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The big problems I find with todays MMO's
SeanConnery
Member UncommonPosts: 34
Some of you may agree, some of you may not, but to me one of the biggest problems I find with today's mmo's is difficulty. It seems companies have made games so you baisically just walk through them. Everything is so easy nowadays.
The first mmorpg I ever played was Asheron's Call. You guys may remember, but that game was damn hard to get by in up until about 2001-2002. You and your group could die over and over, each time dropping valuble items, taking hours trying to get one mediocre quest item. But, the feeling you got when you finally accomplished your goal was amazing. You actually feel like you achieved something. And that is a big deal. But games since then have become so easy its a little sad. The only game I have tried with some symbolance of difficulty was Lineage 2, unfortunately it was a bit too "linear" with no variety. Sure, you may have the occasional quest that is a bit tough, or should I say tougher, because even they are not very difficult.
We have witnissed baisically the elimination of anykind of penalty for death, which is ridiculous. In World of Warcraft you become invincible and have to run back to your body, whoopty doo. In Guild Wars you have to rezone. REZONE, HAH, that is a joke. In Everquest II you get xp debt of like 3% once you run back to your body or you can just log off and log back on in a couple days and it will be gone. That is about the most damaging death penalty out there right now, with exception of Lineage II where you lose xp when you die, a penalty I am in strong favor of.
Of course many of us enjoy the occasional power level, but when there is a pretty big penalty for death, and the chances of death are high, playing becomes a whole lot more fun.
Speaking of leveling, that is another big problem. The first character I played in Asheron's Call I played for a year and a half and I got to level twenty eight. 28!! Granted I wasn't very good at mmo's as it was a new field for me, but in that year and a half the leveling never felt slow. You were always going somewhere new and exploring. Getting a group of guys together to go kill 1 lich, that was serious buisness.
Unfortunately"leveling" has become the main focus of people who play mmorpg's. No one truly plays there "own" character. They simply go to 'x' dungeon until 'y' level then 'x' dungeon until 'y' level until they get to the top. My character in Asheron's Call felt like my own, in that my experiences would be completely different then someone of equal level.
Yes, I thuroughly enjoy today's mmorpg's, but I would enjoy them so much more if I could see some things brought to the table: 3 things really stick out to me: Raise the difficulty, increase the penalty for death, and indepth content at all stages of the game.
Just my thoughts.
Comments
Opinion on difficulty.
Opinion on death penalty
and a quick edit, it was late last night and I do realize there should be an 'e' at the end of future
-In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08-
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RISING DRAGOON ~AION US ONLINE LEGION for Elyos
I'm gonna agree with you on content and difficulty, as for death penalty I'll have to disagree.
Yeah, in almost every game I play that have come up recently (within the year or two maybe?), I can have one simple team and get through the game fine, Melee damager and Healer, then take on much higher things. EQII I could definately do this, ROSE, WoW, KO, RYL, I could go on and on. On the other hand you have old games, like Anarchy Online, in that you get in groups of 5+ and knock out missions like 50 levels higher than you, and yeah, it's pretty damn hard, each mob is like a mini boss.
With content/immersion, kinda, end game content has always been a big problem in my opinion, many people will disagree but I'm not afraid to say being excited with just raids and crappy arenas (AO and EQ which I played to the high end of both). It's not fair we should be ok with just that stuff.
Death penalty? I'm pretty happy with what most games have, if you put too much it will strongly discourage alot of players. For this I would say maybe just have some "Hardcore" servers, maybe for difficulty too.
Although... Increased death penalty+difficulty would spur more well thought out combat, also maybe increasing bonds between pick-up teams, players will start learning who and who not to team up with better and make more long term teams, guilds, ect.
So, yeah, those are my thoughts.
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[Old] My City of Heroes Detailed Update List
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/load/forums/loadforum/450/loadthread/44836/setstart/1/loadclass/143
[OLD] - My Open Beta List and Review http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/load/forums/loadforum/584/loadthread/34685/setstart/1/loadclass/35
I have yet to play another MMORPG that matches AC1's ability to create a truly unique character. Between the random loot generator (armor, weapons), skills, attributes, dyes, and crafting, AC1 has the most varied characters.
