animated like a film then I'm afraid you have a long time to wait for that. However your description did remind me a bit of the Penumbra adventure games.
The orange text covers things you as the player would do. Ok......put on some clothes. You can do that in Spellborn. Equip a weapon. You can do that too. Get on a horse. Ok Spellborn doesnt have mounts in it yet but lots of other mmos do so I still havent read anything ground-breaking yet. Last known location of the target? Well....errmm.....thats in Spellborn as well. It doesnt highlight it for you on the map as that would be silly and unrealistic but the npcs do tell you where they "think" the target might be which is much better.
In the next bit you say that you ask npcs questions and threaten them to get information from them. How? How does this work exactly? What are the game mechanics that allow you to do this? Asking questions and threatening npcs can only be done through the keyboard and mouse remember. These games dont have voice recognition ya know. AI isnt advanced enough to actually have npcs talking to you from your monitor lol. For this reason I highlighted it in blue again because you really cant have any more control over it other than selecting lines of pre-prepared dialogue.......and even in single player games that have conversations, they dont allow you to do anything other than what the game intends for you to do.
.....and why would you need a "knowledge meter"? You either have the information in your own head or you dont. The game doesnt need to tell you what you know because YOU know what you know. Again the flashing map thing doesnt make any sense. Hell they dont even flash like that in real life so why would it do it in a game?......mind you it would be nice if they did. I could just hold a map and say "Burgerking" and watch as it flashes glowing symbols at me.......or is that sat nav? hmmm
So basicly you have described something which sounds visually great but in practice doesnt make any sense at all. Even most single player games dont have this level of interaction.......and you're talking about this being an mmo?! How?! Besides once you strip down all the visuals and atmospheric effects of what you have described you essentially end up with what we are currently already seeing in mmos anyway. The only real difference is that mmos rely a lot on text to describe things because having everything fully animated isnt quite possible yet over the internet.....although things are certainly getting better.
......and I dont mean to sound like I am going back on what I said in my last post by the way because I do indeed think mmos have a lot more potential to them which we could be seeing today and yet are not. However I think what you have just described is going to the other extreme and is completely over the top considering that thousands of people will be playing this mmo. If they dont all start in the same cell as you (which they cant realistically do) then logically they would all start the game somewhere else and that means every time a player starts the game they get a brand new intro to the game which obviously isnt possible at all. Thats the problem with making an intro to an mmo personal to the player. It just doesnt work because you end up with thousands of people who all have had the exact same character-building beginning to the game. Its much better to let the players choose their own beginnings rather than forcing a pre-planned story upon them.......which is why I think mmos should be more dynamic than what we currently have.
So basicly you have described something which sounds visually great but in practice doesnt make any sense at all. Even most single player games dont have this level of interaction.......and you're talking about this being an mmo?! How?! Besides once you strip down all the visuals and atmospheric effects of what you have described you essentially end up with what we are currently already seeing in mmos anyway. The only real difference is that mmos rely a lot on text to describe things because having everything fully animated isnt quite possible yet over the internet.....although things are certainly getting better. ......and I dont mean to sound like I am going back on what I said in my last post by the way because I do indeed think mmos have a lot more potential to them which we could be seeing today and yet are not. However I think what you have just described is going to the other extreme and is completely over the top considering that thousands of people will be playing this mmo. If they dont all start in the same cell as you (which they cant realistically do) then logically they would all start the game somewhere else and that means every time a player starts the game they get a brand new intro to the game which obviously isnt possible at all. Thats the problem with making an intro to an mmo personal to the player. It just doesnt work because you end up with thousands of people who all have had the exact same character-building beginning to the game. Its much better to let the players choose their own beginnings rather than forcing a pre-planned story upon them.......which is why I think mmos should be more dynamic than what we currently have.
Well neonwire, I think you cease to see the potential. And what I've described above is simply 'the tutorial and start of the game". This is where you get engaged in the story. This is where you setup your character. Who said anything about it being shared by everyone on the server? Not me. It's the tutorial. I'd much rather have a single-player oriented start of the game if it gave me some excitement about playing and getting engaged in the story. Because, as you already mentioned, an mmo is designed like a static single-player game in the first place. You might as well make your tutorial and intro something exciting other than having 5 people in the starting area running around killing bunnies. What's the point of that? You don't need them for a group, especially in the starting area. In fact, I don't want them in my starting area for just the reason you pointed out... "fighting over mobs". I see that you pointed out similarities with my description and Spellborn. But what you don't understand is "how it's being presented". How you go about setting up your character, how you go about the tutorial for eating, resting, talking to people, riding a horse, should be right in there as part of an exciting intro, not some simple guide that pops up as you're running around doing something boring.
Now I really don't want to get too deep into game mechanics at this point. But I'm on the same page as you about world alteration. So I'm surprised you don't know about multiple choice answers. You find such things in single-player roleplaying games, where you have several choices to respond, and according to your response, the story/quest will be slightly altered. That's what I meant about threats, interrogation, etc. Pretty basic stuff, but gives the player a feeling of control. And it may alter the dialog for the next player that goes to that npc (i.e. maybe even a different boss).
Now as far as the 'Knowledge Bar' goes, this is something that can cause alteration. Let's say there 2000 people on the server, maybe 50 are in the open world zone as you. How many people in that area that's currently tracking down the same boss has the same exact knowledge as you? Probably none. This is where it gets interesting. It's all about clues and not simply adding a quest to your quest log. You have one mission, and your building your knowledge meter (which actually forces you to really explore). What this can do is it can direct different players to different location and different boss (alter the mission along the way). Maybe their quest ends differently than mine. It all depends on where you get your information and how you respond to the dialog. And if it comes down to several people persuing the same thing, then you should do it all together. This is in fact an MMO!
Joe, if you want a game with a lot of scripted events and a high degree of interaction like you're saying then the closest thing out there is D&D Online. If you haven't played it you should. It doesn't have a huge amount of NPC interaction, but you'd just click right though it even if it did. Its got the best stealth system in MMOG's, traps, secrets, lockpicking and all the things that dumbed down pop MMOG's never have.
