There are a ton of ways that MMOs could go to provide "better" experiences than what we have today, but as the final judgement call comes down to the individual player, there is no right answer. Given the way the industry has gone and how much money its making, perhaps todays MMOs are better, its just that a lot of us here are part of a small vocal minority.
"better" is subjective, as you have pointed out, and since the market is growing, it must be "better" for many.
But the point is that MMOs are changing to adapt to what players want. The old classical mmorpg designs are no longer adequate. Why do you think MMOs are so broadened? That is because devs are no longer want to be constrained by old MMORPG designs. They may as well just make online games with any design that they think their audience will like better.
Why bother with the old tropes if that is not what their audience want?
Sure there are still a small minority who wants to go back to the past, but no dev is obligated to provide that. May be some indie will provide that niche game, may be not. But the era of big classical mmorpg is pretty much in decline. I would not say is over ... but certainly not where the growth is.
Well, can't disagree with anything you've said and I'm not in favour of simply going back to old designs.
I do feel, however, that future MMO designers should try to use the accessibility and instant gratification of modern mmos in combination with more old-school designs for longevity and community. There are always lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made, and the thing that annoys me most about modern mmos is their inability to learn from past mistakes.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Well, can't disagree with anything you've said and I'm not in favour of simply going back to old designs.
I do feel, however, that future MMO designers should try to use the accessibility and instant gratification of modern mmos in combination with more old-school designs for longevity and community. There are always lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made, and the thing that annoys me most about modern mmos is their inability to learn from past mistakes.
Why do they have to incorporate old designs?
I don't think modern devs don't learn from the past. It is just that people here don't like the lessons. They learned to make instanced games, make MMOs more convenient ... all with great successes. And lately, they learn not to make new classical mmorpg anymore.
You don't think all these changes happened randomly, do you?
Look at MOBA .. totally new design .. very successful. Look at Overwatch .. a different type of shooter. You cannot claim that devs are not doing something new. Sure, these may not be MMOs (depends on whom you ask), but certainly devs are not standing still.
You don't think all these changes happened randomly, do you?
No but a lot of those changes happened in order to "speak" to a different demographic of players.
Just like "Pop" music speaks to a different and larger demographic of players doesn't mean it invalidates what has gone before.
Exactly. And this "new" set of players grew the market. It is not about invalidating .. it is about growth. Graphical adventures does not "invalidate" text adventures. Do you see many still making those (aside from a very small niche)?
Well, can't disagree with anything you've said and I'm not in favour of simply going back to old designs.
I do feel, however, that future MMO designers should try to use the accessibility and instant gratification of modern mmos in combination with more old-school designs for longevity and community. There are always lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made, and the thing that annoys me most about modern mmos is their inability to learn from past mistakes.
Why do they have to incorporate old designs?
I don't think modern devs don't learn from the past. It is just that people here don't like the lessons. They learned to make instanced games, make MMOs more convenient ... all with great successes. And lately, they learn not to make new classical mmorpg anymore.
You don't think all these changes happened randomly, do you?
Look at MOBA .. totally new design .. very successful. Look at Overwatch .. a different type of shooter. You cannot claim that devs are not doing something new. Sure, these may not be MMOs (depends on whom you ask), but certainly devs are not standing still.
They don't have to incorporate old designs, but they should incorporate old design principles.
So, as an example: vertical gear progression at endgame.
This is a design decision taken from single player RPGs and put into modern MMOs. Its been shown over the years that this is a bad mechanic at endgame: it artificially segregates the community into small chunks, making finding groups harder and thus reducing participation in group content at endgame. It is a design principle that can only work with very large populations (like WoW) and doesn't even serve much purpose beyond another artificial goal.
This should be changed to horizontal gear progression at endgame (like some older MMOs). It makes grouping easier, it stops ridiculous stat inflation from segregating the community and, if past games are anything to go by, will increase specialisation and customisation of characters rather than being forced down a stat route due to gear.
As for things happening randomly, no, I know they don't happen randomly. However, I know that in most game companies, the design is led either by a single person or a small team of people. These people, like everyone else, are susceptible to mistakes and errors of judgement as well as personal ego and preferences. Often, the lead designers only report to upper management and unfortunately, upper management in large games companies often aren't gamers and so don't understand the nuances of game design.
Also, there are unintended consequences of design decisions. The MMO market has continuously moved towards accessibility and bite-sized, instant gratification gameplay sessions. Thats fine and I understand the reasons, its obviously worked to grow the market and get more people playing MMOs but the unintended consequence is that player retention has plummeted and so developers have had to resort to different business models just to stay afloat.
What I'm saying is that it should be possible to retain the advances the genre has made over the last decade whilst also addressing the problems that these advances have caused by learning from older MMOs.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Basically mmo's have become single player games with a login screen and very little more.So to be a good mmo it has to be designed as a mmo.
