Dana, I in no way would argue that WoW isn't the definitive game in this genre. I am arguing exactly that WoW IS the definitive game. My disagreement with you is in regards to how it got there. You stated that they "perfected the style". WoW as game or style is far from perfect. I say that they have perfected the marketing for that style. And from reading the second paragraph of your reply you agree with me as you just reiterated what I'm getting at! You just stated above in your second paragraph: "A few notes though. Ask a serious art historian and they usually won't name that "perfector" as their favorite. What that person did, the guy who "perfected the style" is market his stuff, get in front of the most people or convince the Pope to pay for the most of it."
That is what I'm saying exactly! What Blizzard did was market their game, get in front of the most people and do the best job convincing those people to pay for it. Oh and in addition, your second to last paragraph states... "They're two separate communities that no one has fully integrated into each other yet. I've spoken to more people than I can remember who ask what I do and when I say I work for "MMORPG.com" they cannot even get the acronym right. If I say "it's a kind of game, like WoW," they know exactly what I mean." ...which further proves what I've been saying all along (read my McDonald's analogy).
Right, but my point is... it doesn't matter how they took that mantle. They took it.
A MMO without levels or any advancement point grinds needs to happen.
Final Fantasy XIV promises "no traditional experience point system" for advancement... could this be the mega-huge title game to break the mold and set the new standard?
It's as simple as unlocking content through exploration and adventure versus unlocking content via numerical inflation.
WOW originally had it almost right with attunement quests.
You had to progress a story before you could unlock the next chapter.
The problem was that they were picking up new subscribers so fast and no one wanted to go back and do the old attunement stuff, they just wanted to be able to hop in and join in on the fun. This is totally understandable.
I think the biggest mistake they made was making attunement quests require so much group work. It became a game of convincing your friends or guildies to run you through older, obsolete content or force you to PUG it.
I guess they originally viewed it as you had to progress from solo to small group to large group content, which is totally fine and 100% the way it should be but later on once the small group stuff becomes obsolete, or you add more large group stuff that requires you to go back to obsolete raid stuff.... you create problems and you have to cater to the masses who just want to catch up and join in the fun.
This is why they eliminated attunements.
Better solution? Don't tie unlocking new content to old content. You shouldn't have to raid Naxxaramas to raid Ulduar. But you should have new content, new stories and new adventures to go through both solo and in small groups to unlock the new large group stuff. This way everyone is reset and starts at the same place and you get to progress more naturally.
To really make this all work and be perfect you have to get rid of the numerical inflation that says that the new raid/content needs to have better loot and use higher numbers....
It's a horizontal progression, breadth of content, versus verticle progression otherwise known to many as linear content.
And the only real way to do that is to remove levels or any other type of advancement points.
Instead of increasing the level cap and creating new more powerful gear with bigger numbers and making acquiring these things the SOUL point of advancing your character...
Count on the fact that the content is new and interesting and different and the gear is new and different and people WILL pour to it like moths to the flame.
Imagine if WoW never raised the level cap and gear never advanced beyond a single tier level for raiding....
People would still have done all the new raids and explored the new content and completed the new dungeons.. why? because it was new!
Tier 2 wasn't better then Tier 1 it was just different in looks and different in stats, not better. Add more choice, more variety, more side-ways horizontal progression, more cool stuff to do and see... don't make the old stuff obsolete through a game of number inflation.
We didn't make WOW a gear progression game by trying to min/max with the latest gear, Blizzard made WOW a gear progression game by relying on an archaic system of number inflation and calling it content.
I have not read this thread [yet], but Dana is spot on correct.
This is going to be an ugly generalization, but mmo players lose game play focus due to experience bars/levels. Gaining levels becomes more important than the activities they are doing to gain those levels. That is also why there is the term 'end game'. It is nothing more than a reference to that point in time when your character runs out of experience bars to fill up and must find something else to do. For some strange reason everyone is in a hurry to get there.
There is way to much focus on levels in mmos and not enough on the actual game content.
I understand that the investors in an MMO want to tie their money to the next McDonald's or Nike, which is why I believe the next breakthrough MMO won't likely come from a corp. like Blizzard (though if it did i wouldn't be surprised).
Freedom to create an MMO that breaks boundaries, changing the way we play and approach the game, will require an independence from the big names.
heerobya,
Inflation is an interesting concept and how its used in MMOs needs to be addressed.
Horizontal progression is underutilized in my opinion, if not simply because of the easy way inflation in the game works.
As I said, I'm not an expert, but i do have a feel for what a next-generation MMO should include and as such, I'm just expressing an opinion.
Beautiful. Just...beautiful. And that's something that Turbine got right in Asheron's Call 1. Sure, it had levels, but that wasn't the focus. I can't EVER remember worrying about levels while playing AC other than as a "litmus" for whether I should attack a creature or not. "leveling up" wasn't the point in AC. Going out and exploring, finding new places that were added in the monthly updates, the truly randomness of their loot drop system...those are the things that grabbed me, hooked me. There was no "endgame". There was just the never old satisfaction "boldly going where you hadn't before". You know, adventuring. I think that's where alot of companies have lost their way, too. They shifted focus from "adventurer" and locked focus on "hero". The level based system is the Staples "easy button" for developers who want Have CEOs and shareholders whinings sitting on top of their monitors day in and out. "Get it done as soon as possible" is practically pumped through the speakers like the Indianapolis Colts pumping crowd noise through their stadium speakers. I honestly,very truly hope that you take your "access" to this industry to heart and try to convey this message when you have the opportunity to these companies. I really don't believe they (management) visit websites such as this (too worried about making tee times) and someone needs to convey as much as possible at these E3's and GDCs that the natives are restless. The vocal ones are here, sure, but just because the greater majority aren't on forums like theses doesn't mean they don't feel the same way. I'm of the opinion the Bystander Effect is in full effect here. People just figure they aren't the only one that feels that way so someone in the customer base must be conveying the same sentiment to the industry.
