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Why cant we play any creature found in an MMO?
er99
Member CommonPosts: 101
i was just watching a crazy little demo on Raph Kosters page (non-Andean Bird for anyone interested) and i wondered how cool it would be to play an MMO where i was a bird of prey floating aloft searching for creatures and critters to attack. in essence an MMo full of animals played by us with no humanoids. no freaking dwarves or elves or mages...just animals. When i came to my senses and realized a game full of critters and creatures controlled by people was interesting, it was possibly pretty lacking.
So i go on to wonder why (i will use WoW as an example because its the most recent MMO iv'e played) couldn't we choose not just from playable races of humanoids in WoW but every other creature in game. It sure as hell would spice things up quite alot if your raid group doing dungeon 'X' goes in thinking its same old NPC spider boss and gets a rude awakening when Boss 'X' goes unpredictablly ballistic on the group. Or what if i decided i wanted to play the lvl 10 lurking spider in teldrassil? instead of an easy noob kill, mr lurker could have a surprise in store for lvl 10 noob.
why dont mmo's do this? is it just technologically difficult? i know LoTRO has monster play but i never had a chance to dabble in it. what i'm describing though is, imagine if every creature in WoW was playable. everything from the squirrel running across the path in darnassus to the hyena in barrens to the boss mob in your favorite dungeon. not only could they be playable but what if they were also levelable (did i spell that right?)? simple lvl 10 teldrassil spider could now level in the depths of the forest and possibly become an elite boss mob at some point joining a dungeon against players or even becoming a fixed dungeon of its own.
just curious what you think for or against this? is it a technological nightmare? simple but not thought of as being popular / desired? just plain lame idea? i wonder how it fares in LoTRO?
Comments
if you were playing WoW and could play as a deathknight with kickass armor and over 80 different spells and abilities......who would want to be a squirrel? would the squirrel have access to that many abilities and be able to wear armor? its all a question of balence.
its a cool idea, but I don't think its logical for the MMORPG genre unless its nothing BUT animals.
_The Sauce Man
The Problem would be that you'd have to be somewhat confined in an area. I mean, if you play some red dragon in a high end zone, then you could just run back to the starter zone and roast everyone alive. Or that it would look really weird, if a group of players would take control of all bears in an area, and launch a huge bear attack on a city. It just doesn't make much sense.
What I'd prefer would be something like in Lotro, a monster battleground. Basically it would be like that:
In the Battleground, each team could be worth, say, 50.000 points. When you queue up for the BG, you'd be immediately shown how much points you have available. That would depend on your number in the queue. Like, the people who are highest in the queue (thus waiting the longest) would get the most points). That would be a reward for those who wait longer. Like, the first ranked player would get 10.000 points to spend, the second one 7000, the third and fourth one each 5000, and so on. Then you can access a list with all monsters available for you, for that point cost or below. Then you lock your decision until the bg starts.
If a player would choose a unit worth less than what he can spend, the remaining points would be distributed among the other players. Like, you login for a queue, just missed the last BG, are now the first player in your queue. You got 10.000 points to spend for a creature to play, but don't feel like playing something insanely strong, so you spend 1000 for some ogre or whatever. The remaining 9000 will then get distributed among the other players. You'd also see what creatures people would have chosen (and locked) so far. So like, you could see "one guy got an undead, so I take one as well, because if 5 or more people are undeads, they get a bonus". Or "one guy picked goblin, then I won't pick a dwarf, because dwarves and goblins would get a penalty for beeing in the same group", and so on.
And basically each creature in the game could be unlocked for the monster BG. Some by killing a certain number (ie kill 20 lvl 5 goblin archers to be able to play a goblin archer in the BG), or by rare drops (like sometimes ogre magi drop a certain item, with which you can unlock them for the bg), or quest chains or whatever. And each would have a point value depending on its power.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
You can go to LOTRO and play a spider or wolf or any kind of orc variation. But that's in the PvP zone in the subscription part of the game.
You can also play as a chicken
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
The resources needed to make all the mobs playable would be a waste.
Yep, and essentially animals just hunt for food, eat, poop and sleep. On occasion they reproduce and protect their offsprings.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/
Close to what you want.
one word: BALANCE
a lot of time goes into balancing playable races and classes. Imagine that undertaking.
