I would love to find a game that didn't put players 'on rails' as another poster stated. The linear, cookie-cutter, level based MMORPG = been there/done that for 90% of the people who read these boards.
Another thing wrong with level based MMORPG's:
Ever started a game 3-4 weeks after your friends did? And now they are way, way over the n00bie stages of the game. You have to bust your arse to catch up to them... meanwhile, you aren't getting to play the game 'with' your friends, you're playing to try to catch up so that you can play with your friends.
So, yeah, I love the topic and it was an excellent article. As others have said... 'spot on'.
Unfortunantly, that would not work. In a single player RPG the player is the sole focus of the game. Everything revolves around him and he is a walking god among men. He can feel powerful because nothing and no one can challenge him. Now, add in 5000 other players. Each one of them is going to expect that feeling of power, and they are going to measure it as compared to the other players. Now you have balance issues, overpowered abilities, underpowered abilities. Worse, each players view of where their characters abilities are in relation to everyone elses characters is going to be skewed in their own favor.
I don't think thats so. Take oblivion, ignoring the main quest, 100 people could be wandering around the world and it would be just fine. Its not a question of power, or being a walking god. The world would support the players just fine.
OTOH, your balance issues are spot on. If theivery doesn't work well in a single player game, you can live with it. But in a multiplayer game, these imbalances stand out more. Especially when the game is so combat based.
While I agree with the ideas presented, the problem is always going to be people. No matter how you design the game you are going to have people who ruin it, and the more popular it becomes, the larger the number of idiots or farmers you are going to attract who figure out a way to ruin it for the honest players. Anything that is any good almost never stays that way because of that fundamental principle of the world we live in. Commercialism ruins just about everything.
Great article with incredible accuracy, along the the low level design article it makes me really enjoy reading some of MMORPG.com articles.
current MMOs aren't really persistent worlds, they are just a linear progress (sometimes with a few ramifications, but if you do both of the paths you'll just be dumb as you'll play in outleveled content) for your characters, with levels being the measure of progress.
I'd really love to see a MMO shifting from this trend, where the place you go is not determined by your level but instead by where you want to go to do *insert storyline options here*, level being a mere consequence of your actions, not a cause for your actions (or no level at all, but whatever it will be used.
I don't know about GW2, but GW1 had the feeling you wanted to play through the storyline (especially because there is no pwnage equipment and level cap is easily reached) for checking it out and for the fun of it (at least this was my experience, played all campaigns exploring all the unique content of it). It is not perfect for me though, because of the 99% instancing. Good enough for me to put faith (and the retail price) into its sequence though.
The fact that there were/are so many level based mmos is why I think the genre took so long to catch on. I remember SWG fondly and how the entire game was not this huge level grind but instead a set of tightly bundled meta-games that all seemed fresh and new. I think the main reason that so few people actually enjoy a given game as a whole is that the actually narative and story in mmo's is contained in the end game. Back in my wow days I remember how terrible questing was, the npc's and quests surronding the grind were just unlikeable and dull. Howeve I think things are going to get better, The genre is splitting down the middle into two entirely separate kind of games, on the one hand you have sandbox world allowing players to make decisions a-la EVE and on the other narative driven rpgs that allow for interaction with other players living out their own story SW-TOR.
Blizzard uses WOW to harvest hours played into bottles so that the dev team can remain immortal
I agree that part of this is the fault of the players. I played EQ1 like a level maniac, but when i realized it would take a year to hit 50 (at the rate i played), i started again with no intention to even hit 40. It was much more fun the second time around because i wasn't playing with a levels in mind. I've learned my lesson, i get my fun at the lower levels, ignore the upper levels. A fireball is a fireball whether its 100 damage or 2. Play while its fun, then get out. No grinding for me. But the problem for game developers, what is to keep me playing. If its the same 20 missions no matter what class/race i play, then we have a problem. They have to give you 30 ways through the lower levels that are different enough. Not completely different, but different enough to make it interesting. The game has to be REPLAYABLE. That will keep the money coming in while keeping it fun. Not pushing the max level to 70 or 80. A good example is EQ. EQ at least had 10 different races and 5 different classes that all played different. Each race played different as did the class. That was 50 ways to start off. And they didn't all lead to the same main story line throughout. You weren't put on rails, it was more like a sandbox.
I think we have very similar tastes. Except in Guild Wars where the level cap is very low, I have never played a character all the way to the level cap - not in WoW, or LOTRO or CoX. It is much more fun to try out a few different classes to get some different game experiences rather than doing the same thing over and over and over.