Will there ever be another Asheron's Call? It's been 10 years, maybe its time.
Well, perhaps then if they just didn't display all of the mathematical data about each character, including levels, stats and such, it would be a bit different. Perhaps that alone wouldn't change much though, but it would be the first step torwards something new at least. Either way, the concept of levels nowadays has no purpose to anyone other than power levelers, such people always want numbers to boast their determination to spend time in front of the computer grinding, heck, why do we truly need numbers to be shown anyways? We had warriors in real life, and they never needed numbers to fight, they used their own intuition. It would be interesting if such a game had a skill specialization system similar to UO's, but with no numbers shown, a system in which characters would get more muscular by bashing monsters instead of increasing their STR points, and perhaps this could be noticeable from their physical characteristics, not from some numbers. Numbers just seem like something inherited from tabletop RPGs that we won't be getting rid of anytime soon.
Comments
Right, but my point is... it doesn't matter how they took that mantle. They took it.
I give up!
Your fail comment, failed.
A MMO without levels or any advancement point grinds needs to happen.
Final Fantasy XIV promises "no traditional experience point system" for advancement... could this be the mega-huge title game to break the mold and set the new standard?
It's as simple as unlocking content through exploration and adventure versus unlocking content via numerical inflation.
WOW originally had it almost right with attunement quests.
You had to progress a story before you could unlock the next chapter.
The problem was that they were picking up new subscribers so fast and no one wanted to go back and do the old attunement stuff, they just wanted to be able to hop in and join in on the fun. This is totally understandable.
I think the biggest mistake they made was making attunement quests require so much group work. It became a game of convincing your friends or guildies to run you through older, obsolete content or force you to PUG it.
I guess they originally viewed it as you had to progress from solo to small group to large group content, which is totally fine and 100% the way it should be but later on once the small group stuff becomes obsolete, or you add more large group stuff that requires you to go back to obsolete raid stuff.... you create problems and you have to cater to the masses who just want to catch up and join in the fun.
This is why they eliminated attunements.
Better solution? Don't tie unlocking new content to old content. You shouldn't have to raid Naxxaramas to raid Ulduar. But you should have new content, new stories and new adventures to go through both solo and in small groups to unlock the new large group stuff. This way everyone is reset and starts at the same place and you get to progress more naturally.
To really make this all work and be perfect you have to get rid of the numerical inflation that says that the new raid/content needs to have better loot and use higher numbers....
It's a horizontal progression, breadth of content, versus verticle progression otherwise known to many as linear content.
And the only real way to do that is to remove levels or any other type of advancement points.
Instead of increasing the level cap and creating new more powerful gear with bigger numbers and making acquiring these things the SOUL point of advancing your character...
Count on the fact that the content is new and interesting and different and the gear is new and different and people WILL pour to it like moths to the flame.
Imagine if WoW never raised the level cap and gear never advanced beyond a single tier level for raiding....
People would still have done all the new raids and explored the new content and completed the new dungeons.. why? because it was new!
Tier 2 wasn't better then Tier 1 it was just different in looks and different in stats, not better. Add more choice, more variety, more side-ways horizontal progression, more cool stuff to do and see... don't make the old stuff obsolete through a game of number inflation.
We didn't make WOW a gear progression game by trying to min/max with the latest gear, Blizzard made WOW a gear progression game by relying on an archaic system of number inflation and calling it content.
I have not read this thread [yet], but Dana is spot on correct.
This is going to be an ugly generalization, but mmo players lose game play focus due to experience bars/levels. Gaining levels becomes more important than the activities they are doing to gain those levels. That is also why there is the term 'end game'. It is nothing more than a reference to that point in time when your character runs out of experience bars to fill up and must find something else to do. For some strange reason everyone is in a hurry to get there.
There is way to much focus on levels in mmos and not enough on the actual game content.
MrcdesOwnr,
I understand that the investors in an MMO want to tie their money to the next McDonald's or Nike, which is why I believe the next breakthrough MMO won't likely come from a corp. like Blizzard (though if it did i wouldn't be surprised).
Freedom to create an MMO that breaks boundaries, changing the way we play and approach the game, will require an independence from the big names.
heerobya,
Inflation is an interesting concept and how its used in MMOs needs to be addressed.
Horizontal progression is underutilized in my opinion, if not simply because of the easy way inflation in the game works.
As I said, I'm not an expert, but i do have a feel for what a next-generation MMO should include and as such, I'm just expressing an opinion.
Will there ever be another Asheron's Call? It's been 10 years, maybe its time.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bleakmage
Well, perhaps then if they just didn't display all of the mathematical data about each character, including levels, stats and such, it would be a bit different. Perhaps that alone wouldn't change much though, but it would be the first step torwards something new at least. Either way, the concept of levels nowadays has no purpose to anyone other than power levelers, such people always want numbers to boast their determination to spend time in front of the computer grinding, heck, why do we truly need numbers to be shown anyways? We had warriors in real life, and they never needed numbers to fight, they used their own intuition. It would be interesting if such a game had a skill specialization system similar to UO's, but with no numbers shown, a system in which characters would get more muscular by bashing monsters instead of increasing their STR points, and perhaps this could be noticeable from their physical characteristics, not from some numbers. Numbers just seem like something inherited from tabletop RPGs that we won't be getting rid of anytime soon.