People love to talk about CoH being so customizable, now I only played beta for about 15 minutes, but from what I gathered there was still a skill tree (feel free to yell at me if I'm wrong) and it IS possible to recreate someone else's character exactly since everything is done at the characters creation.
AC1 takes a better approach in my opinion by offering far more options to customize your character after creation. Actually it doesn't even matter how the character looks at the start since armor and weapons cover the player completely. Also since customization comes largely after creation, it allows the developers to add more to the game over time and the new things will be available to everyone. Unlike most games were your characters appearance is set from the start and the developers rarely change the options because it would be unfair to existing players.
There are so many different types of armor and weapons. Most of them aren't class or level restricted either so anyone can use them. It all leads to players have a completely unique look. Even if someone can recreate the LOOK the stats on the will almost always be different because of the loot generator.
Then there's the skill system, which I think Saga of Ryzom uses something like it? Most game still rely too much on classes and dividing people into categories. Sure it's easier to balance but I'd rather have more custimization over my character. If I want to play a gimped character that switches between sword and magic I should be able to do it. AC1's skill system allows for that and any combination of skills. Of course people end up finding the best combinations of skills and most everyone uses certain "templates," but still there is a good deal of variation within the basic templates by a couple optional skills people tend to pick up like crafting skills or lockpicking. In addition to that, all skills are available to all races, you can really stick with one character forever by untraining and retraining the skills you want.
I like difficulty. I like challenges.
But there is a difference between a fun challenge and a tedious challenge.
Tedious would be like trying to find a parking spot in a crowded lot. It would also be like corpse runs or other traditional time sinks. I want a challenge that pushes my gaming skills/strategy, intelligence etc etc... not one that pushes my patience.
So while i would welcome more difficulty and challenge, i don't really care for the harsh death penalties.
Usual complaint about SoR is that is too hard because of mobs wander around, hit hard and and ambush you easily. Travelling there gives sense of achievement that I have not seen in other games I have played. So, I have to agree about good things in high difficulty level.
Other complaint around SoR is in content department, so it may not be game for you at this time, maybe later.
The thing about MMO's is they are now made for money, not by people who like games... UO and EQ were made not knowing if they would even get any players as it had not realy been done before... So they made games they wanted to play, not a game they thought we wanted to play. I think this is where the current MMO's go wrong because a game that looks good on paper never seems to work, it just feels like its missing something.
I also agree with the "easy" factor of the current MMO's, i think this is because if you make one thats hard you pretty much kill off 60%+ of you're playerbase - and you dont get as much $$$...
I think what you're seeing (what we're all seeing really) is the impact of video games and video gaming culture on MMORPGs. By "video games" I mean console games generally. I think there is a significant influence because the hope is that by designing MMORPGs that apeal to a broader gaming audience (including in particular the huge audience that console games have) gaming companies can expand the player base for MMORPGs and rake in the cash.
The impact of this has been to design and market MMORPGs that are simpler, easier, faster and more purely combat oriented than in the past, with the idea being that these characteristics will make the game more accessible to folks who are not "hardcore MMORPG fans", in particular people who play a lot of other electronic games. Clearly, that's why we have phenomena like WoW and GW, just to take 2 recent, very popular titles. The larger base of gamers who have avoided MMOs in the past have done so because MMOs were perceived to be time-sinks in which it took ages to get anything done, required a huge time commitment over a series of months, had stiff death penalties which set you back even further, and overall were a slower, grinding experience as compared with what they were used to from other genres. So, the idea came to make the MMORPG more friendly to non-MMORPG players and ... voila, it worked: WoW is a complete phenomenon (2m+ monthly subs, it's really amazing really regardless of what you think of WoW as a game), GW is also wildly popular. The games are getting these numbers not because of the hardcore MMO players but because they have attracted a lot of folks who are not generally MMO players and who in the past have stayed away from MMOs.
