What happens if some people in a guild have a fight and the guild breaks up? Do you essentially have to start the game over? Guild drama happens, you know, and making guild leveling so important would probably lead to a lot more of it.
Thanks for the post. It gives me the opportunity to clarify this.
I would go with an advancement that is character specific and permanent. If you raid for a new talent skill for priest, you get it (if you're a priest) and keep it permanently.
If you join the guild, you can buy (money, guild points, I don't know yet. Inputs welcome) the talent skill which is available to guild members.
If you quit the guild, you stay the same, but guildless. I don't think any penalty would be necessary as I believe that participation in a big project will bring people together.
Note that not many big guild decisions would be necessary. Where to install the guild and such, but anonymous poll could keep emotions to a lesser level. Guild leaders could also be crowned each month by secret vote. This way, the guild is not owned by a small group of real life friends but the community owns it. Excess of emotions often comes from different "cliques".
I suspect the culture of an MMO reflects the culture of it's creators. This means that asian games tend to be more group based (FFXI) or guild based (Legacy), whilst american games tend to be more individualistic (WoW). So does the OPs prediction reflect a yearning for an MMO more in tune with his own native culture?
Interesting!
I'm a french north american.
More occidental than oriental
French culture in american environment.
I hope you understand because I'm still looking for who we are as people.
OP, what you propose is still the RAID-or-Die mentally that's being found in most mmo today. We need a much more sand-box type end-game that's without grind, without doing the same things over and over again, that can cater to both raiders, pvpers, soloist, that constantly improves your character but not base on grinding for gears, not spamming the same spell over and over again just so that it will be high level enough to use, etc etc etc etc..... Hope you get the idea....
You really got something here. Please let us know what you suggest because I totally agree with you and the solution I'm looking for is for this problem, exactly.
WoW Id be willing to bed that over 90% of the people who play for an extended period of time (half a year or more) are in a guild and involved in it. There is no way to make each individual player feel special, thats a limit MMORPGS have. Conversly there are things you could do to make a guild feel powerful and amazing. People are attracted to that feeling of being special and that feeling is much more acheivable in guild wide progression as opposed to solo.
I agree with the first part. I think most MMO players are in guilds even when this represents nothing.
For the second past, I wish I had written this. This seems very accurate.
I cant help but wonder just how many mmos youve played and what mmos those were.
My first impression is that youve played raiding MMOs (WoW/EQ)
Basing the future of gaming on Raiding and Guild Progression? No thanks.
A more realistic future of MMOs will be PVE based mmorpgs and PvP based mmorpgs. Basically I think each genre will become stronger and more distinct on its own to appeal to the specific target audience.
As a side note, Blizzards newest mmo in the works has been highly speculated to be a PvP based mmo.
I've found many MMO games to be lonely and would love to see games where there's a larger focus upon community; not just joining a guild for convenience, but to actually have interaction with other players mean something.
For now, I must admit that I play mostly free games and browser-based RPGs such as 'Omerta'. 'Omerta' is interesting because it has a focus upon joining a family and being useful to that family by making yourself a powerful asset when it comes to war. There are numerous activities that can only be done with one or more partners and there are dozens of IRC channels for the various families: you end up meeting people because it's not only convenient, but fun and makes you part of something greater.
In many MMORPGs, I'd like to play the loner; hunting and killing by myself. However, I think that the concept of having "levels" and repetitively killing identical-looking monsters just to gain so-called 'experience' isn't a good one. In 'Oblivion' one became skilled by practicing their skills, which could be seen as similar to gaining experience through killing the same monsters, yes. However, the number of skills available made it possible for quite diverse characters.
I'd like to see a greater emphasis upon fun and non-repetitive gameplay, community and also diversity in characters.
If there are far too many abilities for someone to learn before reaching the maximum 'level', then of course a lot of thought goes into the character. However, you'll end up with a server full of people who have researched the best way to go about creating a class that's most powerful... I don't see a way to avoid this without some implementation of strategy; characters of lower 'levels' being capable of outsmarting and destroying those with higher attributes through strategy...
