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Ideas for bringing back the community to Mmorgs
azeraaron
Member UncommonPosts: 7
Ok Gang....
Just finished with Tera....i made it to lvl 55 and it was a great game as a single player game online...
The community to me was god awful...peeps would join a grp as little as possible and leave at the first possible moment...
I am also bored shatless with quest hubs and runnin on rails from 1 quest hub to another...
Iam from old school EQ and SWG with good solid community...
**** IDEAS ****
1. From the getgo in a MMorg items MUST have decay on the item so that they will be destroyed if they are not maintained
( see section 1 )
2. Items from tradeskilling MUST be better at the same lvl as a drop item except maybe rare dungeon drops .
3. All openworld dungeons.. no instancing .
4. Death penalty ( see section 2 )
**** For The Community ****
Section 1. Blacksmith : The player starting as blacksmith will start out as a metalsmith with a small stall in marketplace >>>his stall will stay open unless he progresses in skill or stall lays idle for xxxx number of days .His role will be to make armour etc but also can fix other players weapons and armour . Now if the player is online at the time and wishes to he can add xxxx number of stats to a players weapons and armour similar to a buff . The smith will gain an xp bonus for this on tradeskilling and the player gets a number of shorttime buffs...
When the metalsmith progresses they will have the opportunity to a proper shop and maybe a guild at high end and better titles allowing higher buffs etc etc ...
Section 2 . The Innekeeper : The player starts out as a cook similar to a metalsmith with a small stall in the market . His role will be to remove any death penalty incurrsions and generate food and drink that allow small buffs . The cook gains xp bonuses for being online the same as the metalsmith .
When the cook progresses they will have the opportunity to buy a small inn which will allow for resting xp bonus // food and drink bonuses on a hearty meal and to gain the best food and drink bonuses the player will have to sit for a short time and yarn with other players at the bar .
Section 3 . The Alchemist : The player starts out as a Laborer with the same rules as the above and makes potions and can add mana buffs similar to a chanter in EQ
Section 4 . The Jeweller : The Player starts as a gemcutter making jewelery and adding buffs similar to the metalsmith .
Section 5 . The Adventurer : The adventurer has the pleasure of going out exploring and gaining lvls similar to any other games but they will be seriuosly hindered if they dont spend time with the above trades to a point at high lvl where some dungeons will be near on unaccessable without them . Though this person will be the one acquiring tradeskill items out in the field much needed by the craftsmen whether it be by gathering from nodes or by killing mobs . These will become great bartering material for those much needed buffs .
I was also thinking of a town crier who could assign some kind of quest and cause rumors and gossip about dungeons etc and also Stone Mason for making buildings for housing and bonuses for shopkeepers..dunno
Comments and abuse gratefully received
Regards
P.S. Dont bother picking me up on my spelling its not about that is it my little lovelies
Comments
It seems to me that it is not the games that have bad communities, but the players who play that make the communities bad.
It used to be the playerbase was made up of players wanting to interact with each other. With the popularity boom of MMOs, players seem to have swayed to a different type of player.
It seems to me that every MMO out there has the tools to have a great community. Players just choose not make use of them, or are just so toxic as to make communities suffer.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Is this top sentence even necessary? it doesn't even state anything. Players = communities so if a game has a bad playerbase that equals a bad community.
But on topic, of course any mmo has tools for a good community honestly all you need is some kind of chat and way for players to interact with each other by fighting, RPing, etc. Comparing mmo's to those of 10 years ago these mmo's are packed with features. What has changed is the overall attitude of those who play mmo's. Due to time restraints and just relative gameplay techniques employed by the mmo's of late the older gamer doesn't have as much time as before to dedicate. Now this is mainly the older crowd of gamers who made up the communities of mmo's 10-15 years ago. The new generation is increasingly hostile towards anyone who they don't know and, due to the anonymity of the internet, allows them to act in any behavior they find suitable.
The problem stems from players having no incentives to interact with each other. If i can kill a monster in 20 seconds and get full loot and xp whereas with a group I can loot once every 5 mobs and only a fraction of the xp what is the point? Now more modern games are attempting to fix this problem but as it stands now most mmo's provide little incentives to grouping other than dungeons/raids. What I would like to see change in mmo's is for new activities to become more popular. Things like fishing, mini games, more interative quest designs. Too much emphasis is put on combat within most themeparks lately and most modern mmo's we hear about seem to understand that they need to add some sandbox features in order to keep a thriving community. I think within the next few years we will begin to see games that have healthy communities and allow people to truly enjoy interacting with each other within mmo's again.
Edit: (of course I say on topic and don't even address the OP). I think his points are extremely valid and could definitely help propel the genre forward. Similar to how the WIldstar system works the tradeskills in the way that were described could definitely benefit everyone. These roles would add a sense of depth similar to SWG and would help bring immersion back into these virtual worlds we all know and love.
Item decay and no instancing are also two excellent ponts. The one thing I'd like to say about a permanent item decay is that whie it would be a fantastic implementation into games it would also make raids and dungeons even more grindy and repetitive. Considering how most games seems to be going the "sandpark" route I think we can agree raiding isn't really going anywhere. Imagine having to grind multiple sets of the same pieces just so that when your current BiS piece breaks it can be immediately replaced. It would definitely be a system that would need some refinement but could ultimately work (just maybe not in a current themepark setting). I realize blacksmiths could fix the gear but if no piece ever breaks then ultimately what is the point of a permanent decay in the first place? Pieces would need to break in order to ensure longevity (at leat for a game designed with items decaying and breaking permanently in game).
Great ideas OP let me know when a game decides to implement them and then we can all be happy
Those ideas will leave you a game with little community because few will play.
You really think there is a market for people to play as blacksmith & innkeepers? The game won't even break even.
And what is the problem? You really need people to chat in a dungeon that much? May be you should just join them and accept the fact that most people go into dungeon to kill stuff and get loot, not talk.
Be the change you seek in the world.
Feedback:
Early FFXIV had many of these features in place. Crafters were required to maintain items which lost durability. Crafted items were (and are) better than normal items of similar level. Hardly any instancing, everything is in the open with some phasing.
The community kept giving negative feedback regarding these features (for a good reason- the setbacks of these features on the convenience are substantial even when tuned correctly, making their overall effect on the community not worth the trade-off).
The fact is that encouraging community growth by PUNISHING the playerbase is no longer a viable way to make change happen. It will be met with resistance, because certain inconveniences are no longer acceptable.
That doesn't mean that there is no room for improvement in this area- simply that taking the approach of "punish the players and ignore complaints later" is, frankly, god-awful game design.
Some features that work for involving the community by giving incentives instead of punishments are, for example, using crafters to socket enhancements to normal items (while keeping item repairs strictly as an NPC money sink). Then it is not so much about "I need crafters to keep my items fixed" as it is about having the option to socket your items with beneficial effects.
Another feature that games with cross-server functionality have failed to build up properly are means to encourage cross-server community growth (and competition among servers). Sure, you have the Dungeon Finder, but there are no tools to let the players create their own communities using that feature.
Simply said, if you want people to join groups and involve themselves in the community, before designing the game in a way that requires the player to do so (by giving benefits) you must first make it as convenient as possible. You must also make it so the community can punish bad behavior accordingly, thus making people behave (or the misfits to be unable to participate).
The smaller the communities are the closer they are. Sad to say but in order for you to "bring back the community" you have to make them unpopular again. So bringing back unpopular features would be the right thing to do. Then again, you might have trouble finding funding for your project.
...and I'm only half kidding.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
No, no. He wants to make an unpopular game on purpose to have a closer community. He is well on his way to his objective.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Gasp! Hyanmen is back from the FFXIV forum!?
Good points made. If it's inconvenient to be part of the community, why would a good community ever form?
The theme-park design of the past few years is basically a solo game until the very very very endgame, where for some reason, you now have to group to kill the lich king!? You already know what kind of community spawns from that...
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
To bring back community to MMORPGs you first would have to bring back the MMORPG.
The current trend is the MOAG instead - the multiplayer online action game.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
And that right there is the root of it. Of course there will be a "bad" community if the entire experience is based on killing as much random stuff as possible with as little down time as possible. I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's just that there is no real point / incentive for a community to develop in that type of game.
id go with multiplayer online arcade game
Im all for death penalties.
I would add less insta travel. Mage Portals, Summoning spells (not stones imo) and Hearth stones are fine, but instant dungeon and even battleground travel makes for dead worlds. It also detracts from community. Can't tell you how many times people leave an instance they ported into because everyone wasn't already killing mobs when they hit accept.
Dungeon finders. This is tough obviously as there are lots of opinions on it. My opinion is that having a tool that locates a team for you while you are off doing whatever is fine, but the team should be on your server, and you should still have to drag your weary ass to the instance. I also think that the group should be able to decide whether people must apply for the group or be automatically accepted.
As for item decay .. i both like and dislike this idea. Part of me would want to be able to use the same sword for my entire "life" in game. Via upgrading / repairing, etc ... but Im not sure how the ability to do that would effect crafting in general. Its a complex system that I would need to do a lot of research on to really know how I feel about it.
Honestly the biggest change to communities imo is when Blizzard (and thus everyone else in the industry) decided that group content should be a side game while leveling. Something you choose to do, but isn't necessary for progression. This is what switched the genre from MMORPG to MOAG as the person I quoted eludes to.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I like your ideas. I think a little instancing is ok (like LDoN) but not a majority. I like your alternative classes but they aren't why communities are disappearing. The main reason I find against communities is the ease of soloing levels/gear. Path of least resistance, if you don't have to LFG, you won't.
I disagree. There are many crafters that would play a game and completely ignore the PVE/PVP area if they could. I like doing everything but know of many pure crafters. Look at the popularity of games like Farmville. An MMO Farmville (all farms in the same world, shared economy) would do well.
I agree completely. While people can join a group, spend 30 minutes in a dungeon, get they're reward and level and disappear, why chat? I always had the best time in WoW dungeons when the group talked to each other and helped each other. Settling into a camp in Sol B (EQ) for 5 hours to get through the level 45 hell was a great way to get to know people.
Instant fast travel, instant grouping do have their downsides to community but they can make tedious tasks more fun. This has to be balanced. Travelling from Freeport to Qeynos was an interesting trip, the first time, having to repeat it isn't so interesting.
Improved LFG tools are welcome additions, but if dungeons weren't exclusive and short, then a Finder isn't necessary.
I also have mixed feelings on item decay/wear(and PVP looting) but some of the new customization options(WoW transmogrify/Lotro visual armor) in new games makes this less of an issue. As a crafter, I would much prefer player run upgrade/repair/alteration options rather than going to an NPC and paying 1g to repair all your armor and going to another vendor and paying 1g to alter the stats/looks. Crafting has been relegated to a tacked on system that dev's are afraid of.
You are right that it isn't the fault of the games, it is the fault of the players. When MMOs started, they appealed solely to the nerd fanboy. Those are the only people who had the computers and the high speed Internet connections necessary to access online play. Since these people were all similar, they had similar interests and similar views and therefore, had no problem finding things in common to talk about. There was a single, or at best, a very few communities in any given game.
Along comes WoW and MMOs go mainstream. No longer are they restricted to nerd fanboys. Now everyone plays. There are no more common interests. These people have nothing to talk about. In fact, many groups hate each other. There is no more single community in a game, but dozens, maybe hundreds of separate, insular communities.
