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Concepts of succeful MMORPG
Scobichesky
Member Posts: 7
A bit about myself<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Im an over 30 hard core MMORPG fan, that, is trying to spend most of the time that
Is left free from work and paying attention to my wife to
Play MMORPGs.
Having played a number of games (E&B, SWG, FFXI, EVE, EQII, LA2, WoW, GW, Matrix)
And having read about the games in development I come to conclusion that Companies do realize that it is a newly opening and developing market, which has much more profit opportunities then stand alone games, and at the same time stubbornly dont want to learn on mistakes and successes of the predecessors.
First of all for the company that develops a MMORPG game it is a business
So, its aim is to create a game that;
1. Will draw as many players to the game as possible
2. Will make players to stay with the game for a VERY long time (hence paying subscription)
3. Will reward players that will open multiple accounts
The foremost rule for all these points is
THE GAME MUST BE FUN ALL THE TIME AND IN ALL ASPECTS OF THE GAME
Almost all current games/developers forget that players come from work or school and turn on their computers to log into a game not to stare for hours and hours at the monitor, while doing some extremely boring routine like fishing in FFXI, or mining in EVE, or grinding in LA2
Developers do get carried away with those types of activities, which was capitalized on successfully by WOW.
GAME MUST BE FUN !!!!
In order to draw wide masses of players game must be equally attractive for PvE as well as PvP fans. Most of the games do not have both system well designed to coexist, they ether PvE or PvP biased. Like FFXI is a PvE game that is poorly trying to implement PvP concepts, and EVE is a PvP game that is only now trying to implement decent PvE system that would be half way fun for new players, who usually have nearly nothing to do in EVE for first 3-4 months in the game (hence lion share of new ppl that come to the game leave it without getting deep in it)
Developers make these games too difficult to play, they forget that it is not work, that we pay for these games actually to forget about work, and relax!
A truly great game needs to have, as I call it, OPEN CONTENT
It means that content is created by the players themselves!!
Developers just create basic items, world and tools/mechanisms with which players will craft their own items, as well as politics and game play.
A Good example of this is Eve, a great aspect of this game which lack all other games is that
Players create the gameplay here, granted the mechanism is poorly though of, and lack of investments restricts developer team size, which in turn makes the developing new concepts painfully slow, but EVE is the game of the most potential in this industry.
Corporations form Alliances, Alliances conquer and hold entire Regions of Stars, build outposts, and fight with their rivals.
All this creates unlimited flexibility in the game, structures can be built and destroyed, political bodies are getting created and collapse.
If the open content is implemented, development team does not need to come up with patches every so often to add new items or quests to keep the game alive, just give materials that have certain physical qualities, and players can craft items from these materials which will bear qualities that parent materials hold.
Example; player creates a special alloy from some metals that he mines that has certain physical properties, like density, and resistance to damage, or flexibility, and so on, so a sword created from this alloy will have certain weight and certain blade quality which will reflect swing speed and damage it does which in turn defines DpS.
Also Characters having attributes like strenth will be able to use
that weapon with different level of efficency, just like a child with low strenth would not be able even lift a heavy sword, while a large, strong man would be able to use a large blade with ease.
Same goes for armor, lets say I created armor from very strong and heavy alloy, wich gives lots of protection and damage resistance but it is also very heavy wich restricts chars agility, this will force players to balance their crafts to create recepies right for certian tasks and for certain players with certain attributes.
So players can go wild in creating their weapons and armor, patenting them and produce with their own name or guild stamp on them. That will create enormous amount of content and fun.
Players must have ability to fight other players/player organization for land and structures,
They must be able to build their own structures and destroy structures of their enemies
They must be able to claim territories, defend them and conquer land from their foes.
THAT will insure long lasting interest in the game, unlike leveling games when you reach highest level in the game and it is over.
Great concept in Guild Wars with NPC Henchmen.
EXAPND ON IT
Give players peasants, NPC characters that will mine minerals for you, and run your estate while you are off line.
COMON GUYS, there is nothing wrong with playing offline, if you design the game smart.