Just take a look at all martial arts and their strengths as well as their weaknesses. A boxer may be extremely handy with his fists, but might not be able to deal well with kicks? That sort of thing?
Meh. Wall of text that's mostly out of context and probably of no use. I'll come back to this if I can think of a good way to improve MMORPGs... when I've made my millions. Heh.
I cant help but wonder just how many mmos youve played and what mmos those were.
My first impression is that youve played raiding MMOs (WoW/EQ)
Basing the future of gaming on Raiding and Guild Progression?
No thanks.
A more realistic future of MMOs will be PVE based mmorpgs and PvP based mmorpgs.
Basically I think each genre will become stronger and more distinct on its own to appeal to the specific target audience.
As a side note, Blizzards newest mmo in the works has been highly speculated to be a PvP based mmo.
I'll just tell you so you can make your mind.
I'm 32 so that will also explain some things. I understand that I may not be in phase with 16 years old gamers (not assuming you are at all by the way!)
So I played UO, AC, EQ, AO and DAoC in my first phase. I then quit and came back. After that I tried too many to list but I'll list the major ones : AC2, EQ2, WoW, DDO, Vanguard, LotR, WAR, AoC, TR. I may forget some major ones but I think you see the picture.
I must confess that I tried EVE, but only tutorial. I will try it again soon.
I played mostly on PVP or RPPVP servers when they were available.
I've been ganked a lot, I corpse dragged, I did a lot of things in MMOs, but I'm not a raider, sorry. Look at the quantity of games I played, I can't honestly tell you that I tried the end game of all of them. I would like to be the specialist some of you may be, but I have a wife and two kids so priorities change.
What I did a lot is discuss about games, theories, psychology, and pathologies (you guys should know by now that MMOs are addictive to some ... Ouch! Please don't hurt me for saying that.) And from these discussions with people from my community (small one, I know) most of gamers would like to have more options in games. PVP, PVE, tradeskills is what most MMO offer. How can we take that and get it to next level? This is what I'm trying to do.
If you played Fable 2, did you marry? Did you find some gargoyles? Did you dig treasures even when you were rich and didn't need it? Did you treat your dog? All this didn't advance the game or only a little and you still did it? Why?
We want to have a goal, but when we rest, we must have something else to do which has less significance.
/take down armor
Try the easy analogy of mmo as real life. In real life you have goals (happy kids/wife, work, school, music, art, etc) but sometimes your don't pursue this goal (watch TV, play games, eat pop corn). Why?
In a MMO you have goals (PVP, raid, char advancement, tradeskills, etc.) but when you log for 30 minutes or and hour and don't want to commit, what do you do? You could say PVP, tradeskills and such, but what if we could have something else?
What if the goal was virtual world building ( as insane as it souds!) and you can sometimes commit, sometimes not, but always advancing the goal?
/put on armor
Think of a one server game where developpers offer to gamers a world to build and in which they intend to follow gamers. As a Dungeon master, I follow the players and act with humility. I don't play god and impose a campaign. Game developpers should listen not only to rants on forums, but to actions in game. If a guild always mine at the same place, why isn't it possible to developpers to implement a small cave in a future patch? Nothing big, just a little "We say what you did and you changed the world."
Woodcutter should transform deep forest into light forests, ligh forest into plains. Farmers should transform plains into farms and builders should transform a community into a town.
The crossroad in the barrens in WoW has always been there, wipe it, grow it, do something to it. Change the world to players actions.
I though I should share a discussion I had on the future of MMO with a friend. We have both been playing MMOs for some years now and I think some interesting ideas could be developped here by the community.
First, let me tell you that I speak french so my english may sound weird sometimes and my punctuation will be based on what I know of the english language. I think the future of MMOs will live through guild progression and not character progression. We all know that gaining levels to end up trying to get some gear has done it's part. We also know that high end gaming is not done solo.
