Look at Narius, you'll lose him right at the start if you make it a massively multiplayer design and if you want to charge money for it, he's probably gone for sure.
In fact, you will lose me if you want to do "real" RPG in a computer games. I play tabletop RPG with real people for those.
It is a chore to talk to NPCs, and read text, unless you are making a scripted single player games like Dishonored.
When I play with real people (now my son is running a campaign), you can do things like I use the disguise spell pretending to be an goblin, and lure the small band over there into an ambush. You simply cannot do such things in video games. So why not just use video games as what they are good for, action combat hack-n-slash?
And RPG is not about being massively MP anyway. I have at most play with like 5 people .... 20 is probably impossible, not to mention 200.
There are no technical restraints aside from recreating a human like AI,other than that devs COULD do anything we desire but are just trying to sell us utter crap.
Most people don';t even have the ability to see utter crap because they have either been brain washed by crap for years or do not have the technical know how to see crap.
yet repeating once again,these devs are just throwing anything with bare minimum gaming to make $$$$$.With nobody stepping up to push the market ,nobody else has to deliver,just more of the same old crap.
Yes there will be on VERY rare occasion that some dev comes along with passion in his game but not often does this happen,that is why we get so few great games over the years. Right this very moment only COE is trying to put some rpg into their game,NOBODY else is ,Blizzard the biggest money bags on the p[lanet couldn't make a rpg if GOD helped them,all they make is levels,"?" quests and instances,almost nothing that revolves around RPG.How many games have no housing ,LMAO the most obvious facet a game SHOULD have and yet seems the people don't live anywhere ....sigh just l;ots of terrible game design out there.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
All I want is the classic WoW Experience again. I've tried FFXIV ARR as it supposedly promised some of this experience and it worked... up until the price gouging inventory and limited housing systems burned everything to the ground, along with killing crafting as a viable way to reach an end game gear status (as in, you have reached the highest ILVL possible in the expansion and no longer need to advance).
The trouble with the themepark games is that all they try to do is stimulate people as much as possible like a roller coaster ride, neglect any kind of challenge to produce a sense of engagement, and make immersion breaking systems to throw people into the next quickest source of stimulation. It's like they have a metric of success based on how fast they can get peoples neurons firing.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it. Players don't need to be thrust into a non-interactive hero story and into linear Final Fantasy XIII corridor dungeons every twenty to thirty minutes to keep them playing.
Actually, can we all just agree that hero stories need to just go away for a bit in the MMO space? The story of the world is what needs to be polished, not some instance of a disaster we suddenly have to be the chosen one to solve. If I want to be a warrior in an MMO, I want my game to be about getting better at being a warrior, and if I'm into smithing and they make it fun, I want my game to be about my advancement of the smithing profession.
I'm at the point where if I see a game with Cthulu rising up and some angel tells me to go kill it because I'm the chosen one, I'd like to just say no and let it crush / deform / do whatever to the poor kingdoms in it's wake. At least it will make the world more interesting than generic fantasy land 5000.
All I want is the classic WoW Experience again. I've tried FFXIV ARR as it supposedly promised some of this experience and it worked... up until the price gouging inventory and limited housing systems burned everything to the ground, along with killing crafting as a viable way to reach an end game gear status (as in, you have reached the highest ILVL possible in the expansion and no longer need to advance).
The trouble with the themepark games is that all they try to do is stimulate people as much as possible like a roller coaster ride, neglect any kind of challenge to produce a sense of engagement, and make immersion breaking systems to throw people into the next quickest source of stimulation. It's like they have a metric of success based on how fast they can get peoples neurons firing.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it. Players don't need to be thrust into a non-interactive hero story and into linear Final Fantasy XIII corridor dungeons every twenty to thirty minutes to keep them playing.
Actually, can we all just agree that hero stories need to just go away for a bit in the MMO space? The story of the world is what needs to be polished, not some instance of a disaster we suddenly have to be the chosen one to solve. If I want to be a warrior in an MMO, I want my game to be about getting better at being a warrior, and if I'm into smithing and they make it fun, I want my game to be about my advancement of the smithing profession.
I'm at the point where if I see a game with Cthulu rising up and some angel tells me to go kill it because I'm the chosen one, I'd like to just say no and let it crush / deform / do whatever to the poor kingdoms in it's wake. At least it will make the world more interesting than generic fantasy land 5000.
This is what I liked about Anarchy Online....no heroes and the world was the selling point
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
Sadly for you most did. Now themepark cycle is basically over. Even more shallow Asian versions are only being made.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
Sadly for you most did. Now themepark cycle is basically over. Even more shallow Asian versions are only being made.
