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Mmorpgs are in dire need to go back to its roots!
Eronakis
Member UncommonPosts: 2,249
There are many threads on the pub about how to bring back grouping, the demise of the genre because of the new path developers have taken, RMT, grind, leveling is bad, the old design is too old and we need new, instant gratification ect. This thread is for the veteran mmo players before 2004. It's obvious that the design for the mmo genre is on a constent spin that may not bring it back to it's roots.
To me, the veteran mmo players are being segratated because of the new design and philosophy of the new age of mmos. There are four major aspects that veterians are looking for that can't be found within new titles.
A: Challenge/Strategy --- Simply speaking I am not talking about player min and maxes (linear combat). I am talking about non linear combat where the AI adapts to your actions in combat. Where you don't have access to all of your abilities at one time. Where a player must think and become a tactician to outwit and out perform their opposition. The combat pace of this philosophy will be along the lines of medium. Medium combat pace is not fast nor slow. Combat pace can be fast or slow depending on the wisdom of the player using the combat mechanics. There should be a nice consistent flow of player input.
B: Community --- This entity of game design is being negated. Mmo's are becoming instanced lobbies where solo gameplay is rewarded as opposed to grouping gameplay. There are many aspects that could strengthen a community. Grouping is one major aspect. Forced grouping is one attribute that has helped community. However, I don't believe in forced grouping nor strickly solo content. I believe you should have the option to do either.
However, grouping should be immensly rewarded versus solo content. Penalties can tie into community vigor because it helps players work together so they can muff those penalties. Grouping enhances a server reputation which is a good and bad thing. This works well because you know who to group with and who not to group with.
C: Longevity --- This one may not please many but it's not what your thinking. I am talking about down time between combat. Where players can take strides within their adventures and take breaks. Longevity also enchances the community principle because in down time you can converse within your group. Who knows, you may find a good friend. I still have some good friends I still keep in touch with from EQ because of grouping.
Longevity also can be considered on how long it takes you to progress to "end game". I would propose that the majority of verterian mmo gamers are not there to race to the end game but rather enjoy the journey.
Exploration --- There has been some titles that focused on exploration. Instances are blighting the exploration of mmo worlds. However, I do see the other side of the coin where instances are a good thing. If I had to choose, and speak for the veteran community, instances should be omitted because it takes away from the immersion of the world. Instances also create contingencies for players to feel like after a few runs they have to blow through it. Makes it feel more like a job rather than a dangerious dungeon that should be explored.
Another aspect is exterior exploration. I truly believe a huge seamless world should be the standard for world building. This captivates the player to feel as if they are in a world. A lot of mmo titles are failing to make the world alive and enriched with lore. Veterian players love to feel rewarded for exploration.
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All of these things I have listed are principles that the verterian mmo gamer is looking for. This does not mean the design and philosophy has to take a step back but rather focus on those four with innovative ideas. I have a lot of the preproduction done for my mmorpg design. This game will be for the veterian players and new age gamers who are sick of the design that has been spewing out. All four of these principles I have taken into consideration and will be implemented. There is a market for the veterian players. It's larger than most expect. It's there and I wil grasp it and won't let go. To fortify this, a smooth launch and being loyal to the fan base will be essential keys to success.
I should also state that there are two types of verterian mmo players. Themeparks (EQ, DaOC) and Sandbox (AC and UO). These four principles can be used in any type of mmo design. I will say that I am more of an old school EQ player so that should tell you what type of design I am fond of.
Comments
Play Darkfall
I am not looking for a game. I was simply stating. Darkfall is for the sandbox crowd. My niche comes from old school EQ.
I agree for the most part but....."sorry bub, its not gonna happen".
Playing: Tera, BF3, ME3
Waiting on: Guild Wars 2
Well what do you not agree with? It will happen. I am confident it will if given the chance.
Turbine just needs to make a new Asheron's Call that's true to the original and not allow the 3rd party apps/macros/XP chains to take over the game.
That game IMO was a perfect balance of exploration, community, and longevity. The combat will need some tweaking to make it in todays MMO market, but the skill system, loot system, epic and regular quests, and lore were second to none. The max level was not reached until roughly 2 years into the titles life IIRC.
Sadly, it will likely never happen and if it did, the new culture over at Turbine would try to find some way to work their new freemium F2P business model into it and ruin it.
The reason we will most likely never see the genre return to it's roots is because back then, games were being made by gamers, for gamers.
Now they are being made by businesses, with suits and bean counters making decisions on something they know nothing about other than increasing that bottom line. That's, IMO, why we've seen so many poor games in the last few years. The suits and bean counters see the financial monster that is WoW and they want a piece of that pie failing to realize gamers already have a WoW, they don't want another. In other words we want something different but they can't see past the bottom line.