I want to kill a puppy every time a new MMOG comes out that doesn't outright steal their dungeon design ideas.
you can't have a singleplayer tutorial in a mmo. aoc tried that and received a lot of thrash talk after they announced it. while I think it would work, I am also a "veteran" mmo players, so I know what is probably what and what to expect. not everybody has this kind of knowledge, so they ask around (first thing you do, won't work in a sp instance, and even if you link the channels, it creates other problems). also, the world feels different if you don't have other chars running around. for a "new" player, logging in and seeing other people waving, chatting, fighting is what they expect in an mmo. while a singleplayer-intro would work, it would also confuse a lot of people. I remember the old spellborn intro (it got changed in patch 1.0.2), it involved a lot of running and not much tutoring. the new one is better, and true, it might be boring after the first time - but the other quests in the starter zone will be too. it takes only 20 minutes, which is ok imho. and for the shiny sparkles at the beginning: movement and mouse/keyboard coordination is crucial in this game. you have to remember that some people still play point&click and the whole fps-approach is new to them. just watch someone over the shoulder trying to get it to work. it may be tedious for us oldies - for some people it's new.
regarding the game mechanics, currently there is not much room besides fedex/kill/collect. you have to remember that the developers need to create LOT of quests, you need some kind of frame for that. could you program/script every little quests? probably. but the manpower alone would cost too much (sidenote: if there will EVER be a "open source" mmo, or just framework, the whole mmo-genre will change imho. you can already see that on private servers. these have their own little community, their own litte ruleset and a lot of stuff done by people for free. you wouldn't look for a specific game, but rather for a specific server with that ruleset etc., like the neverwinter nights worlds). as for spellborn: sure, some quests are generic. but there are also some true gems in there too. the murder-questline in hawksmouth was the final push for me to play this game. funny, morality choice, fresh. and the game doesn't take itself to seriously, which is awesome. ever got a "goldseller" letter ingame from an ingame-merchant, complete with caps and typos? pure gold. or a npc which simply says "I'm too lazy, just get me the boar meat plz". damn, that's brutally honest. ok, I'll do it, but you better have that reward ready...
in the end, people have to decide for themselves if they like it or not. and maybe, if they rather plunder a questhub, click through the questlog and work them off, spellborn isn't the game for these kind of people. there are already enough alternatives out there that do it, why not play that instead of trying to change a game which found it's niche. the "cater to every crowd" trend in recent mmo's is awful imho.
back to topic. some thinks talked about in this thread are already known to the devs. mounts, for example, are planned. no time set yet, but they said they want them to fit. they will come eventually. new armor will come too. house armor, guild armor etc. fighter stuff first, but they said they are working on robes (armor is easier to implement, so the more complex stuff is worked on later). oh, and there is "new" armor later in the game in form of drops etc.. little hint: almost every npc-armor is an equipment piece which could theoretically drop somewhere. mind you, players need _something_ to work for. with the current system all players are equal - good for pvp - yet they can still get their special looking item if they want to. loot is almost optional here, which is a good thing. again, it won't appeal to everyone, but there will be some people that prefer it that way. nothing heard about beards yet, would like to see some of them myself.
bah, wrote again more than I wanted too. *swooshes off to bed
@Aganazer with the unreal-engine, DDO like dungeons shouldn't be a problem (without the features of course). there are already some cool indoor locations, I expect more in the future.
Well neonwire, I think you cease to see the potential. And what I've described above is simply 'the tutorial and start of the game". This is where you get engaged in the story. This is where you setup your character.
Yeah but the point of a tutorial is simply to show you how to play the game and get used to the basic controls. It also intoduces you to the game world. The actual story itself should really get going when you are out of the tutorial. Spellborn does actually do this. Besides the character has already been setup during teh character creation process.
Who said anything about it being shared by everyone on the server? Not me. It's the tutorial. I'd much rather have a single-player oriented start of the game if it gave me some excitement about playing and getting engaged in the story. Because, as you already mentioned, an mmo is designed like a static single-player game in the first place. You might as well make your tutorial and intro something exciting other than having 5 people in the starting area running around killing bunnies. What's the point of that?
You don't need them for a group, especially in the starting area. In fact, I don't want them in my starting area for just the reason you pointed out... "fighting over mobs". I see that you pointed out similarities with my description and Spellborn. But what you don't understand is "how it's being presented". How you go about setting up your character, how you go about the tutorial for eating, resting, talking to people, riding a horse, should be right in there as part of an exciting intro, not some simple guide that pops up as you're running around doing something boring.
You say you would much rather have a single-player oriented start to the game.......and thats exactly what Spellborn gives you so whats the problem? You start the game in the tutorial on your own on a shardship headed towards Hawkslanding. You might not personally like it but I thought it was fine the first time I experienced it. I thought that the tutorial actually set the scene for the game rather well. It didnt just throw you into a little starter area along with everyone else. It showed your characters journey just before he arrives at Hawkslanding which is where the game begins.
But you seem to be suggesting that the ENTIRE beginning of the game should be a single player experience. This was done in AoC and I must say that I didnt particularly like it. I was still doing exactly what I would be doing in an mmo except there was no-one around to talk to which rather defeated the point of being online. There are single player games for this kind of thing which obviously do it better.
So in Spellborn you are saying that the early parts of the game should be a single player game? I dont really see what benefit that would bring. No you dont NEED all those other players around you but you might WANT them around you. Where would you draw the line anyway? Afterall I havent NEEDED to group with anyone at all really apart from a few boss encounters and I'm nearly level 12 now. So you're saying that because grouping up with people is optional that the whole game should be an ENFORCED single player experience until the game gets to a part where you MUST group up. That sounds like a really backwards mmo to me I'm afraid. Although I personally only like to group with people when I need to, I do rather like having people around to talk to.
You also say it should be exciting......but what is your definition of exciting? I personally wouldnt have liked it at all if the game just threw some giant convoluted plot-line in my face involving epic demons and portal summoning wizards as soon as I set foot on the docks. It wouldnt have made much sense considering that my character had just arrived in front of a civilised city. Instead at the beginning we have players fighting various wildlife (no bunnies I'm afraid) as requested by various guards and other npc characters. This actually makes sense and fits with the game setting. No there are no weird and twisted monsters lumbering around at the start of the game and I wouldnt want there to be any. Its an easy and pleasant beginning to the game which is fine as its.....the beginning.
But you say that helpful hints should not pop up on the screen to explain how to do things in the game and it should all be presented in a more exciting way. Ok so you listed eating, resting, talking and riding. Ok....eating. You right click on some food and select "use". Its just food. Resting......yeah ummm you press x to sit down and you.....rest. Sorry but resting isnt exciting. Talking......you right click on an npc and select the talk option and click through the dialogue. What is there to explain? Riding doesnt apply to the game yet. There is no way or reason to make any of these simple actions exciting so I dont really know what you are going on about there. The combat is more complex than other mmos and could perhaps do with more of a description but to be honest I rather enjoyed figuring it out myself (it wasnt exactly that complicated anyway). You mentioned setting up your character.....well.....what about it? Its all there for you to fiddle around with at your leisure as part of your own personal gaming experience.
