Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Dynamic Content, Innovation, Random Encounters and more...
Nilden
Member EpicPosts: 3,916
There are some mechanics I feel should be done much better than they currently are in MMORPG's.
First up: Dynamic Content!
Dynamic meaning continual change, the opposite of static. So many things in MMORPG's are static. NPCs, places, nothing changes. The player is presented with a location and npcs just standing around or wandering slightly. So how have games improved over static content? Well scripted events are a start like public quests, Rifts, invasions, Guild Wars 2 with scripted public quests that have win/lose outcomes based on player participation.. but it's not true dynamic content.
The easy way to provide dynamic content is with player generated content, like pvp. Some good territory control, battlegrounds, whatever and players will provide ever changing battles. Of course preset levels are static, so get around that by letting players build and destroy structures like castles.
So how about your average anywhere in an MMORPG that is just a field of static mobs? Are we at the point where a game could be made where there was a forest that some goblins found a cave in then reproduced, chopped down trees, built a fort and expanded only to be exterminated by a group of players?
How about giving npcs basic AI that let them build shelter, gather food/supples, reproduce and in general maintain a form of structure in order to survive. Right now mob AI is move and hit stuff, maybe cast a spell or a scripted fight, it's shallow. Not even basic survial instincts. Most of the time the npcs are just standing there waiting to die.
Innovation?
So in order to innovate I feel a MMORPG needs to be built from the ground up with dynamic content as the backbone of the design. To do this you need enhanced AI and a world built on being able to have both players and npcs manipulate and interact with it.
Random Encounters!
Oblivion with bandits that would pop out and try to rob you or Skyrim with random dragons etc. Better yet Red Dead Redemption with horse thieves, wagons being robbed, the law chasing wanted criminals, people fleeing wild animals, and more. Random encounters that just happen as your going along. Why is it that you never see random encounters happen in MMORPGs? It seems like such a staple of even the pen and paper AD&D. Random encounter, roll a d20 see what kind of wilderness encounter you get from gnolls to deer to a lost mage etc.
In Closing:
What do you think could be done to make MMORPG's more dynamic and an ever changing experience?
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/
Comments
The goblin part is exactly what I described in my posts about TTS. Of course TTS doesn't exist as a full game yet.
Since it is pretty much an idea I have talked about endlessly on these forums I am comfortable saying that I totally support this idea.
D) All of the above
In particular I really enjoy random mobs in the terrain, some sort of difference between when I log in today and when I log in two days from now. Mobs should not be so static that you might as well put them on the map as part of the terrain. In my book this is a travesty.
Having mobs repopulate at some rate determined by how much they are being culled would be amazing. Having this determine their KOS status would also be cool, especially if there is some incentive for not killing them (they will produce some mat or something if left alive for a certain amount of time/population etc.).
Loot tables should be just as random and varied. It should be a roattion system wherein the same loot might disappear for a month and then return on another mob type.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
While I agree with you for the most part OP, I just wanted to share the following.
In the early days of UO, the devs had designed a system where all the wild life (animals and such) had these complex behaviors and migration and family/population... all this really cool dynamic stuff.
They found through testing/live play that the players simple went into the world and mass slaughtered every animal they came across and the entire system was made pointless, so they scrapped it.
Truly dynamic / random content sounds great on paper, but the implementation is everything.
Sure you could have NPC AI that built structures and gathered resources, but then you introduce players to the equation and all of a sudden either the players completely leave the NPC's alone and the system only goes so far and then stops or the players just go out and slaughter everything with such regularity they never have a chance to build and grow stronger.
Balancing it out is... problematic because you can NEVER fully predict player behavior.
The thing is, we can pretty easily account for the UO problems. If the players easily destroyed the ecosystem its likely that it wasn't large enough. Further, ecosystems are not the same as mob societies. Having golbin settlements is not the same as rabbits and deer.
Yes implementation is everything. I was aware of the UO design and one of the factors I heard was that players couldn't tell the differance and it had little impact at all. what I mean is say those goblins built a fort, no player would know unless they saw them do it. You could get around that by having goblins as a player race and actually helping the npc goblins build stuff and gather food etc. If you go to a spot and it's a forest just a bunch of trees, then come back and find a town built by wood elves in the trees, then come back again and find spiders have taken it over and a week later orcs come in and chop everything down and all wear spider armour...
It's not hard to go beyond npc stands there waiting to die, even if there is a lot of testing and balancing that needs to be done.
An actual ecology where the relationships between creatures and the enviroment ment something would be really cool.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Right now, Guild Wars 2 will be the closest thing to what you're talking about. Give it some time, watch the success of GW2 inspire other companies to try and take things even further. It may very well be that the game you're describing is already beign planned at a very early stage and people are waiting to see how things play out before committing their life's work to it.
Oderint, dum metuant.
You think?
The point is not deers and rabits. The point is that if you cannot predict players' behavior, something bad for the game may happen. I am pretty sure given the complex nature of what you are trying to do, something like that, but not predictable now, is going to happen.
The reason why that does not happened in themepark games is because player experiences are tightly controlled. I don't see how you can avoid those kind of problems.
Exactly.
All the best planning and design in the world on paper can fall apart when you put it in front of thousands of players.
You can't force players to play a certain way, this has been proven countless times.
The only way to do REALLY dynamic content is either 100% player interaction or having the AI smart enough to make decisions and adapt to player behavior on its own.
Possible? No clue, but probably not.
RTS games and some other games like the Left 4 Dead 2 "director" AI have been a good step forward. Could you do the same in a MMO?
AI that reacts to players that react to AI that reacts to players etc. etc.
Both of these concepts, "dynamic" content and random encounters, are ways to take control of the play experience away from the players. You want to go to Mistvale Thicket to join a few friends? Too bad, you can't; some wandering minotaur kings have set up camp near both entrances, making travel impossible for low-to-mid level players. You want to fight a lich and take their phylactery? Too bad, you can't; it's an incredibly rare random encounter, and strongholds built by liches get immediately raided and cleared out.
"Wow, the things that I want to do—and was able to do yesterday—aren't possible anymore due to pure dumb luck! That's amazing, this doesn't happen in my other games! I'm so thrilled by this concept that I'm going to log off and play something else!"
Dude. Don't be a control freak then. Problem solved.
That's when the community comes into play. Form alliances and take care of these obstacles. People need to get out of their comfort zones and realize they're not just playing with friends; they're playing with an entire server.
OP, you've got the foundation of it. Everything else should be built on top of this core ideal.
Once upon a time....
I think youll find Rift had dynamic content before GW2 and warhammer before that.
It's not about taking control away from the players. It's about providing the players with an ever changing experience. Your example does prove that implementation is everything. First part about having higher level monsters take over a place could be avoided by always having level appropriate monsters in areas. Second could be avoided by population percentage spawning coded into the background. You could never wipe out all the liches or undead because the game would try to keep a balance between creature populations.
"Wow this place is different and changes every time I come here! It's amazing that the npcs interact with each other and the enviroment!"
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/good point. but this counts just for linear games, where you have to follow a clear progression path.
in a dynamic world, it is not clear, what you can do today. the situation changes. so if there are no lichkings or too many of them well organized, you do something else. there is enough to do in a dynamic world and you must not do this one and only quest next.
well, if you cant walk thru the doors of Mistvale Thicket, you should perhaps use a teleporter. if there is no teleporter you should join the forces attacking the minotaurs and ask your friends to support it via an attack from their side.
in a dynamic virtual world you can change the world sometimes. but more often you have to adjust your actions according to the world and the situation. if you dont like that, virtual dynamic worlds are not for you.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Would be something to consider for a sandbox, but it may not be worth it due to the massive amount of code that would need to go into every mob, controlling mob spawning and reacting to player actions. If there's a simpler way to create a roughly equivalent level of "fun" for players, that is the path that will (and should) be taken. The first step is really to get a few high quality sandboxes released to see what kind of market there is for true "virtual worlds".
dYNAMIC EVENTS
Yes dynamic means continual change, but, as life has proven, everything is on a cycle. The goal is to make these cycles as organic as possible inorganically, not open up worlf pvp and think that that's going to make for fresh encounters. Quite the contrary, it makes the encounters just as static. Why? Because There are only a handful of actual tactics a player can deploy in any situation.
If I need to go to outpost 4, there's only one encounter, players will attack me when i make my way there. Of course they may not, but more than likey their were. Instead of creating better system,s and more intracate systems, you've replaced one static encounter with another static encounter. The encounter level also can not be controlled. So the success rate can varry from impossible to cookie cutter.
There is no dynamics in players attackingothe players. There's 1 encounter, players attacking other players.
'GW 2 doesn't just have a very intricate , life like circle of events with its encounters, it also tosses in random creatures that are balanced for the level of the zone. That's just something you can't do with open world pvp.
This is true dynamic event. The events continuiously changes and cycles may last from hours to days. I am 100 percent sure the programmers could drag out these results and make them as peromanet as they want. But when you're producing a game for the masses you ,ust be able to allow all of the masses to enjoy this content at sometime. GW2 does it in a way that makes sense, which is all i ever ask. IF centaurs contineiously attack the farm, i get it, that makes sense.
The only othe rsolutoin would be to have a permament DM per server until we develop Ai sophisticated enough to create a series of events infinitately. But sorry, PVP is not the answer to making unique encounters continously. It only creates one encounter that reeks of just lazy game design.
Interactive
I agree with you here, that AI doesnt exist. Though I disagree about allowing players too much manipluation of the world. I'm not interested in player built cities and towns. RPG games are about adventuring, not city managment. RPGs, from the start, have been about cooperation and team work. Creating a war game out of an RPG just makes the game a war game. Which is fine if you want to play a war game.
I trust the guy geting paid 100k a year to make content for my game, not 13 year old billy backer. It's why there's a DM in tabletop gaming, I let him worry about the main adventure. I just play in it.
RAndom Encounters
There are random encounters in pretty much every MMO. Monsters just appear. But what your'e describing, GW2 has. Some quests have been described like that verbatim.
Final ThoughtsYes i get , u guys want to kill each other in agame. That is not going to make dynamic content anymore than it did 10 years ago in Wow. I know if you hate GW2 it sucks, but thats as close as we get to dynamic content, and its pretty damn good. You have your ever changing encounters, your pcs effecting the environment and random events that aren't locked on particular places.
That's the difference between GW2 and Rift. I loved Rift, I never complained aout a day that no one logged on in an area, and the rift monsters took all the major cities. It was a good example of cause and effect. And those monsters stayed until they were slayed. Problem is, is that rift had real quests. Which meant the creatures took away quest hubs, which stopped you from progessing until they wer edealth with. And the encounters didnt scale, so you were a-out if you were alone in the country.
GW 2 has waypoints, scaled encounters and no static quests. When creatures take over an area the harm will come from not being able to pass through that area or not using an npc there. You'll always be able to reach your friends with waypoints.
Rabbits and Deer should also have a measure of stealth or the player's a measure or tracking, perception stat, etc.
Animal AI should also be fast, smart, and instinctual.
There should be no reason a player can go into the forest and slaughter every animal because they feel like it, ruining the ecosystem.
Why? Because this doesn't happen in real life. Why? Because animals aren't these slow braindead things that will instantly attack you back in melee combat when you hit them with an arrow.
Instead, animals have survival mechanisms, such as....
1) Pack Mentality. Wolves travel in a pack. Want to kill a pack of wolves? Bring a friend, or your tombstone.
2) Escape. Deer do not just turn grey in real life and run to melee you. They hear you snap a twig and run away before you can even see them. Animals smell you, track you, avoid you, hide from you.
There is a reason you can go into the forest and see absolutely nothing at all, yet it be full of more life than you realize. You probably wont even see most animals, because they already saw you a long time ago and left the area. Or perhaps they're hiding in plain sight.
Random Encounters in pretty much every MMO already?
LOL...I don't think you understand what a random encounter is. At least not what everyone else is talking about or thinking of.
I didn't read anything else because that right there is enough to say "TLDR, this guy doesnt know what he's talking about." Sorry if I'm harsh, but random encounters, the type we're talking about and what most ppl think of when they think random encounters, are NOT in every MMORPG already.
Typically in code, all mobs inherit from one class / various subclasses.
You would really only need to make one class for the mobs to react to players, and include all the variables for different mobs.
Programmers try their best to not repeatedly recode every little thing, and instead believe in reusable code. That is why inheritance, entities, polymorphism, etc. exists.
I've played dnd for 20 years, I know what a random encounter is, it's a table, of which when pcs go into an area one of these monsters appear to attack the party. If we're going by the true rules of a random encounter, a PC walk into a place (or sleep) thedm rolls his chart and sees what happens.
This happens all the time in MMOs, And has become more random in later MMOS. PCs walk into an area, sometimes a mob spawns, in Rift, this mob can be one of a half dozen different things or collections of creatures.
Look at Rift. On Rift , level 50 zone, there's this undead place. ON the Rift chart, there must be 10 different mobs that can spawn anywhere in that region and not just in a particular place. That's the defintion of a random encounter.
Well that is great that they have such an area in RIFT. I wish there were more games that included this idea. The MMO world is more of a long term exposure though, so they should have tables for possible mobs that are close to the 30-40 mob count range.
Doing that would greatly improve playability, along with really dynamic loot tables.
I also think that loot tables and mob tables should be on rotations (a week?) so that sometimes you just don't see a particular mob for a while and later it comes back. Talking about mobs not associated with quests only.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I think there are other options as well. You can build systems where it is very easy for GM's to tweak the parameters/input on the fly. Those systems are a better investment of resources in general, as it provides for a better way to do Dynamic Content and it provides an easier mechanism to introduce new content into the game without having to have it completely mapped out ahead of time. In this way, your actualy supporting GM's function in the same sort of role that PnP GM's do....except your letting automation act as a "force multiplier" for your GM's.... rather then manualy controling things (which require 24/7 input).... you have them jump in ever few days, look at what's happening with the various environments and tweak parameters/queue up automated events within the system accordingly. You can sprinkle that with the odd "Live Event" where GM's are manualy controling NPC's characters/monsters every once in awhile (as resources allow) to spice things up. In this sense, what happens in the world is a COLLABORATIVE effort (much as it is in PnP) between the GM's and the players. The players still have a large influence over the details of what happens in the World, but the GM's can react/respond to it....and push/nudge it in a direction that supports compelling play.
The other way to do things where a full AI setup would work...would be "Campaign Based" games.... something like WWII Online does...where the World is only expected to last 6 months or something like that... then it gets reset for the next Campaign (possibly with some new conditions added). In that sense, it doesn't matter if the players "screw things up" with thier behavior....because whatever they've screwed up they won't have to live with beyond the length of the campaign... but they still get to totaly control/influnce the environment for the course of the Campaign.
My thoughts on Dynamism:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4905949/thread/347292#4905949