On top of that, you have AAA developers turned gold sellers changing their games over to F2P with RMT.....again it's all about the money.
MMO's are a source of revenue now and no longer the virtual worlds they started out as.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
a) This is where it is because of cost/benefit. A single smart AI is easy. 5,000+ smart AI across several servers, instances and realms is not. Whatever increase in intelligence you give a single AI, multiply that by thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of instances of that AI. That's the scale it has to work at.
b) Won't improve your community. There is less grouping outside of dungeons because of the players, not the developers. You can't force it. Not saying there shouldn't be group benefits or rep or anything like that, just that it's not going to improve the community.
c) This is something else that isn't because of the developers but because of the players. Players want to play, they don't want downtime between fights. Downtime between missions is something else entirely. But you have to give them something to do during that down time, otherwise they're just sitting around and if they're just sitting around they're logging out. Something to do during down time is a tricky thing...if it gives you XP, people will do it exclusively. If it hides you from most players (like housing) then developers feel like the community suffers. Maybe it takes too much effort for too little benefit.
d) You're not going to get rid of instances. Exploration is really cool. It amazed me how much content in WoW is ignored by participating in the set activities of the game. I got the explorer title and I'm actually proud of that. You don't see 60% of the game leveling and doing instances. Again though, this is players not wanting to spend time doing something where they are not really doing something. The developers are just giving people what they want.
Games are the way they are because developers look at what works, what people are happy with, then they give it to them. They can't please everyone, so they pick the most people they can please at one time with one thing and do that.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Agree with both parts, Don't think it will happen again.
Funny thing is I truly enjoyed the old it truly felt like a living breathing world, but I also know those of the new when entered complained they felt like playing a job. Which I feel is what today's gen. of MMO's are which is more like jobs then the adventure's, discovering, explorations, community aspects of the old.
People these day's are so focussed on their achievements, gear, stats, ranks that to me it seems they doing more work then actually play. Keep in mind this is purely my personal opinion.
Just look at some of the indie titles, when people of the new enter them , they ask about anything, they don't feel like they want to explore but want to be told where to go, so many times we can see people asking "where is this or where is that or what is the best class, or how to reach end game asap.
It's not the games that changed it's what the majority have been asking over and over again and unfortunaly for us older MMORPG gamers the majority will alway's rule.......
Easier said than done, imo. MMORPG's roots had their glorious days, I was a part of it, and I would do it again. But you have to admit it had its own problems.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
While I agree with most everything the OP says, I'm starting to believe there's no going back, so I'm going to try hard to learn to enjoy what is actually being built rather than dwell on what probably will never return.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Just cause past games these days are old and "nostalgic" doesn't make them any better. Rather take my time and play something casually socializing with friends then to be an uptight elitest twat who thinks a game like EQ1 is better just cause ooooo it's oooold.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
You'd find that crowd in all mmos. I don't know what you're talking about. EQ had em, WoW has more of em. Please be a little more respectful when posting. I would say that your contradicting your self.
I think the real tweak to the MMO community would be to actually ENFORCE EULA policies and stop the hyperaggressive, knuckledragging sexism, racism, and homophobia that goes on in chat channels. I played 3 days of a 14 day WoW trial before I had more than enough and had to quit just due to my level of disgust at what is considered acceptable language by the playerbase.
Maybe it comes from being 33 years old and a married dad, but that sort of behavior is entirely unacceptable in my eyes.
Agree. Better to move with times and enjoy what you have now.
Who could have thought that WOW could bring super power like USA to its knees?
Originally posted by Arcken
To put it in a nutshell, our society is about to hit the fan, grades are dropping, obesity is going up,childhood the USA is going to lose its super power status before too long, but hey, as long as we have a cheap method to babysit our kids, all will be well no?
Im picking on WoW btw because its the beast that made all of this possible
It's sort of too late. Dollar signs have glazed over everyone's eyes.
I think it's like finding out about an underground music scene that you really enjoy and watching it turn into commercialized crap. It'll happen to everything and the best you can do is roll with the changes. Games will come along and attempt to take it back to the roots, but that's the best you'll ever get - the genre will evolve to whatever makes the most dollar bills and you can't change that.
Follow independent developers. Sometimes they're sort of like the musicians that go against the current.
As long as there are people out there with the mentality of "I don't need a game that's like a second job." None of that is going to work.
Cause I mean that was the point of old school mmorpgs wasn't it? You had a second job, a second life that took up your time. You invested in your projects, you grew, you worked, and therefore you loved the games.
MMORPG games need one thing, one simple thing, it's called Player Investment. As an earlier posted put out there, the only games that provide that feeling of investment are EvE Online, and Darkfall. Those games are like second jobs, and their fan bases are fanatical.
