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The Decline of the MMORPG play style
Bukgrim
Member Posts: 15
Ive seen a few threads recently that have made me start wondering if my gaming style is just that much different or if todays young gamers are just spoiled. One of the things I got for x-mass was the 30th anniversary D&D book 30 years of Adventuring. This is a wonderful book, its not written as a history book, but more as story from people reflecting about the game and how it captivated them. Early D&D was all about the adventure and being able to be in a fantasy world. You could do what ever you wanted, BUT everything you did had consequences. Death is D&D was as permanent, if you didnt have a high level cleric around to get a rez then that character was gone forever. It was not a pretty sight to see people who had played the same character for months or even a year to die.
Then along came the computer age, and computer versions of D&D started springing up. First single player games, then MUDs, then MOOs, and eventually MMORPGs. I would argue that all of them were influenced in some way by D&D. And most try to recreate that feeling you got from playing with a bunch of friend and a skilled DM. But somewhere I think something went astray.
Ive played several MMORPG recently (EQ, EQ2, and SWG being at the top of the list) and Ive noticed a trend to simply try and reach the highest level possible as fast as you can. What is this obsession with simply trying to reach the end? In the original D&D game the goal was never to try and beat the game and reach the highest level. It was all about roleplaying enjoying the adventure. In EQ I saw people powerlevel themselves from 1 to 65 in a matter of weeks, and then what? The lvl 65 game was exactly like the lvl 1 game. Sure you hit for 100 times more damages, but the mobs have 100 times more hit points. If the goal is to simply get to the highest level then maybe EQ should have a screen that pops up and say DING you hit lvl 70 Thanks for playing now go buy another sony product.
The one thing I did like in EQ over EQ2 and SWG, was that you could do what ever you wanted. If the merchant was giving you a hard time then you were free to attach him. Every NPC was fair game. The problem was that there were very little consequences attached to your actions. Yes there was some fraction hits but that really didnt mean much. In the old days if you were playing a paladin then you needed to make sure that EVERTHING you did upheld that image. One improper act and you would be stripped of being a paladin and bumped back to a warrior. Things like that are give to tough to incorporate into a computer game. I see a ton of people doing antisocial behavior since there is no fear of consequence. Sure it is one thing to play an evil character, but even the evil cities had rules of conduct.
D&D Game
Player: Im going to stand in the doorway and block people from getting to the bank.
DM: Fine, you stand in the doorway. The bank guard comes over and kills you.
No clerics around, sorry you are dead.
There is also a trend by the modern player to not want to do any work on their own. They want all quest and maps made available before they start playing. One of the things that drew me to EQ2 was the fact that everything would be new. I could go exploring uncharted territory, solve mysterious quests, and basically do things without a cheat sheet. And it was very cool. But after a week of playing I had to turn off the OOC channel. One of the quest that all Qeynos characters are given is to run around to different landmarks. But I would see newbie character since enter a zone and immediately ooc or shout for help in finding the quest item. It is one thing to spend hours searching and another to demand help with out even trying.
The was a thread in the D&D Online form talking about Perma Death, and that is a tough topic. But without fear of death the game loses its sense of realism. The game should be a play were you can be in a fantasy world, where you can roleplay a heroic warrior, and not simply another arcade game where you get infinite do-overs.
Maybe MMORPG will never reach the same engrossing environment that PnP D&D provides. Or maybe it is just the newer players, who without a strong DM staring over their shoulders force game designer to restrict the amount of freedom given in the virtual worlds. Just my thoughts and Ive written enough. So let the flaming begin :-)
Comments
That's very safe to say. Absolutely nothing can replace a good Dungeon Master with a good imagination.
Since your entire premise is based on that point, we don't even need to discuss it.
That's very safe to say. Absolutely nothing can replace a good Dungeon Master with a good imagination.
Since your entire premise is based on that point, we don't even need to discuss it.
For the defense of the MMORPGs.
No human can be as fair as a computer, if the game is developped finely, it can, in theory, be fairer then anything a human could do. Well, as long as we dont get to interactions with others players, those interactions can spoiled all the fairness of any system.
Of course my argumentation is automatically wrong if we get to a big group of humans that change the local rules for an agenda that a guild want to achieve, but, in theory, a MMORPG could be fairer then any game run by a human, as long as the rewarding system is completely run by the computer with no human interaction allowed...
A computer will not reward Z instead of X for future expectations, humans do that all the time.
- "Solo is, will always be, the main market. A MMORPG that succeed with little or no solo appeal is doing great considering they are ignoring the main player base.''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Good post Anofalye
Love the sig, mind if I borrow it? The Devs out there need educated......