There's really no way to put the genie back in the bottle. So long as the MMO marketplace is mainstream, and it will never stop being mainstream, you will never have the kind of strong, cohesive communities you had in those first few games. It cannot and will not happen.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Its not going to happen until mmorpgs become more of a social game like they used to be insted of the single player game with irc chat that they are now for the most part. MMO's aren't supposed to be as soloable as they are today, and that is why the communities have gone to hell.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
I to am from EQ and sadly we wont see a community like that unless a game company makes a game that encourages it. I have said this over and over people follow the path of least resistance. If there is no need for grouping or interacting with others people wont do it. Game companies are after the almighty dollar and biggest bang for the game trying to please the most people they can.
Just recently some EQ friends and I were having dinner talking about what is lacking from games these days. So we have set on a venture to create our own game. That is how EQ got started as well, people wanting to create a game that they wanted to play. Not a game that was made for other people. So after some brain storming we covered all the aspects that made EQ great and features from new games. We will see how this project goes.
Raroic
If you want to bring back the community you need to bring back the downtime. Current games have NO downtime so no body talks.
In EQ1 you talked while travelling on the boat, you talked waiting for respawns during a camp and you talked while recovering after the fight.
In TERA you kill mob A ,then B run to C kill D run to E kill F colllect rewards find you now have a bunch of grp only quests so join a grp kill G H I K and L mobs go collect rewards find your back to solo so disband and start all over. All of this with no downtime so nobody talks.
Until the games stop this trend of faster and faster and return to the slower more tactical RPG game the community spirit will decline further.
If the average player of a MMORPG is expected to hit lvl cap within 6 months of a games release the game designer is doing it WRONG.
Beautiful quote! Couldn't remember who said it so I googled it; Mahatma Gandhi....talk about EPIC! lol
Yeah, a large one.
I agree with the downtime comment. MMOs need dead space to let players stop for a minute and notice their fellow inhabitants. You design an mmo to be about hotjoining battles or teleporting to the action. Or if you make it so everything that used to require talking to someone is now automatic, you lose out on allowing your game to grow a community. Its also important to create social spaces for the sole purpose of just hanging out. Not everything has to be some game mechanic with an arbitrary reward attached.
Devs are so preoccupied with giving us things to do that they neglect the point of going online in the first place.
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
EQ got started because Smedly secured funding to create Verant within what at the time was Sony Interactive Studios America. They saw money to be made, and made it. I don'[t understand the revisionist history of how Verant was some independent company not interested in money.
Here is a quote from Brad himself.
We made the game we ourselves wanted to play. We wanted a challenging game where players could get a real sense of accomplishment, where risk vs. reward really meant something. The more difficult games we'd played, both online and offline, were the ones we both enjoyed and fondly remembered.
Was this the right approach from a commercial standpoint? Perhaps not. If I had a time machine I'd probably go back and do some of the things WoW later proved to be more mass market (though that would probably make me feel like a sell-out). In the end, though, EQ has grossed over a half a billion dollars. So while the game could have been easier, more polished, etc., it's not like we made something totally niche or esoteric. We were just lucky that the game we wanted to play was also a game that millions of others would enjoy as well.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/9/feature/5971/Building-EQ-The-Brad-McQuaid-Interview.html
Anyone who creates anything more then not has the idea of making money from it. That wasnt the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make is that people now look at wow and how much money that game has brought in. Its not about creating a game they want to play anymore its about creating a game that will attract the biggest audience with the biggest revenue. That is what is missing.
They need to stop building single player games that have co-op & pvp and calling them MMO's.
Actual MMO's (IE: not the games in the mould described above) need to encourage (not force) grouping from the get go be it with public quests like in WAR, World events that require some co-operation and maybe even some quests and dungeons that give the best gear only being accomplished by groups. Bring back a decent death penalty so that having another player along to revive you is a better options and again encourages grouping.
So solo players can still solo if they so wish but they will be afforded plenty of grouping opportunities and the advantages of grouping make it really attractive. Players grouping early on means they are less against the idea as they level up and then at endgame more group type content will be tackled by more of your players.
