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MMO Success and Failures: What would you have changed?
dnarris
Member Posts: 267
Basically, there have been plenty of MMOs out there now. Some of the have been booming successes that we all know such as World of Warcraft while some have been failures in the eyes of the players. Which MMOs, success or failure, would you have changed to improve it and what would that change be?
One of my choices, even though some of the battles were fun, I would have changed would have been Rising Forces Online.
The game had a lot of potential to be one of the real break out Sci-fi MMOs, but the game was specifically set around a few races fighting for domian over a planet and the resource mine that it held.
The game would have epic pvp battles, but then after the battle the winners would go down to the mine and then afk mine for the reminder of the 24 hours they had the mine. Well, that wasn't much fun. Oh, and if you weren't high level you almost never made it to the mines without being ganking by an uspet player from an enemy faction that didn't get in the mine.
I think they fouled up by making the mine the only goal in the game. There wasn't a very indepth world, PvE wasn't really an important aspect of the game, and the reward for the epic battle was an AFK grind to get resources to make money. You couldn't do anything else while mining so you pretty much couldn't play the game unless you wanted to miss mining.
What I would have done was made remote mining drones you could place in the mine so you could go do other things while the drones mined for you. Of course, you'd have to have something else to do in the meantime. But it would have been a step in the right direction.
What about you guys and gals?
Comments
Not let the New Game Enhancement go live in SWG.....that is all.
Heh, I definitely saw that one coming in.
Yeah, sort of became a whole different game after that. SWG isn't bad as it is, but it definitely didn't go in the direction most of us were hoping it would.
Ah, well. One can hope future developers take note.
Said it once before but it bears repeating now.
For many games I would say a third faction. I never played DAOC but that's what it had and from all accounts it seemed to be what made the PvP game so good in comparison to others. Every game I've played with two factions is always the same story, the server you're on is always hoplessly one-sided.
I think WAR should have abandoned the notion of another quest grind and expanded the PQ system to be the primary way people level up. Also would have been nice if they'd used some lower poly graphics. The models weren't that impressive for the load they put on my old graphics card.
Everquest 2 should have done something to emphasize their group finder tool; hardly anyone ever used the stupid thing. Mostly it was because I just think they didn't even know about it. And while the mentoring system, where you could effectively reduce your level to play with lower level friends, was nice it didn't present any real solution to any problem. Plus outside of playing with lower level friends there was little incentive to use this feature. Also I think it would have been better if instead of lowering the higher level player it instead should have raised the lower one.
Everquest 1 should have developed some new systems of play other than just churning out and endless parade of expansions. Like some sort of conquest meta-game where players could compete for territory or something. Instead they just nailed a few more rungs to the advancement ladder every other year.
I wish WoW wouldn't have followed so closely in EQ 1's footsteps.
Altogether I wish SOE didn't have such incredible envy of Blizzard, so much that they pretty much changed almost all of their games to be more WoW and just piss off their then-current customer base and fail to attract any new customers.
AoC, I honestly don't know. I'm beginning to wonder why they even bothered.
Allods would have been nice sans greed. A shame that such a fun game (WoW with no sub!) could be so thouroughly screwed by corporate greed. Even with the revisions on the prices it was still a bit much.
Ryzom could have been less confusing, the character control less stiff and unyeilding. Having some sort of goal would have been nice, other than just grinding. And over 100 levels? Haha, no thanks.
Perfect World gender-based classes? Chinese are funny about stuff like that. And over 100 levels? Haha, no thanks.
http://mmo-hell.blogspot.com/
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/rejad
For SWG, another vote against the NGE. Not really SOE's fault as most people tend to think, but Lucas Art pressuring them to make it more like WoW in the hope of boosting subs. Boy were they wrong. Further, they shouldn't have released the combat update before that.
As for WAR, I think one of the biggest problems was the inclusion of Scenarios, another version or WoW's battle grounds. They should have just stuck with open RvR areas as in DAoC.
I think war might have been alright if instead of takign pvp ideas from DAOC and cuttign them in half, they should have multiplied them. Such as fully destrucxtable towers/forts, lots of seige, less seprated areas, 3+ sides, instead the dumbed everythign down and well no one wants to play boaring games.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
AoC? Simple. I would've spent more time making sure the game is stable and made Tortage-quality content as far as I could and set the level cap there. Higher-level content would've been added in expansions.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. When out of funds, quit.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
They should have spent less time working with a game engine that produced (for the time) such high quality graphics that few people in the end could run and more time making a quality game. There was a whole sea of Everquest 1 fans just waiting for something like this who couldn't even try the game because they didn't have the computer set up to run it and no means to upgrade any time soon. Despite the high res, hi poly graphics it still looks like any other game, just a touch more anti-aliased I guess. The graphic desgin work seemed uninspiried from all the screens I've seen so there was really no call for such a thing.
http://mmo-hell.blogspot.com/
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/rejad
That the UO community wasn't split with the addition of Trammel, which subsequently paved the way for the massive schism between PvE'rs and PvPers.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
SWG - ensure the engine can support the gameplay mechanics envisioned and launc with more of the dynamic events as envisioned. no nge.
TR - not cancel game. make more challenging at launch. game was super fun, but lack of any kind of group challenge sucked.
WoW - scrap game and make 10 more diablo games instead. The genre is now forever changed and unfortunately it's not for the better.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
yea...Restuss Battles would drop your framerate to 1.....so unless ur a ranged toon, you aint hitting a damn thing.
way to have upgraded servers =p