You say that I dont seem to understand about how its being presented and yet all you have said is that "it should be right there as part of the intro" which doesnt mean anything at all. You're not actually describing anything. What does "it should be right there" actually entail? You dont want pop-ups so what do you want? A voice over? An animated demonstration that takes you out of the game and thus takes your control away from your own character. The pop-ups are there to give you the advice you need so you can do it all yourself as you play the game. Whats wrong with that? You say that the game shoudnt have pop-ups to assist you while you do something boring.......so what would be exciting? You havent actually decribed in your example anything about what would make the gameplay exciting in your opinion. This is all quite an odd thing to be saying really about an mmo that has gameplay which is far more exciting and interactive than any other mmo on offer.
Now I really don't want to get too deep into game mechanics at this point. But I'm on the same page as you about world alteration. So I'm surprised you don't know about multiple choice answers. You find such things in single-player roleplaying games, where you have several choices to respond, and according to your response, the story/quest will be slightly altered. That's what I meant about threats, interrogation, etc. Pretty basic stuff, but gives the player a feeling of control. And it may alter the dialog for the next player that goes to that npc (i.e. maybe even a different boss).
But the game does have multiple choice answers. Yeah you find them in single player games.......and they are nearly always useless as you end up pretty much taking the same route through the game regardless of your choice.....although some games do this better than others.
I take it you are aware of the 5 High Houses in the game right? You know that your decision to ally yourself with one of the particular High Houses actually opens up certain house specific quests and closes off other ones? This is multiple choice and it dictates how the games story unfolds for you.
However yes Spellborn is pretty limited in this regard (like all mmos) at the beginning of the game although I cant really comment on the later stages yet. I did actually describe a detailed system of how a dynamic mmo gameworld could work in one of my rambling long winded posts above.
Now as far as the 'Knowledge Bar' goes, this is something that can cause alteration. Let's say there 2000 people on the server, maybe 50 are in the open world zone as you. How many people in that area that's currently tracking down the same boss has the same exact knowledge as you? Probably none. This is where it gets interesting. It's all about clues and not simply adding a quest to your quest log. You have one mission, and your building your knowledge meter (which actually forces you to really explore). What this can do is it can direct different players to different location and different boss (alter the mission along the way). Maybe their quest ends differently than mine. It all depends on where you get your information and how you respond to the dialog. And if it comes down to several people persuing the same thing, then you should do it all together. This is in fact an MMO!
Yeah but from the sounds of it (sorry your description is rather vague) this would mean having a HUGE number of different clues that could all shift and change and yet still somehow connect in a meaningful way with each other.......and on top of that the resulting string of clues would have to lead to a large number of different target bosses.......and thats just for ONE quest?! Also what is this weird "Knowledge Bar" supposed to indicate? Your progression towards solving a mission? Well what if you have lots of missions on the go? And why would you know when you are near to completing your quest anyway? "Oh yes I have 87% of all the required clues to find the evil bad guy. I had better get my sword ready because in a moment I'm bound to find the last 13% and then I will meet him". Ermmmm.......no.
Besides Spellborn does "actually force you to really explore" because the npcs quite often fail to give you the exact location of certain quest objectives. I was wandering around a large patch of woodland for well over half an hour with a guildmate (yes one of those people I didnt NEED to group with) looking for a burglar who had stolen something from an npc in Aldenvault village. Also quite a few npcs wander around a lot so they arent always in the same place every time.
Overall, I love TCoS. The sound and graphics are excellent. I love the fact that I don't have to pick a target, I can just point at a mob and use a skill. I love that I can attack a group, then move on to another group, then another without much pause. It's a game that has a lot of unique things going for it.
What I'd like added are things that are most likely going to get added anyway.
- a quest tracker
- the ability to move UI elements
- more options for clothing/armour/physical features during character development
- the ability to skip the tutorial
- the ability to enhance gear earlier into the game
Overall, they've done a great job I think. The fact that I was just entering combat the other day when the client crashed and I thought I'd be dead when I logged back in and wasn't was amazing. It shows that the devs have put a lot of work into TCoS.
Rather than listening to some boring story and then finding out that you need to kill 10 teddy bears that have been terrorizing Mrs Jones, your game starts out with you waking up in a dark, cold, wet basement, chained up by the ankles and wrists with rats pecking at your feet. You look all around and you can't figure out how to break free. You start tugging your arms and legs, but you just can't break free. Suddenly you hear something that sounds like a muffled argument upstairs. Then you hear a fight break out. Lots or banging around and groans. Then after one final crash and a thud, it becomes silent. After a few seconds you hear someone walking. Then you hear the basement door rattle open and someone slowly walking down the stairs towards you. The rats scurry away... you can't make out the face in the darkness. Suddenly the face hits the light from the candle and the man asks if you're alright. He explains to you what happened as he sets you free. He tells you that a baby has been taken from the "family" and that this baby is special (in a magic sort of way). He then goes on to explain to you why you're down in the basement which is somehow related to the kidnapping. I didn't really read through all of this last night, but now that I'm at work I have a little more time. Don't take this post the wrong way. I'm playing devil's advocate and giving the reaction that the typical MMOG player might have to this. Up to this point there is no gameplay. Its a scripted cutscene, a few renders and some voice acting, not a game or a quest. Your first mission is to put on some clothes, grab some weapons, grab some food, and take the man's horse and go track down the kidnappers. Loot and gear up... Its gameplay, but I've done this bit in CRPG's for the last 20 years. Its nothing new. And most importantly, is it really any cooler than showing up on a shardship and getting attacked by a Deadspell bat-thing? Once you get to the point where you've mounted your horse (i.e. part of the tutorial), you hear an indicator sound that shows you on your map where the last known location of the kidnapper was. A quest tracker just like all the MMOG's on the market. You head in that direction, and once you get there, you start asking witnesses questions about the kidnapper, you find clues, your threaten people, etc. Some NPC dialog, click click click... You mean I have to talk to ALL the NPC's? You're starting to lose the audience at that point. With each question answered, a meter starts to grow (this is the knowledge meter). The higher the meter, the more knowledge you have to the whereabouts of the perpetrator. The map will then start to change colors, giving you more indications of where you might want to continue searching. So instead of talking to one NPC to get the quest to kill the murderer, I'm talking to a whole bunch of them grinding 'witness rep' just to get my quest's objective. The grind is setting in already.
tracking Check, done that in TCoS quests. stealth I love stealth, but I'll agree its lacking in TCoS. DDO though had some fantastic stealth. bounty hunting Check, done that in TCoS quests. rescuing Check getting rewards Check changing the flow of the story Check Where you're tracking (right from the start) a boss level character. A person of interest. Not a group of funny looking creatures. Check, quest chains do exactly that. This type of intro would raise your emotions right from the get-go. This way, you will not click through all the dialog just to get to the next mission. You have a purpose in this world that's respected, not pushed aside. I appreciate your ideas, but I bet most players wouldn't see it quite the way you do once its translated into a game setting.