As you point out, a wide variety of classes with different play styles is a great thing. I would happily give up balance for more variety in play style. I think my favorite system so far is Guild Wars where you get to mix and match powers rather than being stuck with a predefined set for each class.
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Originally posted by EricDanie
I'd really love to see a MMO shifting from this trend, where the place you go is not determined by your level but instead by where you want to go to do *insert storyline options here*, level being a mere consequence of your actions, not a cause for your actions (or no level at all, but whatever it will be used.
***
I couldn't agree more. It gives me much more investment in my character's adventure if I'm going someone for a reason, rather than just because its next in line.
Two things I hate in MMOs Levels and Gated content. This dude is spot on. Make everything useful and fun. The journey is the game. This is why I play Open ended games.
To add to your list...they should never remove content and items...they need to add. It should be a PERSISTENT WORLD.
gotta love how people talk of the future of MMOs and the way they should be when I've been playing Open ended games like that since UO.
UO, SWG, EVE, Ryzom lol.
Edit: in the article the writer spoke of a main storyline leading a player from zone to zone, with optional quests and fun things to do all around and being able to come back to a earlier area and having it meaningful. Yeah that game is called Guild wars. You can level to 20 (level cap) before you see 10% of the main storyline once done with main storyline you can switch on hardmode where the map is 100% useful.
I almost feel like everyone has started playing MMOs post WoW and forgot how MMOs were before lol. It's like the freaking twilight zone on this site.
Ya, WoW ruined online gaming for us old school peeps! I don't blame them though, just how things seemed to work out.
Great article Dana but I just don't see it is being anything much more than the players being broken I don't see anything worng with levels which is in effect what we do in real life we level up to the things that we accomplish in adulthood, a championship sprinter once had to learn to walk, a world class vocalist also had to learn to talk if you get my drift.
On the one hand I think it has become "cool" to jump on the "innovation" band wagon, we often declare things lame without a hint of an idea of what would make things better or make more sense than the current build used in todays games. LOTRO has an ideal system using the same standard level builds almost all of todays games use as a standard should you chose to you can live in middle earth without ever taking part in the main storyline which should always be a players option but your detachment from the "fun" of the storyline will ovbviously be sacrificed for it.
In all if the players would actually take an interest in the ip (which to hear most of the complaints they don't) things would not "seem" as bad as they do if you read the quests saved an old weapon that you got off a difficult quest drop etc. we would experience all of the things we claim are missing from games nowadays.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
The only thing wow did was make a game the way they saw fit and thankfully for them it turned out highly successful blame the devs of newer games for copying to a fault if that is in fact the case, but I just want to add that most games are still made the way an above poster mentioned, we are given quests to complete which lead us to higher lands and we are allowed to return to earlier levels anytime we choose to. The difference as I've stated is so many players only race to "end game" they don't take simple pleasures in mind because there are none for them, only the singular goal of end game.
I often travel to lands I've out levelled to gather resources that once seemed imposssible to gather but now are a breeze due to my increased experience, I would actually reason I have probably spent more time since level cap in lotro on gathering resources,helping firends and working on quests I have yet to complete as well just to do it at my own pace and actually learn about places in the game I had missed. Most players now just don't care about the experience friends have if it doesn't help them achieve their own goals which has become one of single mindedly racing to the mythical end game. Even when you reach the end people you will still play with the basic rules and principles established on your journey to the end so why does it surprise so many when what they find doesn't satisfy them.
My post comes off like I wish more people actually wouldn't play mmos which I don't as I see the benefit of the larger audience but I could certainly see the benefit of not having so many of the speed racer type players in the mix we would see alot more innovation if we actually changed the way we play as a player base. As it stands the most money companies can gain is from those who will race to the end game to find nothing new because those are the extra 100-200k that play for sometimes up to a year before burn out while the main base of 100-200k play for the lore,community and actual fun how do we compete with that?
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
When i first started playing Dark Age of Camelot i found it to be cool to advance skills with every level. Like an addiction i had to get stronger with every level to achieve max level *50* and PVP non stop or make another character and level it to 50 so i could do the same on a different class.
The basic concept of MMO's in general is stale. Do quests, grind mobs until max level. Get the best gear you can to compete against PVP opponents. There is no real interest in PVE combat. Heck i would be happy if i logged in a new game at max level in the best gear you could get and play PVP from the get go with cause and effect style game play. If you've done it *PVE* once you can do it 1 million more times and it's still the same. They can create encounters but once you figure it out its unchallenging as well.