I think the non-permanence and lack of identity is a big problem. If you're thrust into the body of a nameless kobold, you're destined to die. You're not going to loot some gold and deposit it in a bank to save up for a new magic earring, you're not going to buy a house and decorate it, you're not going to join a guild, you're not going to become a master craftsman. You're going to get into one or two fights and die forever, losing anything that you could have gained. Not months or years of fun but minutes. It's closer to an arcade experience than an MMO experience.
And fighting against a player-controlled mob is not very appealing to people who prefer PvE over PvP.
I don't see why not, it would be an interesting experience. The Humanoids are the NPCs and most of the animals are playable. They probably couldn't do all the animals because it would be too many, but like the squirrels and rabbits are playable, or just the carnivore creatures are playable...that would be cool.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
It would be interesting if the animals were the PCs and the humans powerful NPCs...
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Two major problems
1) Mobs are a means to an end for most players. Some may want mobs that take a group to kill or mobs that take time to kill, most people do not want a mob that is remotely intelligent, let alone one that may be more intelligent or more skilled than they are.
2) Most people dislike PVP and, once they find out it was PVP, resent the encounter. Not even going to start listing all the reasons why.
Playable mobs would have to be isolated from the PvE aspect of the game and, if that's the case, would anyone really play them?
Novelty - cute or interesting the first few times, but not much of anything beyond that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There was a korean game called myth of soma years ago, we never got the update but the koreans got to play as the mobs, was quite fun if i remember but i forget how it worked.
Ex. myth of soma, legend of mir, mu online and eudemons online player.
Current game : Runescape (until pc build is complete)
You can take 10,000 game designer hours and spend that time making 30 playstyles fun. You stick with one class, and it has a fun playstyle because the time was invested making the ~3 associated playstyles fun.
You can also take 10,000 game designer hours and spend them on 300 playstyles. And it might also be fun, provided players are able to switch between playstyles much more frequently. Each individual playstyle won't be as fun, but the fun will be exploring more playstyles.
The latter game might be fun, but it would feel much like an RPG. (And this is probably the core reason you can't play any creature in MMORPGs.)
...and well there's also the fact that you thought of *one* interesting-sounding creature experience...but you'd be hard-pressed to come up with 300 different interesting-sounding experiences and have them require the same number of dev/art hours to implement as existing games.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm doing this in Emergence Online, and when I spread the idea on these forums, although the majority didn't mind it or loved the idea-- there were some who were extremely harsh critics of the idea.
Of course, it's the internet, but still... a lot of negativity surrounding the idea for some reason.
Of course, there are no monsters-- but loads of playable races, which "are the monsters". This means PvP dungeons too.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
While the idea of "the more time you spend on one feature individually, the more fun it becomes" has some merit, it is certainly not very realistic.
Some fun concepts are extremely simple and don't require as many hours to make fun while some fun concepts might be extremely complicated requiring an overdose of hours to make fun. What determines this? Life. It just happens.
Take the difference between a FPS game and RPG game for instance. No matter how you do it, a FPS game will be very similar to every other-- you blow things up and shoot weapons. RPG games can mean the difference between turn-based like classic RPG's, real-time turn based like WoW or Everquest, or FPS style like Darkfall or turn-based action like DDO.
I'm sure it was much less time consuming making Darkfall's combat fun than it would take a traditional turn-based real time system like EQ or WoW fun. Why? The action itself makes it a lot of fun and exciting, simply put. Then there is trial and error. One might invent a combat system which is a blast the first time prototyped. Others might have to reinvent the combat system over and over until eventually finding one that is fun.
It doesn't work in that for every 1 hour you invest developing it, the fun factor increases by 1 as well. In fact, it is quite clear that in MMORPG history spending too many hours in development can actually HURT the game. If you don't believe that invested hours != quality & fun, then I have one word for you: Trammel. One acronym: SWG. One example: CO's Beta PvP vs Release PvP.
As for it consuming a lot of art? MMORPG's require the models anyway, which is the bulk of the work, especially if you build them with similar rigs or a good retargetting system to share animations across models, or keep the number of animations low. To say that MMO's require a lot of additional animations is a bit of an exageration if you actually look at a lot of the animations in AAA titles. Hell, clothing and armor sometimes even collide like they shouldn't in billion dollar games (WoW) or million dollar titles like Vanguard and no one seems to care (or even notice in WoW). In fact, take a look at WoW's animations across different races and see how many share the same animation. IMO, compared to what they could do with the millions they have, MMO developers skimp on animation quantity and individuality.
