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Why not just make a MMO with entirely PvP instanced content?
AccountDeleted12341
Member Posts: 351
World of Warcraft- A game where tens of thousands of players subscribe solely to roll and constantly reroll level 19 characters solely just to play in Warsong Gulch (post-Cata includes Arathi Basin).
WAR- A game where thousands of players (including myself) ignored the boring PvE to participate in 3 thrilling instances of Level 1-10 PvP, followed by +3 per tier.
DAoC- A game where thousands of players across the span of 10 years played solely just to level a toon to Level 24 and PvP in Thidranki, and then to Level straight to 50 to PvP in the Frontiers (New Frontiers).
Rift- A game which IMO, has really fun PvP (as of my 3 day playing experience) but only one battleground at tier 1. Really? Only one?
These and many more MMORPG's are focusing on PvP. Not just adding it, but like WAR making it the entire game. Innovation and popular vote demanded the ability to go into a Battleground at the lowest level possible and level up solely by doing nothing but these instanced PvP matches.
Yet all of the developers seemed to think their dull PvE and repetitive questing is important. Honestly, I have no played a game for the PvE since Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot. The moment I tasted my first kill in the beginning years of UO, dueling in EQ1, and RvR in DAoC-- as well as a plethora of FPS and RTS games in which I refused to play AI opponents due to boredom, I have only been interested in PvP.
I am not alone. Thousands of players want nothing more than to have a toon at [max for the Tier] equipped with [adequate gear] solely just to PvP in 1, 2, or if they're lucky 3 different maps. Months upon months of the same 1-3 maps.
So why even waste the developer's time with PvE and dull Questing? Why waste the player's time with grinding to advance? I am not saying get rid of levels. I am not saying get rid of advancement, items, etc. I am saying "Change nothing!" But why has no developer given players what they ACTUALLY want?
By focusing entirely on a PvP game, ignoring PvE entirely (and this doesn't mean forsaking crafting or an open world, nor does it require FFA PvP or non-instanced PvP) the developers could provide scores of maps, battle types, and a VERY intense focus on balancing what is arguably the only aspect of MMORPG's which need balancing: PvP.
I don't want to play a FPS game when I play MMO's for PvP. I don't want to play a RTS. I want to play a MMORPG. I like progression. I like equipment. I like customizing my skills or talents. However, I am bored to death with PvE. I am uninterested in grinding. I am about to vomit quest rewards.
Why should I have to work so hard grinding boring repetitive quests to level just so I can PvP? I would rather start very weak at level 1, die a lot in PvP, and magically work my way up in level and items via PvP. I might suck at first, but I had no problem with this in WAR.
However WAR had only 3 maps per tier. Only two I really liked, and my favorite was rarely ever played. WoW originally only had 1 map for low tiers (Warsong Gulch) and the grind was too long in vanilla to justify me going to Arathi basin play. Yes, these games have changed entirely, but I honestly am left thinking "There are SO MANY who want nothing more than instanced battleground play. Why has no one given that to these thousands of players?"
Even further away from MMORPG's is the idea of a MORPG, such as a Crysis mod which translates Vanilla DAoC's classes & RvR or perhaps a $10 mini-arena-game (sold separately from WoW) called "Warsong Gulch" which plays identical to WoW, but with equal-level characters, 2011 graphics, and a match-making system identical to a FPS game.
So many players want MORPG BG PvP, and I see no reason why a FPS style MORPG identical to WoW, WAR, or Rift would not sell very well.
We've tasted PvP, and honestly SOME of us only want that. So why not give it to us? Then make another game entirely focused entirely on PvE, for those who dont' like PvP. You may not get both sub numbers combined...but then again, who is to say we really need all this wasted time and money spent developing quests no one reads or raids only a handful partake in?
Comments
I doubt people would still consider this a MMO, and I don't think people would be willing to pay sub fee. I would play it, though. The thing is, it would still have to be a good game. Look at what happened to Fury. The closest thing to this is Bloodline Champions, but I didn't really like it.
Yes, because clearly what you want is what everyone else wants. Also, there are PvP only games out there. Do some research.
You mean like Fury?
What is interesting though is that if you stray away from a sub fee and sell it like a FPS game (where players must how their own servers, or there are only a few company servers) then it could become a higher quality gaming experience, and even a moddable one (for balance sake).
Imagine for instance...
WARSONG GULCH
Up to 20 player FPS style servers.