In order to have a fun journey you cant have a simple path. That is why from a immersion standpoint you will never find what you get in single player games like Fall Out 3. IN FO3 there is cause and effect to your behavior. In MMO's what you do has no bearing on squat. Follow the dotted line, complete quest or kill 100 bears and ding, " I leveled".
Like i said after your first MMO you pretty much have all the rest down as well. The immersion of per say reading a book is no comparison to following a quest sequence. The book is superior in every way.
I prefer to play against human opponents therefore i don't think there will ever be a PVE game that can hold my interest. I love Lords of the Ring but the online game sucked imo. It had no feel like the immersion you got from the 3 movies.
I've seen ALOT of very few cool immersion factors in many different games but regretfully no MMO Producer seems to have the ability to implement even 10% of those in their games.
This is in response to the article, not any one person's post.
All of what Dana said is true.
Levels as a yardstick aren't good, then all anyone cares about is levels.
Grinding to the endgame "where the fun starts" isn't good as all anyone cares about is leveling fast enough to "get to the good stuff".
Inane dopey quests that are just repetitions of other quests "Go kill ten zorks" immediately followed by "Go kill ten ings" isn't good as we all get bored out of our skulls and demand open PvP "kill everyone all the time" to get their kicks.
What's the answer? I don't really know how the devs who are stuck so far inside the corporate game companies "box" will do it.
But, I recently ran a personal test of a game for a group of parents and I saw some light in the tunnel.
FreeRealms was interesting in that there was a lot of game play in many different things. Harvesting wasn't a mindless characterization of digging in the dirt, it was an arcade puzzle game. Some of the errand quests were timed - and if you don't think it makes it difficult you should try it <grins>.
You could drive cars in races or crash them in a derby. Fighting was instanced where you could solo it, or get a pickup group together and enter. There were cooking games, and even a maze.
I guess a lot of the fun came from the fact that you didn't just specialize in one "job" but could have several. Since I tried the free portion of the game I could be an Adventurer, Brawler, Ninja, Miner, Cook, Demolition Derby Driver, Race Car Driver, and Pet Trainer - all at the same time with one character.
If you got bored with one, you "changed jobs" and went to do something else.
Each "class" or "job" came with it's own tools and gear, which upgraded as you leveled. There were even tickets so you could play a random game to get clothing, weapons and other gear in a surprise box sort of situation.
Heck there were even table games like Chess, Checkers, some card war game (I never played it) and Castle Defense type games.
The Adventurer job was to explore and find "collections". I don't know what the reward was for completing collections as I had to stop playing (work demanded it), but I had 33 collections started.
The ONLY flaw with FreeRealms was the way you could mistakenly delete your character very, very easily with no hope for retrieval. It was instantaneous and irrevokable. Not bad for me being a free player, but the subscription and cash shop players are getting burned by that. If they fix it, this will be a near perfect children's entertainment game.
Which brings me back to MMORPGs. Why can't WE have adult versions of the above? Why can't an adult level game exist with games within the game, and other activities that are interesting?
Why is fighting the focus instead of something you do AS PART OF the story line? Why is crafting - when there is any - such a PITA? Why do we NEVER do any of the other things that should exist in a persistent WORLD?
Why are we accepting and in some cases paying a high price to consume sawdust instead of demanding the luscious dessert our money should be going for?
Ah well, I guess it's all about getting stuck in boxes and letting others lead us about by the nose. Until we ask for what we REALLY want, we aren't going to get it.
Which brings me back to MMORPGs. Why can't WE have adult versions of the above? Why can't an adult level game exist with games within the game, and other activities that are interesting?
Why is fighting the focus instead of something you do AS PART OF the story line? Why is crafting - when there is any - such a PITA? Why do we NEVER do any of the other things that should exist in a persistent WORLD?
Yes indeed! Fighting is my favorite activity, but too much of anything gets dull and variety is the spice of life. I thought EVE handled this well. When I didn't want to fight any more, I could go take on some other job.
The one thing I find interesting that about half the people who have posted in this thread still seemed to have missed is this. While most in here aggree with the basic premise behind the OP just about every solution or idea on what would fix the problem is different. There is a reason your perfect MMO has not yet been created...you have not yet created it and your probably the only one that knows exactly what it is. While there is a lot of overlap from person to person what makes a good MMO there are as many differences too and thus we will never get our own perfect MMO, although it is possible to get close.