If you really want to go back to old school, you need to require the player to invest their time, mind, and emotion into your game. Sadly the larger MMO base these days don't want to do any of that. They wanna jump in for 30 min, get a little quest done or level up, or do a BG and go do other things.
That's where the money is, and that's where the games will go.
I totally agree that MMORPGs needs to get back to it's roots. But it's roots is pen and paper roleplaying games.
Go back to them, and try to find new ways to recreate the feeling you get when you play them to a computer game.
Some of your suggestions have merit but what madwe M59, EQ and UO so unique was that they started from scratch, not with someones else exact ideas how a online RPG should be.
I mean a quest in a real RPG game is stuff like finding Dracula and kill him, save the kingdom from the king who has gone insane, throw the one ring into mount Doom or something similar. If someone would have asked my character in any P&P RPG if he could kill 10 rats or deliver a letter to his cousin 50 yards away he would punch the guys lights out.
I totally agree on he exploration thing, that is one of the thing that actually got better when they transfered the RPGs to computers, and now it is almost gone.
Anyways: We wont get a new good MMO by copying EQ or UO. We need to go back to the roots which is further than that. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use good ideas that makes gaming more fun, but we need more interesting and tactical combat, we mechanics that is more based on character development than loot and we need a completely new way of handling magic and crafting.
The magic system of mage and ARS magica where you more or less put the spells together yourself would be awesome in a MMO. And I want a crafting system that makes it feels like every item create is more or less unique instead of forcing me to craft 45 tin swords that is only good for vendortrash.
I made a magical Katana in Shadowrun. I hunted Giant Sharks in California, a huge crocodile in everglades, I dug for Orihalicon in Australia and iron in the rockies. After refining the stuff I spent while designing the exact look including the style of the Hamon and then did the last stuff with a spell. Of course I died 2 sessions later when we did a run without our stupid mage (I was a physical adept) but that should be how you craft something, not a factory made product that all looks the same. I also picked exactly what stuff to use and it affected the weapon.
I agree with pretty much what the OP (And the guy above me) said.
To make these ideas work the design needs to start from scatch as already mentioned, all the aspects and mechanics have to revolve around these ideas.
Buttonmashing won't work for exciting combat, neither will level gaps work for exploration, endgame will never be excitting if no end is ever reached (I believe mmorpgs should end and begin), excitting advnetures cannot be given with static content, mobs can't be smart if they are the only way of leveling up (You would need a large amount of mobs available to be killed for the players to progress giving the server less space for advanced behavior code) and the list goes on.
I believe an MMO which gives you a fun experience WILL come (Even if I have to have something to do with its development), the current MMORPG mechanics of the popular titles just don't allow these ideas to be implemented in an entertaining way.
It is a shame there is no dedicated forum here specialized in the discussion of MMO design, it would really help me flesh out my ideas and concepts. (Even my ideas have flaws that need tweaking through dialogue)
Wow, just.....wow.
You realize you're coming off as an elitest jerk yourself with that rambling? Pot, meet kettle.
IMO the older games were better. I was there and I am here now playing the current offering of MMO's and that's simply my opinion. How is that being elitest again?
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Abusive language goes well beyond curse words. And I have no problem with cursing in and of itself. I sound like a Kevin Smith movie when I talk. It's the behavior and context of what's being said in the chat channels that is the problem. We live in an age where people hide behind computer screens and say totally irreprehensible things becase they're so disconnected from reality that they think it's just empty words on the internet. I think when you consider the recent teen suicides that have been so high-profile, maybe this younger generation could stand to learn a few things about actions and consequences.
lol...Einherjar_LC, I think you made Erstok's point better than he did...
"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
Last post preety much sums it up.
It's not the MMOs that changed, it's the people that play them.
The thread is not for 'veterans' from 2004 but for those who are stuck at 6 years ago.
Some people can evolve as MMOs do, some people can't evolve, some people cannot even understand, accept nor acknowledge that the world around them is changing...
Yes and no. Newer MMOs are designed to cater to the wants of newer MMO players. PvP is such a "selling point" in modern MMOs because the modern MMOer is, typically, a convert from online shooters and thinks that "the only reason to play an online game is to humiliate someone over the internet". I've been told as such by an ex guildie from Guild Wars. The focus shifted from community building to community factioning. That was a large factor in why I started playing LotRO last year. PvP is, essentially, almost non-existant and everyone works towards a common aim. Granted, that's because of how Tolkien's lore is written, but it was the main appeal. Nevertheless, I find it refreshing to be playing a game where I can go at my own pace and am not forced to deal with level-capped toons harassing my lowbie in a hub town, chanting "dual me fagit" and calling me some other such offensive name for refusing to enter a fight I could never win.