Since monsters require the major animations just to be placed in the game as NPC's, there is little reason they could not also become fully playable (having extra animations) or in fact absolutely NO difference in art, with the playable monsters having no more animations or abilities than they have as default. This doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun either, as games such as Left4Dead show that you need nothing more than a SINGLE ability to be EXTREMELY fun.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Not necessarily at all. Why does playing as a temporary monster immediately discard permanence and identity?
One could easily have a "Kobold Master" or non-playable "Monster King" which accumulates gold, has its own bank, can purchase or discover rare items, have their own house and decorate it, join a monster guild (this is possible even without permanence) or craft.
In fact, a game with perma-death doesn't even mean a game without progress, permanence, or identity.
Emergence Online is striving to become a game with everything you described in addition to the ability to play as a "nameless kobold" in some parts of the game.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Who are "most people" and how do you know this about them?
I'm surprised you know most people and all of their opinions. You must be quite popular my friend.
My argument would be that there are MANY people who would absolutely LOVE a challenge. I would never say that these people are most people since I don't know most people. Yet they are a lot of people. Ask around here on the forums "Would you rather have a challenging, intelligent NPC enemy or a dumb, less skilled mob AI?" and see the results. Sure it won't be 100% for the former, but if this forum alone has even 20%, that would be enough for "a lot of people" since this is quite large of a forum.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Your biggest mistake there is in using these forums as an example of the norm. If the posters of MMORPG.com were the average MMO gamer, the market would be dominated by EVEs, Xsyons and Darkfalls instead of EQs, WOWs and LOTROs. Unfortunately for those of us who like sandbox-style games, that isn't the case.
Knowing now that you perceive these boards as a standard representation and not a niche of MMO gamers, it's easier to understand how you come to a lot of the conclusions you do about what MMO gamers want or how much interest there really is for certain features and designs.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I played Shadowbane years ago just so I could be a Minotaur.
SB's Minos rocked. I haad joined a guild called Doom Brigade on Treachery that was all Minotaurs. I think there were several buildings int he village that most of us had trouble fitting in - forget even trying to walk up stairs.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
1) You didn't answer the questions. Who are your "most people" and how do you know this about them?
2) I actually said quite the OPPOSITE of what you just said. I said "I don't know what MOST PEOPLE want, as I don't know who MOST PEOPLE are. I just know what "some people" want. I 100% don't know what "most people" want.
Not only did I NOT say these forums are an example of the norm, I actualy made myself quite clear that these forums are just SOME people, and certainly NOT most people.
So please answer the question, who are "most people" and how do you know them and what they want or what they are interested in? Oh, and saying "They want WoW" is too vague. That would be like coming up to speak after Einstein just finished his latest scientific theory and saying, "What he said. That's my evidence too."
If you truly do know what most people want, you can easily state WHO "most people" are, and how you know them and how you received the evidence to find out what they wanted.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Guess what, llife is not balanced. An MMORPG does not need to be balanced. Balance is an issue only when you artificially force players to fight 5vs5 or 5vsBOSS or any fixed number.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Also, balance is relative.
The only difference among races in Dark Age of Camelot (which had an amazing race lineup) were Stats, which would always add up to be the same sum. So while Half Ogres may have had a lot of strength, they also had lower stats in other areas.
Want to play a wizard? Don't play a stupid, strong race.
Want to play a warrior? Don't play a weak, smart race.
As I said, balance is relative. In Emergence Online, stats matter for all classes/role types. Intelligence makes a better warrior, as does strength a better wizard. Stats determine HOW you play, not IF you play well.
In UO, balancing stats was extremely easy. STR/DEX/INT were the only stats. Everyone wanted STR, warriors wanted DEX, mages INT. Simple as that.
Balance and its difficulty is relative. Just like every other concept of game design.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
There's an old PC Simulation Game called Wolf where you play a wolf and try to survvie in the wilderness. You can play alone (lone wolf) or in a pack (try to become an alpha). You need to drink, prey, use all your senses (smell, hearing, vision) preying was really tricky and being a newbie it's easy to die of hunger if you don't know the strategies to hunting.
also, you had to dodge humans (red neck hunters) or you'd be shut. There's a chopper sounds that means almost certain death if you're in the open.
The game is nice it's a Simulation game but I don't know how to adapt it to an MMORPG. The problem with MMORPG is everything think that it MUST be combat oriented, it MUST be quest driven, it MUST be about Loot and XP. But it actually it doesn't need to be like that at all.
People needs to think outside the box.