On the subject of grind - levels vrs skills. I have found that skill based systems offer as much if not more "grind" than level based systems - yes even UO had grind...at least the original version way back in 1999 or 2000...hard to remember exactly when I played. The difference in level grind and skill grind is merely the interval and frequency. For instance in level based game I might have to kill 100 mobs to reach lvl 10 whereby i get a handfull of new skills instantly ready to use. In a skill based game I might have to attack 100 mobs...not necessarily to death but at least attack and perhaps defend for a length of time to take that same handfull of skills from 0 to 100 or whatever numbers the skill based system happens to use.
The difference in UO was the fact that you could grind a skill to max in a single day, except for magic. You only had a handfull of skills and thus the biggest factor in the game was equipment as even a newbie could match your skill point level within a day or two. So now we switch from skill grinding to equipment grinding to gold grinding to XXX grinding. Anything that you do that is repetitive and lacking in fun for the sole purpose of reaching a goal is in effect a grind. Anything you do in which the goal is fun and that goal is achieved while getting secondary benefits(aka loot, xps, skills, reputation, whatevers) is not grind. So if a player races through zone after zone tackling every objective in front of them in a race to see how fast they can reach level cap and they are having fun doing so is in essence not grinding. A player, however, that is racing through zone after zone tackling objectives in order to reach a mythical end game thinking thats when they get to have fun is grinding.
So just like one mans trash is another mans treasure.....one mans grind is another mans idea of fun. A successfull MMO will find a way to make thier game where a majority of people see fun and not grind, an unsuccesfull MMO is where a majority of people see grind and not fun.
I agree with the OP - most players learned to grind AS PLAY, because companies needed a measure to project revenues, and how long it would take a player to reach X level is a convenient metric. They can put that into a spreadsheet, look at the number of signups, and say "we can expect Y months of revenue from each player that makes it to level X".
So the "players" (who are really online workers paying the game company to do chores with flashy gear and effects to distract the poor saps) don't even know what playing should feel like.
I'm from the old school. I remember what fun games were like, and why they were fun. I cannot at this time play an MMO that allows me to have that kind of risk-filled, reward-fulfilling fun. It's just stupid to see, and very sad, because running to the nearest featherhead on your map and following his work instructions to get a pixel paycheck so you can rinse and repeat endlessly is so far below fun, it's pathetic.
Compare this with being trapped in a dungeon with monstrous enemies - skeletons, zombies, imps that hurl magical attacks - between you and freedom, and being forced to fight your way out with a starting weapon and whatever you can loot from the dungeon rooms and the enemies you kill. That's a game that makes you sit up and PLAY, and your reward for victory is 1. the sweet, sweet feeling of bad@ssery that comes with your escape, and 2. the chance to then go do it some more in a way that makes a difference in the game world. But with some preparation this time
Here's an idea - just remove all indications of player levels from MMOs. Just have the same level checks for questing and item use, and refuse you with the same dialogue ("You're not strong enough for this blah blah).
There. Now without the mile markers, players can concentrate on the journey, not the destination.
Dunno if anyone else posted this (hopefully it's not the one above mine ), but I think Star Wars: The Old Republic might be the kind of game the article writer is speaking of.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a main story and as a player we can choose to group with other live players to continue that story or not. There also appear to be consequences to our actions, so it looks like in that game, the journey is the focus.
The developer has also cranked out games (Mass Effect, Jade Empire, KOTOR) that can stand tall with some of the other major players the article writer mentioned (Fallout 3, Fable II). So we might actually see that type of progression based on the journey rather than the level.
The game I play doesn't have levels, it has skills, and they don't show your skill level, so when you talk about someone it's always, 'that guy is a great warrior', not, 'that guy is level 50'. You know you are skilled when you do things better than you did before and no one complains about unfair level differences when they get beat... they just praise the victor. There's no grind at all. You live, work, craft, build, adventure... it's completely open. You don't need quests for that. You just need the coded tools for your character to have a rich and full life with a real impact on the world (which is freaking massive, BTW). You don't need great graphics either, because after you get over the graphics it's all just about what you want to accomplish and whether or not the game supports that goal. In the end it's all about your imagination, not some cartoon that does more to detract from the feel of the world than add to it.