Let little guys running in your village collecting grain, mining minerals and smelting alloys while you sleeping, let players train their peasants to warriors and auto guard walls of the territory that your guild/nation/state has claimed,
Then your level/rank in the game will determine how many those NPC chars you can own.
Let the armies consist of the players as well as the NPC chars that the players own.
And players must construct armor and weapons for the NPC that they have in their army, or have contracts with suppliers of those crafts
to sell the needed items to you or your faction.
And when two or more factions clash they use their NPCs as well as PLAYER chars, like drones in Space based games.
Thus the battles will be more like massive battles in Rome Total War.
Create PvE regions and PvP regions to be conquered.
Lets say there are several NPC Kingdoms (like NPC Empires in EVE) and when a character starts
Game he can go serve one of the Kings, he can participate in the raids against other factions in the game and raise in the ranks, that will give him ability to own peasants/serfs.
After time, and some development he can join or form a new Player faction that can be at war or peace with NPC factions and can claim some land, which in turn must contain some natural resources.
The faction can build walls around their land, build their villages and towns, and create markets and action houses, houses for their serfs and so on. These regions in turn can be attacked and destroyed by other player factions.
Yes it will require a lot of work to develop this type of game, and a lot of investment
But if it is done the company that accomplishes that will enjoy enormous player base for years and years, and will require minor infusions of say, new materials, or concepts that can be developed carefully and without rush while players create the OPEN CONTENT themselves and having tons of fun with it.
ALSO, good Graphics do matter, DEVELOPERS dont kid yourself
thinking creating fun game with crappy graphics is ok.
SCREW cartoon graphics, we are in 21st century, I dont play WoW
now only because i want to puke of my own appearance in the game.
I have lots of ideas what could be very cool to be implemented, but unfortunately I am not a game producer of a gaming company with a large budget.
I HOPE SOME GAME DEVELOPERS READ THIS FORUM
and could employ some of these concepts that were picked by playing various games.
I include poll here for readers to vote if they agree that a game that would have those type of features would bring long lusting enjoyment of the game
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
Comments
I would like to see some more MMOGs, as there seems to be plenty of MMORPGs about, and from the looks of it MMOGs seem even more untapped.
there is very fuzzy line between MMOG and MMORPG lets just say we would like to see
more INTERESTING and FUN ONLINE games, in which we can play with our online friends.
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
First of all, you read my mind... i agree totaly on what your saying, and i don't understand why any developers havent figures out these points yet..
You should try get into daoc it has alot of these qualitys.. but its hard since u need original/si/toa and then lvl from 1-50 and masterlvls 1-10 and lvl toa iteams etc. etc.before you can play rvr (pvp).
anyways, i hope for a game like that some time soon^^
BTW: It's always nice to meet someone who dislike WoW
I get a bit funny about the use of the word rpg, for some reason I can only think of the rpgs with stats and numbers that I like so much (Chrono Trigger is THE best game ever).
I'd have to disagree with alot of those points. True, people do have their personal lives and cannot invest large portions of their time into games. However, although this problem deserves a solution, it can't be one that easily takes away from the basis of multiplayer gaming.
What's being overlooked here is the reasons most mmorpgs are the way they are. A large portion of players are power-gamers, who focus entirely on building up their level (stats and all) as much as possible. If games were made easy and primitive for the sake of satisfaction (what you call 'fun'), then what would be the point? The game has pretty much played itself for you by making everything beatable.
PvP and PvE can seldom co-exist. The problem with combining PvP and PvE is that there's no way to gear it for both. You've seen what they did to Dark Age of Camelot. For a long time, the PvP portion of the game did not truly begin until you were level 50, from which you'd obtain by PvE. Classes that were geared entirely for PvP would suffer because of this, and classes that were geared for PvE were almost useless in PvP. The most this did was support botting.
Having the feature of offline play is completely pointless. The idea of a massively multiplayer game is to play online and cooperate with other people. If your a highly anti-social person, this isn't the game for you. There are plenty of games still made single player. In fact, Final Fantasy games (excluding 11) are all the rage I hear. Massively multiplayer games are made so difficult because they encourage cooperation among parties.
