Making a list for you is a waste of time. Go do some research on MMOs with no combat, progression, exploration or story. There are non-combat MMOs. There are MMOs with no progression or ones that you can just buy your progression. There are MMOs with no story. There are MMOs that are so linear you never get to explore. I could name dozens, possibly hundreds if all I have to do is leave only one of those pillars out. Story being the easy one because so many MMOs have no personal story and its a good thing because not every MMO needs a personal story or story at all.
Its not about what released with or without what pillar that was successful.
Its about not limiting the design of MMORPGs by placing a pillar system on them in the first place. I want creative freedom and inspired innovation not checklist MMO design with unnecessary restrictions.
The first step to rethinking the pillars is that a game does not need to have them.
I said successful. The mere fact that a game exists does not make it a success. If you want companies with large enough budgets to turn out a polished product to leave out any of the so-called "pillars," you need to be able to show that they can still make money when they do so.
You single out story as being an easy pillar to leave out. In order for a game to be said to have left out the "story" pillar entirely it would need to have no quests, no lore, no conversations of any kind with NPCs. The only game I can think of that would fit the bill at this point is Landmark, and even it will be adding at least some of those things. There is a substantial difference between not emphasizing a game element, and not having it at all.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Leaving aside how well it worked or not, GW2's Living Story tried to play with the "Time" pillar, a changing world that affects those logged in at that moment. Yes, the world kinda skips and jumps ahead, in that the LS chapters themselves are static, and the passage of time happens in two week intervals when one chapter ends and another starts, but remember, we're leaving the mechanical details aside.
However, I'm not sure if people enjoyed "passage of time", or the changing world per se, or if it was just that they got new content to play through, that they liked.
I think having passage of time in the game, where stuff really changes, is a very double-sided sword. It sounds nice in theory, like getting rid of the holy trinity, but it can easily backfire. People will miss out on events, when they can't log in. They might feel like they missed the first half of the basketball game. What they see in front of them might be confusing.
Or something they really liked might get removed through in game events, the favorite farming/mining spot is now an ogre camp.
There are no pillars of MMO game design there are only possible components that can be used to accomplish the goal. The goal being making a MMO. It's not about rethinking the pillars at all it's about realizing they are not pillars and are optional. Not every MMO needs combat, progression, exploration and story. In fact trying to meet a checklist like that and designing by using this pillar system seems like applying unnecessary restrictions.
I don't think the goal is "making a MMO". The goal is making an MMO that is financially successful. For that people need to enjoy playing, so you need to give them something to do that as many as possible enjoy doing for as long as possible.
The four pillars are trying to grab as large a chunk as possible, and how much time was invested into each determines how many people you get and how long they stick around. Sure, you can leave some pillars out, but you'd miss out on some people playing your game, at least they wouldn't play it for long. Best example would be exploration, which is fairly neglected in recent MMO's, because of their "themepark" nature, and, oh boy, don't we have a bunch of sandbox fans griping about that at every turn.
The more pillars you leave out, or warp from their standard meaning, the more people you won't be making money off of. And you can have the greatest story since Star Wars IV, V, VI, if your combat is weak, everything is on rails, and social aspects are hampered to the point of non-existence, your game will fail.
It's like a book with engaging, deep characters, written by a 3rd grader without a plot. In comic sans.
There is ONE pillar that makes even the most stupid game great: Community
Whether it be a guild, a group, a buddy or a group of buddies you play with, it is this social interaction that is more valuable than any game mode, graphic, story line, or arena.
People want to conquer things together - something that we have been doing quite well as the human race since we killed all the dinosaurs off with our bare hands and some sticks.
Just make games that support the community of players, stop making games that have more meta games in them, focus on the interaction between people not AI and then you will end up with the game that is better than the rest.
Why do more people play WoW than any other game? Because of the Guilds and the people in the guilds not because of the content.
Think of the game as an instrument for social interaction regardless if it be for PvE roleplaying or fighting other real people.
Game developers love to spend millions of dollars making fancy games but real gamers just want to have a good time with there friends adventuring. We used to do it with pen and paper, then we did it in MUDS and now we do it in over engineered amusement parks.
I'm an old fart; GeezerGamer is a young man compared to me. I've been around gaming and role playing since long before most of your parents were a dirty thought in your grandparents' minds... or a slip on the couch, as the case may be.
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a young 2LT at Fort Benning, GA. When not in the motor pool fixing my broken down M551's or out at the gunnery range, I participated in one of the very first role playing clubs, initially starting with Chainmail rules before migrating to the rule sets (as poorly as they were written) in the first D&D manuals (still got them -- along with all my die -- in their original box).
Back then, the delineation between a good DM and a bad DM was a simple matter called "choice". Good DM's made the game they orchestrated about the players. Bad DM's had a rigidly defined scenario, everything figured out in advance, and players had the "opportunity" to play within that scenario. The difference was like choosing between participating in an SCA open-form re-enactment of Medieval combat and watching a TV re-enactment.
It's much more difficult for a DM to have an open form environment where it is necessary to adjust to players' actions on the fly than it is to have everything already scripted; but it is a much more satisfying experience for the players. Bad DM's are like the fat little wimpy rich kids down the street who are the only ones who can afford a football: "If I can't be the quarterback, I'm going to take my football and go home!" Hell, the kid can't even throw the ball three feet...
Bad games are the same way... look at Dragon Age... look at pretty much any game produced by BioWare. Linear game play... usually to an extreme. You get to play a role that's defined for you; you can choose from a skill set; you can win a fight or die and then resurrect or reload to do the fight over; your choices really have no impact on the game and the way it is played.
For all you BioWare afficianados, I apologize. I really dislike BioWare's games. See SW-TOR... linear, linear, linear... That's not roleplaying; it's not gaming... when the limit of my roleplaying is what I can type into the chat box, it's depressing.
After MUDs, when graphical role playing started showing up on computers, SSI showed up with "Pool of Radiance". Decent game, especially considering the platforms it was built on. Even on computers as limited as C64's, players had more choice than we find in a lot of the MMORPGs today. Subsequent computer games offered less and less choice, especially as graphics and sound became more and more "important" (depending on perspective) relative to sales. Marketers took over development, usually MBAs coming up with ways to minimize risk and maximize short term profits, and -- quite frankly -- game play went downhill.
Sandbox games have pretty much disappeared; not just because of changes in the audience, but also because a robust sandbox is much more difficult to code due to all the variations in game play that must be handled; but we, the audience, are also to blame. If we allow the idiot MBAs to shove crappy games down our throats and we buy them, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Not all MBAs are idiots; just the ones working in the game industry, the medical industry, the insurance industry, manufacturing, defense industry, laboratories, textiles, the automotive industry, banking... etc.
Anyway, the ONLY pillar of MMO design I'm interested in is CHOICE. Real choice; not "Well, should I kill a few of the mobs, die, resurrect and respawn, and then kill some more before I die, resurrect and respawn; or should I LFG for two hours before other players show up?"
Give me the opportunty to choose who, what, when, where and why I fight... or give me the opportunity to bypass a fight. Give me the opportunity to THINK my way through problems, not suffer through a stupid multiple-choice dialog that fakes giving me choices. Take the linearity out of MMORPG designs and give me CHOICE.
"Story" is not a pillar of the MMO design. It is why games such as SWTOR whom concentrated too much on "story" are considered failures.
If you want "Story" to be the central part of your MMO then make a single-player RPG as afterall that is what "Story" is meant to be played as....a single player experience.
Another fallacy is that "WildStar" concentrated on the "Combat" pillar, it did not. If they did their combat wouldn't be so absurditly boring. WildStars combat is SO boring, as a matter of fact, that had they actually concentrated on the "Combat Pillar" for their game it wouldn't be so mind numbing. Of course, however, they went with the common themepark-grinder with dull combat route.
Honestly Time is the thing that is most missing from MMORPG's. It would be fantastic to see a game that was literally not the same on day 30 as it was on day 1 and if you weren't on when everything went crazy on day 15 you simply will never see that again.
"Story" is not a pillar of the MMO design. It is why games such as SWTOR whom concentrated too much on "story" are considered failures.
SWTOR is not considered a failure, not by a long shot.
To the OP, interesting ideas. I submit a world with finite resources, in which the environment can be changed. For example, if you chop down a forest where a dragon has been hunting, the dragon will expand his hunt to neighboring towns. etc.
Interaction is still primarily limited to being synchronous in MMORPGs. However when we look at most other forms of interaction online its largely either asynchronous or accessable from mobile devices. I think MMORPGs need to rethink their limited forms of meaningful interaction.
I'm an old fart; GeezerGamer is a young man compared to me. I've been around gaming and role playing since long before most of your parents were a dirty thought in your grandparents' minds... or a slip on the couch, as the case may be.
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a young 2LT at Fort Benning, GA. When not in the motor pool fixing my broken down M551's or out at the gunnery range, I participated in one of the very first role playing clubs, initially starting with Chainmail rules before migrating to the rule sets (as poorly as they were written) in the first D&D manuals (still got them -- along with all my die -- in their original box).
Back then, the delineation between a good DM and a bad DM was a simple matter called "choice". Good DM's made the game they orchestrated about the players. Bad DM's had a rigidly defined scenario, everything figured out in advance, and players had the "opportunity" to play within that scenario. The difference was like choosing between participating in an SCA open-form re-enactment of Medieval combat and watching a TV re-enactment.
It's much more difficult for a DM to have an open form environment where it is necessary to adjust to players' actions on the fly than it is to have everything already scripted; but it is a much more satisfying experience for the players. Bad DM's are like the fat little wimpy rich kids down the street who are the only ones who can afford a football: "If I can't be the quarterback, I'm going to take my football and go home!" Hell, the kid can't even throw the ball three feet...
Bad games are the same way... look at Dragon Age... look at pretty much any game produced by BioWare. Linear game play... usually to an extreme. You get to play a role that's defined for you; you can choose from a skill set; you can win a fight or die and then resurrect or reload to do the fight over; your choices really have no impact on the game and the way it is played.
For all you BioWare afficianados, I apologize. I really dislike BioWare's games. See SW-TOR... linear, linear, linear... That's not roleplaying; it's not gaming... when the limit of my roleplaying is what I can type into the chat box, it's depressing.
After MUDs, when graphical role playing started showing up on computers, SSI showed up with "Pool of Radiance". Decent game, especially considering the platforms it was built on. Even on computers as limited as C64's, players had more choice than we find in a lot of the MMORPGs today. Subsequent computer games offered less and less choice, especially as graphics and sound became more and more "important" (depending on perspective) relative to sales. Marketers took over development, usually MBAs coming up with ways to minimize risk and maximize short term profits, and -- quite frankly -- game play went downhill.
Sandbox games have pretty much disappeared; not just because of changes in the audience, but also because a robust sandbox is much more difficult to code due to all the variations in game play that must be handled; but we, the audience, are also to blame. If we allow the idiot MBAs to shove crappy games down our throats and we buy them, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Not all MBAs are idiots; just the ones working in the game industry, the medical industry, the insurance industry, manufacturing, defense industry, laboratories, textiles, the automotive industry, banking... etc.
Anyway, the ONLY pillar of MMO design I'm interested in is CHOICE. Real choice; not "Well, should I kill a few of the mobs, die, resurrect and respawn, and then kill some more before I die, resurrect and respawn; or should I LFG for two hours before other players show up?"
Give me the opportunty to choose who, what, when, where and why I fight... or give me the opportunity to bypass a fight. Give me the opportunity to THINK my way through problems, not suffer through a stupid multiple-choice dialog that fakes giving me choices. Take the linearity out of MMORPG designs and give me CHOICE.
For once in a long time I agree with almost everything posted here. I mostly agree with how you feel about BioWare games, with the slight exception that their early games were a lot less linear and more enjoyable than their later games. The Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games were thoroughly enjoyable, loaded with story and full of meaningful options. I played them all many times, but then they started down the linear path right after they finished those games.
I also was a pen and paper RPG'er for about fifteen years before I even touched my first MMORPG. There was a guy I met while playing pen and paper RPG's who was one of the most amazing GM's I ever had the privilege of gaming with. I asked him once what the difference is between the good GM's and the terrible ones. He gave me a little bit of gaming wisdom that I took with me forever.
He said "The difference between a good GM and a bad GM is the good one ROLE plays and the bad one ROLL plays. The good one is interested in story and will adapt to what the players decide to do, even if it derails his whole plan. The bad one is only interested in using the dice to get to the end of his predetermined story. He will put up as many walls as he can and box the players in until they reach the goal that he has determined they will reach."
And that's it. It really is. The good games, for me at least, are about choice. They don't put up ridiculous restrictions everywhere I go.
I listed my own personal set of pillars at the beginning of this thread, but you summed it up even better in this post: Choice.
There are no pillars of MMO game design there are only possible components that can be used to accomplish the goal. The goal being making a MMO. It's not about rethinking the pillars at all it's about realizing they are not pillars and are optional. Not every MMO needs combat, progression, exploration and story. In fact trying to meet a checklist like that and designing by using this pillar system seems like applying unnecessary restrictions.
I don't think the goal is "making a MMO". The goal is making an MMO that is financially successful. For that people need to enjoy playing, so you need to give them something to do that as many as possible enjoy doing for as long as possible.
The four pillars are trying to grab as large a chunk as possible, and how much time was invested into each determines how many people you get and how long they stick around. Sure, you can leave some pillars out, but you'd miss out on some people playing your game, at least they wouldn't play it for long. Best example would be exploration, which is fairly neglected in recent MMO's, because of their "themepark" nature, and, oh boy, don't we have a bunch of sandbox fans griping about that at every turn.
The more pillars you leave out, or warp from their standard meaning, the more people you won't be making money off of. And you can have the greatest story since Star Wars IV, V, VI, if your combat is weak, everything is on rails, and social aspects are hampered to the point of non-existence, your game will fail.
It's like a book with engaging, deep characters, written by a 3rd grader without a plot. In comic sans.
Ok I'll try to explain myself better. What about the non-combat pillar, crafting pillar, fun pillar, pvp pillar, pve pillar, social pillar, community pillar, customization pillar, immersion pillar... The pillars that make up a MMO are whatever the designer chooses to best build the game with. Its not about leaving one out, its about designing the game with the pillars that best suit the game.
A better way to say it would be there are no set in stone pillars like the four basic ones outlined in this article. A game could have many pillars of design in it.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Make the game very addictive, so that players invest a lot of their spare time into it.
2. Grindy Progression
Make them invest even more time, because there is some kind of progression that is very grindy and tedious.
3. Peer Pressure
Because MMOs are a social experience it is very easy to put pressure on players not to turn away from their heavily addictive playing style. Your guildmates depend on you and you on them. If you and your guild want to achieve something, you have to be always properly geared and you have to help your friends, too.
4. Fake Competition
This is my favorite one: Include some kind of competetive stuff like PvP. Give the players the illusion that there is some kind of competition in relation to skill and knowledge. However, everything depends on something like gear, which can only be obtained by investing a lot of time or by just bying it over an online-store.
This is how you earn money nowadays!
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
2. story...in an MMO? seriously? I dont know ANYONE who follows the story in an MMO.
Clearly you must not have played TOR, or TSW. There are some MMOs where following the story is the main reason to play.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
"Depending on when someone logs in, a different world event would be taking place. Game admins could take over NPCs bringing new challenges every week. Things would go haywire, and thus be unique."
This right here was the pinnacle of what Ultima Online accomplished for me. The involvement of "Seers" and before that, Game Masters controlling NPCS/Spawns and creating events in game in real time was the most thrilling experiences i have ever had in any MMO. These events inspired players to hold their own less grandiose events, that to this day are still occurring in Ultima Online. Not only were they enjoyable, but with impactful lore, they actually changed and shaped events/areas on the shard you were playing on. I feel this is a big miss "most" of the MMO developers/ support teams haven't been able to grasp. Guild wars 2 is the closest to accomplishing what UO did. Developers should look into community managers like the "Seer" program in UO and have people dedicated to pushing in game events and story.
A few of the ideas in this article like skill decay were attempted in UO.
I have fonder memories of these events than nearly any memory made in any MMO since 2004. I still get chills thinking of the memories i made in a 2d game, that no 3d game has been able to accomplish. ( Zog Cabal, The appearance of Lord British). Heck, the accidental death of Lord British (richard garriot) in an Ultima Online event is still exalted as one of the most epic moments in online gaming. UO was as close to a true sandbox game I have ever played.
Sure sometimes you missed these events, but you heard about them, maybe even seen screenshots. This made you want to be there for the next, and kept you playing until you felt a part of the story.
2. story...in an MMO? seriously? I dont know ANYONE who follows the story in an MMO.
Clearly you must not have played TOR, or TSW. There are some MMOs where following the story is the main reason to play.
I am played TOR,but leave coz it is crap as an mmo(but great sp game) & still playing TSW but dont care for story ,it is waste of time for an mmo,MMO should to be about players interactions not scripted stories .
I tend to think of the pillars of any mmorpg as the pillars of just about any multilayer game. Why play a multilayer game instead of a single player game? Competition, cooperation, and socialization. The further we move away from those, the less a game is going to feel like a multilayer game, let alone a world. There are too many good single player games out there to compete with so far as design and mechanics go. Multilayer games should stick to making certain that competition, cooperation, and socialization are both prevalent and fun first, then decide on what comes next, and try to tie these three pillars into as many features as possible. Or just make a single player game.
Originally posted by Jostle I tend to think of the pillars of any mmorpg as the pillars of just about any multilayer game. Why play a multilayer game instead of a single player game? Competition, cooperation, and socialization. The further we move away from those, the less a game is going to feel like a multilayer game, let alone a world. There are too many good single player games out there to compete with so far as design and mechanics go. Multilayer games should stick to making certain that competition, cooperation, and socialization are both prevalent and fun first, then decide on what comes next, and try to tie these three pillars into as many features as possible. Or just make a single player game.
You're forgetting the first rule; make a fun game. The "pillars" listed here aren't pillars of single or multiplayer games specifically. They are pillars of *successful* games, regardless of how many simultaneous players they support. Generally speaking, including some amount of story increases success. Including combat increases success. Including some degree of exploration increases success. There is no reason that a game must reject any particular element that is successful in single player games just because it is multiplayer. MMORPGs don't have to be crap RPGs in order to be good MMOs, they can be good at both.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I think this idea of pillars is making problems for developing new MMOs. This makes them sound equal and they are not. How many times have you kept playing a bad game because the game play was so good? In MMOs combat is the game play. Everything hangs off there being good combat. Im not saying thats the only reason people play MMOs but its the reason most people play them and why they keep playing them. Big reason WoW did so well was when you played everything just worked so well when diriving your char. Combat was smooth and fun. Now add good story to that and it gets epic. Add exploration will shucks now you are blowing my mind. In MMOs 75% or more of your time is spent in combat for most players. Wana make a good MMO, start there!!!!!
Originally posted by Nanfoodle In MMOs 75% or more of your time is spent in combat for most players. Wana make a good MMO, start there!!!!!
Or make an MMO that isn't so combat focused.
That would work for 10% of the MMOs but like my post said, most people are looking for action. There are some great games out there that do what you sugest but when making a game for the masses more rests on the combat working awesome then the story. Not that I dont want story, Im just saying combat needs the most focus.
Comments
I said successful. The mere fact that a game exists does not make it a success. If you want companies with large enough budgets to turn out a polished product to leave out any of the so-called "pillars," you need to be able to show that they can still make money when they do so.
You single out story as being an easy pillar to leave out. In order for a game to be said to have left out the "story" pillar entirely it would need to have no quests, no lore, no conversations of any kind with NPCs. The only game I can think of that would fit the bill at this point is Landmark, and even it will be adding at least some of those things. There is a substantial difference between not emphasizing a game element, and not having it at all.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Leaving aside how well it worked or not, GW2's Living Story tried to play with the "Time" pillar, a changing world that affects those logged in at that moment. Yes, the world kinda skips and jumps ahead, in that the LS chapters themselves are static, and the passage of time happens in two week intervals when one chapter ends and another starts, but remember, we're leaving the mechanical details aside.
However, I'm not sure if people enjoyed "passage of time", or the changing world per se, or if it was just that they got new content to play through, that they liked.
I think having passage of time in the game, where stuff really changes, is a very double-sided sword. It sounds nice in theory, like getting rid of the holy trinity, but it can easily backfire. People will miss out on events, when they can't log in. They might feel like they missed the first half of the basketball game. What they see in front of them might be confusing.
Or something they really liked might get removed through in game events, the favorite farming/mining spot is now an ogre camp.
I don't think the goal is "making a MMO". The goal is making an MMO that is financially successful. For that people need to enjoy playing, so you need to give them something to do that as many as possible enjoy doing for as long as possible.
The four pillars are trying to grab as large a chunk as possible, and how much time was invested into each determines how many people you get and how long they stick around.
Sure, you can leave some pillars out, but you'd miss out on some people playing your game, at least they wouldn't play it for long. Best example would be exploration, which is fairly neglected in recent MMO's, because of their "themepark" nature, and, oh boy, don't we have a bunch of sandbox fans griping about that at every turn.
The more pillars you leave out, or warp from their standard meaning, the more people you won't be making money off of. And you can have the greatest story since Star Wars IV, V, VI, if your combat is weak, everything is on rails, and social aspects are hampered to the point of non-existence, your game will fail.
It's like a book with engaging, deep characters, written by a 3rd grader without a plot. In comic sans.
There is ONE pillar that makes even the most stupid game great: Community
Whether it be a guild, a group, a buddy or a group of buddies you play with, it is this social interaction that is more valuable than any game mode, graphic, story line, or arena.
People want to conquer things together - something that we have been doing quite well as the human race since we killed all the dinosaurs off with our bare hands and some sticks.
Just make games that support the community of players, stop making games that have more meta games in them, focus on the interaction between people not AI and then you will end up with the game that is better than the rest.
Why do more people play WoW than any other game? Because of the Guilds and the people in the guilds not because of the content.
Think of the game as an instrument for social interaction regardless if it be for PvE roleplaying or fighting other real people.
Game developers love to spend millions of dollars making fancy games but real gamers just want to have a good time with there friends adventuring. We used to do it with pen and paper, then we did it in MUDS and now we do it in over engineered amusement parks.
David Braben, who made the Elite series of games is just simply a very clever man - he studied Electronic Physics at Cambridge University.
His philosophy is to give the gamer as much freedom to do what they want to do as possible.
That is basically it.
I'm an old fart; GeezerGamer is a young man compared to me. I've been around gaming and role playing since long before most of your parents were a dirty thought in your grandparents' minds... or a slip on the couch, as the case may be.
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a young 2LT at Fort Benning, GA. When not in the motor pool fixing my broken down M551's or out at the gunnery range, I participated in one of the very first role playing clubs, initially starting with Chainmail rules before migrating to the rule sets (as poorly as they were written) in the first D&D manuals (still got them -- along with all my die -- in their original box).
Back then, the delineation between a good DM and a bad DM was a simple matter called "choice". Good DM's made the game they orchestrated about the players. Bad DM's had a rigidly defined scenario, everything figured out in advance, and players had the "opportunity" to play within that scenario. The difference was like choosing between participating in an SCA open-form re-enactment of Medieval combat and watching a TV re-enactment.
It's much more difficult for a DM to have an open form environment where it is necessary to adjust to players' actions on the fly than it is to have everything already scripted; but it is a much more satisfying experience for the players. Bad DM's are like the fat little wimpy rich kids down the street who are the only ones who can afford a football: "If I can't be the quarterback, I'm going to take my football and go home!" Hell, the kid can't even throw the ball three feet...
Bad games are the same way... look at Dragon Age... look at pretty much any game produced by BioWare. Linear game play... usually to an extreme. You get to play a role that's defined for you; you can choose from a skill set; you can win a fight or die and then resurrect or reload to do the fight over; your choices really have no impact on the game and the way it is played.
For all you BioWare afficianados, I apologize. I really dislike BioWare's games. See SW-TOR... linear, linear, linear... That's not roleplaying; it's not gaming... when the limit of my roleplaying is what I can type into the chat box, it's depressing.
After MUDs, when graphical role playing started showing up on computers, SSI showed up with "Pool of Radiance". Decent game, especially considering the platforms it was built on. Even on computers as limited as C64's, players had more choice than we find in a lot of the MMORPGs today. Subsequent computer games offered less and less choice, especially as graphics and sound became more and more "important" (depending on perspective) relative to sales. Marketers took over development, usually MBAs coming up with ways to minimize risk and maximize short term profits, and -- quite frankly -- game play went downhill.
Sandbox games have pretty much disappeared; not just because of changes in the audience, but also because a robust sandbox is much more difficult to code due to all the variations in game play that must be handled; but we, the audience, are also to blame. If we allow the idiot MBAs to shove crappy games down our throats and we buy them, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Not all MBAs are idiots; just the ones working in the game industry, the medical industry, the insurance industry, manufacturing, defense industry, laboratories, textiles, the automotive industry, banking... etc.
Anyway, the ONLY pillar of MMO design I'm interested in is CHOICE. Real choice; not "Well, should I kill a few of the mobs, die, resurrect and respawn, and then kill some more before I die, resurrect and respawn; or should I LFG for two hours before other players show up?"
Give me the opportunty to choose who, what, when, where and why I fight... or give me the opportunity to bypass a fight. Give me the opportunity to THINK my way through problems, not suffer through a stupid multiple-choice dialog that fakes giving me choices. Take the linearity out of MMORPG designs and give me CHOICE.
"Story" is not a pillar of the MMO design. It is why games such as SWTOR whom concentrated too much on "story" are considered failures.
If you want "Story" to be the central part of your MMO then make a single-player RPG as afterall that is what "Story" is meant to be played as....a single player experience.
Another fallacy is that "WildStar" concentrated on the "Combat" pillar, it did not. If they did their combat wouldn't be so absurditly boring. WildStars combat is SO boring, as a matter of fact, that had they actually concentrated on the "Combat Pillar" for their game it wouldn't be so mind numbing. Of course, however, they went with the common themepark-grinder with dull combat route.
-Cheers
SWTOR is not considered a failure, not by a long shot.
To the OP, interesting ideas. I submit a world with finite resources, in which the environment can be changed. For example, if you chop down a forest where a dragon has been hunting, the dragon will expand his hunt to neighboring towns. etc.
For once in a long time I agree with almost everything posted here. I mostly agree with how you feel about BioWare games, with the slight exception that their early games were a lot less linear and more enjoyable than their later games. The Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games were thoroughly enjoyable, loaded with story and full of meaningful options. I played them all many times, but then they started down the linear path right after they finished those games.
I also was a pen and paper RPG'er for about fifteen years before I even touched my first MMORPG. There was a guy I met while playing pen and paper RPG's who was one of the most amazing GM's I ever had the privilege of gaming with. I asked him once what the difference is between the good GM's and the terrible ones. He gave me a little bit of gaming wisdom that I took with me forever.
He said "The difference between a good GM and a bad GM is the good one ROLE plays and the bad one ROLL plays. The good one is interested in story and will adapt to what the players decide to do, even if it derails his whole plan. The bad one is only interested in using the dice to get to the end of his predetermined story. He will put up as many walls as he can and box the players in until they reach the goal that he has determined they will reach."
And that's it. It really is. The good games, for me at least, are about choice. They don't put up ridiculous restrictions everywhere I go.
I listed my own personal set of pillars at the beginning of this thread, but you summed it up even better in this post: Choice.
Ok I'll try to explain myself better. What about the non-combat pillar, crafting pillar, fun pillar, pvp pillar, pve pillar, social pillar, community pillar, customization pillar, immersion pillar... The pillars that make up a MMO are whatever the designer chooses to best build the game with. Its not about leaving one out, its about designing the game with the pillars that best suit the game.
A better way to say it would be there are no set in stone pillars like the four basic ones outlined in this article. A game could have many pillars of design in it.
"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/The "secret" Pillars of MMOs are:
1. Addiction
Make the game very addictive, so that players invest a lot of their spare time into it.
2. Grindy Progression
Make them invest even more time, because there is some kind of progression that is very grindy and tedious.
3. Peer Pressure
Because MMOs are a social experience it is very easy to put pressure on players not to turn away from their heavily addictive playing style. Your guildmates depend on you and you on them. If you and your guild want to achieve something, you have to be always properly geared and you have to help your friends, too.
4. Fake Competition
This is my favorite one: Include some kind of competetive stuff like PvP. Give the players the illusion that there is some kind of competition in relation to skill and knowledge. However, everything depends on something like gear, which can only be obtained by investing a lot of time or by just bying it over an online-store.
This is how you earn money nowadays!
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
1. building wasnt even on the list. crafting?
2. story...in an MMO? seriously? I dont know ANYONE who follows the story in an MMO.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Exploration, Story, Combat, Progression would be my order.
"story...in an MMO? seriously? I dont know ANYONE who follows the story in an MMO." - Shame on you, your not playing minecraft now you know.
Clearly you must not have played TOR, or TSW. There are some MMOs where following the story is the main reason to play.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
"Depending on when someone logs in, a different world event would be taking place. Game admins could take over NPCs bringing new challenges every week. Things would go haywire, and thus be unique."
This right here was the pinnacle of what Ultima Online accomplished for me. The involvement of "Seers" and before that, Game Masters controlling NPCS/Spawns and creating events in game in real time was the most thrilling experiences i have ever had in any MMO. These events inspired players to hold their own less grandiose events, that to this day are still occurring in Ultima Online. Not only were they enjoyable, but with impactful lore, they actually changed and shaped events/areas on the shard you were playing on. I feel this is a big miss "most" of the MMO developers/ support teams haven't been able to grasp. Guild wars 2 is the closest to accomplishing what UO did. Developers should look into community managers like the "Seer" program in UO and have people dedicated to pushing in game events and story.
A few of the ideas in this article like skill decay were attempted in UO.
I have fonder memories of these events than nearly any memory made in any MMO since 2004. I still get chills thinking of the memories i made in a 2d game, that no 3d game has been able to accomplish. ( Zog Cabal, The appearance of Lord British). Heck, the accidental death of Lord British (richard garriot) in an Ultima Online event is still exalted as one of the most epic moments in online gaming. UO was as close to a true sandbox game I have ever played.
Sure sometimes you missed these events, but you heard about them, maybe even seen screenshots. This made you want to be there for the next, and kept you playing until you felt a part of the story.
Playing: D3-RoS, ESO, part-time WoW
Played: Defiance, FF:RR, Tera, Ultima Online, GW2, EQ1, Diablo1-3.
I am played TOR,but leave coz it is crap as an mmo(but great sp game) & still playing TSW but dont care for story ,it is waste of time for an mmo,MMO should to be about players interactions not scripted stories .
You're forgetting the first rule; make a fun game. The "pillars" listed here aren't pillars of single or multiplayer games specifically. They are pillars of *successful* games, regardless of how many simultaneous players they support. Generally speaking, including some amount of story increases success. Including combat increases success. Including some degree of exploration increases success. There is no reason that a game must reject any particular element that is successful in single player games just because it is multiplayer. MMORPGs don't have to be crap RPGs in order to be good MMOs, they can be good at both.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Or make an MMO that isn't so combat focused.
That would work for 10% of the MMOs but like my post said, most people are looking for action. There are some great games out there that do what you sugest but when making a game for the masses more rests on the combat working awesome then the story. Not that I dont want story, Im just saying combat needs the most focus.