So where does that leave us? Well, I think that Blizzard has demonstrated that if you can create an MMO that has a broader appeal beyond the core MMO fans, you can really, really cash in. So I would expect more attempts to create WoW type games in terms of pace, simplicity, soloability and accessibility as we move forward. Whether others will succeed in executing this model as well as Blizzard did with WoW remains to be seen, but it seems clear enough that it will be attempted ... how could it not be when so much cash is in play?
As Ive written in the past, this leaves a market niche, if you will, for more "hardcore MMORPG" fans in the sense that developers can develop games for this market because the market is largely being ignored by the emerging "broad based MMORPG" games. If developers can develop the right game, there is a fanbase out there waiting for it that is not satisfied with the more recent crop of "broad based MMORPGs", and this may be a good thing. The idea of "hardcore" servers on the other broad-based games is an interesting one, but when you have 2m subs like WoW does, I'm sure they don't think they need to do much tinkering in that direction at all.
So I guess where I come out on your questions is that (1) I don't think we will see a whole lot of the more 'hardcore' MMOs in the years ahead, we will see more game's that mimic WoW's model and (2) following on that, I don't think we will see serious death penalties in many games either, because that seems to drive players away from MMOs ... instead we'll see a fairly mild DP like you have in WoW or GW, because the reality is that more people who are gamers like it that way.
I think at some point, we have to realize that those of us who like MMOs (to the exclusion of most other game types) are a fairly small slice of the overall gaming market. That worked fairly well when the developers were designing MMOs to appeal to our particular slice, but now that Blizzard has shown the way that MMOs can be desigtned to appeal to a much broader gaming market, that's what we're going to see attempted again and again and again, just as people attempted to replicate Everquest's success after that phenomenon.
I think you are partially right about wow.... however you miss the point that thousands upon thousands of people are playing wow just simply to pass the time for the next game... hell I know 15 people atleast like that.
appealing to a larger auidence will only ruin the mmo indunstry even worse eventually.... sure they will rake in the dough making the same stuff over and over.. but then people will eventually get sick of it and want more. It makes me sick that my passion has been taken over by money... money ruins everything.
Bottom line is the average mmo player, hell the average gamer period, is a ignorant sheep that doesnt know what he wants, he just goes along with the herd towards whatever is hyped at the momment. They are shallow in side...and they dont know how to fix it.
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"Old UO is now but a dream that will live in the hearts of the faithful for eternity."
Think you have what it takes to take the 'Oath of the legion' and become a true soldier of Rome?
Service guarantees citizenship!
Yeah i agree, but theres also another school of thought that makes me think maybe its not the games but the gamers? Maybe "hardcore gamers" like myself have just seen it all before and the novelty of games are just wearing off... I mean the first three online PC games i played were UO, CS and EQ... And i was fully into each of them at one time or another. But every game since then just has not been able to hold my attention for much longer then a month or two.
Maybe MMO's are just like a drug habit - you're always trying to get the same feeling you got from you're first "hit"...
if all people play are shallow games they will have a shallow experience, and keep going through all the games of the same type.
If you played a game with depth and community like UO, you know how it should be, atleast I do.. and hence ive waited 8 years for Roma Victor and Darkfall to arrive.
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"Old UO is now but a dream that will live in the hearts of the faithful for eternity."
Think you have what it takes to take the 'Oath of the legion' and become a true soldier of Rome?
Service guarantees citizenship!
When I say I want a more serious death penalty, I am meaning I want death to be something to seriously fear. Because to me, when there is the possibility of LOSING something valuable then the gaming becomes a million times more intense. And yeah, it would lead to strong bonds in the pick up groups as well. You wouldn't see these groups that go through dungeons all melancholy.
And did someone say Anarchy Online was difficult? I played that game, and difficulty was definitly not something I found. I also tried World of Warcraft which was really fun, but much to easy. I don't want to have to be forced to stack the chips against myself inorder to experience some element of challenge, which is what it takes in most of these games.
As for City of Heroes and customizability, that should only be directed at appearance. Even with a character creation system as customizable as the one in City of Heroes, you still get a couple hundred giant green guys in purples shorts.