- "Solo is, will always be, the main market. A MMORPG that succeed with little or no solo appeal is doing great considering they are ignoring the main player base.''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Cool, cheers
"Solo is, will always be, the main market. A MMORPG that succeed with little or no solo appeal is doing great considering they are ignoring the main player base.'' - Anofalye
I do not think permadeath can really transfer over from pen and paper type games.
You would perpetually be doing the same noob content over and over again with every death. Unlike pen and paper where you had a DM creating new content that was never boring.
I guess for that reason it would never really fly in an MMORPG setting, imo anyway.
But if a game could figure a way to make the begining game different and exciting I would have no problem with permadeath.
Most MMORPGs I have played get boring way to fast as it is without going back to start over again and again.
My 2 cents anyway.
I am one of the younger generation gamers but i went to the MMORPG world thinking the same way Bulk did. I always wanted to go on an adventure with my friends to a world i have never been to before. The few episodes i did see of the .hack series made me wonder if people could actually make a world in which people could be anything they wanted to be but they would have to live up to there title. The game Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind for Xbox was pretty much that type of game, but it was only single player. So i got FFXI, i was so excited cuz this was my first pay to play MMORPG, i thought it had to be good. I saw the world and i was amazed. But as i learned more about the game and played with more people i realized it didnt really have the adventure type of feeling that i wanted, it was mostly just leveling- i was kind of disappointed. I really want a game with the whole .hack sign or D&D type of feeling. (And yes i have played D&D once or twice).
Ok my point is that there are plenty of gamers, including the younger ones, that dont jus want to lvl, or take the easy way out.
Peace,
Funseiki
Which FF Character Are You?
I dont think permadeath would suit the MMO medium......
In my opinion what the gamers have gotten away from is the community of these type of games. Its meant to be a social environment. That is the whole point to having individual classes with strengths and weaknesses that balance each other out. This supports a group mechanic.
All the new games have largely ignored the fact that players should NEED each other in order to function well in the virtual world they play in just as they do in the real world they live in. Part of the excitement of D&D was to get together with a group of people and play off each others strengths. It formed a bond between gamers that is just missing from todays MMOs.
I remember playing EQ when it first came out and everyone was so jazzed about it they just wanted to group up and explore. There were people in the towns and taverns just socializing and enjoying the game. The same thing was true with AO when it first came out and SWG as well. People actually wanted to play the game instead of competing to see who could level the fastest or accumulate the most money or "phat lewt".
Unless we somehow get that mindset of living the game as opposed to just leveling through it back I am afraid MMOs are doomed to extinction in the near future. People will eventually grow tired of mindless treadmills and will instead seek their entertainment elsewhere.
Alright listen up you primitive screwheads.....This is my BOOMSTICK!
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
I share most of your feelings Bukgrim. I've also played dozens hours D&D and AD&D (mainly). Also played alot EQ. I guess if we are just spending our time leveling , maybe because there's nothing interesting else to do
(for god sake dont even mention trade skills). MMORPG are too linear, they dont tell a story you can really be part of it. I remember, I was playing Asheron's Call beta, was my 1st mmorpg. Some npc was complaining about the town being besieged by evil bad guys (tumeroks ?). I grouped with several people and we fought and eliminated them all. But when I saw all those bad guy respawn I understood something was wrong. So I just follow the crowd : find best spot, xp, stuff and level up to go find some other best spot etc. rinse and repeat.
I'm waiting for a new kind of mmorpg myself, something more dynamic, a mmorpg with a lore you would really care about (in EQ for exemple they wrote tons of thing about the world, but who really cared about ?).
Maybe Guild Wars is a good compromise for the moment . Not as immersive as a "real" mmorpg but just the fun of adventuring. And did I say i hate SOE ?
my 2 cents
[url=http://p
Buk, you make some great points. Permadeath is a tough one. The battle.net Diablo servers had a permadeath option, but games with a monthly fee are a different animal. People who dedicate months to a character and pay good money for that privilege will, by and large, not be happy with permadeath.
If anything, we're seeing a move away from hardship in these games. Just to use EQ & EQ2 as an example, death in EQ was bad, causing loss of experience, possibly even a level, with no way to regain it other than re-earning it. I remember playing EQ in 1999 and trying to retrieve the body of my dead necromancer from the stream in Nektulos. My heart was literally pounding as I tried to get my corpse and avoid the piranhas. In EQ2, players lose nothing when they die. The only drawback is an experience debt levied against future exp, and a degrading of equipment which can be easily fixed.