So yeah if a developer can't figure it out,i am not interested.
No .. you can also change the definitions of MMOs, which is kind of what happened in the industry.
Sure, you are not interested .. but many others are. Why do you think devs have gone down this path?
They have gone down that path to make money,i have no problem with that. However if you want to make something other than a MMO go ahead,nobody is stopping you,just don't PRETEND to be a MMO because you have a login screen.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Basically mmo's have become single player games with a login screen and very little more.So to be a good mmo it has to be designed as a mmo.
So yeah if a developer can't figure it out,i am not interested.
No .. you can also change the definitions of MMOs, which is kind of what happened in the industry.
Sure, you are not interested .. but many others are. Why do you think devs have gone down this path?
They have gone down that path to make money,i have no problem with that. However if you want to make something other than a MMO go ahead,nobody is stopping you,just don't PRETEND to be a MMO because you have a login screen.
you do understand that it is not the devs who are calling everything MMOs, but the MMO sites and reviewers?
In fact, didn't the dev of Destiny said that it is not a MMO, but many websites call it as such?
Plus, if someone is calling Destiny a MMO, there is really nothing you can do about it. Tell them to stop obviously does not work. Otherwise, they would have already stopped given so many people calling them out here.
They don't have to incorporate old designs, but they should incorporate old design principles.
So, as an example: vertical gear progression at endgame.
Why should they? They don't even have to make MMORPGs, do they? If they make a pvp instanced action game like WoT, vertical gear progression won't even apply.
ESO tried phasing and had more complaints about it till they almost completely shut it down. Phasing with limited number of players might fix the issue if you allowed friends to reach and help each other. I'm not sure if this is pvp oriented the events you are planning since players can choose a side. We pretty much have this massive pvp 24/7 right now in ESO and GW2. What you are proposing has already been done by a lot of mmorpg's except for a few minor details. Which is why your title makes absolutely no sense.
They have to go where no MMO has been before. That easy.
Thinking about which MMOs I liked the most I came to that conclusion - EQ: first MMO for me at all. Never can beat that - DAoC: the RvR - EQ2: my themepark experience (most had WoW here)
After that all MMOs either were not made for me (like EVE, really innovative for it's time but not my cup of tea) or they were just the same with minor modifications.
How about an MMO with a real dynamic and living world. I thougth EQNext might go into that direction with StoryBricks. But they kicked them out, I hate their art style also and it's questionable whether it will relase ever at all.
So yeah, MMO developers, go where no MMO game has been before. Risk something. And I might be interested.
ESO tried phasing and had more complaints about it till they almost completely shut it down. Phasing with limited number of players might fix the issue if you allowed friends to reach and help each other. I'm not sure if this is pvp oriented the events you are planning since players can choose a side. We pretty much have this massive pvp 24/7 right now in ESO and GW2. What you are proposing has already been done by a lot of mmorpg's except for a few minor details. Which is why your title makes absolutely no sense.
I am talking about Phasing on a smaller scale. ESO had the entire world phased right. I am talking about having an event or 2 that has 2 maybe 3 open world areas that phase and they will be small compared to the sizes of the world. Also not having large amounts of people inside any given phase. Think a bit like WOW WOTLK phasing only cut down to 2 or 3 spots right and have an event set aside for that where you could spin up Phasing servers which take the load off of the Gaming servers and Database servers. The Phasing server does all the processing on it and just pulls and passes reads and rights.
Also by making what ever players do count towards the event they will not overload 1 area as much as if the event was like WOWs AQ event right. So if its a guild's raid night (Raiding would just be another format of playing the game not WOW like end game raiding) and that guild wants to raid, they can do so and it would count for their event activity they would just have to do the Event Raid instance.
I am thinking world events but where some of the race/faction have their own events then having a few smaller events surrounding the one large event. Basically linked events around the world that players can play with however they want but certain things like phased PVP battles will only occur at the event site. A smaller event for example would be hey there is a new dungeon (Open world and Instanced) that involve the Frost giants of the north causing problems in Icewind Dale. Maybe have the frost giants attack player run cities every few hours where they do enough damage to cause players from these cities to help fight them off. I am thinking Large scale but also small scale too. I am also thinking a world larger than a few of SWG planet sizes put together. Yes one mega server because if you have just one part of the world that would take 1 to 2 hours running to cross from one end to another. So you would have enough room for a large scale game not smaller servers. But where players are going to live in game there will be communities. Someone who played SWG would understand that there were player run cities and communities based around these cities.
They don't have to incorporate old designs, but they should incorporate old design principles.
So, as an example: vertical gear progression at endgame.
Why should they? They don't even have to make MMORPGs, do they? If they make a pvp instanced action game like WoT, vertical gear progression won't even apply.
Christ, I do wonder about you sometimes narius.