However I do realize this is a buisness and people are just looking to cash in. I also realize that millions upon millions of people play console games, and those that play mmorpg's are tiny bit of the gaming population. I am hoping that Turbine can turn out something good with Dungeon's and Dragons where you can really get into YOUR character...we'll have to see.
Yes im pretty sure what we will see a lot of WOW inspired games in the future. And at first sight it looks bad for us hardcore ppl. But WoW and company also doing a great job by attracting new souls to mmog genre. So i suppose several years later we will have a nichse (dunno how to spell this word
for really hardcore games..
And i ever think these games will be great. And how some scienceman from mmorpgs said there is always a short and long terms. A lot of devs doing short-term good changes in their games which results a long-term bad changes. Remember Trammel??? It was definely short-term good but it destroyed UO in long-term. And returning to situation on market we can now see phenomen of WoW - its completely made from this short-term good things. So i believe here should be a balance. Short-term good things must create long term bad and vice-versa. Im sure we will see good developed games which will look bad in short-terms and be brilliant in long-terms.
Ohh
Im a philosof 
I would also like to add this.
I am a punk rocker. I love punk rock, real punk rock. It can be hard to find good punk rock especially now adays when everything is about money and music is so watered down its sad. Artists are now signed based on hype and looks instead of talent and style. So I have to settle by and large for underground unknown bands and rely on old school to get my fill.
This is exactly what has happened to MMORPG's. Hardcore games have a smaller apeal to the buying public much like punk rock. People mostly don't want a challenge they just want a joyride (something like Lindsay Lohan instead of Rancid to use a musical metaphor). Of course there are exceptions: System of a Down proved you dont have to be mindless to attain success. Rage against the machine, also and a handful of others.
But if you look at the top 10 music, its all watered down pop and flashy hip-hop (I'm a big time rap fan too, but I like intelligence over bling bling, so there isn't that much in the top 10 for me). Hardcore music fans, like Hardcore gaming fans, have to rely on lower budget (underground) games/music or playing older games (or old school music) to get their fix.
I fear that this is what it has become, to achieve success in gaming and in music, you have to cater to the widest possible audience, and the hardcore fans are left playing years old games, or music fans listening to old school to get their fix. WoW is an AMAZING game with tons of good stuff going for it, but it is just so generic in so many ways that many people (including me) got bored at the higher levels. Can't put my finger on exactly why I got bored, just lost the will to log in.
It's just a metaphor, and I hope someones disdain for punk rock doesn't make them discount my post. I know it's not for everybody. But that seems to me a good example about how, as Ferox proclaims, money seems to ruin everything. Certainly money seems, in many cases, to be the death of art.
Here's to hoping Roma Victor and Darkfall and Irth Online and others can bring the art back to MMORPG's.
Yeah, lets bring back the art!
I have the same problem, I will sit down to play a game. I enter my account information. It does its automatic update, and then for some reason I just don't really want to play the game. Its odd because I do...but I don't. Does that make any since??
I think MMORPGs are too stuck in the past, instead of looking behind you, look around, other genres are evolving far ahead of MMORPGs, in my opinion don't look at UO or other old MMO or PnP RPGs, look to the consoles, thats where its at, look at KOTOR, Deus Ex, Fable, Jade Empire these are the games breaking the RPG mold and trying something new and original.
Essentually MMORPGs have thrown out the RPG part, you don't really create a character just a 2D avatar, your character has no depth. Just the same bland uniform story line and never ending meaningless quests. Console RPGs have already started to break away form the tetium, giving players the opion to choose their own path. This is much closer to the original point of RPGs whi was to play a role meaning having substance to your character, and the ability to choose.
On the other much worse hand they have kept the class Xp and combat system, lets face this system is dead and decaying, its old tired and just plain doesn't function anymore. We have much better technology now there is no need for click and wait, stat crunching or predefined classes, MMORPGS could take a big hint from new console RPGs as to how game play should be done, dare I say realtime twitch.