The common flaw to this comes back to my original statement though. Assembling a team to play with is time-consuming, and this problem does need a solution. But I do not think it should be one that takes away from the main objective of multiplayer cooperation.
A couple of the points the above mentioned have to be taken into account...
The thing you are missing is that for a game where the players are building and maintaining the infrastructure - building own towns, castles, etc etc - the only way to keep those things in check (ie, not have the first group to get them unbeatable in the long run) is to have increasing costs for support..
eg - for each region you control, you have to pay out X% gold.
then - for every region ABOVE one you have to pay increasing Y% as well.
This puts a soft cap on the size and strength of player alliances. - ie, with increased work/organisation/cooperation you can get better - ie, give bonuses to the well organised group.
But... ad the big but is - you need "players" to do the boring stuff of resource gathering, repairs, patrols etc etc... this would be a BIG turn off, and is one of the problems in eve-online
In a situation with no "choke points" it becomes nearly impossible for lpayers to protect their assets, and becomes more like a job - hence - you need NPCs. And what better way that to hire peasants, train up your own soldiers etc...
The thing is - that if the idea of increasing costs come in - there will be a point that a single player cannot get past - and hence why you need groups of players working together.. Some players love the market and logistics of games (in eve you have traders, and people who even enjoy mining!) and in the proposed game these would be the players who hire ad run farms, mines, trading guilds - while the PvPers would be running mercenary companies, Royal guards etc... The trick is that the "farmers" need protection, and the mercs need food and a place to sleep and call home - interdependancies are the way to get community
Another point - all these ideas are great... ) I love em
the trick is making a concise specifications.
how does the work/resources needed etc continue from the making of a sword up to the making of a castle.
It would be a fun thing to try to work out the mechanics of such a game. - I've been playing with some ideas myself, but struggling some of the specs.
You do not read posts carefully
in no place I mentioned that the game must or should be simplified or primitive!!
it is unfotunate that ppl trying to put words into ones mouth. TRY TO GET GENERAL SENSE, and think before speak.
On the contrary having implemented OPEN CONTENT the game will become very deep and involved over some time after PLAYERS will create their own content.
Off line possibility must be implemented in a game that will deal with terretorial conquest
as it would be impossible to hold the land, since players need to at least sometimes sleep, and need to sleep happens to your faction relativly at the simular timing, so while Europian faction is sleeping American faction can tear your Outpust and next day everything is reversed, to remedy that game, need to allow hiring NPC to guard Walls, Towers and so on, while players offline, still making the attack possible but give chance to defend the territory, it should not replace the game itself, it just has to delegate dull and boring processes to NPCs and give a tool to factions to be able to defend their territory while majority of their players is offline. Still having NPC should not be a GIVEN, ability to own NPC must be earned, and to increase amount of NPC a char can own he/she must do lets say quests and rise in ranks with the NPC athorities in the game, by, for example, participating in the raids of NPC faction against their rivals.
example of a bad solution to this problem;
The way Line Age implemented Castle Siege, when you can try the siege only once in 2 weeks. CRAP
PvE and PvP can and must coexist, the fact that no one had succesfully implemented it doesnt mean that it can not be done, the fact that you dont see it suggests that you can not open your mind.
WHY WHY WHY you critisise things that not even in the post? where did I say I dont reward grouping? Idea of territorial conquest is immposible without having a strong Corp/Guild/Clan
the fact that i suggest NPC hiring doesnt mean that you can hire gazzilion NPCs and own the entire world !! NPCs just have to help you get to your goals, not GET THEM FOR YOU.
Also
Level system introduces a lot of limitations into gameplay. Characters can be developed by raising their attributes like strenth, intelegence, agility dexterity and so on, instead developers choose level system because it makes their job easy, throw in some levels, assign each item level requirement and they are done, much harder to fit items to be used with certain attributes.
Just like in real life, you just have to be able to drive a car and have enough money to buy it, to drive a mercedies, you dont need to hit 40 for that, and be forced to drive BWM between 35 and 40.