You join, and you instantly pick your WoW Race (Undead, Troll, Orc, Tauren, Blood Elf, Goblin) and then instantly pick your class (Hunter, Warlock, Warrior, etc.)
You then customize your character (pick their talents, equipment weapon types) and perhaps even pick one of several abilities.
There are no levels, as everyone is equal. However, there are stats, equipment upgrades (similar to Counter-Strike's system), etc. There are as many maps as a FPS game has or WoW has. (Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch, Eye of the Storm, Alterac Valley, etc.)
Entirely moddable for people who believe the developers didn't balance it well enough, or even adding in your own class with an in-depth mod.
Instant Action. Progression can still be there or can be forsaken entirely for a Counter-Strike type system or none at all.
Purely balanced, easier balance, and a focus on a SINGLE tier.
Plays identical to WoW, but with stunning 2011 graphics, animations, etc.
No monthly sub, and is sold for the same price as a FPS PC game.
Rinse, repeat, for a game called "Thidranki" or "Rift Standalone" or whatever you want to call it.
I think there is a huge market for this, and I wonder why no one has done anything like this before.
I never once said everyone else wants it.
What i said was "There was thousands of players who play nothing but Level 19 Warsong Gulch, or Tier 1 WAR."
This isn't a "This would kill WOW!" but more along the lines of "This would compliment alongside WoW!" or "There IS a very large market for this."
brings back memories...
Even if there were "thousands" that would be happy with that... stuff, consider this.
There are millions of MMO players, right? They are divided between hundreds of MMOs, because they don't like a single thing. It's called having different tastes. Now, translate that into your "multiplayer game" and from you hypothetical "thousands", you're stuck with maybe hundreds.
Further, those hundreds would have to actually like the game, so it has to be quality. How many MMOs are actually refined enough to keep players more than 1 week? Probably 20-30% of all the MMOs out there.
Now, from those initial theoretical "thousands", you are stuck with a game that has a marked in the tens, or with a bit of luck, the low hundreds.
Yeah, that's a VERY LARGE market.
Very nice post if you exclude all logical, business sense, and reason from one's mind.
The sole number of players who enjoy Instanced Battleground PvP are in the millions, as are those who enjoy FPS games. The potential market for a FPS-RPG type game which plays more like a RPG is entirely unknown.
It would take a very complex and detailed report from a very serious company to give us a few ideas of what the potential market share would be both MMO and non-MMO gamers. So although I do not know, I seriously doubt you know, given that you took "Millions" and turned it into "low hundreds" through...what kind of logical process? None from what I read.
Not only is there certainly a large market for the MMORPG BG crowd, but there is also a large market for the FPS crowd, the singleplayer RPG crowd who never play MMO's, the non-MMO players, players of no game genre, and hundreds of thousands of former MMO gamers who currently play nothing. Certainly not all of them would care for this...but the fact remains you don't have to STEAL these players from their game. If it's sold via box sales, you only need to convince them to buy it. You don't have to kill WoW to convince WoW players to buy another BLIZZARD game with the WoW IP on it.
Not only did you fail to consider the non-mmorpg crowd being a potential market, but your reasoning and logic behind the deterioration of the MMO gamers who enjoy BG PvP is just...silly. Where do you get these magical numbers from? What does "Keeping players more than 1 week" have to do with this? If anything, parasite players would cause a huge success with this game, as the profits would be off of BOX SALES and not MMO subs. There would be no server costs unless it was partially MMO, and even then it would be mostly databases, especially if players hosted their own servers.
A low hundred? This is laughable. A game with quality graphics can pull in tens of thousands with the graphics alone. Do you know how many sales some downright horrible console games make? Those are the ones without graphics too!
You also failed to consider the potential of porting this game not just to the PC and MMO demographic, but also to the Consoles as if it plays like a FPS game's server (not FPS gameplay) then that's an entirely new market.
Really, I do not believe that you know the magical numbers of potential customers for a "Warsong Gulch: The Game" being in the few hundreds.
If BLIZZARD released what I am talking about, it would have hundreds of thousands of sales solely for being a BLIZZARD game-- let alone having the WoW tag, being a "fun side game" to WoW players, but also potentially a very easy game to develop compared to most video games.
After all... you only need to make probably about 1% of the content of a MMORPG. Unless of course you fail to understand how huge a project a MMORPG is and how small a project a single match of "Warsong Gulch" in WoW contains (minus levels, minus equipment, minus any area besides Warsong Gulch itself).