Where am I at in the game? Well, I'm one of the better warriors in Brygga, but have no idea what my skill level is in terms of numbers. I just finished a shop to sell items crafted from rarer metals that I pan in dangerous lands from the streams others have a hard time getting to and therefore are richer since the gems and metals (gold, silver, mithril, etc) deplete over time and regen very slowly. The easily reachable areas are quickly depleted. I am now beginning a small fort out there so I can have a base of operations for NPC hirelings that will do some of the panning for me, as well as guard the fort. I also am helping to build roads to ease travel into the north where the other main player race lives. They have things we want to trade for and it's a really long and slow journey right now without good roads.
So where am I? I don't know... but I'm having fun there and it's never a grind.
The formula for real fun: Graphics 1 | Fun 10 | Sound 0 | Community 10 | Role-Playing 10 | Performance/Lag 10 | Value 10 | Service 10 http://www.thornsofwar.com
Comments
I would love to find a game that didn't put players 'on rails' as another poster stated. The linear, cookie-cutter, level based MMORPG = been there/done that for 90% of the people who read these boards.
Another thing wrong with level based MMORPG's:
Ever started a game 3-4 weeks after your friends did? And now they are way, way over the n00bie stages of the game. You have to bust your arse to catch up to them... meanwhile, you aren't getting to play the game 'with' your friends, you're playing to try to catch up so that you can play with your friends.
So, yeah, I love the topic and it was an excellent article. As others have said... 'spot on'.
I don't think thats so. Take oblivion, ignoring the main quest, 100 people could be wandering around the world and it would be just fine. Its not a question of power, or being a walking god. The world would support the players just fine.
OTOH, your balance issues are spot on. If theivery doesn't work well in a single player game, you can live with it. But in a multiplayer game, these imbalances stand out more. Especially when the game is so combat based.
Good read,
I hope some company has the balls to experiment and give it a try.
While I agree with the ideas presented, the problem is always going to be people. No matter how you design the game you are going to have people who ruin it, and the more popular it becomes, the larger the number of idiots or farmers you are going to attract who figure out a way to ruin it for the honest players. Anything that is any good almost never stays that way because of that fundamental principle of the world we live in. Commercialism ruins just about everything.
Great article with incredible accuracy, along the the low level design article it makes me really enjoy reading some of MMORPG.com articles.
current MMOs aren't really persistent worlds, they are just a linear progress (sometimes with a few ramifications, but if you do both of the paths you'll just be dumb as you'll play in outleveled content) for your characters, with levels being the measure of progress.
I'd really love to see a MMO shifting from this trend, where the place you go is not determined by your level but instead by where you want to go to do *insert storyline options here*, level being a mere consequence of your actions, not a cause for your actions (or no level at all, but whatever it will be used.
I don't know about GW2, but GW1 had the feeling you wanted to play through the storyline (especially because there is no pwnage equipment and level cap is easily reached) for checking it out and for the fun of it (at least this was my experience, played all campaigns exploring all the unique content of it). It is not perfect for me though, because of the 99% instancing. Good enough for me to put faith (and the retail price) into its sequence though.
The fact that there were/are so many level based mmos is why I think the genre took so long to catch on. I remember SWG fondly and how the entire game was not this huge level grind but instead a set of tightly bundled meta-games that all seemed fresh and new. I think the main reason that so few people actually enjoy a given game as a whole is that the actually narative and story in mmo's is contained in the end game. Back in my wow days I remember how terrible questing was, the npc's and quests surronding the grind were just unlikeable and dull. Howeve I think things are going to get better, The genre is splitting down the middle into two entirely separate kind of games, on the one hand you have sandbox world allowing players to make decisions a-la EVE and on the other narative driven rpgs that allow for interaction with other players living out their own story SW-TOR.
Blizzard uses WOW to harvest hours played into bottles so that the dev team can remain immortal
I think we have very similar tastes. Except in Guild Wars where the level cap is very low, I have never played a character all the way to the level cap - not in WoW, or LOTRO or CoX. It is much more fun to try out a few different classes to get some different game experiences rather than doing the same thing over and over and over.
As you point out, a wide variety of classes with different play styles is a great thing. I would happily give up balance for more variety in play style. I think my favorite system so far is Guild Wars where you get to mix and match powers rather than being stuck with a predefined set for each class.
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Originally posted by EricDanie
I'd really love to see a MMO shifting from this trend, where the place you go is not determined by your level but instead by where you want to go to do *insert storyline options here*, level being a mere consequence of your actions, not a cause for your actions (or no level at all, but whatever it will be used.
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I couldn't agree more. It gives me much more investment in my character's adventure if I'm going someone for a reason, rather than just because its next in line.
To add to your list...they should never remove content and items...they need to add. It should be a PERSISTENT WORLD.
gotta love how people talk of the future of MMOs and the way they should be when I've been playing Open ended games like that since UO.
UO, SWG, EVE, Ryzom lol.
Edit: in the article the writer spoke of a main storyline leading a player from zone to zone, with optional quests and fun things to do all around and being able to come back to a earlier area and having it meaningful. Yeah that game is called Guild wars. You can level to 20 (level cap) before you see 10% of the main storyline once done with main storyline you can switch on hardmode where the map is 100% useful.
I almost feel like everyone has started playing MMOs post WoW and forgot how MMOs were before lol. It's like the freaking twilight zone on this site.
Ya, WoW ruined online gaming for us old school peeps! I don't blame them though, just how things seemed to work out.
Great article Dana but I just don't see it is being anything much more than the players being broken I don't see anything worng with levels which is in effect what we do in real life we level up to the things that we accomplish in adulthood, a championship sprinter once had to learn to walk, a world class vocalist also had to learn to talk if you get my drift.
On the one hand I think it has become "cool" to jump on the "innovation" band wagon, we often declare things lame without a hint of an idea of what would make things better or make more sense than the current build used in todays games. LOTRO has an ideal system using the same standard level builds almost all of todays games use as a standard should you chose to you can live in middle earth without ever taking part in the main storyline which should always be a players option but your detachment from the "fun" of the storyline will ovbviously be sacrificed for it.
In all if the players would actually take an interest in the ip (which to hear most of the complaints they don't) things would not "seem" as bad as they do if you read the quests saved an old weapon that you got off a difficult quest drop etc. we would experience all of the things we claim are missing from games nowadays.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
The only thing wow did was make a game the way they saw fit and thankfully for them it turned out highly successful blame the devs of newer games for copying to a fault if that is in fact the case, but I just want to add that most games are still made the way an above poster mentioned, we are given quests to complete which lead us to higher lands and we are allowed to return to earlier levels anytime we choose to. The difference as I've stated is so many players only race to "end game" they don't take simple pleasures in mind because there are none for them, only the singular goal of end game.
I often travel to lands I've out levelled to gather resources that once seemed imposssible to gather but now are a breeze due to my increased experience, I would actually reason I have probably spent more time since level cap in lotro on gathering resources,helping firends and working on quests I have yet to complete as well just to do it at my own pace and actually learn about places in the game I had missed. Most players now just don't care about the experience friends have if it doesn't help them achieve their own goals which has become one of single mindedly racing to the mythical end game. Even when you reach the end people you will still play with the basic rules and principles established on your journey to the end so why does it surprise so many when what they find doesn't satisfy them.
My post comes off like I wish more people actually wouldn't play mmos which I don't as I see the benefit of the larger audience but I could certainly see the benefit of not having so many of the speed racer type players in the mix we would see alot more innovation if we actually changed the way we play as a player base. As it stands the most money companies can gain is from those who will race to the end game to find nothing new because those are the extra 100-200k that play for sometimes up to a year before burn out while the main base of 100-200k play for the lore,community and actual fun how do we compete with that?
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
When i first started playing Dark Age of Camelot i found it to be cool to advance skills with every level. Like an addiction i had to get stronger with every level to achieve max level *50* and PVP non stop or make another character and level it to 50 so i could do the same on a different class.
The basic concept of MMO's in general is stale. Do quests, grind mobs until max level. Get the best gear you can to compete against PVP opponents. There is no real interest in PVE combat. Heck i would be happy if i logged in a new game at max level in the best gear you could get and play PVP from the get go with cause and effect style game play. If you've done it *PVE* once you can do it 1 million more times and it's still the same. They can create encounters but once you figure it out its unchallenging as well.
In order to have a fun journey you cant have a simple path. That is why from a immersion standpoint you will never find what you get in single player games like Fall Out 3. IN FO3 there is cause and effect to your behavior. In MMO's what you do has no bearing on squat. Follow the dotted line, complete quest or kill 100 bears and ding, " I leveled".
Like i said after your first MMO you pretty much have all the rest down as well. The immersion of per say reading a book is no comparison to following a quest sequence. The book is superior in every way.