I understand why the developers are doing this, but I think death needs a sting for these games to maintain a sense of accomplishment. I'd like to see something like a 10 death limit for players on certain servers. It's not as harsh as permadeath, but it can be tough. Imagine going through your 6th death, knowing that you only have 4 more. It would affect gameplay greatly.
As far as people racing to the top level, I find that ridiculous. There's some sort of bizarre pride in being the first level 50 shadowknight, I guess, but it misses the greater part of the game. It took me several months to top out my warden in DAoC, and I had some great times on the way. It's a shame that people miss out on that in a race to get to the top.
I refuse to tell people how to do a quest in game. It defeats the purpose. The best part of questing is discovering the outcome. The EQ2 players guide has hundreds of quests completely outlined for those who buy it. I may look for help on the net if I get stuck, but I'll give it a good try before I give up. I wish more people weren't so easy to give up.
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You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
MMORPG.com Staff
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Old timer.
I read a lot of websites and it sounds like the original poster is a person who prefers a 'world' game over a game. I myself would prefer a world type of game. they are more immersive and dynamic. The problem is that they are very difficult to do properly and I suspect most devs and players just want a game where the emphasis is on leveling.
The grind is only one small part of a good mmorpg. I still play eq. I'm a level 70 wizard with 900+ aa's. The only time i grind is right after an expansion comes out. I spend most of my time helping friends do epics or raiding with my guild. To me its only when you get to this point that the game becomes a little more like the old PnP style. The journey is fun in itself but ofcourse your going to want to push yourself to get to the point where exp really doesnt mean anything.
I like the idea of perma death but only if you could make a will and pass gear and a name onto your next character in the form of a heroic bloodline. Maybe give your offspring bonus abilities based on what your previous character has achieved. In my old AD&D circle it wasnt uncommon if you died without a rez to come back in the game as that characters son, brother or cousin and have a couple of his/her personal items passed to you. I also think perma death in mmorpg's should only come through heroics like if you heroicly sacrificed yourself to save a raid you could choose to pass on a certain number of abilities to an offspring. Maybe include a title with that. This would give a player some since of achievement. Make perma death a badge of honor. Also, i think this idea would only work in one of the speed fps games like WoW where you can max your level in a couple weeks. I dont see many people spending a year or even six months playing a toon only to have it die.
I think rules get in the way of roleplaying as well. I remember when i first started playing EQ i chose a shaman of the tribunal because the role was about honor and judgement. Gm's sure didn't care that i was just playing my role when it came to breaking their rules to enforce the will of the tribunal!~ There should be a happy medium somewhere. Once they figure out how to integrate the ability to fully roleplay and put in a good pvp system the games should feel more like a true pnp rpg. I'd like to see companies experiment with various servers. An over 18 rpg server with rpg rules would be a good start.
What about adding fate lines into a MMoRPG? Lets say a company makes 5000 special fates. So when a character is created they get a flag unknown to the player. Throughout the life of this character NPC's would react to this flag and help in a subtle way to point a character in that direction much like a GM would in a pnp game. I think dropping about 10,000 useless quests and replacing them with 5000 special fates would breathe alot of life into a game. I realize 5000 fates wouldnt cover everybody that played on a server but fate doesnt smile upon everyone.
Anyway just a few ideas i'd like to see tried out.
Game designers if your listening i have more ideas... FOR A PRICE!~
Make a difference!
It's really simple, they just have to hide the numbers. Remove levels completely and make a skill based system but don't show any numbers to the player.
Why do you think it hasn't been done on any big mmorpg yet? Devellopers would have to make a good game if there were no numbers, they couldn't just put some random spawns of monsters with some fedex quests.
MMORPGs won't die as a genre but they will die for most roleplayers because the average MMO player is not a roleplayer.
Not everyone played DnD by permadeath rules. In fact i bet alot didnt, but i'm sure there were alot who played by the hardcore rules also. I dont see permadeath as a necessity in games, especially one where you do longterm character building. I dont know many people that will invest time into building a character and becoming attached to it, only to have it killed one day and start again from scratch. Even if that character were given some 'roleplayed' goodbye, i'm sure most people could care less. Just the fact that they put alot of time into building him and had become attached to something fictional and madeup, the mechanics of losing him from some madeup event, just doesnt work imo. You dont build on something only to have it taken away from you, not many people are going to want to play a GAME like that
I just wish some of ya would have some common sense with your expectations. To expect an AI or game maker to be equivalent to the imagination of another person that changes with each and every decision the player makes, where the possibilities are infinite, is just unrealistic. Think about it for a min. It has nothing to do with the younger generations, it has more to do with imagination of a human being vs AI. No computer made game will ever live up to all the possible scenarios or outcomes that an imagination can easily makeup. Whereas a AI has to be coded in for each and every decision and reaction.