The thread is called "Where do MMOs have to go...."
Its a thread about improvements the MMO genre could make to become "better".
Comments like what I've quoted are just asinine. If you don't want to discuss possible improvements to the MMO genre, wtf are you doing in this thread?
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Most gamers have no standards...like you two *wave* :-)
At least I actually like games - unlike many posters here who are not happy with anything period.
Can you even call someone a gamer when they don't even like any games, eh?
You and your strawmen.
Others do like games. It's why they keep trying out new things, to find something they can enjoy.
However, they're finding the MMO scene lacking in the kinds of games they enjoy. Their personal tastes aren't being well served.
You're perfectly happy with what's available now. Good for you. You are where they'd like to be.
But, here's the thing... it's not all about what you like. It's about others finding something they like as well.
See the difference?
Pratt2112,
I think what DMKano is saying is that people myself included are never happy with any game and jump from game to game endlessly. Now you are right in saying this is because the MMO Scene is Lacking and that is because of the Copy and Paste MMOs plus now Kickstarters that are just trying to recreate EQ/OU/DAOC/AC/SWG in a new game in the world they create regardless of whether Perma death, corp runs or exp loss will ever work again. They want to focus just on nostalgia and make their game. The Entire industry is going through a chance and let I said it will not be fixed for 3+ years if not more. While now I am happy in FFXIV I still find the game lacking.
In the end these forums don't help nor do the Kickstarts because we are not coming together and listening to one another. We want exactly what we want and do not want to listen. People think I am an ass for bitching at games that want corpse runs or Permadeath but the fact still remains the majority of MMO players even old school players will NEVER post on a forum. So a few hundred people posting on the forum "PermaDeath great idea " when you ask MMO players that I played Pre WOW or even started in Vanilla WOW there is no way in hell they will play games like this. You cannot go Niche of a Niche. Yes MMOs have to go back to Niche to have any hope of making money (Which they MUST DO they cannot loose money) but they do not need to look at WOW like numbers. Anything in the 500K to 1 Million Sub range will do. Yes I am sorry anything less in today's MMO world the game will seem dead.
In any event I think the problem is instead of talking with people to understand the root of what they are saying we talk over them or disrespect\disregard them.
They don't have to incorporate old designs, but they should incorporate old design principles.
So, as an example: vertical gear progression at endgame.
Why should they? They don't even have to make MMORPGs, do they? If they make a pvp instanced action game like WoT, vertical gear progression won't even apply.
Christ, I do wonder about you sometimes narius.
The thread is called "Where do MMOs have to go...."
Its a thread about improvements the MMO genre could make to become "better".
Comments like what I've quoted are just asinine. If you don't want to discuss possible improvements to the MMO genre, wtf are you doing in this thread?
It boils down to the fact that not everyone likes to have an intelligent adult discussion; some derive more enjoyment from throwing pebbles at those attempting to so and proceeding to giggle away thinking they've made some kind of bizarre point.
That's my take on it anyways.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I been for
4 years now having this MMO in my head that revolves around the Dungeons and
Dragons world of Toril. I also been
reading MMORPG forums since it was first started I just never started posting
until 2009 because I to this day get pissed at people and my days are better
not reading some of the garbage on this forums.
Anyways I feel I understand what would make the next great MMO. It’s not SANDBOX, or THEMPARK but a mixture
of both worlds. Let me explain with one
example if I was to be in charge of an MMO that was built by Blizzard but
Wizards of the Cost agreed to.
I would take
the world of Toril, and I would build a living breathing world that is not only
open world but has instances that affect the world around it. What do I mean about that? Let’s take Mithral Hall for example and R.A Salvatore’s
Drizzit books The Thousand Orcs, and the Orc King and create a worldly event
where the Orcs of many arrows attack Mithral Hall. Make it so that the Event is not participated
in by just solo players, or group players, or raids. Don’t make it an Open world only or Instanced
World only event. WARNING!: If you didn’t
like the WOW event Pre WOTLK in TBC where the undead were attacking everywhere
then you will not like this game. It’s
an Event that happens in the real game world BUT has many faucets to it help
either side take Mithral Hall (At least for a little time nothing will be permanent)
or defend it.
So how
could a player help either side? Well let’s
start with instances (Instanced Dungeons) that will be based around the
event. Let’s have a Legion of Orcs that
are attacking Mithral Hall through the lower tunnels that have versions
playable by both sides. Upon Completion
of the Instance either side gets a point based on the Dungeon played and if it
was successful as a group. Yes if you
have 100 Orc groups run and all win the Orcs get 100 points towards taking the
Hall. If 500 Dwarven or Dwarven allied
group run and all successful 500 points go to protecting the hall.