TCoS has a murder mystery with two possible endings. You interogate witnesses, search the scene for clues, and finally accuse the murderer and its up to you which one you think did it. You're here to complain about TCoS, but your idea is almost exactly like what was already done in TCoS.
Now I feel that some people in this thread have poor comprehension skills, so it's not really worth my time to create walls of text. I apologize to the other forum readers who have had to read through some of this when it should be in another forum.
Now I feel that some people in this thread have poor comprehension skills, so it's not really worth my time to create walls of text. I apologize to the other forum readers who have had to read through some of this when it should be in another forum.
We could have written you off as a troll when you first said they should change EVERYTHING in the game, but we gave you a chance anyway. You failed to deliver. Gank you very much for trying anyway.
Couldn't be bothered reading through six pages of posts (ill prolly repeat a few suggestions) so here's my short list of things i'd like added/changed in TCoS:
1. Chat window transparency regulation. I want a black background dammit!
2. Chat text colors - that has to be added, after playing for a while all i can see is green...
3. Autoloot option. Switching to cursor, clicking the loot button, switching back to crosshair aiming - this is doing my head in. Just auto loot!
4. Bank.
5. More customization options at the start. (Beards, weaps, armor, clothes, jewelry, tats, accesories)
6. Skip tutorial option.
7. Chat window size regulation must be added alongside larger fonts.
I like the game, i've subbed recently in EU, hopefully pop will increase in the coming months.
Comments
I was serious about developing that game, joe. Would you believe that I wrote a 3D head to head FPS game before Doom was released? It was split screen and ran on MS-DOS. Then a couple years later Quake comes out with network head to head gameplay. Had I stuck with the game and developed it into something polished it would have been Aganazer you read about rather than John Carmack. I could have had my own Aganazer-Con with world record breaking lan parties. I'm waiting to play JoeBalls Online when it hits the store shelves. I'm sure it will be a huge hit.
The line of yours that I quoted is ironic and it made me laugh. TCoS is very different than most MMOG's. Most of the people who come here can't handle the change needed to adapt to TCoS's combat system. Its ironic that you're accusing the fans of the game of not handling change because that is exactly what we have done. Its the folks who can't break away from the same old mechanics of EQ, WoW, LotRO, and WAR that can't handle change.
I agree that it is ironic. Yet when I first played the trial, it felt like any ol' mmo that I've played over the past 8 years. So I don't understand what these guys are talking about.
It's still fedex delivery, clicking through dialog, picking flowers, killing 10 bunnies, etc, etc. What's so different? Are you talking about 'having to aim at your target' and 'the spinning bar'? lol
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I know what you mean. There is no way I'd take a pay cut, work twice as much, and then be so sick of my own game by the end of it that I don't even want to play it anymore.
But it would have been nice if you offered some ideas rather than 100% criticisms. Give me an example of a quest that would not be a kill quest or a fed-ex quest. Its not easy. Most of the time, the best we can hope for is that they disguise the kill quests and fed-ex quests in way that makes it compelling enough that you don't realize you're doing the same old stuff. If you take the time and read some of the quests, TCoS attempts to do this. Perhaps more so than most MMORPG's.
And the combat system IS different. If you didn't notice that then you were doing it wrong. Mobility as a core concept in combat has only been attempted in a few MMOG's and TCoS is one of them. Also, you may not have played enough to have noticed, but the enemy AI is doing much more than it typically does in most MMOG's.
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I know what you mean. There is no way I'd take a pay cut, work twice as much, and then be so sick of my own game by the end of it that I don't even want to play it anymore.
But it would have been nice if you offered some ideas rather than 100% criticisms. Give me an example of a quest that would not be a kill quest or a fed-ex quest. Its not easy. Most of the time, the best we can hope for is that they disguise the kill quests and fed-ex quests in way that makes it compelling enough that you don't realize you're doing the same old stuff. If you take the time and read some of the quests, TCoS attempts to do this. Perhaps more so than most MMORPG's.
And the combat system IS different. If you didn't notice that then you were doing it wrong. Mobility as a core concept in combat has only been attempted in a few MMOG's and TCoS is one of them. Also, you may not have played enough to have noticed, but the enemy AI is doing much more than it typically does in most MMOG's.
Oh, so you want some ideas, eh? Hmm, ok. Let me give it a try.
Rather than listening to some boring story and then finding out that you need to kill 10 teddy bears that have been terrorizing Mrs Jones, your game starts out with you waking up in a dark, cold, wet basement, chained up by the ankles and wrists with rats pecking at your feet. You look all around and you can't figure out how to break free. You start tugging your arms and legs, but you just can't break free. Suddenly you hear something that sounds like a muffled argument upstairs. Then you hear a fight break out. Lots or banging around and groans. Then after one final crash and a thud, it becomes silent. After a few seconds you hear someone walking. Then you hear the basement door rattle open and someone slowly walking down the stairs towards you. The rats scurry away... you can't make out the face in the darkness. Suddenly the face hits the light from the candle and the man asks if you're alright. He explains to you what happened as he sets you free. He tells you that a baby has been taken from the "family" and that this baby is special (in a magic sort of way). He then goes on to explain to you why you're down in the basement which is somehow related to the kidnapping. Your first mission is to put on some clothes, grab some weapons, grab some food, and take the man's horse and go track down the kidnappers. Once you get to the point where you've mounted your horse (i.e. part of the tutorial), you hear an indicator sound that shows you on your map where the last known location of the kidnapper was. You head in that direction, and once you get there, you start asking witnesses questions about the kidnapper, you find clues, your threaten people, etc. With each question answered, a meter starts to grow (this is the knowledge meter). The higher the meter, the more knowledge you have to the whereabouts of the perpetrator. The map will then start to change colors, giving you more indications of where you might want to continue searching.
Rather than getting in too deep about game mechanics here, hopefully you can start to see what this is. It's more about tracking, stealth, bounty hunting, rescuing, getting rewards, and changing the flow of the story. Where you're tracking (right from the start) a boss level character. A person of interest. Not a group of funny looking creatures. This type of intro would raise your emotions right from the get-go. This way, you will not click through all the dialog just to get to the next mission. You have a purpose in this world that's respected, not pushed aside.
This is just my idea of the tutorial area, and it's also the area where you create the look of your character (i.e. in the world, not before you enter the world).