Too many people try and make mmorpg's out to be the evolution of pen and paper DnD. Theyre not, look at them separately. If you want DnD go back to pen and paper, if you want an mmorpg GAME which WILL be more linear then play computer games.
There not "the evolution of pen and paper DnD" but they should be. The whole concept of the mmorpg came from the idea of play DnD with thousands of players.
If a company could faithfully recreate the paper game then the third era of mmorpgs would begin.
Simply the thing most if not all mmorpgs lack at the moment is a large player driven story. Sure theres the alien invasion in AO or the destruction of the world (between EQ - EQ2) but they can only be wittnessed by the player, not controled or affected.
I pray for the time when you can go out with your team to kill an "Evil lord of Doom" (TM) and history will take note.
The villiagers will recognise you, and even raise a statue to honour you.
How come you can become the strongest fighter ever, defending the world from evil and yet 99.9% of the people don't have a clue who you are?
If this don't make sense in parts it's my fault for not planning it
KAos_nyrb
A MMoRPG's AI will never be as creative as a DM but there are steps that a company can take to improve a game to make it feel a little more personal. I don't know if their creative teams just dont think of them or maybe they cant figure out how to put the logic into a game. I can think of alot of ways to make a game more dynamic and they really arent that hard to put in. For instance why did SOE spend so much time putting in quests for EQ2 that after the first month nobody is going to do? The time could have been much better spent on other lines of logic. I'd touch on WoW but hey theres clearly not much creativity going on at blizzard these days. I like the trend i see in DnL and EVE-Online. Both games seem to be trying new things and going their own direction. Maybe one day companies will put more time into dynamics and less time into flash. I'd be happy if every game had EQ style graphics and just focused on the system that governed the world of play. EQ graphics ( even oldworld ) are more than adequate. For some reason companies think its the graphics that are important but in reality the excitement of graphics wears off pretty fast and then your left with a horrible game world (EQ2/WoW).
In short EQ already has the winning graphics and interface. Focus on what eq lacked. DYNAMICS! otherwise why should i quit playing a game i invested 5 1/2 years into?
I'm still baffled over over EQ2 and WoW.. How can 2 games with so much promise turn out to be utter crap.
Kaos, that statue thing is kinda what i'm talking about in the whole FATE flag idea.
Make a difference!
We never used perma death in AD&D. The characters who died stayed out of the game till the end of a dungeon but never beyond that, and certainly not a whole campaign. Perma deaths occurred but usually only after a player request....however I do recall a macho Dwarf putting on the Girdle of Femninity.....
IMHO
Characters in mmorpgs should AGE in two ways, slowly with normal playing time which is accelerated with each skill advancement, the other way is through a characters wounds.
With aging comes slower healing of wounds, diminished skills and stats, eventually to the point where character retirement is a necessity.
btw If a character reaches level 100 in 2 weeks I suspect his meteoric rise would be followed with a like fall.
Happy Holidays
Ryld
i've played Eve but i havent played Dark and Light. Explain what they've put in that EQ2/WoW should have put in thats somehow flawed. Since last time i checked, Eve has probably 1/100th the subscribers as either of those games while offering free trial after free trial which numerious people here have at least tried.
Not to make this like i'm just being a EQ2/WoW fan, but more as a reasonable, logical argument perspective, what should have EQ2/WoW done in their gameplay to make it as great as those other games? And are you sure thats popular opinion in terms of what 'people want', as opposed to just yours and what 'you want'? Which is part of the problem with this forum.
Anyhow, just explain i guess what you expect them to put in instead of quests. Last i played Eve had missions, right? Are you talking about endgame? be more specific pls.
Battle.net and Diablo, Diablo2, got hacked. D1 got hacked soo inside out that Blizzard gave up on it. Play online at your own risk. Players were making laserguns for theirselves.
D2 also got hacked. Heck, I still have a staff I got from another player that gives me 100% mana refill every time I hit. Blizzard hasn't given up on D2, but they are fighting a losing battle. There's a new hack out that does "residual magic find" on the entire game. It increases magic find by 800% for the game, and works for any player who enters the game. You can't tell you've entered one of these games until you notice uber level items dropping too much.
The hacks, cracks, in D1 and D2 offset any threat of permadeath. Get your uberlevel armor, weapons, specials, sets, and you don't have to worry about permadeath. There's no way to know if the item a player is trading you was gained directly or indirectly from hacking Battle.net. So Battle.net is not the best example.