So, if I understood correctly you want a FPS type of a game with deeper and more complex game mechanics than what pure FPS games currently can offer. I agree there could be markets for that kind of game, just not a game for my taste.
RPG and FPS games should never have cross-breeded together; they are like oil and water. Former is about character growth in power and wealth, while in latter characters are equally powerful to ensure the fights are balanced and fair.
I still believe PvP belongs to MMORPG, just not in a way it's represented today. Developers need to understand that in a RPG environment fights are not fair and balanced because of power differencies and that's perfectly OK. War is not fair, never has been.
I actually might look into making a MORPG game which plays like a MMORPG's Battleground PvP, on FPS style servers, with potential moddable action.
Making a prototype would actually be quite easy, and then I can attempt to gather investors for it like any other indie game developer.
Hell, it could even be a WoW-Clone (down to the W) and then send it to Blizzard and say "I'll sell you this game for [profit]" and if they say no, keep the off-brand WoW parts (Ranger instead of Hunter, Cleric instead of Priest, Battlesong Valley instead of Warsong Gulch, etc) and release it as a "competition" to WoW.
If the graphics are high quality and the game is in any way fun, there is potential for it to land on STEAM, and once on there, it's like a book getting on Oprah.
Agree completely with op and I wonder why someone hasn't done this before?
(I mean there were some attempts but they failed at the level of execution rather than concept).
If you have online FPSs selling in the millions I see no reason why a PvP-only pseudo-mmo offering a plethora of different PvP modes and arenas wouldn't be wildly succesful if done right.
(By done right I mean different PvP modes - not just a couple of arenas but say arenas, battlegrounds and a few mid-to-long term peristent open PvP "worlds".)
And then there is World of Tanks... Which despite its pretty geekish subject and indie development is doing awesomely well. Now imagine something like that for a bit wider audience. Hmmm?
That's why FPS were created? Might seem like a dumbass awnser , but that's all I can come up with atm.
Basically you want to solely PvP but keeping a leveling system , you want to get rid of PvE completely but still have a crafting system?
*Sigh* Good luck making that work. Basically you want all of it to be instanced like Guild Wars? Since you don't have much of a choice , because let's face it , if you don't instance it Guild Wars style , you'll have guilds camping and kill the living hell out of anyone who want to try and have fun.
You speak of wasting our time with grinding , so basically you want the level up system to be out of the picture. Because if your telling me that to level up you need to kill people , you'll fail miserably since you'll have pricks that'll make some toons just to stay in the newbie map just to make the new players take a whole lot more time to get up there , which will piss off the players and eventually leave the game , so in the end you'll end up with a bunch of pricks who don't know what real gameplay PvP really is.
I'm sorry , but your PvP idea won't work ,it's a good idea , but not with today's f*ck all DEVS that don't give a crap and not with the ammount of pricks roaming the genre.
Nope.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the FPS genre except the server structure where players host their own servers and can potentially mod the game.
It's basically.... (for this example, I'll copy Warsong Gulch Tier 1)
World of Warcraft with...
1 Zone (Warsong Gulch)
Same Classes, Races, Talent System, and Gameplay.
Each match lets you start with [x] Honor Points to purchase slightly better gear or abilities. Each kill gives your more Honor Points, and you get them very fast.
Permadeath.
Nothing FPS about ti at all. It would be identical to logging in to WoW and queuing up to a match of Warsong Gulch where everyone is level 19 and has equal equipment, but you still get to customize your character, pick your name, race, class, and even look.
Yet the potential is to have better latency, moddable access to the gameplay, personal servers, but most of all PERFECT BALANCE
Ever heard of Savage 2?
You sir suffer from serious lack of imagination. All the "problems" you mentioned are very easily solvable with some applied game design (tm) and most of them HAVE already been solved in various games.
It's called leauge of legends.
/thread
It's all about developers wanting to please both PvE and PvP players in some cases, one cannot survive without the other and if so, you got a niche game that caters to one side of the spectrum and their is no long term money in that.
WoW is still that anomaly game that caters to both equally to a degree.
Not many PvE players like PvP, believe it or not and in my experience, there seems to be more PvE players than PvP players when it comes to PC gaming.
So as a developer, you cater to the masses and not the minority.
I think League of Legends is what you're looking for. I haven't played, but reading its description of instanced co-op play (against bots or players) it seems to fit your suggestion.
