Originally posted by goldtoof Nari Still doesn't make them mmos.
It makes them popular games that mmorpg might as well cash in on for site traffick.
As if you are the authority.
I will take the industry, and MMORPG sites' opinions over yours. Thank you very much.
Wrong as usual. Pointing out that the editors here have decided to include it on their website does not mean it's an MMO. It means it's a really popular game that probably has a decent amount of overlap in playerbase.
Look at it this way, this website doesn't list starcraft 2 as being an MMO. What's the difference between LoL and SC2 that makes one an MMO and not the other?
I think I would enjoy a game that was mostly about adventure and exploration and everything being badass from the start (enemies included). Not exactly what OP described, but could still work.
But I also recognize a lot of people don't want anything close to that. They want levels or progression of some kind from easy to hard. Maybe the human brain craves things like order, progression, strict rules, min/maxing and so on. I don't really know. For myself, I used to be into that. Now I'm kinda done with those mechanics and I just crave a cool experience first and foremost.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Not really sure if this has been tossed out, new ideas are rare so it probably has. Why not just start the MMORPG with end-game. ...
Why would be this good? So every endgamer could complain after few months how boring is endgame because did all over and over again several times? And how would you LEARN to play your character to be able to play at all? Etc etc. Ok, one solution would be that encoders spend all time for zillion of dungeons instead of concentrating on travel part ... but this does not appeal to me.
How about they let there be the option for those of us who like storylines and lore building characters? I personally wouldn't care how many chose not to and skipped to the end, because that is what sony did with heroic characters being level 85. You can buy them in the marketplace with 280 aa baubles for real money now. Some players didn't want to do all of the leveling and were speed/power leveling and buying gold from gold sellers.
So, if you take that out you don't have to support gold sellers and hackers as much anymore. You can make gear attainable with decent 10% or 33% drop rates, and not make gear insanely rare ala WoW's mount drop rate or Everquest 2's early Runnyeye the Gathering healer/tank cloak drop rates.
Make items reasonably attainable in 30 or so runs, not 200 or 1000 runs, and give people the choice if they want to skip ahead or go slowly at their own pace. How can this be done? Well, the game would be level-less with skills attainable and yet not fully required for raiding and grouping.
You could start off with enough skills to raid, sort of like slow somewhat tedious but possible raids, and then build up to new tiers and new raids and fancier skills that make raids faster and easier more exciting and fun, open up more bosses in new wings of that raid...
Not everyone who levels to max level knows how to play the game or cares, because people are always going to be distracted regardless, even if they took 7 years to level their char, they might show up and do terrible at any given raid.
Some people are atrocious at raiding, because to learn how to raid requires raiding, soloing a character to 80 or 100 isn't going to make you a good raider, it makes you a good soloist. Grouping is going to make you a good grouper, and slightly better at raiding, but you're still not necessarily used to teamwork and mass cooperation. By going straight into raiding, they can make raids really challenging and difficult like Everquest 1, and quit making everything boring and easy like on WoW, where players aren't experienced at raiding and are mostly only good at soloing and zerging dungeons.
How can you be raiding, when you have 90 levels of experience at soloing/grouping, but 0 levels of experience at raiding? You should have raid where you can gain experience, and grow as a raider. Now the lore should be there present in everything the raid does, like Everquest 1's planes of power killing the Gods themselves, defeating the Plane of Time, you feel epic and you see the lore right there in the raid. You should loot books from corpses with the lore stories, and see interactive and cinematic cutscenes, watch the npcs show up and talk to you and each other, meanwhile soloists can get the same storyline information from reading books out in the world and doing solo quests/shiny artifact collections etc.
Not really sure if this has been tossed out, new ideas are rare so it probably has. Why not just start the MMORPG with end-game. ...
Why would be this good? So every endgamer could complain after few months how boring is endgame because did all over and over again several times? And how would you LEARN to play your character to be able to play at all? Etc etc. Ok, one solution would be that encoders spend all time for zillion of dungeons instead of concentrating on travel part ... but this does not appeal to me.
Most MMOs don't last that long anyway.
Think of it as an action game. Many SP games have no leveling, and you are "at end game" right from the start. It is really about if the content is fun.
May be playing many different dungeons with only loot progression is fun for some? People played Diablo 1 & 2 just for that for years.
These raids would have difficulty levels to seperate players, they would still have some equipment ilvl gear score requirements, something that flags you like Everquest 1 etc.
Something like challenge mode only available to player with the achievement from defeating standard mode raid bosses. Not everyone would be able to enter all raids immediately. There would be easier raids for you to learn and grow in, you'd learn your class the obvious way, bothering to read your skills, bothering to experiment and read online, bothering to ask questions, and just plain having fun enjoying the game and creating new strategies to beat raid bosses.
If players aren't cutting it, they can still get kicked like on WoW. You don't need to keep players who are terrible, the bosses would range from easy to extremely hardcore god mode hard.
As long as there are some types of ranking, players would not just waltz in, it isn't any different from getting players in Downfall LFR wearing Timeless Isle gear, who never even did Throne of Thunder LFRs , and just waltzed right in on their brand new level 90 that they only played for about 2 or 3 days.
It is already happening, lets just make use of that kick functionality, and try to communicate tell people what to do, teach them how to raid. People show up all the time not doing their jobs on their max level 90's, so it won't even matter. I'd still level myself through endless solo content like I do now and some groups, because that's what I enjoy, but hey, let us not keep supporting gold sellers and hackers forever, by supporting the power level services and free ebayed max level characters!
I look at this discussion and all its valid points and I wonder why there's so much of an issue when most games reduce the difficulty, so much so that you can hit end-game faster than installing the game. (exaggeration, but you get my point.)
Originally posted by soratta I look at this discussion and all its valid points and I wonder why there's so much of an issue when most games reduce the difficulty, so much so that you can hit end-game faster than installing the game. (exaggeration, but you get my point.)
I guess it depends whether you consider leveling content "the important stuff", or not.
Back when dinosaurs roamed, leveling content was "all there was". So us old guys tend to frequently think of it as "the True game". (Capital T on True).
Yet, people keep piling up pressed against the cap...spending more and more time there...way more time than how long it took to cap out...maybe that's "the True game".
And regardless which way your company turns on this particular issue, someone is going to say "ur doin it rong".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
How about just no levels. Make it so i can do simple quests on day one of playing a game, or likea real person, make it so i can go journey to a far off place and help kill a big bad monster. I can rake the leaves in my yard today or i can go white water rafting. So instead of an arbitrary level and gear requirements to do so many things in a game, make it so things are doable, but you get better at them with skill upgrades thru questing and make most quests rewards money or skill points so you can quest anywhere and still make progress. On big raid or pvp battle you could still have fun and be useful, just not as much as someone with more skills, skill ponts, and money for supplies. At least there would not be that 50+ level barrier to entry just to do " end game" things, and it would also make eaier content more meaningfull to complete or even go back to.
Not really sure if this has been tossed out, new ideas are rare so it probably has. Why not just start the MMORPG with end-game. Instead of pouring money into the development of a game where the majority of the content just gets grinded through in less than a week. The majority of content people end up playing are end game raids, dungeons, and pvp. Why not create a game where you begin with everything a hero would have anyways. Make rewards fantastically crafted cosmetic items or rare wickedly gruesome mounts. There's always the addition of new tiers or level of gear.
The content development would be solely focused on what would be end-game in today's MMORPGs but since there would be more of a focus on this development the actual content would be more in-depth and better developed. You could always add story into these end-game elements.
Just a rough thought but that kind of game would interest me.
Games have tried this. The most recent example being GW2.
The problem is, that when you do that, gamers complain about there being a lack of 'progression'. People like that feeling of 'ding'. Of the game telling you 'hey, you're getting better!', or 'wow you're awesome!'.
Look up the skinner-box model. There's a reason we now see some form of it in almost every game nowadays. It exploits a fundamental part of the human psyche, and there isn't much sign of us wanting different any time soon. People have questioned it for years. Have explained numerous times the problems w/ designing a game that way. And yet we still insist on playing games that way.
It's not unlike how millions of people know Mc Donald's is terrible food, and more expensive than eating healthy. However, millions of people still eat the food, because it's easy.
I would love a game that started at endgame and didn't waste money on the leveling process. It boggles my mind how companies pour so much money into a part of the game that in the end will constitute at most 5% of their most loyal players' game time.
If instead all that money were spent on endgame we could have a truly amazing endgame catering to all different play styles, no to mention you would be able to play with all yours friends since you'd all be the same level.
Originally posted by soratta I look at this discussion and all its valid points and I wonder why there's so much of an issue when most games reduce the difficulty, so much so that you can hit end-game faster than installing the game. (exaggeration, but you get my point.)
I guess it depends whether you consider leveling content "the important stuff", or not.
Back when dinosaurs roamed, leveling content was "all there was". So us old guys tend to frequently think of it as "the True game". (Capital T on True).
Yet, people keep piling up pressed against the cap...spending more and more time there...way more time than how long it took to cap out...maybe that's "the True game".
And regardless which way your company turns on this particular issue, someone is going to say "ur doin it rong".
I have been playing online games since '93 and I would say that even back then a very small percentage of my play time was spent leveling. Most of my time was spent at max level. Sure, there was not much endgame back then, but even though leveling was slower you still hit max level quite quickly if you were a devoted gamer. End game back then mostly just meant chatting with people and helping lowbie guild members.
Originally posted by Kilrain Better yet, make the entire progression enjoyable and take several years to complete. I can't forget how long it took to level my characters in EQ and I enjoyed every minute of it. Not saying an EQ clone is in order but making the game enjoyable is far more important than worrying about "end game". When that phrase didn't exist, mmo's were more enjoyable.
Better yet, make the entire progression enjoyable and take several days to complete. I can't forget how long it took to level my characters in EQ and I find it quite boring. An EQ clone is out of the question and making the game enjoyable is far more important than stretch out leveling to a glacier pace. When it took too long to level, mmo's were much less enjoyable.
It is easier to keep players happy with the idea they are doing something by going up levels than it is to create interesting end game play. This has left MMOs in the tricky position of trying to be two games in one. You can put players in end game at the start, PS and PS2 do that. But they are MMOFPS, not truly a MMORPG, so that's partly why it works for them.
End game systems revolve around group play, raids and faction wars or building be it crafting or houses. A MMO where you do the normal levelling in a quest environment, then reach end level and go out into the wilderness to sandbox gameplay might be the best of both worlds. You could try to start with a sandbox endgame of course, just don't expect your players to be in the millions.
Originally posted by soratta I look at this discussion and all its valid points and I wonder why there's so much of an issue when most games reduce the difficulty, so much so that you can hit end-game faster than installing the game. (exaggeration, but you get my point.)
I guess it depends whether you consider leveling content "the important stuff", or not.
Back when dinosaurs roamed, leveling content was "all there was". So us old guys tend to frequently think of it as "the True game". (Capital T on True).
Yet, people keep piling up pressed against the cap...spending more and more time there...way more time than how long it took to cap out...maybe that's "the True game".
And regardless which way your company turns on this particular issue, someone is going to say "ur doin it rong".
I have been playing online games since '93 and I would say that even back then a very small percentage of my play time was spent leveling. Most of my time was spent at max level. Sure, there was not much endgame back then, but even though leveling was slower you still hit max level quite quickly if you were a devoted gamer. End game back then mostly just meant chatting with people and helping lowbie guild members.
I can point you at a title where you can't expect to cap out in the first decade, even if you're a two-percenter, if you like.
That was quite common in MUDs. Single-source XP, slow gens, lots of time sink, ascending log growth xp charts. Old old skool.
Note: I didn't say it would be a title you (or anyone, these days) would find enjoyable.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by soratta I look at this discussion and all its valid points and I wonder why there's so much of an issue when most games reduce the difficulty, so much so that you can hit end-game faster than installing the game. (exaggeration, but you get my point.)
Because "faster" is relative. Take WOW as an example, it will take casual months to get to 90, and they think it is too long.
Sure a hard core playing night and day probably can do it in 2 weeks, but most people don't play like that.
Comments
Wrong as usual. Pointing out that the editors here have decided to include it on their website does not mean it's an MMO. It means it's a really popular game that probably has a decent amount of overlap in playerbase.
Look at it this way, this website doesn't list starcraft 2 as being an MMO. What's the difference between LoL and SC2 that makes one an MMO and not the other?
I think I would enjoy a game that was mostly about adventure and exploration and everything being badass from the start (enemies included). Not exactly what OP described, but could still work.
But I also recognize a lot of people don't want anything close to that. They want levels or progression of some kind from easy to hard. Maybe the human brain craves things like order, progression, strict rules, min/maxing and so on. I don't really know. For myself, I used to be into that. Now I'm kinda done with those mechanics and I just crave a cool experience first and foremost.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
So a gear centric game with the added ability for griefers to change terrain to inconvenient others?
Why would be this good? So every endgamer could complain after few months how boring is endgame because did all over and over again several times? And how would you LEARN to play your character to be able to play at all? Etc etc. Ok, one solution would be that encoders spend all time for zillion of dungeons instead of concentrating on travel part ... but this does not appeal to me.
How about they let there be the option for those of us who like storylines and lore building characters? I personally wouldn't care how many chose not to and skipped to the end, because that is what sony did with heroic characters being level 85. You can buy them in the marketplace with 280 aa baubles for real money now. Some players didn't want to do all of the leveling and were speed/power leveling and buying gold from gold sellers.
So, if you take that out you don't have to support gold sellers and hackers as much anymore. You can make gear attainable with decent 10% or 33% drop rates, and not make gear insanely rare ala WoW's mount drop rate or Everquest 2's early Runnyeye the Gathering healer/tank cloak drop rates.
Make items reasonably attainable in 30 or so runs, not 200 or 1000 runs, and give people the choice if they want to skip ahead or go slowly at their own pace. How can this be done? Well, the game would be level-less with skills attainable and yet not fully required for raiding and grouping.
You could start off with enough skills to raid, sort of like slow somewhat tedious but possible raids, and then build up to new tiers and new raids and fancier skills that make raids faster and easier more exciting and fun, open up more bosses in new wings of that raid...
Not everyone who levels to max level knows how to play the game or cares, because people are always going to be distracted regardless, even if they took 7 years to level their char, they might show up and do terrible at any given raid.
Some people are atrocious at raiding, because to learn how to raid requires raiding, soloing a character to 80 or 100 isn't going to make you a good raider, it makes you a good soloist. Grouping is going to make you a good grouper, and slightly better at raiding, but you're still not necessarily used to teamwork and mass cooperation. By going straight into raiding, they can make raids really challenging and difficult like Everquest 1, and quit making everything boring and easy like on WoW, where players aren't experienced at raiding and are mostly only good at soloing and zerging dungeons.
How can you be raiding, when you have 90 levels of experience at soloing/grouping, but 0 levels of experience at raiding? You should have raid where you can gain experience, and grow as a raider. Now the lore should be there present in everything the raid does, like Everquest 1's planes of power killing the Gods themselves, defeating the Plane of Time, you feel epic and you see the lore right there in the raid. You should loot books from corpses with the lore stories, and see interactive and cinematic cutscenes, watch the npcs show up and talk to you and each other, meanwhile soloists can get the same storyline information from reading books out in the world and doing solo quests/shiny artifact collections etc.
Most MMOs don't last that long anyway.
Think of it as an action game. Many SP games have no leveling, and you are "at end game" right from the start. It is really about if the content is fun.
May be playing many different dungeons with only loot progression is fun for some? People played Diablo 1 & 2 just for that for years.
These raids would have difficulty levels to seperate players, they would still have some equipment ilvl gear score requirements, something that flags you like Everquest 1 etc.
Something like challenge mode only available to player with the achievement from defeating standard mode raid bosses. Not everyone would be able to enter all raids immediately. There would be easier raids for you to learn and grow in, you'd learn your class the obvious way, bothering to read your skills, bothering to experiment and read online, bothering to ask questions, and just plain having fun enjoying the game and creating new strategies to beat raid bosses.
If players aren't cutting it, they can still get kicked like on WoW. You don't need to keep players who are terrible, the bosses would range from easy to extremely hardcore god mode hard.
As long as there are some types of ranking, players would not just waltz in, it isn't any different from getting players in Downfall LFR wearing Timeless Isle gear, who never even did Throne of Thunder LFRs , and just waltzed right in on their brand new level 90 that they only played for about 2 or 3 days.
It is already happening, lets just make use of that kick functionality, and try to communicate tell people what to do, teach them how to raid. People show up all the time not doing their jobs on their max level 90's, so it won't even matter. I'd still level myself through endless solo content like I do now and some groups, because that's what I enjoy, but hey, let us not keep supporting gold sellers and hackers forever, by supporting the power level services and free ebayed max level characters!
I guess it depends whether you consider leveling content "the important stuff", or not.
Back when dinosaurs roamed, leveling content was "all there was". So us old guys tend to frequently think of it as "the True game". (Capital T on True).
Yet, people keep piling up pressed against the cap...spending more and more time there...way more time than how long it took to cap out...maybe that's "the True game".
And regardless which way your company turns on this particular issue, someone is going to say "ur doin it rong".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Not all who wander are lost...
Games have tried this. The most recent example being GW2.
The problem is, that when you do that, gamers complain about there being a lack of 'progression'. People like that feeling of 'ding'. Of the game telling you 'hey, you're getting better!', or 'wow you're awesome!'.
Look up the skinner-box model. There's a reason we now see some form of it in almost every game nowadays. It exploits a fundamental part of the human psyche, and there isn't much sign of us wanting different any time soon. People have questioned it for years. Have explained numerous times the problems w/ designing a game that way. And yet we still insist on playing games that way.
It's not unlike how millions of people know Mc Donald's is terrible food, and more expensive than eating healthy. However, millions of people still eat the food, because it's easy.
I would love a game that started at endgame and didn't waste money on the leveling process. It boggles my mind how companies pour so much money into a part of the game that in the end will constitute at most 5% of their most loyal players' game time.
If instead all that money were spent on endgame we could have a truly amazing endgame catering to all different play styles, no to mention you would be able to play with all yours friends since you'd all be the same level.
I have been playing online games since '93 and I would say that even back then a very small percentage of my play time was spent leveling. Most of my time was spent at max level. Sure, there was not much endgame back then, but even though leveling was slower you still hit max level quite quickly if you were a devoted gamer. End game back then mostly just meant chatting with people and helping lowbie guild members.
Eve Online.
It is easier to keep players happy with the idea they are doing something by going up levels than it is to create interesting end game play. This has left MMOs in the tricky position of trying to be two games in one. You can put players in end game at the start, PS and PS2 do that. But they are MMOFPS, not truly a MMORPG, so that's partly why it works for them.
End game systems revolve around group play, raids and faction wars or building be it crafting or houses. A MMO where you do the normal levelling in a quest environment, then reach end level and go out into the wilderness to sandbox gameplay might be the best of both worlds. You could try to start with a sandbox endgame of course, just don't expect your players to be in the millions.
I can point you at a title where you can't expect to cap out in the first decade, even if you're a two-percenter, if you like.
That was quite common in MUDs. Single-source XP, slow gens, lots of time sink, ascending log growth xp charts. Old old skool.
Note: I didn't say it would be a title you (or anyone, these days) would find enjoyable.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Because "faster" is relative. Take WOW as an example, it will take casual months to get to 90, and they think it is too long.
Sure a hard core playing night and day probably can do it in 2 weeks, but most people don't play like that.