MMORPGs to date have not been hacked anywhere as badly as Battle.net. So permadeath would hit brutally hard in a MMORPG. I personally am not against it. In fact, I still play the only MMORPG out right now that has complete, true, absolute, brutal, permadeath -
Strive For Power
http://sfp.plit.dk/
-Personal Website
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-EQ, Dungeon Siege, Diablo II, *UXO*:
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-EVE Online !!!
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DAoC
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I will not release any info about DnL, since I promised them, but I can say, after trying it out first hand...
Do not believe the hype...
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
I'm not saying that Eve or DnL are or will be better games than EQ2 or WoW. I guess it all boils down to expectations. Eve and DnL are seemless worlds that lack any long loading times. They still lack any AI dynamics but their dynamics come mainly from player control of regions. Both major steps forward in the MMoRPG genre. WoW and EQ2 seem like a step backward to me. Instead of dynamics they spoonfeed you the story line and walk you through quests. They arent dynamic at all. Grind here , grind there, do this quest do that quest, do this raid blah blah.. However the popularity of EQ2 and WoW indicates that some people are looking for this. Correct me if i'm wrong but isnt that EQ? Wasnt that already done?
Eve Online reached the milestone of 12,000 users in the universe at once not long ago. They make money off this number and thats not exactly alot of subscribers. It isnt silly to think that a company can put more thought into dynamics and appeal to a true crowd of RPG style players and make a buck. Its a niche out there that no company is trying to fill. Well if they are trying they should be embarassed.
thoughts..
1) the idea that classes need to be balanced is goofy. do you really think that if a warrior sucks in a group and a paladin rocks in a group nobody will play a warrior? well what if the warrior rocks on raids and the paladin sucks on raids? There are dynamics to weaknesses and strengths. Personally i like to carry people in groups if i know that on a raid they're going to be worth it. It helps build that feeling of "we're in this together" Not all classes/races/players are created equal. To try and force this to be true makes for a vanilla game (EQ2)
2) if your target audience is the casual player you wont have a lasting community. Casual players cant carry a game. you have to target the hardcore heart of the gamer community. If this means alienating the casual gamers, should this bother a company? No! It takes 3 or 4 years of solid subscriptions to pay back the investment the game company put into the game. Blizzard is going to be eating alot of money on WoW. Sure its big now but in 3 years we wont be talking about it. We'll be laughing at it.
3) dynamics are not hard to put into a game. There are several ways such as bloodlines, death, fate and heroic opportunities that can add alot of spice to a game. Not every character has to live for the duration of the game. You can compensate for death instead of penalize and make a much better alternative for dynamics. Reward players for heroism in ways other than exp and loot.
4) Not every player should be a hero! In real life not everybody wins the lottery. But theres still plenty of fun to be had. Players with special fates or heroic bloodlines could make valuable additions to guilds or clans and those guilds or clans could be rewarded for having famous players in them. This adds even further dynamics - builidng on dynamics from #3.
Am i saying these ideas are for everyone? NO i know these ideas wont sell to everyone. But if you played AD&D and you liked it i'm pretty sure you would like a game built on these ideas.
Make a difference!
heh i wasnt believing them anyways, its the same type of people that were hyping up Guildwars, or every other game as the 'next best thing' other than whats currently out.
This forum has some posters with some really wacked taste in games, and whether they want to face reality or not about their opinions, ultimately the masses will decide where it stands in the big picture~
Not to get labeled as an "uber-hyper", but perhaps some of you should check out the Beta 2 of "Wish", which begins Jan. 1 and is currently downloadable on FilePlanet.
It sounds as if they are trying really hard to be different, and while all things remain to be seen, it has potential.
It doesn't address the permadeath issue, but it is skill based, and has a full staff of writers to attempt and keep the world constantly evolving and growing. Basically, it looks as if this game could turn into something special... of course, it could go the course of any other game that never acheived half of what it was attempting to become.
"I left because it is an evil F'n cult, I like beer, I like women, I like to smoke, and if I could I would smoke women." -my buddy on Jehovah Witnesses
"I left because it is an evil F'n cult, I like beer, I like women, I like to smoke, and if I could I would smoke women." -my buddy on Jehovah Witnesses
I've been signed up for Wish beta 2 for quite some time now and downloaded the client the day it became available. I can't wait to see how it goes. It has real potential. Eq2 and WoW kind of ruined things for me. I just cant get all hyper about a game anymore until i actually get to play it. I know i'm bored and thats never a good thing. I'm even contemplating downloading saga of ryzom for a trial ~
Make a difference!