Open World
Dungeons: Let’s have a sector on the surface of the world that the Orcs are
trying to push on Mithral Hall and phase that sector that one person can walk
into and starts fighting as a part of the open world dungeon. No Group needed however the phase will cap
out at a certain number between 10 to 30 people so it’s not like a zerg
fest. CC abilities must be used on key
elements in the open world dungeon and make it so it’s not just a spawn
camp.
We will
also do PVP arenas that will be exactly like the PVE counter parts. You could as a single person run into a
sector that is a PVP phased area and be in the thick of a 75 Dwarfs killing
your 30 Orc friends. Or have a PVP
Arena\Battle ground that does the same.
We will
also have leveling areas which for events like this will be phased so players
of low level do not get killed by high levels or have it so they cannot be
flagged a part of the high level battle; attackable only by players of a low
level range and NPCs of a low level range.
So players who are leveling new characters can be a part of the overall
battle.
Now there
will be points involved and yes balancing will happen because if for example
there are 10000 orcs taking part in these events and only 500 dwarves or their
allies then the contributions of these players will be weighted to even out the
sides. This will prevent players from
going to the winning side all the time because you might have helped but if
your side has a 20 to 1 odds then your contribution would be .05 vs an ally of
the Hall would be a full point. The
system is setup to push people not to always play the winning side or the side
with more people because your part in it will be a lot smaller.
There are
other things I would do like take ArcheAge like sea battles and put them out on
the seas and let the lords of Waterdeep fight Pirates. I would make events based around this too
much like Mithral Hall’s event. Yes
would be smaller sides raids like 10 to 20 man or maybe 8 and 16 mans. The point would be not on Raid progression
but an open breathing world where these events shift and have real content
behind each one.
I think
that is where MMOs have to go. It needs
a mix and balance between the new school and old school. We all know todays MMOs are nothing more than
games you jump between and that is not good for a genera were games take around
$100 Million to create. Even for
kickstarts, look at Star Citizen which is not even out.
I think MMOs should go back to their roots (I am not talking about crappy graphics). Ultima Online consisted of a true open world concept. A player could almost do whatever they wanted to do. Later, even armor crafted by legendary blacksmiths or tailors included their mark. I remember seeing a piece of armor I crafted on another player years after I stopped making armor. My name was imprinted on the piece. Those days are gone.
Secondly, character creation has changed entirely too much. During the UO days a player had thousands of skill tree combinations. They could literally hand craft a template that was completely unique. For instance, my character was a Deadly poison, ninja, legendary swordsman with legendary parry. It was a terrible PVM template but an amazing PVP template. Now, games have very rigid skill trees with few variations from which to choose.
A problem with many MMOs today is that all classes are cookie cutter images of each other. Every lvl 100 pally in WOW is wearing the same gear and has the same skills respectively of their role. If they are a tank they have the same gear and skills as any other pally take, or healer, or DPS, or PVP. MMOs lack the individuality and freedom they once had.
The concept behind an MMORPG is a role-playing game that lasts forever. You never have to stop playing it, and you can actually do whatever it is you want. Questing may help leveling, but it restrict freedom. Gamers need to have the freedom to express their personalities (whether actual or idealized) in the game, and they need to be able create their own fictional narrative (e.g. a thief needs to be able to steal, a murderer needs to be able to kill, and a treasure hunter needs to be able to accumulate wealth). to
They don't have to incorporate old designs, but they should incorporate old design principles.
So, as an example: vertical gear progression at endgame.
Why should they? They don't even have to make MMORPGs, do they? If they make a pvp instanced action game like WoT, vertical gear progression won't even apply.
Christ, I do wonder about you sometimes narius.
The thread is called "Where do MMOs have to go...."
Its a thread about improvements the MMO genre could make to become "better".
Comments like what I've quoted are just asinine. If you don't want to discuss possible improvements to the MMO genre, wtf are you doing in this thread?
Yes, and MMO now includes games like WoT, and other instanced lobby games now.
And "better" is subjective. I say many mmos are already "better" than the old classical mmorpg, to me, of course.
A problem with many MMOs today is that all classes are cookie cutter images of each other.
What? How is WoT, an instanced pvp game, a cookie cutter image of WOW? How is planetside 2, a open world pvp only game, a cookie cutter of WoW? How is marvel heroes, with isometrics action combat, a cookie cutter images of WOW?
(1) This is a design decision taken from single player RPGs and put into modern MMOs. Its been shown over the years that this is a bad mechanic at endgame: it artificially segregates the community into small chunks, making finding groups harder and thus reducing participation in group content at endgame. It is a design principle that can only work with very large populations (like WoW) and doesn't even serve much purpose beyond another artificial goal.
This should be changed to horizontal gear progression at endgame (like some older MMOs). It makes grouping easier, it stops ridiculous stat inflation from segregating the community and, if past games are anything to go by, will increase specialisation and customisation of characters rather than being forced down a stat route due to gear.