The world model will become quite complex but doable, because this all already exist in real life, developers just need to apply laws of physics to the game, tailoring them to make the game fun, and not to loose game balance.
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
I don't think that's what was being suggested. Take EVE, for example. Plenty of power-gamers there, but the developers designed the game so that power gaming does not impact skill learning, while it still impacts money making. So there was more of a compromise made there. A casual player can still increase skills offline in EVE so that over time their character will be able to do more things in the game regardless of whether they have had the time to power-game or not. Of course, money needs to be made as well, and the game does allow players who spend more time to make more money -- so it sort of fits both.
I don't know. WoW's system, while not perfectly balanced, is pretty well balanced for both. I agree it is hard to do so in a levelling/class oriented game. EVE's system is rather well balanced for both PvP and PvE. If you wish to become a very good PvPer in EVE, you need to train certain skills more astutely, perhaps, than you would for strictly PvE, but at some point there is a convergence in skills. Some ships are better for PvP than for PvE and vice-versa, but that's why you have more than one ship. It *can* be designed to work for both, if the developers use creativity and flexibility in the game design.
Again, EVE implements this rather well. What it does is (1) give people a sense that they are progressing their character even when they are not playing, (2) give people a connection to their character when they are not playing and (3) help more casual gamers ikeep up, at least in terms of skilling, with more hardcore gamers. I don't think it makes the game pointless or antisocial. EVE has lots of room for improvement, as does any game, but this part of it is not one of them, in my opinion.
I think that a superior game design should follow the guidelines of open-ness, flexibility and player freedom -- rather than straitjackets of levels, classes, quests, pre-requisites and so forth. Create a universe of possibilities for players, and let them play in it and determine how and what they will play and thereby determine to a certain degree the content in the game. It makes the game more open, and makes the game less visibly hierarchical, which I think makes it more fun. Alas, however, a lot of people *do* like levels and openly visible hierarchy precisely because they are powergamers and they want to have a high level, that is the satisfaction they get from their game.
I think that the trend is towards big gaming companies offering more of a mass-market MMO concept like WoW and, to a lesser degree, EQ2, while smaller gaming companies can afford to be more creative to attract more of the traditional MMO gaming crowd. Hopefully, from these independent developers we'll see more creative efforts like EVE in the future, and fewer clones of levelling-type games.
I don't know. WoW's system, while not perfectly balanced, is pretty well balanced for both. I agree it is hard to do so in a levelling/class oriented game. EVE's system is rather well balanced for both PvP and PvE. If you wish to become a very good PvPer in EVE, you need to train certain skills more astutely, perhaps, than you would for strictly PvE, but at some point there is a convergence in skills. Some ships are better for PvP than for PvE and vice-versa, but that's why you have more than one ship. It *can* be designed to work for both, if the developers use creativity and flexibility in the game design.
except PvE in EVE is boring to death, getting a bit better with dead space thingies but still quite boring.
Eve has TONNS of goodies but they get weired often, and tend to break things that aint broken ( Projectiles in June patch )
The biggest problem with Eve that CCP makes a lot of things way too hard, not chalenging, just plain hard work. And the Best portion of Eve PvP is infested by problems in the game mechanics, you can sit for hours and hours in a safe spot. At least now there are probes that can seek safe spots, and hopefully with POSes and XL ships warfare will move to the moons, and sitting in the safe spots will no make any sence since you POS will be getting destroyed while you are hiding.
Manufacturing; while blueprint system is generally cool, distribution of the BPOs is implemented by a complete moron. I cant think of a more idiotic system of distributing Blue Prints then the lottery system in Eve.
and it is like that every where in Eve, while it has tremendous potential for adding more staff ( new skills, player owned structures, stations and even colonies on the planets) concept implementation is handicaped by very poor concept execution, which i suspect is influenced by small size and relatevly small revenues.
ALSO, I dont see how CCP havent figured out one of the biggest problems with the game, which wont allow to increase players base. Dont they wonder why they struggling at 12k user barrier for almost a year now, and WoW had 250k ppl registered at the very first day of open beta?