Well thats my take on it
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
Well Cactusman, I don't know about you or the rest of the people, but I play mmorpgs because I enjoy playing with lots of different people. And lets look at a couple of those games you just mentioned: KOTOR? What about it? Loved the game, but you tell me what was so ahead of the curve with it. Jade Empire? Loved the animations, too bad all you have to do is hop behind the thing then attack, the repeat. Fable is the only one you mentioned that really did something different, but mainly just different from other console games. It would definitly be nice to see character development of that kind of depth though in mmorpgs, indeed.
Todays MMORPGS should take a hint from console games? I believe that is what everyone here is saying is being done, and that is exactly what is hurting the true mmorpg fan. Several years back a console rpg was a console rpg and an mmorpg was an mmorpg. However it seems the distinction has become somewhat murky.
Real-time twitch, dare I say Planetside?
Gravity took the exp penalty to a different realm then what your talking about. In ROSE when you die you can choose if you want to spawn again on the field and lose 5% exp or spawn in town and lose 3%. In Ragnarok they have it so if you go from 1-99 as a novice without dying you get a special prize. That is such a great idea, make people not want to die cause they get a reward, despite how inconsivebly difficult that is.
Anyways that was a little side tracked. I don't agree with you. Realistically people want to spend thier time meaningfully. If they die they don't want to see the time they spent disapear, and thats how most games treat death penalties. I believe a better way to handle players living by the its alright to die philosophy is to benefit players for staying alive. Like over time the amount of exp you recieve increases the longer you slay monsters and live, or get a 1337 item if you never die.
Also I hate how games now are all about leveling and being the strongest as most use PVP-centricity in order to maintain its playerbase longer. What I like doing in an mmo is being unique so I can make the time I spend thier meaningful.
On content, I think everyone wants more, I don't know who said No I dont want more content. Anyways adding a ton of content to an mmo isnt a simple task; you have to remember some games are huge in content now, but they have been in production for over 6 years. Still taking the philosophy that all you need for each update is to keep just 1 player interested until the next update is a way to keep content coming. Also adding in repative things for the player to do that diverge from the actual game helps, like mini-games, collecting, and pvp...
No. This is really the key difference between what is really an "RPG" and what is not. In an RPG, everythhing that matters relates to your character's abilities, not your finger dexterity. That follows in the tradition of PnP RPGs, which I realize you don't think are a useful model, but in any case the core idea of RPG is that you are playing a character with its own abilities, not your alter ego. To the extent that the game becomes twitch-based, the character's ability is directly linked to your dexterity, and the character becomes your alter ego. I'm not saying there aren't fun games like that out there, because there certainly are, but they aren't really RPGs because they base your character's skill on your own manual dexterity, when in reality whether your character succeeds in an action or not should be based on your character's abilities and not your own physical dexterity apart from the character. When we bleed "twitch based" controls into this setting, it destroys the independence of the character and really makes RPGing impossible ... what it does ois simply create an action/adventure game in what could be termed an "RPG setting" (by which I suppose it's meant, generally, a fantasy setting in which one can use magic and so forth). But an action/adventure game in an RPG setting is not an RPG.
I thoroughly agree that the console gaming mentality is starting to have an impact on the world of MMOs, due to market pressures, but I don't see this as a positive thing at all. To the contrary, it seems to be leading to games that are more simplistic in approach and difficulty and/or more based on out-of-game player skill than in-game character skill, both of which are bad developments for online RPGs, in my opinion.
Classes is anachronism and worst part of any mmorpg...
Yep its a short post.
I don't think classes are needed, either, but it's one thing not to have classes and another to institute twitch-based playing style ... the latter is no longer an RPG but an action/adventure game.
To me if you are still playing a role then it is still an RPG, and realtime twitch lets me play a role better than click and kill, seeing as how I actually have control over the character, which gives me more of an emersive feeling. Other wise I feel more distant like I am a coach not the character, the big thing about RPG combat now is it has little to do with the player almost everything is deteremined by chance and numbers, twitch for me lets me play my role to the fullest letting me use my actual dexterity, tactics, and creativity to fight, which I think is part of what playing a role is.
I really think RPGs in general could benifit from cross genre hybrids. The heart of MMOs is in the right place but its going to take some tearing down of genre barriers to help MMOs realize their potential.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit