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I miss features in MMOs that existed just because.
tixylix
Member UncommonPosts: 1,288
What I mean is MMOs these days everything needs to be there for a reason, they're so thought out and play tested. It gets to the point where every MMO is the same, they're all generic and they keep making choices to attracted the most people. There is never any one making an MMO because they love the genre any more, they're attempting to make cash cows for publishers. So what ends up happening is they just use a checlist of generic things that make an MMO and copy that. They get rid of all the fat that used to taste so good on older MMOs, the quirks and the features that had no purpose of the game aspect but were just there because it is a game world. Now MMOs don't feel like worlds, they feel like games and they're becoming increasingly more and more like games rather than online virtual worlds.
I remember Star Wars Galaxies and how many small mechanics that game had to make this living breathing world. You could almost say the game was better than the sum of its parts in that all these small mechanics came together to make such an amazing experience. SOE would take them away each patch as whiners on the forums wanted everything easy as they always do, however the game started to fall apart like Jenga because all these parts were keeping the game together.
I miss the relationship the professions had and how you needed other professions to do tasks, this brought people together. You had all these social mechanics that seemed like nothing, SOE took them all away eventually but then you quickly realised what a massive impact they had on the social side of the game. Stuff like Decay which has a massive impact on crafters as well as they don't get repeat business and as a result you don't need relationships with the best or cheapest crafters. They got rid of them Shuttle and Star Port waits and while that may seem like a small thing, it's amazing how small the game felt afterwards. Also the result of that is there were no longer waits, so you didn't get to talk to people, there were no more duels while waiting and the cities felt dead.
I remember seeing CHs walk in with their creatures they were selling and you'd hear Banthas and Dewbacks and it just felt so atmospheric, like a real city full of life. Instead of having a tutorial, we had people standing by where people spawned in for the first time and they gave people lessons. I remember my first day in 2003 there was this guy standing outside the Starport with loads of noobs surrounding him and he was giving people adivce.
The beauty of having this online world that wasn't linear and had no levels meant you could come in at any time and play straight away with your friends. In these level based linear game like MMOs if you don't play one day then you'll be behind and cannot play with friends until end level. Then you have no reason to go back to old content so 90% of the world ends up being dead. Where as in SWG you logged in and did content in any order you wanted, so you had veterans and noobs doing content for badges at the same time. So every part of the world was always full of people.
Now people only look at the negative sides of SWG but that wasn't the game of the MMO, it was SOE. The lack of content wasn't a fault with the game design, it was just SOE hadn't made enough content. The exploitation of Armour and Buffs again wasn't game design, it was just that SOE never bothered to cap stuff and fix it. Again all the spam bots in cities or Cantina AFKers or Doctor AFKers wasn't the games fault, it was that SOE allowed macros...... something that should never be in an MMO of this nature.
I just love features that are there just because they can be. I mean when I played GTA 4 I was so disappointing the little fun fair never opened and you couldn't go on the rides. It wasn't there because Rockstart wouldn't consider this fun because there is no point to it. However it is fun for me, I like doing that stuff just because. They didn't allow you to fill up fuel at petrol stations or anything tbh, the world felt barren and boring as a result. These little touches are stuff that isn't considered fun, however when you start filling out the world with it, suddenly everything feels much more alive and complete.
I'm not a fan of play testing or focus groups, I mean there has to be a certain amount to bring up bugs and what not. However when it goes overboard like what Valve now does, then your games become so bland and souless like they were made by some corp who is just ticking stuff off of a checklist. I know these games have many fans but I didn't like Episode One or Two of Half-Life 2, I loved Half-Life 2 but the episodes were playtested too much. It was like they trimmed the fat and left out those fun downtime moments Half-Life 2 had which made me feel much more immersed. I don't like L4D, again it was going to be these open maps but playtesters kept getting lost so they turned them into linear ones. The whole game felt so generic, I wanted this sandbox of fun to be had with zombies and Sources Physx engine, there was none of that. Again Portal 2 was playtested too much, the story was amazing but the gameplay felt like a step back from the original, they made it too easy and got rid of all the hard mid air puzzles that playtesters struggled with.
I just want my games to be made by people and not companies. Why I loved Dayz and Minecraft so much they were made by single people who had a passion for what they were doing. It really shows and these games are far better than anything AAA studios are making, I have so much more fun in these games than any of the shit this year like Far Cry 3, Ass Creed 3 or COD or what ever else.
Anyways SWG Pre CU 2, do it.
Comments
I loved SWG Pre-CU, too. But please keep in mind that a lot of SWG's problems are now shrouded by this nostalgic "cloud-9" view. Do you remember when Creatures Handlers would kill ALL other classes because they had 3 Frenzied Graul's behind them? Do you remember when Jedi were unstoppable (primarily because they could heal their whole HAM bar)? Or do you remember when Pikemen got ahold of Fire/Disease/Poison lances and were able to kill people simply by stacking DOT's with a macro?
Now I don't mean to topple your sand castle, but SWG was unbalanced to the extreme. Why do you think so many went from SWG to WoW? The biggest things I miss from SWG are the amazing crafting and housing. I was a weaponsmith.. and the things I could do with a few high-stat Krayt Dragon Tissues... mmmm. The biggest things I DON'T miss are the long buff lines in Coronet and being killed by a novice Jedi when you're a Master TKA/Doc.
SWG's worlds, housing, crafting, vendors, and the way creatures interacted with other creatures were some great features.
Need these to be added to other games
Again that isn't a game design problem, it is an SOE problem and instead of fixing anything, they just nerfed it to oblivion and made it useless. I think Jedi were perfectly fine when they had permadeath but there were whiners and SOE made them all too easy. Their focus got shifted from fixing the games problems to fixing Jedi every patch and ignoring everything else.
This isn't a discussion about SWG but general MMO design and SWG used as an example. However like I said non of the problems that game had were down to design, it was all down to SOE being useless and fuck.
Those things make or break a game for me. It seems every game I've played long term (UO, Glitch, Mabinogi) has those little things that just added to the world.
It's not just the economy, it's the state of the industry. Production costs keep going up, yet there's more and more competition for a similar segment of gamers. If you want to see something really unique, I think you're going to have to look to crowdfunded projects. Honestly, there haven't been too many crowdfunded MMOs yet, but I think it's a genre that could really benefit from the lifting of the strictures of publishers. That said, it all comes at a certain cost, because you can't expect the same "AAA" production value in things like graphics from a $1 million budget MMO. But with the availability of fairly reasonable licenses for capable engines you could see very respectable production and a lot of care and personality on the right project.
Of course they do.
Imagine the quality Sandbox that could have been made with SW:Tor's budget and human resource pool, or any game for that matter...
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
Things I miss:
1) Chat Bubbles.
2) Idle animations.
3) Walking.
4) Emotes.
5) Freeform appearance options.
6) Freeform decorating options.
7) Biographies.
8) Sitting animations. Dancing animations. Animations for cellphone use. Animations for other daily activities.
9) Venues that are there for sheer ambiance: pubs, abandoned warehouses, parks, offices, churches.
10) Clothes for different occasions.
In short, I miss those tools that allow players to create interesting characters.
Unfortunately, there's little evidence that developers really care about interesting characters these days. They care about xXDEATHDEALERXx and DaPwner72, who only ever see a character as a vehicle to consume content. xXDEATHDEALERXx and DaPwner72 don't need clothes for special occasions. They don't need /sit or /walk. They don't need narrative biographies, just a ladder ranking. They don't need chat bubbles, and the only venues worth going to are venues with fat loots and XP.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I mean where do you draw the line, though? Remember the glitch Darkfall had where they made the ships fly? I thought it was funny, but people shouted out the game was broken for it. They fix it because it's broken.
Not saying it's you at all, but the MMO crowd will destroy a company for having a buggy game, while at the same time, request the devs not to fix certain bugs...
What are you talking about .. except may be 7, everything on the list is in WOW.
Heck, you can even get a tuxedo, if you want.
That may be true, but many of the newer games aren't even created with these things anymore.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Chat bubbles aren't in a lot of games. Biographies rarely are, same with decorating. freeform appearance is debatable. But then again, those were rare in old games too. Everything else is in every game I have ever played, old and new.