Make player crafted gear better than what can be bought from vendors or earned from solo quests or found in solo dungeons and make the percentage low for getting gear drops better than the craftables from normal mobs. Group quests, group dungeon gear drops & raid gear would still be superior and elite mobs would have a higher chance of better than craftable drops. By better it doesnt necessarily have ot have better stats but instead maybe crafted gear has a fixed bonus plus additional slots for gems/upgrade or its bonuses are completely customizable by gem slotting ro whatever. Player crafted gear could also be upgradeable by player craftspeople, meaning a good set can last you a long time if you keep getting it upgraded. Make gear repairs cheaper to obtain from players than they are from NPC's. All this encourages player interaction and help re-enforce the idea of playing with others in groups.
On Crafting, do not let players master every trade. Encourage trading of component parts and equipment between tradespeople. IE: the weapons smith may not be able to make axe handles but he needs them to make axes, the wood worker can make handles but not arrow heads so they need to trade, this is not forced since craft vendors could still sell some of these components but at 4 times the price of buying from players.
Give guilds something to do so it is attractive for players to join them, AoC had a few good ideas with a player city that provided various combat buffs and access to special crafting buildings required for forging some items as it was build and upgraded. They had planned to have NPC sieges of the villages & PvP sieges were there but largely broken, all this could be improved upon & make joining a guild more attractive option.
Need a more varied endgame, I am not anti solo so solo players need somethign to do and sometimes even social players just want a cashual 30-60 mins of playtime and may not want to try and organise a group. Random dungeon generators particularly at endgame as really overlooked in the MMO space. I think Diablo/Torchlight style random dungeons with quests built into them definitely adds longevity and they can be scaled during generation to accomodate solo players, small (say 2-3 players) medium (4-6 players) & large groups (6-12 players) and taylor the rewards accordingly. And this is just one idea, get rid of the endgame grind.
Right now MMO studios are repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot by churning out "MMO's" that are either single player games disguised as MMO's (and discarded just as quickly as any single player RPG) or they are Solo Friendly MMO's that then slap players in the face at endgame with group only content, neother of which retains subscribers.
What do you mean? I can't think of a single indy sandbox that has been a financial success.
The only way to encourage behavior, is to reward it. In MMO's, if you want players to group up, then you have to make it worth their effort.
- My first suggestion would be to make being in a group dramatically different than playing solo. All group members are twice the size of regular players, or have special auras, or something that is immediately noticeable, and desirable.
- My second suggestion is already done well in City of Heroes. That game is still very group oriented, and that's because it scales with group size. When you get a full group, that dungeon is dramatically different than if you try it solo, or with two players. The only way to experience the big stuff would be in groups, it's not available to solo'ers.
- Next I would make NPC drops dependent on being in a group. The only way to get the best drops would be in a group. Solo'ers can still kill the NPC, and get a lesser drop. A solo'er might be able to purchase an equivalent from a crafter, requiring interaction.
- Provide very flexible "mentoring" functions, going both ways. A high level player could mentor a lower player, in which case the lower player plays at the mentor's level, or it could be the opposite. A high player can play with a lower player at the lower player's level.
The basic premise is that you have to make the group experience different enough, and rewarding enough, to ecourage players to group up.
edit: I would also alter the balance between character types. I would add extremely powerful, and very limited, character types. For example: the standard hybrid character could do dmg and heal, but a dedicated healer would do little or no damage, but heal MUCH better. A dmg dealer and a healer would be much more powerful than two hybrids, but the specialized types would be impossible to solo in any normal way.
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2025: 48 years on the Net.
I love your idea of rewards, but solo'ers will call them punishments. They have a disadvantage. I can't see why 1 game can't be group centric. As for crafting rewards, I saw 1 game that NPCs could repair items, but players could repair them to 110% durability (or effectiveness) but those rewards turn into punishments for people that feel they need those bonuses but can't obtain them easily.
Your class ideas almost exactly define EQ classes up to about level 80 (3 or 4 expansions ago)