(2) As for things happening randomly, no, I know they don't happen randomly. However, I know that in most game companies, the design is led either by a single person or a small team of people. These people, like everyone else, are susceptible to mistakes and errors of judgement as well as personal ego and preferences. Often, the lead designers only report to upper management and unfortunately, upper management in large games companies often aren't gamers and so don't understand the nuances of game design.
Also, there are unintended consequences of design decisions. The MMO market has continuously moved towards accessibility and bite-sized, instant gratification gameplay sessions. Thats fine and I understand the reasons, its obviously worked to grow the market and get more people playing MMOs but the unintended consequence is that player retention has plummeted and so developers have had to resort to different business models just to stay afloat.
What I'm saying is that it should be possible to retain the advances the genre has made over the last decade whilst also addressing the problems that these advances have caused by learning from older MMOs.
Yes I someone agree on point 1. The problem is people need a stick and carrot because when you can go anywhere and put no effort into getting the gear you want most people even people who once raided will take the easy route. This is human nature, people take the easiest route to what they want not many are willing to take the hard less traveled road. This is why we have The Rich, The Middle Class and The Poor. You will see a lot of people who want to be Rich but are not willing to take risk at stocks for example, or start their own business. I am not saying that they will be successful but they are not willing to do what it takes and often sit on their hands wishing. I know because I am guilty of this. So we must use the stick and carrot with people.
Now I will say we can achieve this with being both vertical and horizontal. Having Tiers of gear as the game ages is not a problem but if the classes are all meshed together and have not real customization than you just have Vertical gear progression and a gear tread mill. We need to add a horizontal path too, for example having a Cleric that can get a Cleric hammer that is just to increase his healing spells Plus gives the Cleric a once every 30 minute spell that can rez a player at full health and Energy. Another weapon could be a staff that does increased healing but an AOE heal. This gives players more customization in their character. YES the top end raid guilds will Min Max their raid builds all day long. Homogenizing all the classes to prevent this is stupid and we see where it has gotten us. SO WHAT let them do that stop trying to control these guilds.
To your 2nd point. You are exactly correct that game designers are reporting to CEOs today and the CEO is not a gamer. They can give shit about the game, they want to know can they make a fast Dollar on the game you are building. They do not care for long term investments only short term gains. This will not change unless we stop playing games like this.
This is why we get Massively Single Player games. Do I think that MMOs must force large raid groups? Do I think that MMOs must force Grouping all the time like FFXI? NO to both questions. If you take my idea I would make it so that the "Tier Gear" can be bought and sold, picked up in 5 man Dungeons and picked up by a solo player taking on a named mob in the open world. HOWEVER, 5 man dungeons the Tier level gear would have a low drop rate of all end dungeon bosses, somewhere around a 10% chance. I would also make Dungeons interesting again, Vanilla WOW and TBC like but not require the perfectly balanced group. You would still need balance couldnt go in there with 5 clerics, 3 clerics being damage, 1 tank and 1 heals. Balance in Group Makeup.
World bosses would be able to be soloed to some extent. The player would have to already be geared to the level of the boss (with not tier gear) and be able to use their characters abilities to the fullest. Example would be have the boss have some AI that would say ok I have a Black Mage here, he will have High Damage very little defensive abilities, and CC/interrupt abilities. So I would make Brickham the big red Dragon force the Black Mage to beat him with High Damage, a lot of CC and Interrupts AND use what cool downs and positions he has. More a counter for counter fight and if the player just wants to PEW PEW they will never kill Brickham.
Buying gear. Yep I think this gear should be tradeable only through a market board. And the lowest price will be set by the game. This is so this gear cannot be bought and sold at low prices, and pushes players who just want to Farm Gold to do so. This moves that gold to players who are doing the raids and taking high repair bills to have the highest drop rate. So its a balanced system. Yes the best way to get it should be raids, but not the ONLY way. This will push people to group because even if a person farms 10 gold a day for 100 days they might only get 1 piece. But if they can casually raid with a group of friends and the group sells 5 pieces they dont need for 5000 gold and they each split the gold between the 10 of them and get 500 Gold each. Making it easier if they want to get the next tier piece if they are unlucky in the raids and in the dungeons. When there is X amount of tier gear on the Market board the gear comes down in price meaning that another tier is out but the stats are not grossly better.
So while gear progression is there. We want to make more class customization and even to the point allow players to enchant or select what ability they want their gear to customize. It also pushes groups in positive way. PLUS gives alternatives should a situation happen where I cannot play for a few months. I come back and can catch up but it will take some effort. None of this hands people anything. It also allows for many people who want to have a static 2 or 3 day a week 5 man party with friends to progress that same as a 20 man raid group. While push the solo player to look into groups because they are doing the gearing process the hard way but if they dont care, then they can do other things.
Anyways I need to get back to work here. Good chat.