About Blizzard, one of the main driver behind the success of its MMORPG is the idea that you can switch between various forms of PVP or PVE. Those level 19 players you see in Warsong Gulch, I believe few, if not most of them have a high level toon that they use when they want to raid, go gank in open pvp or what not.
/open thread
LoL has how many maps? Three? How many gameplay modes? One?
Biggest disappointment of the month for me.. Awesome character and raw combat design but the rest is... non existant. Got me bored to tears after half a day's play. World of Tanks would be a better model imo. Something like that, with dozens of maps, auto-matching and some kind of a persistent world campaign system for guilds would definitely work with WoW's engine and existing assets.
/post
Only been out of beta for a year.
If you want more maps and modes try bloodline champions.
/thread
I probably should have just kept my mouth shut and started development of a prototype to get some investors involved instead of giving away this amazing idea.
If done right, this could be a goldmine... HUGE SELLING POINTS
*No Monthly Fee
*Better Gameplay Experience
*More Balanced Gameplay
*Better Latency & Less Lag
*Player Mods Allowed
*Easy access for anyone to turn on/off classes via simple server command. Think Paladins are OP or want a unique server where there are only 3 classes? Just type /class Paladin off, or better yet if you're the server admin just hit ~ and then press 1, 2, 2, 5 on your keyboard. Done!
/open thread
WoT has been out for less than that and yet they keep churning out new maps constantly and are seriously working on persistent campaign mode.
In comparison LoL comes out like a lazy, half-assed tech demo for their game engine and char design. A placeholder for something else in the works. (probably something revolving around PvE "story" because we all "know" that this is the only way to go in mmo world, /snicker)
/your post
I would also love to see PvE games which can be run on player-owned FPS style SERVERS (not gameplay, once again people I am talking about SERVERS).
I thought Hellgate London was a cool idea. However, the gameplay isn't what I am referring to. I am not talking about innovation in gameplay. In fact, quite the opposite. I'm talking about taking WoW, EQ2, DAoC, UO, WAR, Rift, whatever game you like-- and making it into a MORPG.
Not a Guild Wars "everything is instanced" world but more along the lines of a universal lobby system like FPS games have to queue servers, to play content-- which is entirely moddable. Player-created maps and dungeons. Player-run servers. Screw the boring stuff- just get in and play play play!
Yet it doesn't mean there can't be a very highly evolved character customization system. Progression might be destroyed or compeltely revamped, but that doesn't mean we can't still have the glorious customization of WoW's talent system or Rift's 3-Soul class system or MMO's plethora of races.
What part of MMORPG's are ACTUALLY "real worlds" that couldn't be solved by a universal chat box? From what I experience in WoW, Cataclysm and the patches prior basically made WoW into an Instance-Only type of game.
You are either instancing for a Dungeon Run or for a Battleground. Who really does anything else? Guild and City Chat? There's no reason we can't keep that, especially with Company-Run databases or servers which merely provide a single zone for all players or a simple chat box or chat room.
Hell, you could even keep Crafting and Progression in the game. But why waste all the company's resources on all these servers, for a purely Instanced game such as WoW? For all the people who want the open world crap, they can just keep their sub to WoW.
Blizzard, EA, or whoever could even link this sub-game to the meta-game. Allowing players to "transfer" their monthly sub characters to this game, keeping "ownership" and progress. It would certainly be two different games, but could have some nifty features to make players FEEL like they are playing the same game.
I believe the biggest selling point are these:
1) GRAPHICS (2011 graphics for any MMORPG)
2) BALANCE (Easier to balance 1 universal level than every level across 50-85)
3) Casual Play (Jump in and out. Requries 10 minutes, not months of committment)
Try thinking outside the box people! I am shooting about 5 different types of games, entirely different from each other, with no personal preference to any of them. It's about the IDEA, the CONCEPT, the brainstorming-- not "I am Disatisfied9 and I want WoW FPS style omgwtfbbq!~!!111"
Serious answer this time...
There have been several attempts to do a PvP only MMO, instanced or otherwise. None of them are largely successful, in fact most have been closed down. Because whilst there are a LOT of PvP players out there, the majority also enjoy some PvE, so to take that out of the equation completely usually means these players won't even bother with the game.
Having the focus on PvP is fine, but you need to have more to it to ensure you get that critical mass of players, you can't just rely solely on PvP.
It should also be noted that whilst LoL, HoN, etc are PvP orientated games they do have PvE content, every DotA game has PvE mobs in the matches, whether it is against another human or the AI.