Here is what I think could help with the famous grinding used everywhere and for everything repetitive :
1- Less levels. Most games are easy enough to be well understood after many less level than there are and levelling should only be used as introduction or tutorial. I would go with 30 of 40 warcraft levels, more or less. During these levels, you try the game, find a guild, do some instances/questing to get some hints on the lore and that's it.
2- Guild oriented development. I mean something like this : Guys, let's get there (20-30 min instance). Our healers are a little behind the rest and they need the 0.5% spell power spell inscription found there. Bonus now available from guild scribe for a price set by the guild. Guys, the dragon in (insert lair here) drops a tooth that may be studied to craft an icecrusher addon to piercing weapons and this would help our rogues, archers and pikemen for (ice instance run to get a talent point for frost mages.) Get the point? You look at the guild you are in and improve it. Characters in it are in for the guild and improve themselves through the guild. It's like when you farm for badges in guild
3- Fun things are often meaningless or useless. Guys, a painting from old age is hidden in this abandonned mansion. Let's get it for our living room. You get there, in less than 45 minutes the painting is on the wall and the players are proud and talk about it on vent.
4- All around groups should be encouraged. Let's try with 6-man groups. There should have slots with bonus when all slots are filled up. This could help mass-support classes like buffers. I remember a troubadour in EQ2 having some problems finding groups. This should never be the case. Tanks, DPS and healers are nice, but grey zone classes may also be cool. And who said no one would like to bring a blacksmith on a raid?
5- Everything can be grinded if it is well presented. Let's say a zone need your guild to have 10 000 rep with a faction to put the guild mansion on it. You could grind the rep and get the reward so the 6 hardcore gamers grind the rep and the guild gets the reward. But let's say each players rep is maxed at 1000 for a guild of 20 players. At least 10 players will need renown with the factions for the guild to achieve the goal and not only the guild leaders. This will encourage cooperative play to achieve a common goal.
I'll stop it here as I fear the wall of text curse, but I think you should have gotten the idea by now. Let me just say that I thought of some problems with this kind of gameplay (players changing guilds, massive amount of instances/quest to get each improvement, tech issues with land modification and building construction, etc.) but I want your ideas on all this.
Thanks for you being here so that this discussion may exist. Blackraist
When I played Shadowbane from the beginning it was a lot like that. A bunch of people got together and built a city, and then defended it. We would go in a group and farm an area - and would protect that farming area from others - our city was built near 2 very good farming areas. later after that city was defeated I went to other cities and found much the same ethic. Which continued until several Cities had pretty much devoured the map. I left. I t was a great experience.
Since then I have never seen it's like. Now guilds seem to have people from so many different time zones that you can never get them all together at the same time. In EVE my former Corp had members stretching from Austrailia to Alaska to East Coast USA to Europe - there had to be 3 mining diretors for ops.
Also, as pointed out above, people play for different reasons, being in a guild/city/corp/ whatever is nice and stops the endless invitations to guilds, etc. Unless some one recreates Shadowbane with it's build your city approach I do not think we will see that level of co-operation again. My opinion.
The Guild-centric model for MMORPGs is a fundamentally flawed model when content is built-around the concept of what a guild should, or ought, to be.
Guilds, actually, should be for any purpose that the community wants them:
Raiding
Community
Small group
Socializing
Large group
PvP
All of the above
None of the above
Communities are weak when they are forced. Communities and content both suffer when developers design content with specific guilds in mind. Communities and guilds have a natural growth to them with some organization with planning to fulfill that guild's particular goals and mission. When developers create content for the purpose of creating guilds, they are defining the mission and goals and sometimes even the planning for guilds.
Plenty of room in the market for a game that fosters genuine communities in which a variety of guilds, with a variety of purposes, completing a variety of content can grow and succeed in a virtual world.
Comments
Thanks for the post. It gives me the opportunity to clarify this.
I would go with an advancement that is character specific and permanent. If you raid for a new talent skill for priest, you get it (if you're a priest) and keep it permanently.
If you join the guild, you can buy (money, guild points, I don't know yet. Inputs welcome) the talent skill which is available to guild members.
If you quit the guild, you stay the same, but guildless. I don't think any penalty would be necessary as I believe that participation in a big project will bring people together.
Note that not many big guild decisions would be necessary. Where to install the guild and such, but anonymous poll could keep emotions to a lesser level. Guild leaders could also be crowned each month by secret vote. This way, the guild is not owned by a small group of real life friends but the community owns it. Excess of emotions often comes from different "cliques".
I hope this answers some of your questions.
Blackraist
Interesting!
I'm a french north american.
More occidental than oriental
French culture in american environment.
I hope you understand because I'm still looking for who we are as people.
Blackraist
You really got something here. Please let us know what you suggest because I totally agree with you and the solution I'm looking for is for this problem, exactly.
Thanks
Blackraist
I agree with the first part. I think most MMO players are in guilds even when this represents nothing.
For the second past, I wish I had written this. This seems very accurate.
Thanks
Blackraist
I cant help but wonder just how many mmos youve played and what mmos those were.
My first impression is that youve played raiding MMOs (WoW/EQ)
Basing the future of gaming on Raiding and Guild Progression?
No thanks.
A more realistic future of MMOs will be PVE based mmorpgs and PvP based mmorpgs.
Basically I think each genre will become stronger and more distinct on its own to appeal to the specific target audience.
As a side note, Blizzards newest mmo in the works has been highly speculated to be a PvP based mmo.
I've found many MMO games to be lonely and would love to see games where there's a larger focus upon community; not just joining a guild for convenience, but to actually have interaction with other players mean something.
For now, I must admit that I play mostly free games and browser-based RPGs such as 'Omerta'. 'Omerta' is interesting because it has a focus upon joining a family and being useful to that family by making yourself a powerful asset when it comes to war. There are numerous activities that can only be done with one or more partners and there are dozens of IRC channels for the various families: you end up meeting people because it's not only convenient, but fun and makes you part of something greater.
In many MMORPGs, I'd like to play the loner; hunting and killing by myself. However, I think that the concept of having "levels" and repetitively killing identical-looking monsters just to gain so-called 'experience' isn't a good one. In 'Oblivion' one became skilled by practicing their skills, which could be seen as similar to gaining experience through killing the same monsters, yes. However, the number of skills available made it possible for quite diverse characters.
I'd like to see a greater emphasis upon fun and non-repetitive gameplay, community and also diversity in characters.
If there are far too many abilities for someone to learn before reaching the maximum 'level', then of course a lot of thought goes into the character. However, you'll end up with a server full of people who have researched the best way to go about creating a class that's most powerful... I don't see a way to avoid this without some implementation of strategy; characters of lower 'levels' being capable of outsmarting and destroying those with higher attributes through strategy...
Just take a look at all martial arts and their strengths as well as their weaknesses. A boxer may be extremely handy with his fists, but might not be able to deal well with kicks? That sort of thing?
Meh. Wall of text that's mostly out of context and probably of no use. I'll come back to this if I can think of a good way to improve MMORPGs... when I've made my millions. Heh.
http://hermitpaul.wordpress.com
Yes, I'm sure the millions soloing WoW right now agree with you, OP.
If you honestly think forced grouping is the future of mmos, may i suggest you play some and then re-think your position?
I'll just tell you so you can make your mind.
I'm 32 so that will also explain some things. I understand that I may not be in phase with 16 years old gamers (not assuming you are at all by the way!)
So I played UO, AC, EQ, AO and DAoC in my first phase. I then quit and came back. After that I tried too many to list but I'll list the major ones : AC2, EQ2, WoW, DDO, Vanguard, LotR, WAR, AoC, TR. I may forget some major ones but I think you see the picture.