If that was the first 15 minutes of a new game I just downloaded, I think I'd want to continue playing it.
I don't know if I would change anything. I'm concerned about the balance between mages and melee.
I'm with Joe on this one......and I think everyone else is being too harsh on him with their responses (.....says the grouchy git who moans all the time himself lol). Seriously though all Joe is pointing out is the lack of clever game design which is prolific in mmos.......and he's right. I guess this is because every mmo has its fans and they hate to see any form of critisism even when its of a constructive kind.
This is the internet. We're not playing single player games when we come online and yet thats exactly how they are all designed. These games could be a LOT more dynamic and yet they never are. Players should be able to influence the occurence of changes in the game world and yet none of us can do anything that makes any difference to the game. I realise that this would require a lot more hard work than what is involved in making a single player game but then if a games company is going to take on the challenge of making a game for the internet then shouldnt it be striving to actually take advantage of this fact?
I like Spellborn. Its a fun game and its certainly much better than all the competition. The combat system is more interesting and requires more player interaction which is a step forward and it approaches things from a slightly different angle to other mmos. The quest text is quite well written too and I am fortunate to be in a nice friendly guild who helps to keep me entertained. For these reasons I am currently playing the game. However I am not blinded to the fact that its mostly just more of the same.
I have had the same negative response from people when I point out the massive flaws in mmo game design as well. The most common response is "Oh well its impossible to do it any other way" and "Oh well maybe mmos are not for you then" which is pretty ridiculous really. If you dare to suggest that games can improve then you get told to shut up and shove off.
Mmos are still being designed just like single player games and I think there are plenty of ways that this can be changed. Afterall as these so-called game WORLDS are being inhabited by thousands of players then whats the point in making them static and unchangeable like single player games? I keep wondering about a system where each and every little area in the game has a number of different "states" which it can be in, and it switches between these states based on what the players do in the game. Here is an example.......and I'm going to use Spellborns starter area Hawkslanding........
The first npc you see is always asking players to collect reports from all the guards nearby. There is also another npc nearby who wants you to kill bears and there is another guy who wants you to deliver a present to his lady love. They are all frozen in time and will NEVER say anything else to the players no matter how long you play the game for. This is single player game design. However each of those npcs could have a large (or small) variety of optional "states" that they can fall into and each state changes the quest they give.....and the quests they give change the states of other things elsewhere in the game.
If 100 bears or more have been killed then the npc with the bear quest could stop giving out that quest and instead will ask players to deliver bear pelts to a tanner in Hawksmouth. Once 100 bear pelts have been delivered he will switch back to asking players to kill bears again. Thats a simple one. However this "bear kill counter" can effect a variety of other situations in the game world. Once that bear kill counter goes over 500 then a number of Champion Bear Spirits will start to spawn in all the locations that have bears in them. These spirit guardians are immune to all forms of harm and will only vanish once the "bear kill counter" has dropped to below 20 (it goes down a set amount at the end of each hour). Otherwise they will continue to chase and maul players that attack the other normal bears. Players will have to leave the bears alone until the spirit guardians have gone or........they could take the new quest which has suddenly been offered (which also gets triggered by the 500 bear kill counter) by an npc up in the Hunters camp to the north. This involves a number of players performing certain actions to appease the bear spirits (eg giving the normal bears food) which knocks the bear kill counter down by a set amount each time.
This is just an example of course and I'm sure I havent thought it all through properly so there are no doubt a number of loop holes. However by applying a simple counter system to just one of the creature types in the starter area of the game it would be quite possible to create the illusion of a changing game world. If this was implemented throughout the entire game then we would have a game world where the npcs change what they say and do in reaction to what is going on around them. Players actions would actually mean something as opposed to what we currently have where what we do doesnt count for shit because its all just a story which is set in stone and will never change.
It would be more complex to make a game like this but its certainly well within the boundaries of possibility. People keep saying that its impossible to have an mmo with quests that work in any way other than what we have already been seeing for years and it just isnt true.
So yeah Joeballs dont let other peoples close minded responses get you down simply because you arent as easily pleased as they are. Online gaming has a HUGE amount of potential and what we are currently seeing is just the tip of the "Iceberg" (a wink to Vesavius).......even if other people cant see it. Unfortunately for it to live up to its full potential requires skilled and talented individuals with great vision to be working in games development which is why mmos have been stuck in this unoriginal rut for a good number of years. Its far easier for games companies to just keep copying what has been done before.
The Chronicles of Spellborn might not be the pinacle of mmo game design but it does at least step up the quality of the mmo genre a few notches with some of its features. Yes its basicly just more of the same but it has enough of a twist to it to keep my attention for a while........although I certainly wont be playing through it all a second time and I definately wont be playing it for years like so many other lunatics. Afterall its just a single player game in multiplayer co-op mode so why would I want to do that? lol
But yeah I'm still waiting to see a BIG change in mmo game design. I'm afraid we've probably got many many years to wait.
I am a developer, but I do not have the time to develop a game. Designing a game, on the other hand, would be quite fun if I had unlimited development resources.
I know what you mean. There is no way I'd take a pay cut, work twice as much, and then be so sick of my own game by the end of it that I don't even want to play it anymore.
But it would have been nice if you offered some ideas rather than 100% criticisms. Give me an example of a quest that would not be a kill quest or a fed-ex quest. Its not easy. Most of the time, the best we can hope for is that they disguise the kill quests and fed-ex quests in way that makes it compelling enough that you don't realize you're doing the same old stuff. If you take the time and read some of the quests, TCoS attempts to do this. Perhaps more so than most MMORPG's.
And the combat system IS different. If you didn't notice that then you were doing it wrong. Mobility as a core concept in combat has only been attempted in a few MMOG's and TCoS is one of them. Also, you may not have played enough to have noticed, but the enemy AI is doing much more than it typically does in most MMOG's.
Oh, so you want some ideas, eh? Hmm, ok. Let me give it a try.