Yea sorry Revival is a fucking joke. I am not spending $36 for a house $10 for a sword in game. This is exactly what needs to die. Games or Wannbe games like this are a joke. The game I presented is a Sub Only based game. But wouldnt just have 1 Price for a sub. More like a well here is a $10/$15 unlimited sub, and a $5 10 hour a month sub, with a maybe 2 Month trial with box price.
My biggest gripe with MMOs today is that they tend to cater more to the loner type gamers. Yes, it was pain in Vanilla WoW to get dungeon groups together , but I think the game was better for it. There is barely any sense of community left in MMOs today, they all feel like arcade games to me now.
I think MMOs should go back to their roots (I am not talking about crappy graphics). Ultima Online consisted of a true open world concept. A player could almost do whatever they wanted to do. Later, even armor crafted by legendary blacksmiths or tailors included their mark. I remember seeing a piece of armor I crafted on another player years after I stopped making armor. My name was imprinted on the piece. Those days are gone.
Secondly, character creation has changed entirely too much. During the UO days a player had thousands of skill tree combinations. They could literally hand craft a template that was completely unique. For instance, my character was a Deadly poison, ninja, legendary swordsman with legendary parry. It was a terrible PVM template but an amazing PVP template. Now, games have very rigid skill trees with few variations from which to choose.
A problem with many MMOs today is that all classes are cookie cutter images of each other. Every lvl 100 pally in WOW is wearing the same gear and has the same skills respectively of their role. If they are a tank they have the same gear and skills as any other pally take, or healer, or DPS, or PVP. MMOs lack the individuality and freedom they once had.
The concept behind an MMORPG is a role-playing game that lasts forever. You never have to stop playing it, and you can actually do whatever it is you want. Questing may help leveling, but it restrict freedom. Gamers need to have the freedom to express their personalities (whether actual or idealized) in the game, and they need to be able create their own fictional narrative (e.g. a thief needs to be able to steal, a murderer needs to be able to kill, and a treasure hunter needs to be able to accumulate wealth). to
Yes you could with UO. But remember there was some cookie cutter builds in UO. GM Sword, Anatomy, Healing, Tactics, Lumber jacking 75 Resist and 25 Magery so I could recall with little failure. Now that was a cookie cutter build but you could do other things just not fencer with Lumberjacking.
But you are right today's classes are shit. Read my post above and you will see my thinking. I use the D&D world because its huge and has stories people could live if they choose too without spending hundreds of hours writing about it.
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A world where everyone can create everything and complex stuff.
but also with stuff/quests/story do follow. and hard bosses
I do feel, however, that future MMO designers should try to use the accessibility and instant gratification of modern mmos in combination with more old-school designs for longevity and community. There are always lessons to be learnt and improvements to be made, and the thing that annoys me most about modern mmos is their inability to learn from past mistakes.
I don't think modern devs don't learn from the past. It is just that people here don't like the lessons. They learned to make instanced games, make MMOs more convenient ... all with great successes. And lately, they learn not to make new classical mmorpg anymore.
You don't think all these changes happened randomly, do you?
Look at MOBA .. totally new design .. very successful. Look at Overwatch .. a different type of shooter. You cannot claim that devs are not doing something new. Sure, these may not be MMOs (depends on whom you ask), but certainly devs are not standing still.
Just like "Pop" music speaks to a different and larger demographic of players doesn't mean it invalidates what has gone before.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The trend of the market is pretty clear.
They don't have to incorporate old designs, but they should incorporate old design principles.
So, as an example: vertical gear progression at endgame.
This is a design decision taken from single player RPGs and put into modern MMOs. Its been shown over the years that this is a bad mechanic at endgame: it artificially segregates the community into small chunks, making finding groups harder and thus reducing participation in group content at endgame. It is a design principle that can only work with very large populations (like WoW) and doesn't even serve much purpose beyond another artificial goal.
This should be changed to horizontal gear progression at endgame (like some older MMOs). It makes grouping easier, it stops ridiculous stat inflation from segregating the community and, if past games are anything to go by, will increase specialisation and customisation of characters rather than being forced down a stat route due to gear.
As for things happening randomly, no, I know they don't happen randomly. However, I know that in most game companies, the design is led either by a single person or a small team of people. These people, like everyone else, are susceptible to mistakes and errors of judgement as well as personal ego and preferences. Often, the lead designers only report to upper management and unfortunately, upper management in large games companies often aren't gamers and so don't understand the nuances of game design.
Also, there are unintended consequences of design decisions. The MMO market has continuously moved towards accessibility and bite-sized, instant gratification gameplay sessions. Thats fine and I understand the reasons, its obviously worked to grow the market and get more people playing MMOs but the unintended consequence is that player retention has plummeted and so developers have had to resort to different business models just to stay afloat.
What I'm saying is that it should be possible to retain the advances the genre has made over the last decade whilst also addressing the problems that these advances have caused by learning from older MMOs.
However if you want to make something other than a MMO go ahead,nobody is stopping you,just don't PRETEND to be a MMO because you have a login screen.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
In fact, didn't the dev of Destiny said that it is not a MMO, but many websites call it as such?
Plus, if someone is calling Destiny a MMO, there is really nothing you can do about it. Tell them to stop obviously does not work. Otherwise, they would have already stopped given so many people calling them out here.
Why should they? They don't even have to make MMORPGs, do they? If they make a pvp instanced action game like WoT, vertical gear progression won't even apply.
Others do like games. It's why they keep trying out new things, to find something they can enjoy.
However, they're finding the MMO scene lacking in the kinds of games they enjoy. Their personal tastes aren't being well served.
You're perfectly happy with what's available now. Good for you. You are where they'd like to be.
But, here's the thing... it's not all about what you like. It's about others finding something they like as well.
See the difference?
Thinking about which MMOs I liked the most I came to that conclusion
- EQ: first MMO for me at all. Never can beat that
- DAoC: the RvR
- EQ2: my themepark experience (most had WoW here)
After that all MMOs either were not made for me (like EVE, really innovative for it's time but not my cup of tea) or they were just the same with minor modifications.
How about an MMO with a real dynamic and living world. I thougth EQNext might go into that direction with StoryBricks. But they kicked them out, I hate their art style also and it's questionable whether it will relase ever at all.
So yeah, MMO developers, go where no MMO game has been before. Risk something. And I might be interested.
Also by making what ever players do count towards the event they will not overload 1 area as much as if the event was like WOWs AQ event right. So if its a guild's raid night (Raiding would just be another format of playing the game not WOW like end game raiding) and that guild wants to raid, they can do so and it would count for their event activity they would just have to do the Event Raid instance.
I am thinking world events but where some of the race/faction have their own events then having a few smaller events surrounding the one large event. Basically linked events around the world that players can play with however they want but certain things like phased PVP battles will only occur at the event site. A smaller event for example would be hey there is a new dungeon (Open world and Instanced) that involve the Frost giants of the north causing problems in Icewind Dale. Maybe have the frost giants attack player run cities every few hours where they do enough damage to cause players from these cities to help fight them off. I am thinking Large scale but also small scale too. I am also thinking a world larger than a few of SWG planet sizes put together. Yes one mega server because if you have just one part of the world that would take 1 to 2 hours running to cross from one end to another. So you would have enough room for a large scale game not smaller servers. But where players are going to live in game there will be communities. Someone who played SWG would understand that there were player run cities and communities based around these cities.
The thread is called "Where do MMOs have to go...."
Its a thread about improvements the MMO genre could make to become "better".
Comments like what I've quoted are just asinine. If you don't want to discuss possible improvements to the MMO genre, wtf are you doing in this thread?
Pratt2112,
I think what DMKano is saying is that people myself included are never happy with any game and jump from game to game endlessly. Now you are right in saying this is because the MMO Scene is Lacking and that is because of the Copy and Paste MMOs plus now Kickstarters that are just trying to recreate EQ/OU/DAOC/AC/SWG in a new game in the world they create regardless of whether Perma death, corp runs or exp loss will ever work again. They want to focus just on nostalgia and make their game. The Entire industry is going through a chance and let I said it will not be fixed for 3+ years if not more. While now I am happy in FFXIV I still find the game lacking.
In the end these forums don't help nor do the Kickstarts because we are not coming together and listening to one another. We want exactly what we want and do not want to listen. People think I am an ass for bitching at games that want corpse runs or Permadeath but the fact still remains the majority of MMO players even old school players will NEVER post on a forum. So a few hundred people posting on the forum "PermaDeath great idea
In any event I think the problem is instead of talking with people to understand the root of what they are saying we talk over them or disrespect\disregard them.
That's my take on it anyways.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
https://www.revivalgame.com/features/living_world
https://www.revivalgame.com/philosophy/game_design_theory
https://www.revivalgame.com/features/live_storytelling
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Secondly, character creation has changed entirely too much. During the UO days a player had thousands of skill tree combinations. They could literally hand craft a template that was completely unique. For instance, my character was a Deadly poison, ninja, legendary swordsman with legendary parry. It was a terrible PVM template but an amazing PVP template. Now, games have very rigid skill trees with few variations from which to choose.
A problem with many MMOs today is that all classes are cookie cutter images of each other. Every lvl 100 pally in WOW is wearing the same gear and has the same skills respectively of their role. If they are a tank they have the same gear and skills as any other pally take, or healer, or DPS, or PVP. MMOs lack the individuality and freedom they once had.