I prefer to play against human opponents therefore i don't think there will ever be a PVE game that can hold my interest. I love Lords of the Ring but the online game sucked imo. It had no feel like the immersion you got from the 3 movies.
I've seen ALOT of very few cool immersion factors in many different games but regretfully no MMO Producer seems to have the ability to implement even 10% of those in their games.
This is in response to the article, not any one person's post.
All of what Dana said is true.
Levels as a yardstick aren't good, then all anyone cares about is levels.
Grinding to the endgame "where the fun starts" isn't good as all anyone cares about is leveling fast enough to "get to the good stuff".
Inane dopey quests that are just repetitions of other quests "Go kill ten zorks" immediately followed by "Go kill ten ings" isn't good as we all get bored out of our skulls and demand open PvP "kill everyone all the time" to get their kicks.
What's the answer? I don't really know how the devs who are stuck so far inside the corporate game companies "box" will do it.
But, I recently ran a personal test of a game for a group of parents and I saw some light in the tunnel.
FreeRealms was interesting in that there was a lot of game play in many different things. Harvesting wasn't a mindless characterization of digging in the dirt, it was an arcade puzzle game. Some of the errand quests were timed - and if you don't think it makes it difficult you should try it <grins>.
You could drive cars in races or crash them in a derby. Fighting was instanced where you could solo it, or get a pickup group together and enter. There were cooking games, and even a maze.
I guess a lot of the fun came from the fact that you didn't just specialize in one "job" but could have several. Since I tried the free portion of the game I could be an Adventurer, Brawler, Ninja, Miner, Cook, Demolition Derby Driver, Race Car Driver, and Pet Trainer - all at the same time with one character.
If you got bored with one, you "changed jobs" and went to do something else.
Each "class" or "job" came with it's own tools and gear, which upgraded as you leveled. There were even tickets so you could play a random game to get clothing, weapons and other gear in a surprise box sort of situation.
Heck there were even table games like Chess, Checkers, some card war game (I never played it) and Castle Defense type games.
The Adventurer job was to explore and find "collections". I don't know what the reward was for completing collections as I had to stop playing (work demanded it), but I had 33 collections started.
The ONLY flaw with FreeRealms was the way you could mistakenly delete your character very, very easily with no hope for retrieval. It was instantaneous and irrevokable. Not bad for me being a free player, but the subscription and cash shop players are getting burned by that. If they fix it, this will be a near perfect children's entertainment game.
Which brings me back to MMORPGs. Why can't WE have adult versions of the above? Why can't an adult level game exist with games within the game, and other activities that are interesting?
Why is fighting the focus instead of something you do AS PART OF the story line? Why is crafting - when there is any - such a PITA? Why do we NEVER do any of the other things that should exist in a persistent WORLD?
Why are we accepting and in some cases paying a high price to consume sawdust instead of demanding the luscious dessert our money should be going for?
Ah well, I guess it's all about getting stuck in boxes and letting others lead us about by the nose. Until we ask for what we REALLY want, we aren't going to get it.
Yes indeed! Fighting is my favorite activity, but too much of anything gets dull and variety is the spice of life. I thought EVE handled this well. When I didn't want to fight any more, I could go take on some other job.
The one thing I find interesting that about half the people who have posted in this thread still seemed to have missed is this. While most in here aggree with the basic premise behind the OP just about every solution or idea on what would fix the problem is different. There is a reason your perfect MMO has not yet been created...you have not yet created it and your probably the only one that knows exactly what it is. While there is a lot of overlap from person to person what makes a good MMO there are as many differences too and thus we will never get our own perfect MMO, although it is possible to get close.
On the subject of grind - levels vrs skills. I have found that skill based systems offer as much if not more "grind" than level based systems - yes even UO had grind...at least the original version way back in 1999 or 2000...hard to remember exactly when I played. The difference in level grind and skill grind is merely the interval and frequency. For instance in level based game I might have to kill 100 mobs to reach lvl 10 whereby i get a handfull of new skills instantly ready to use. In a skill based game I might have to attack 100 mobs...not necessarily to death but at least attack and perhaps defend for a length of time to take that same handfull of skills from 0 to 100 or whatever numbers the skill based system happens to use.