I'll tell you, because it SUCKS to start to play EVE, lion share of new players dont stay after 14days of trial, once they figure that it will take a couple of months before they can even attempt to fly a battleship and will take a year to get to advanced functions of the game, and on top of that when you forced to mine Veldspar in Vigil
people loose interest. And it even gets worse with T2 items let alone T3, which can be used by poeple that started their skill training in beta. Even though the skill training happens offline, if you need to wait a FREAKING YEAR to use uber items in the game, even if you have money thats gonna turn you off. (i have 26 million Skill points and I still cant use T2 guns)
Some times I wish that Microsoft buys CCP and poures money into this project, hires larger team and make the game playable, and promises come to life, and not in convoluted and poorly executed way.
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
I generally agree. One of my characters is a fighter, but my two others, whom I play more, are traders/manufacturers. It's more like a business sim for me, but since I don't focus on the fighting, when I do decide to take that fighter character out to do some rat hunting or mission running, it's fun.
PvP, on the other hand, is fun. I played the fighter character as a pirate for a while with some friends, and that was a lot of fun, but it isn't for everyone, I agree.
I agree, it should be changed. The other thing that is FUBAR is lab slots.
Yes, I agree, which is why I also generally say that EVE is not for casual gamers, really. I agree that if you expect to advance quickly, you won't. For me, that was not a turn off when I started EVE (in March of 04), because it immediately gave me goals of my own choosing to work towards. But it's true that if you expect to get a battleship quickly (or are interested in that), then EVE is the wrong choice in game. I really didn't find the early going in EVE to suck, I really took my time and explored different kinds of game play for a while. What is daunting about EVE is that it has a steep learning curve and almost no guidance -- but whether you like that or not is very personal, I like it because I like discovering and learning, whereas other folks find it really frustrating.
But you really don't have to do that. CCP tried to create a game where you can choose what you want to do. Trouble is, just like anywhere else, players look to visible signs of advancement as their tangible goals, and in EVE this leads many players to take the following approach: n00b ship --> mining --> better frigate and indy --> mining --> cruiser --> mining, mining, mining --> battleship. And then they tell people that EVE is all about mining, and they lose interest because they are burned out mining. You can also make ISK doing agent missions and rat hunting in the early game, while you are training your skills. If you find a corp, you can focus on doing other things like hauling contracts and some trading, or even help the corp with PvP (can be done even at a fairly low level as a support ship) and only mine in corp mining operations which is much more efficient and less boring than solo mining, if you really want to mine anyway. Some people like mining because it is easy and is guaranteed a certain amount of ISK for relatively little risk. Others find it really boring, which is understandable to me .... but you don't have to mine unless you want to mine, in my view.
I think one thing that CCP could do to make things easier for new players would be to give them a more significant level of starting ISK (there would have to be a limit on this to one character per account so that people would not create alts to generate ISK upon creation). The main reason why people feel pressure to mine is due to the need to generate ISK. Another thing would be to improve and make more generally available the manual to the game, to eliminate some of the guesswork in learning EVE.
I guess for some, yes. It depends on what you like. One of the things I like about EVE is that it is a game that has a lot of staying power and long-term goals. When I play games that have less staying power and few, if any, long-term goals, I feel much less satisfied with them -- I suppose EVE spoiled me in that regard.
yes, now there are more activities that you can do when u begin playing.
they slowly ( even too slow ) working out problems.
one thing that i disagree with you is that Mining yeilds garanteed income at low risk.
You must be living in Empire
We live in Cache, and loosing ships to NPC Pirates is not uncommon thing here, when u get a spawn of 3-4 Angel BS and loads of cruisers with warp scarmbling interceptors, you are dead meat. Also being in 0 space makes us a constant battle ground where it is never completely safe to navigate INDY or even a BS.
RUS Corp
ex Curse Aliance member
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
The number 1 problem I see with MMOs are levels. They promote grinding, imbalanced PvE/PvP and dictate the power/skill of your character. I would agree with PvE and PvP not being able to co-exist in the same game (or at least on the same server). Most play MMOs to battle 'something', whether it be mobs, NPCs or other players. I also agree on the part of user-created content. Here's what I would like to see:
* Eliminate levels altogether!
* Create a set of elaborate tools for the player-base to use in creating dungeons/items/etc. There would still be a dev staff to create content (the basics) to be added into the toolset (new items w/ base stats and graphics).
* Make the world PvP ONLY. Now before non-PvPers go crazy, the 'accountability system' that would be in place would be much more complex than the half-baked ideas we have seen so far. Players CANNOT be allowed to police themselves. You have risks when fighting mobs (if it is a good game, anyway); xp loss on death, corpse retrieval, lost items, etc. You WILL have consequences for PvPing vs. other players. Consequences and penalties would have a broad range just like real-life sentencing. Defeat a lower-level and suffer poor reputation (negatives can be developed later), grief another player and spend time in jail. Do something illegal in-game and give up an item to auction (like settling out of court lol). Still want to be a bad boy? Go ahead, just don't get caught. Maybe I can hire an NPC 'detective' to watch a bad boys' every move. If my NPC friend catches him doing something illegal, he reports him to the police/guard. This is an example of a FUN money-sink. I want to spend money to try and catch someone 'in the act', and the bad boy has to watch over his shoulder before he tries anything.
I would like to believe that non-PvPers just as much as PvPers, are looking for something new. I believe they would try PvP in a scenario such as this, if they truly saw their gametime wouldn't be ruined by a few griefing morons. Like PvE has become, don't make PvPing a chore. Make it fun so more people want to participate. Eliminate levels so everyone has a chance. Don't make equipment , only the uber few can aquire, THE deciding factor in combat. Let players accumulate wealth and bragging rights by other means; multiple (or larger) homes, mounts, furniture, statues, etc.
Above all, hold everyone accountable for their actions. Keep the openess of play, but enforce gameworld rules just like you would a UELA or NDA, government laws or your own parent's guidlines. You know the rules. You decide how much you want to abide by them.
Just a thought.
The problem with a territorial conquest system like that is that it doesn't provide any delicate concern for the new players that just pick up the box, come home, install it, and have no clue how to play the game. Why would a nation want another "newbie" on their team? In fact, what if that player doesn't like the way the nation he's apart of is controlled? The problem with players creating their own content is that players are greedy, selfish, rude, obsessive, and never easy to get along with at times, and that influence could make it difficult for anyone else to enjoy the game.
And PvP and PvE doesn't HAVE to co-exist. The fact is, some players like PvP and some prefer PvE. This doesn't mean both sides become disappointed, as lots of games attempt to seperate the two so that it could be either or. I do not imply that I am closed-minded, but PvE has a major flaw that makes it more preferrable than PvP. The AI of an NPC monster is always poor and primitive, while a player will often be unpredictable. So if you threw the two together (like Dark Age of Camelot did), you get people doing PvE before they even touch PvP.
I can't say I'm too fond of the class-level system in games, but the pregression of stats alone do much good either. By increasing one stat, you only make it easier to obtain the other stats. Then there's no point, why not just make everything longer to obtain and make all the stats the same? Say I spend my time building up Constitution and ignore my strength, intelligence, ect., Perfect! Now the other stats will be easy to get because I can't get knocked down. You won't even realize that your doing that because the transition will be so gradual. There won't be any diversity among players.
Now if the stats worked like Dark Age's specialization system, that would be different, because there's no way to cap every stat. Just as long as the stats were obtained by some form of skill rather than by repetatively doing something over and over again. Otherwise, this wouldn't be any different from the class-level system now would it?
How about an sci-fi mmo similar to Frontier elite: first encounters, with a twitch based(as in flying a ship with a joystick or mouse) combat system along with it. Well I have no clue how a different system could be replaced by a level grinding system.
I know Jumpgate and Vendetta fit in that catagory but personally, I think there needs to be more mmos like that!!!
That has been my experience as well. Its pretty bad when they just try to influence the course of a game through ranting, whining, and complaining. I mean, who would end up in control of a lot of the content? Power gamers that don't care about RPing because they're rich and high level? Griefer PVPs? That those people could influence the progress of a portion of the world has a strong potential to break immersion and lore doesn't it?