Rather than listening to some boring story and then finding out that you need to kill 10 teddy bears that have been terrorizing Mrs Jones, your game starts out with you waking up in a dark, cold, wet basement, chained up by the ankles and wrists with rats pecking at your feet. You look all around and you can't figure out how to break free. You start tugging your arms and legs, but you just can't break free. Suddenly you hear something that sounds like a muffled argument upstairs. Then you hear a fight break out. Lots or banging around and groans. Then after one final crash and a thud, it becomes silent. After a few seconds you hear someone walking. Then you hear the basement door rattle open and someone slowly walking down the stairs towards you. The rats scurry away... you can't make out the face in the darkness. Suddenly the face hits the light from the candle and the man asks if you're alright. He explains to you what happened as he sets you free. He tells you that a baby has been taken from the "family" and that this baby is special (in a magic sort of way). He then goes on to explain to you why you're down in the basement which is somehow related to the kidnapping. Your first mission is to put on some clothes, grab some weapons, grab some food, and take the man's horse and go track down the kidnappers. Once you get to the point where you've mounted your horse (i.e. part of the tutorial), you hear an indicator sound that shows you on your map where the last known location of the kidnapper was. You head in that direction, and once you get there, you start asking witnesses questions about the kidnapper, you find clues, your threaten people, etc. With each question answered, a meter starts to grow (this is the knowledge meter). The higher the meter, the more knowledge you have to the whereabouts of the perpetrator. The map will then start to change colors, giving you more indications of where you might want to continue searching.
Rather than getting in too deep about game mechanics here, hopefully you can start to see what this is. It's more about tracking, stealth, bounty hunting, rescuing, getting rewards, and changing the flow of the story. Where you're tracking (right from the start) a boss level character. A person of interest. Not a group of funny looking creatures. This type of intro would raise your emotions right from the get-go. This way, you will not click through all the dialog just to get to the next mission. You have a purpose in this world that's respected, not pushed aside.
This is just my idea of the tutorial area, and it's also the area where you create the look of your character (i.e. in the world, not before you enter the world).
If that was the first 15 minutes of a new game I just downloaded, I think I'd want to continue playing it.
Thats a good description for the start of a game and I like it a lot. However what you have failed to address is the fact that thousands of players will be playing an mmo. Will they ALL have the same beginning? If so then it wouldnt make any sense at all. You would just be back to square one with loads of players all running around the woods and towns looking for the same boss. Then when they find him they will all have to camp the area waiting for him to reappear so they can have a go at kicking his head in. Thats the ridiculous setup we currently have in mmos and I dont see how your idea addresses that.
I have highlighted parts of your description above. The blue text is pure game dialogue and animations which has nothing to do with player actions. There can be no controls for "tugging my arms and legs on the chains" for example. We're limited to the use of a keyboard and mouse remember. Everything you have described there is already covered in the quests in Spellborn by the quest dialogue (eg npc tells you to go and look for someone and gives you a reason for doing it etc). If you want it to all be fully animated like a film then I'm afraid you have a long time to wait for that. However your description did remind me a bit of the Penumbra adventure games.
The orange text covers things you as the player would do. Ok......put on some clothes. You can do that in Spellborn. Equip a weapon. You can do that too. Get on a horse. Ok Spellborn doesnt have mounts in it yet but lots of other mmos do so I still havent read anything ground-breaking yet. Last known location of the target? Well....errmm.....thats in Spellborn as well. It doesnt highlight it for you on the map as that would be silly and unrealistic but the npcs do tell you where they "think" the target might be which is much better.
In the next bit you say that you ask npcs questions and threaten them to get information from them. How? How does this work exactly? What are the game mechanics that allow you to do this? Asking questions and threatening npcs can only be done through the keyboard and mouse remember. These games dont have voice recognition ya know. AI isnt advanced enough to actually have npcs talking to you from your monitor lol. For this reason I highlighted it in blue again because you really cant have any more control over it other than selecting lines of pre-prepared dialogue.......and even in single player games that have conversations, they dont allow you to do anything other than what the game intends for you to do.
.....and why would you need a "knowledge meter"? You either have the information in your own head or you dont. The game doesnt need to tell you what you know because YOU know what you know. Again the flashing map thing doesnt make any sense. Hell they dont even flash like that in real life so why would it do it in a game?......mind you it would be nice if they did. I could just hold a map and say "Burgerking" and watch as it flashes glowing symbols at me.......or is that sat nav? hmmm
So basicly you have described something which sounds visually great but in practice doesnt make any sense at all. Even most single player games dont have this level of interaction.......and you're talking about this being an mmo?! How?! Besides once you strip down all the visuals and atmospheric effects of what you have described you essentially end up with what we are currently already seeing in mmos anyway. The only real difference is that mmos rely a lot on text to describe things because having everything fully animated isnt quite possible yet over the internet.....although things are certainly getting better.
......and I dont mean to sound like I am going back on what I said in my last post by the way because I do indeed think mmos have a lot more potential to them which we could be seeing today and yet are not. However I think what you have just described is going to the other extreme and is completely over the top considering that thousands of people will be playing this mmo. If they dont all start in the same cell as you (which they cant realistically do) then logically they would all start the game somewhere else and that means every time a player starts the game they get a brand new intro to the game which obviously isnt possible at all. Thats the problem with making an intro to an mmo personal to the player. It just doesnt work because you end up with thousands of people who all have had the exact same character-building beginning to the game. Its much better to let the players choose their own beginnings rather than forcing a pre-planned story upon them.......which is why I think mmos should be more dynamic than what we currently have.
Well neonwire, I think you cease to see the potential. And what I've described above is simply 'the tutorial and start of the game". This is where you get engaged in the story. This is where you setup your character. Who said anything about it being shared by everyone on the server? Not me. It's the tutorial. I'd much rather have a single-player oriented start of the game if it gave me some excitement about playing and getting engaged in the story. Because, as you already mentioned, an mmo is designed like a static single-player game in the first place. You might as well make your tutorial and intro something exciting other than having 5 people in the starting area running around killing bunnies. What's the point of that? You don't need them for a group, especially in the starting area. In fact, I don't want them in my starting area for just the reason you pointed out... "fighting over mobs". I see that you pointed out similarities with my description and Spellborn. But what you don't understand is "how it's being presented". How you go about setting up your character, how you go about the tutorial for eating, resting, talking to people, riding a horse, should be right in there as part of an exciting intro, not some simple guide that pops up as you're running around doing something boring.
Now I really don't want to get too deep into game mechanics at this point. But I'm on the same page as you about world alteration. So I'm surprised you don't know about multiple choice answers. You find such things in single-player roleplaying games, where you have several choices to respond, and according to your response, the story/quest will be slightly altered. That's what I meant about threats, interrogation, etc. Pretty basic stuff, but gives the player a feeling of control. And it may alter the dialog for the next player that goes to that npc (i.e. maybe even a different boss).
Now as far as the 'Knowledge Bar' goes, this is something that can cause alteration. Let's say there 2000 people on the server, maybe 50 are in the open world zone as you. How many people in that area that's currently tracking down the same boss has the same exact knowledge as you? Probably none. This is where it gets interesting. It's all about clues and not simply adding a quest to your quest log. You have one mission, and your building your knowledge meter (which actually forces you to really explore). What this can do is it can direct different players to different location and different boss (alter the mission along the way). Maybe their quest ends differently than mine. It all depends on where you get your information and how you respond to the dialog. And if it comes down to several people persuing the same thing, then you should do it all together. This is in fact an MMO!