The difference in UO was the fact that you could grind a skill to max in a single day, except for magic. You only had a handfull of skills and thus the biggest factor in the game was equipment as even a newbie could match your skill point level within a day or two. So now we switch from skill grinding to equipment grinding to gold grinding to XXX grinding. Anything that you do that is repetitive and lacking in fun for the sole purpose of reaching a goal is in effect a grind. Anything you do in which the goal is fun and that goal is achieved while getting secondary benefits(aka loot, xps, skills, reputation, whatevers) is not grind. So if a player races through zone after zone tackling every objective in front of them in a race to see how fast they can reach level cap and they are having fun doing so is in essence not grinding. A player, however, that is racing through zone after zone tackling objectives in order to reach a mythical end game thinking thats when they get to have fun is grinding.
So just like one mans trash is another mans treasure.....one mans grind is another mans idea of fun. A successfull MMO will find a way to make thier game where a majority of people see fun and not grind, an unsuccesfull MMO is where a majority of people see grind and not fun.
I agree with the OP - most players learned to grind AS PLAY, because companies needed a measure to project revenues, and how long it would take a player to reach X level is a convenient metric. They can put that into a spreadsheet, look at the number of signups, and say "we can expect Y months of revenue from each player that makes it to level X".
So the "players" (who are really online workers paying the game company to do chores with flashy gear and effects to distract the poor saps) don't even know what playing should feel like.
I'm from the old school. I remember what fun games were like, and why they were fun. I cannot at this time play an MMO that allows me to have that kind of risk-filled, reward-fulfilling fun. It's just stupid to see, and very sad, because running to the nearest featherhead on your map and following his work instructions to get a pixel paycheck so you can rinse and repeat endlessly is so far below fun, it's pathetic.
Compare this with being trapped in a dungeon with monstrous enemies - skeletons, zombies, imps that hurl magical attacks - between you and freedom, and being forced to fight your way out with a starting weapon and whatever you can loot from the dungeon rooms and the enemies you kill. That's a game that makes you sit up and PLAY, and your reward for victory is 1. the sweet, sweet feeling of bad@ssery that comes with your escape, and 2. the chance to then go do it some more in a way that makes a difference in the game world. But with some preparation this time
Here's an idea - just remove all indications of player levels from MMOs. Just have the same level checks for questing and item use, and refuse you with the same dialogue ("You're not strong enough for this blah blah).
There. Now without the mile markers, players can concentrate on the journey, not the destination.
For the first 30 levels of LOTR, i didn't even know where the level indicator was, nor did i particularly care.
To me, thats the mark of a good game.
Dunno if anyone else posted this (hopefully it's not the one above mine
), but I think Star Wars: The Old Republic might be the kind of game the article writer is speaking of.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a main story and as a player we can choose to group with other live players to continue that story or not. There also appear to be consequences to our actions, so it looks like in that game, the journey is the focus.
The developer has also cranked out games (Mass Effect, Jade Empire, KOTOR) that can stand tall with some of the other major players the article writer mentioned (Fallout 3, Fable II). So we might actually see that type of progression based on the journey rather than the level.
Nice article.
Which FF Character Are You?
The game I play doesn't have levels, it has skills, and they don't show your skill level, so when you talk about someone it's always, 'that guy is a great warrior', not, 'that guy is level 50'. You know you are skilled when you do things better than you did before and no one complains about unfair level differences when they get beat... they just praise the victor. There's no grind at all. You live, work, craft, build, adventure... it's completely open. You don't need quests for that. You just need the coded tools for your character to have a rich and full life with a real impact on the world (which is freaking massive, BTW). You don't need great graphics either, because after you get over the graphics it's all just about what you want to accomplish and whether or not the game supports that goal. In the end it's all about your imagination, not some cartoon that does more to detract from the feel of the world than add to it.
Where am I at in the game? Well, I'm one of the better warriors in Brygga, but have no idea what my skill level is in terms of numbers. I just finished a shop to sell items crafted from rarer metals that I pan in dangerous lands from the streams others have a hard time getting to and therefore are richer since the gems and metals (gold, silver, mithril, etc) deplete over time and regen very slowly. The easily reachable areas are quickly depleted. I am now beginning a small fort out there so I can have a base of operations for NPC hirelings that will do some of the panning for me, as well as guard the fort. I also am helping to build roads to ease travel into the north where the other main player race lives. They have things we want to trade for and it's a really long and slow journey right now without good roads.
So where am I? I don't know... but I'm having fun there and it's never a grind.
The formula for real fun:
Graphics 1 | Fun 10 | Sound 0 | Community 10 | Role-Playing 10 | Performance/Lag 10 | Value 10 | Service 10
http://www.thornsofwar.com