Although I'm quite ready to admit, there are players, plenty of them, that know what they're doing and could create decent content. There seem to be far, far more that do not and couldn't.
I mean, if I stand the chance of being ruled by a bunch of 13 years olds that "typ liek thiz" or "dont no grammer" who just happen to have more free time to level up than I do, I'd rather not take that chance.
You will never ever achieve respect and fame in the online world if you are a scam bag,
you will never be able to keep you char name, and even change it during one game play,
as you earn bad reputation, and will need to change you identity
there are always different types of people that play games, but only honest, trustworthy ones are widely respected and recognised and have honor to lead others.
You can make a good carrier in the MMOGs ONLY by being a good guy and helping others.
Screwing ppl might be rewarding in a VERY short run, but defenately will ruin your long term play
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
Hello All,
There are many good posts and opinions here, so I'll try to share my own quality opinion.
To start, what I miss most in games, and that's all genres of games, are:
1) The ability to explore the beautiful game world created. Unfortunately we are inhibited to by the tens of thousands of mobs spawned throughout the game world to serve as Quest Objectives that developers can?t seem to do without. In the real world, I have never seen 10 bears in a 100 meter radius of 10 wolves, 10 great birds of prey, 10 snakes, and <insert mob name here>, etc. This leads to my next entry.
2) High quality mob encounters. Mob hunting could serve as a greater form of entertainment for those of use who enjoy such game encounters. I really do enjoy hunting in games and this causes me some relative disappointment. I don?t understand why it is, in this age of voice communication using Team Speak 2 or Ventrilo that developers ignore this fact and code mass quantities of generic encounters rather than code encounters that require detailed planning for a group to defeat a single mob. Why do developers insist that encounters should only last 10-20 seconds? In all my years of playing MMORPGs, I have never fought a mob that took more than 1 minute to defeat, while standing toe-to-toe with them and having group-mates chain heal the group. Fewer encounters of a higher quality (with a zero tolerance for toe-to-toe combat) would mean a decrease in total mobs per square foot, permitting Explorers an opportunity to take advantage of their skills and provide enjoyment in ways that developers perhaps haven?t tapped into yet.
3) Original and consistent quest content. Is it so difficult to provide a Quest back-story some continuity? Why are so few quests related to one another? Why are so many quests completely off the mark of the MAIN THEME of the game? I understand that developers are looking to hire people that have some knowledge of gaming. But there comes a time when that has to be a true to life author amongst the ranks to say ?Hey, this story is really terrible! We can?t publish this in-game! We?ll become the laughing stock of hard-core audience; You know, there are varying degrees of education in our audience. But WE still need to demonstrate that we can write stories that are well formed and actually interesting!? My 10 year old boy has an incredible appetite for reading. Not as intense as mine was at his age, but nonetheless voracious. He has trouble following the crap found in MMOs that get pawned off on us, fully expected to ingest and digest it. There are means to this end that do not involve dumbing down the language for anyone.
Anyhow, I?m ranting again. I hate to do so, so frequently.
Carrara
yeah BTW
regarding VOICE
was wondering if VOICE COMMUNICATION support would
be a good idea to come with the MMOG
at least for the Guilds/Corps/Clans
Scobichevsky
I fight because... I fight
Those sound like good ideas; not sure how advancement would work if the monsters were hard to find. Also they'd have to have really random spawns or they'd be camped all the time. Big world, too...
Also, while that makes sense for bears and wolves and so forth, one could make the case that some monsters, such as goblins, would probably be found in groups.
Also the inevitable social Spider nest-mob under the control of the Spider Queen.
Have you ever wondered why Devs don't just make Giant Ants? I mean, I've seen Them, Giant Ants can be scary as Giant Spiders... Oh well. I guess its actually Tolkien's fault. At least MEO will have a good excuse.
I agree with voice support for parties and guilds and so forth! That makes a lot more sense than not being about to run or fight and yell something to your group. If you're obviously outclassed, it'd be nice if I could shout "RUN" at them without being able to do so while typing. Makes a lot of sense to me.