Joe, if you want a game with a lot of scripted events and a high degree of interaction like you're saying then the closest thing out there is D&D Online. If you haven't played it you should. It doesn't have a huge amount of NPC interaction, but you'd just click right though it even if it did. Its got the best stealth system in MMOG's, traps, secrets, lockpicking and all the things that dumbed down pop MMOG's never have.
I want to kill a puppy every time a new MMOG comes out that doesn't outright steal their dungeon design ideas.
you can't have a singleplayer tutorial in a mmo. aoc tried that and received a lot of thrash talk after they announced it. while I think it would work, I am also a "veteran" mmo players, so I know what is probably what and what to expect. not everybody has this kind of knowledge, so they ask around (first thing you do, won't work in a sp instance, and even if you link the channels, it creates other problems). also, the world feels different if you don't have other chars running around. for a "new" player, logging in and seeing other people waving, chatting, fighting is what they expect in an mmo. while a singleplayer-intro would work, it would also confuse a lot of people. I remember the old spellborn intro (it got changed in patch 1.0.2), it involved a lot of running and not much tutoring. the new one is better, and true, it might be boring after the first time - but the other quests in the starter zone will be too. it takes only 20 minutes, which is ok imho.
and for the shiny sparkles at the beginning: movement and mouse/keyboard coordination is crucial in this game. you have to remember that some people still play point&click and the whole fps-approach is new to them. just watch someone over the shoulder trying to get it to work. it may be tedious for us oldies - for some people it's new.
regarding the game mechanics, currently there is not much room besides fedex/kill/collect. you have to remember that the developers need to create LOT of quests, you need some kind of frame for that. could you program/script every little quests? probably. but the manpower alone would cost too much (sidenote: if there will EVER be a "open source" mmo, or just framework, the whole mmo-genre will change imho. you can already see that on private servers. these have their own little community, their own litte ruleset and a lot of stuff done by people for free. you wouldn't look for a specific game, but rather for a specific server with that ruleset etc., like the neverwinter nights worlds).
as for spellborn: sure, some quests are generic. but there are also some true gems in there too. the murder-questline in hawksmouth was the final push for me to play this game. funny, morality choice, fresh. and the game doesn't take itself to seriously, which is awesome. ever got a "goldseller" letter ingame from an ingame-merchant, complete with caps and typos? pure gold. or a npc which simply says "I'm too lazy, just get me the boar meat plz". damn, that's brutally honest. ok, I'll do it, but you better have that reward ready...
in the end, people have to decide for themselves if they like it or not. and maybe, if they rather plunder a questhub, click through the questlog and work them off, spellborn isn't the game for these kind of people. there are already enough alternatives out there that do it, why not play that instead of trying to change a game which found it's niche. the "cater to every crowd" trend in recent mmo's is awful imho.
back to topic. some thinks talked about in this thread are already known to the devs. mounts, for example, are planned. no time set yet, but they said they want them to fit. they will come eventually.
new armor will come too. house armor, guild armor etc. fighter stuff first, but they said they are working on robes (armor is easier to implement, so the more complex stuff is worked on later). oh, and there is "new" armor later in the game in form of drops etc.. little hint: almost every npc-armor is an equipment piece which could theoretically drop somewhere. mind you, players need _something_ to work for. with the current system all players are equal - good for pvp - yet they can still get their special looking item if they want to. loot is almost optional here, which is a good thing. again, it won't appeal to everyone, but there will be some people that prefer it that way.
nothing heard about beards yet, would like to see some of them myself.
bah, wrote again more than I wanted too.
*swooshes off to bed
@Aganazer
with the unreal-engine, DDO like dungeons shouldn't be a problem (without the features of course). there are already some cool indoor locations, I expect more in the future.
Well neonwire, I think you cease to see the potential. And what I've described above is simply 'the tutorial and start of the game". This is where you get engaged in the story. This is where you setup your character.
Yeah but the point of a tutorial is simply to show you how to play the game and get used to the basic controls. It also intoduces you to the game world. The actual story itself should really get going when you are out of the tutorial. Spellborn does actually do this. Besides the character has already been setup during teh character creation process.
Who said anything about it being shared by everyone on the server? Not me. It's the tutorial. I'd much rather have a single-player oriented start of the game if it gave me some excitement about playing and getting engaged in the story. Because, as you already mentioned, an mmo is designed like a static single-player game in the first place. You might as well make your tutorial and intro something exciting other than having 5 people in the starting area running around killing bunnies. What's the point of that?
You don't need them for a group, especially in the starting area. In fact, I don't want them in my starting area for just the reason you pointed out... "fighting over mobs". I see that you pointed out similarities with my description and Spellborn. But what you don't understand is "how it's being presented". How you go about setting up your character, how you go about the tutorial for eating, resting, talking to people, riding a horse, should be right in there as part of an exciting intro, not some simple guide that pops up as you're running around doing something boring.
You say you would much rather have a single-player oriented start to the game.......and thats exactly what Spellborn gives you so whats the problem? You start the game in the tutorial on your own on a shardship headed towards Hawkslanding. You might not personally like it but I thought it was fine the first time I experienced it. I thought that the tutorial actually set the scene for the game rather well. It didnt just throw you into a little starter area along with everyone else. It showed your characters journey just before he arrives at Hawkslanding which is where the game begins.
But you seem to be suggesting that the ENTIRE beginning of the game should be a single player experience. This was done in AoC and I must say that I didnt particularly like it. I was still doing exactly what I would be doing in an mmo except there was no-one around to talk to which rather defeated the point of being online. There are single player games for this kind of thing which obviously do it better.
So in Spellborn you are saying that the early parts of the game should be a single player game? I dont really see what benefit that would bring. No you dont NEED all those other players around you but you might WANT them around you. Where would you draw the line anyway? Afterall I havent NEEDED to group with anyone at all really apart from a few boss encounters and I'm nearly level 12 now. So you're saying that because grouping up with people is optional that the whole game should be an ENFORCED single player experience until the game gets to a part where you MUST group up. That sounds like a really backwards mmo to me I'm afraid. Although I personally only like to group with people when I need to, I do rather like having people around to talk to.