I must confess that I tried EVE, but only tutorial. I will try it again soon.
I played mostly on PVP or RPPVP servers when they were available.
I've been ganked a lot, I corpse dragged, I did a lot of things in MMOs, but I'm not a raider, sorry. Look at the quantity of games I played, I can't honestly tell you that I tried the end game of all of them. I would like to be the specialist some of you may be, but I have a wife and two kids so priorities change.
What I did a lot is discuss about games, theories, psychology, and pathologies (you guys should know by now that MMOs are addictive to some ... Ouch! Please don't hurt me for saying that.) And from these discussions with people from my community (small one, I know) most of gamers would like to have more options in games. PVP, PVE, tradeskills is what most MMO offer. How can we take that and get it to next level? This is what I'm trying to do.
If you played Fable 2, did you marry? Did you find some gargoyles? Did you dig treasures even when you were rich and didn't need it? Did you treat your dog? All this didn't advance the game or only a little and you still did it? Why?
We want to have a goal, but when we rest, we must have something else to do which has less significance.
/take down armor
Try the easy analogy of mmo as real life. In real life you have goals (happy kids/wife, work, school, music, art, etc) but sometimes your don't pursue this goal (watch TV, play games, eat pop corn). Why?
In a MMO you have goals (PVP, raid, char advancement, tradeskills, etc.) but when you log for 30 minutes or and hour and don't want to commit, what do you do? You could say PVP, tradeskills and such, but what if we could have something else?
What if the goal was virtual world building ( as insane as it souds!) and you can sometimes commit, sometimes not, but always advancing the goal?
/put on armor
Think of a one server game where developpers offer to gamers a world to build and in which they intend to follow gamers. As a Dungeon master, I follow the players and act with humility. I don't play god and impose a campaign. Game developpers should listen not only to rants on forums, but to actions in game. If a guild always mine at the same place, why isn't it possible to developpers to implement a small cave in a future patch? Nothing big, just a little "We say what you did and you changed the world."
Woodcutter should transform deep forest into light forests, ligh forest into plains. Farmers should transform plains into farms and builders should transform a community into a town.
The crossroad in the barrens in WoW has always been there, wipe it, grow it, do something to it. Change the world to players actions.
I think that's it for now.
Thanks for everything.
Blackraist
When I played Shadowbane from the beginning it was a lot like that. A bunch of people got together and built a city, and then defended it. We would go in a group and farm an area - and would protect that farming area from others - our city was built near 2 very good farming areas. later after that city was defeated I went to other cities and found much the same ethic. Which continued until several Cities had pretty much devoured the map. I left. I t was a great experience.
Since then I have never seen it's like. Now guilds seem to have people from so many different time zones that you can never get them all together at the same time. In EVE my former Corp had members stretching from Austrailia to Alaska to East Coast USA to Europe - there had to be 3 mining diretors for ops.
Also, as pointed out above, people play for different reasons, being in a guild/city/corp/ whatever is nice and stops the endless invitations to guilds, etc. Unless some one recreates Shadowbane with it's build your city approach I do not think we will see that level of co-operation again. My opinion.
You talk about Shadowbane. Do you guys know of any game that is like that and that could fill the demand for world building mmo?
I think they tried with Darkfall, but I didn't try it. Is there something worth some time?
Thanks
Blackraist
The Guild-centric model for MMORPGs is a fundamentally flawed model when content is built-around the concept of what a guild should, or ought, to be.
Guilds, actually, should be for any purpose that the community wants them:
Communities are weak when they are forced. Communities and content both suffer when developers design content with specific guilds in mind. Communities and guilds have a natural growth to them with some organization with planning to fulfill that guild's particular goals and mission. When developers create content for the purpose of creating guilds, they are defining the mission and goals and sometimes even the planning for guilds.
Plenty of room in the market for a game that fosters genuine communities in which a variety of guilds, with a variety of purposes, completing a variety of content can grow and succeed in a virtual world.