The concept behind an MMORPG is a role-playing game that lasts forever. You never have to stop playing it, and you can actually do whatever it is you want. Questing may help leveling, but it restrict freedom. Gamers need to have the freedom to express their personalities (whether actual or idealized) in the game, and they need to be able create their own fictional narrative (e.g. a thief needs to be able to steal, a murderer needs to be able to kill, and a treasure hunter needs to be able to accumulate wealth). to
And "better" is subjective. I say many mmos are already "better" than the old classical mmorpg, to me, of course.
Yes I someone agree on point 1. The problem is people need a stick and carrot because when you can go anywhere and put no effort into getting the gear you want most people even people who once raided will take the easy route. This is human nature, people take the easiest route to what they want not many are willing to take the hard less traveled road. This is why we have The Rich, The Middle Class and The Poor. You will see a lot of people who want to be Rich but are not willing to take risk at stocks for example, or start their own business. I am not saying that they will be successful but they are not willing to do what it takes and often sit on their hands wishing. I know because I am guilty of this. So we must use the stick and carrot with people.
Now I will say we can achieve this with being both vertical and horizontal. Having Tiers of gear as the game ages is not a problem but if the classes are all meshed together and have not real customization than you just have Vertical gear progression and a gear tread mill. We need to add a horizontal path too, for example having a Cleric that can get a Cleric hammer that is just to increase his healing spells Plus gives the Cleric a once every 30 minute spell that can rez a player at full health and Energy. Another weapon could be a staff that does increased healing but an AOE heal. This gives players more customization in their character. YES the top end raid guilds will Min Max their raid builds all day long. Homogenizing all the classes to prevent this is stupid and we see where it has gotten us. SO WHAT let them do that stop trying to control these guilds.
To your 2nd point. You are exactly correct that game designers are reporting to CEOs today and the CEO is not a gamer. They can give shit about the game, they want to know can they make a fast Dollar on the game you are building. They do not care for long term investments only short term gains. This will not change unless we stop playing games like this.
This is why we get Massively Single Player games. Do I think that MMOs must force large raid groups? Do I think that MMOs must force Grouping all the time like FFXI? NO to both questions. If you take my idea I would make it so that the "Tier Gear" can be bought and sold, picked up in 5 man Dungeons and picked up by a solo player taking on a named mob in the open world. HOWEVER, 5 man dungeons the Tier level gear would have a low drop rate of all end dungeon bosses, somewhere around a 10% chance. I would also make Dungeons interesting again, Vanilla WOW and TBC like but not require the perfectly balanced group. You would still need balance couldnt go in there with 5 clerics, 3 clerics being damage, 1 tank and 1 heals. Balance in Group Makeup.
World bosses would be able to be soloed to some extent. The player would have to already be geared to the level of the boss (with not tier gear) and be able to use their characters abilities to the fullest. Example would be have the boss have some AI that would say ok I have a Black Mage here, he will have High Damage very little defensive abilities, and CC/interrupt abilities. So I would make Brickham the big red Dragon force the Black Mage to beat him with High Damage, a lot of CC and Interrupts AND use what cool downs and positions he has. More a counter for counter fight and if the player just wants to PEW PEW they will never kill Brickham.
Buying gear. Yep I think this gear should be tradeable only through a market board. And the lowest price will be set by the game. This is so this gear cannot be bought and sold at low prices, and pushes players who just want to Farm Gold to do so. This moves that gold to players who are doing the raids and taking high repair bills to have the highest drop rate. So its a balanced system. Yes the best way to get it should be raids, but not the ONLY way. This will push people to group because even if a person farms 10 gold a day for 100 days they might only get 1 piece. But if they can casually raid with a group of friends and the group sells 5 pieces they dont need for 5000 gold and they each split the gold between the 10 of them and get 500 Gold each. Making it easier if they want to get the next tier piece if they are unlucky in the raids and in the dungeons. When there is X amount of tier gear on the Market board the gear comes down in price meaning that another tier is out but the stats are not grossly better.
So while gear progression is there. We want to make more class customization and even to the point allow players to enchant or select what ability they want their gear to customize. It also pushes groups in positive way. PLUS gives alternatives should a situation happen where I cannot play for a few months. I come back and can catch up but it will take some effort. None of this hands people anything. It also allows for many people who want to have a static 2 or 3 day a week 5 man party with friends to progress that same as a 20 man raid group. While push the solo player to look into groups because they are doing the gearing process the hard way but if they dont care, then they can do other things.
Anyways I need to get back to work here. Good chat.
Yes you could with UO. But remember there was some cookie cutter builds in UO. GM Sword, Anatomy, Healing, Tactics, Lumber jacking 75 Resist and 25 Magery so I could recall with little failure. Now that was a cookie cutter build but you could do other things just not fencer with Lumberjacking.
But you are right today's classes are shit. Read my post above and you will see my thinking. I use the D&D world because its huge and has stories people could live if they choose too without spending hundreds of hours writing about it.