You also say it should be exciting......but what is your definition of exciting? I personally wouldnt have liked it at all if the game just threw some giant convoluted plot-line in my face involving epic demons and portal summoning wizards as soon as I set foot on the docks. It wouldnt have made much sense considering that my character had just arrived in front of a civilised city. Instead at the beginning we have players fighting various wildlife (no bunnies I'm afraid) as requested by various guards and other npc characters. This actually makes sense and fits with the game setting. No there are no weird and twisted monsters lumbering around at the start of the game and I wouldnt want there to be any. Its an easy and pleasant beginning to the game which is fine as its.....the beginning.
But you say that helpful hints should not pop up on the screen to explain how to do things in the game and it should all be presented in a more exciting way. Ok so you listed eating, resting, talking and riding. Ok....eating. You right click on some food and select "use". Its just food. Resting......yeah ummm you press x to sit down and you.....rest. Sorry but resting isnt exciting. Talking......you right click on an npc and select the talk option and click through the dialogue. What is there to explain? Riding doesnt apply to the game yet. There is no way or reason to make any of these simple actions exciting so I dont really know what you are going on about there. The combat is more complex than other mmos and could perhaps do with more of a description but to be honest I rather enjoyed figuring it out myself (it wasnt exactly that complicated anyway). You mentioned setting up your character.....well.....what about it? Its all there for you to fiddle around with at your leisure as part of your own personal gaming experience.
You say that I dont seem to understand about how its being presented and yet all you have said is that "it should be right there as part of the intro" which doesnt mean anything at all. You're not actually describing anything. What does "it should be right there" actually entail? You dont want pop-ups so what do you want? A voice over? An animated demonstration that takes you out of the game and thus takes your control away from your own character. The pop-ups are there to give you the advice you need so you can do it all yourself as you play the game. Whats wrong with that? You say that the game shoudnt have pop-ups to assist you while you do something boring.......so what would be exciting? You havent actually decribed in your example anything about what would make the gameplay exciting in your opinion. This is all quite an odd thing to be saying really about an mmo that has gameplay which is far more exciting and interactive than any other mmo on offer.
Now I really don't want to get too deep into game mechanics at this point. But I'm on the same page as you about world alteration. So I'm surprised you don't know about multiple choice answers. You find such things in single-player roleplaying games, where you have several choices to respond, and according to your response, the story/quest will be slightly altered. That's what I meant about threats, interrogation, etc. Pretty basic stuff, but gives the player a feeling of control. And it may alter the dialog for the next player that goes to that npc (i.e. maybe even a different boss).
But the game does have multiple choice answers. Yeah you find them in single player games.......and they are nearly always useless as you end up pretty much taking the same route through the game regardless of your choice.....although some games do this better than others.
I take it you are aware of the 5 High Houses in the game right? You know that your decision to ally yourself with one of the particular High Houses actually opens up certain house specific quests and closes off other ones? This is multiple choice and it dictates how the games story unfolds for you.
However yes Spellborn is pretty limited in this regard (like all mmos) at the beginning of the game although I cant really comment on the later stages yet. I did actually describe a detailed system of how a dynamic mmo gameworld could work in one of my rambling long winded posts above.
Now as far as the 'Knowledge Bar' goes, this is something that can cause alteration. Let's say there 2000 people on the server, maybe 50 are in the open world zone as you. How many people in that area that's currently tracking down the same boss has the same exact knowledge as you? Probably none. This is where it gets interesting. It's all about clues and not simply adding a quest to your quest log. You have one mission, and your building your knowledge meter (which actually forces you to really explore). What this can do is it can direct different players to different location and different boss (alter the mission along the way). Maybe their quest ends differently than mine. It all depends on where you get your information and how you respond to the dialog. And if it comes down to several people persuing the same thing, then you should do it all together. This is in fact an MMO!
Yeah but from the sounds of it (sorry your description is rather vague) this would mean having a HUGE number of different clues that could all shift and change and yet still somehow connect in a meaningful way with each other.......and on top of that the resulting string of clues would have to lead to a large number of different target bosses.......and thats just for ONE quest?! Also what is this weird "Knowledge Bar" supposed to indicate? Your progression towards solving a mission? Well what if you have lots of missions on the go? And why would you know when you are near to completing your quest anyway? "Oh yes I have 87% of all the required clues to find the evil bad guy. I had better get my sword ready because in a moment I'm bound to find the last 13% and then I will meet him". Ermmmm.......no.
Besides Spellborn does "actually force you to really explore" because the npcs quite often fail to give you the exact location of certain quest objectives. I was wandering around a large patch of woodland for well over half an hour with a guildmate (yes one of those people I didnt NEED to group with) looking for a burglar who had stolen something from an npc in Aldenvault village. Also quite a few npcs wander around a lot so they arent always in the same place every time.
Overall, I love TCoS. The sound and graphics are excellent. I love the fact that I don't have to pick a target, I can just point at a mob and use a skill. I love that I can attack a group, then move on to another group, then another without much pause. It's a game that has a lot of unique things going for it.
What I'd like added are things that are most likely going to get added anyway.
- a quest tracker
- the ability to move UI elements
- more options for clothing/armour/physical features during character development
- the ability to skip the tutorial
- the ability to enhance gear earlier into the game
Overall, they've done a great job I think. The fact that I was just entering combat the other day when the client crashed and I thought I'd be dead when I logged back in and wasn't was amazing. It shows that the devs have put a lot of work into TCoS.
lol Balance? there's a balance? atm a well set up mage can fully wipe out a Melee fighter
And if I hear no on this one then you obviously fought a mage who didn't have the right skills and or sucked out loud.
Oh and Bloodwarriors are a tad gimp atm.
TCoS has a murder mystery with two possible endings. You interogate witnesses, search the scene for clues, and finally accuse the murderer and its up to you which one you think did it. You're here to complain about TCoS, but your idea is almost exactly like what was already done in TCoS.
Now I feel that some people in this thread have poor comprehension skills, so it's not really worth my time to create walls of text. I apologize to the other forum readers who have had to read through some of this when it should be in another forum.
We could have written you off as a troll when you first said they should change EVERYTHING in the game, but we gave you a chance anyway. You failed to deliver. Gank you very much for trying anyway.
Couldn't be bothered reading through six pages of posts (ill prolly repeat a few suggestions) so here's my short list of things i'd like added/changed in TCoS:
1. Chat window transparency regulation. I want a black background dammit!
2. Chat text colors - that has to be added, after playing for a while all i can see is green...
3. Autoloot option. Switching to cursor, clicking the loot button, switching back to crosshair aiming - this is doing my head in. Just auto loot!
4. Bank.
5. More customization options at the start. (Beards, weaps, armor, clothes, jewelry, tats, accesories)
6. Skip tutorial option.
7. Chat window size regulation must be added alongside larger fonts.
I like the game, i've subbed recently in EU, hopefully pop will increase in the coming months.