I really am sick of themepark. I have no idea how dev's can get back to the good things about MMO's and remove the themepark aspect.
I do know one game where you have to search for quests, they aren't some marker on a head or map...you have to ask around and stuff and it's fun. But also need a fully immersive world that really "tells the story" when you lay eyes on it...you know what you are doing, what has happened and what must be done just by being in it. That is rare these days because the first thing you see is some dude introducing you to the quest grind.
Rather than being a grind mob game (exp catered toward it) or a themepark quest a thon, why not implement both, but make it un-obvious which is best...instead, let a player choose that. Make group centric areas and solo areas (equally). Don't add anything to the game unless it's perfectly done....housing means nothing when it sucks or is mere fluff.
Tell a story of the world, not each toon created. Let us players, make our own stories inside the world.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
Sadly for you most did. Now themepark cycle is basically over. Even more shallow Asian versions are only being made.
I really am sick of themepark. I have no idea how dev's can get back to the good things about MMO's and remove the themepark aspect.
I do know one game where you have to search for quests, they aren't some marker on a head or map...you have to ask around and stuff and it's fun. But also need a fully immersive world that really "tells the story" when you lay eyes on it...you know what you are doing, what has happened and what must be done just by being in it. That is rare these days because the first thing you see is some dude introducing you to the quest grind.
Rather than being a grind mob game (exp catered toward it) or a themepark quest a thon, why not implement both, but make it un-obvious which is best...instead, let a player choose that. Make group centric areas and solo areas (equally). Don't add anything to the game unless it's perfectly done....housing means nothing when it sucks or is mere fluff.
Tell a story of the world, not each toon created. Let us players, make our own stories inside the world.
I think personal story is dead outside of Asia. Not a single MMORPG coming out is anywhere near that. Themepark only games will likely be pushed to games like the Division/Destiny for the better. The question becomes will they succeed in making those games.
He's right about the homogenization of class or skill sets in which every character has access to a crowd-control skill, a dps nuke, a heal-in-a-pinch skill, etc. In other words, different classes and skill sets but that mostly do the same thing.
But it is not all the fault of games that try to do pve and pvp together. If you had a game that strictly adhered to pve, you would still have the same problem: no one wants to need a healer in order to tank; no one wants to be depending on a tank in order to dps; and so on. Both gamers and developers hate and fear characters getting stuck on content (bottlenecking) because they can't find someone to fill a needed role. So devs cave and make every class solo-friendly and ta-da! No real sense that your character and your particular skill set is vital to the group's success. If every group can just say, "well, we don't have a [insert class], so Joe will just trait and gear for those things and that will be good enough", there's really no point.
In the end, the mmorpg went stale when people decided they wanted lots of people around in their games, but didn't want to actually deal with them or even (gasp!) rely on them.
Well, I am working on a game that hopefully fixes majority if not all of these sorts of issues. But, it's single player and multiplayer, but not an MMO. Rather you create your own servers for multiplayer, I suppose similar to what you would expect of creating a server for minecraft. So in a sense you can achieve the same feeling of it being an MMO to some extent.
First rule of computer game development, you can't fix most of the problems.
That is most certainly not the first rule of game development lol. The problems pointed out here, most certainly can be fixed. It's not like I am saying I can fix every problem ever in the entire genre.
There will be limitations and constraints from technology as well as the fact choosing one design path will preclude other choices.
Of course, and it's one of the reasons I decided not to make it an MMO. By limiting the amount of players from the 1,000s down to as low as double digits, you can make design choices that you simply could not make other wise.
One of the biggest is whether to make a massively multiplayer game or not. If you decide to create one there's a host of limitations you inherit, and for every decision afterwards you will please some folks but alienate others.
Not making an MMO. Thought I already made that clear in my first post lol.
Look at Narius, you'll lose him right at the start if you make it a massively multiplayer design and if you want to charge money for it, he's probably gone for sure.
I really don't see what this has anything to do with the specific problems I had planned to fix. It's not like I said the game would be meant for everyone XD. Of course it's only going to be for a particular audience.
Going the solo route is how you'll garner his attention, but you won't impress players like me or other "whales" who actually pay for MMOs in a big way.
There are plenty of people who will be interested and willing to pay for a great game regardless if it's an MMO or not. I won't get "whales" of course, but that isn't what I am going for anyway. It's not an MMO. It's going to be a game designed in a manner that makes it feel similar though.
Minecraft made it big selling millions upon millions of copies to a very broad audience, surprisingly appealing to children which greatly enhanced its success
I only mentioned minecraft to give an idea of how the servers will work. Other wise, it's not going to be anything like minecraft unless you count the ability to craft things, but most games these days has that.
MMORPGS such as BDO clearly target players willing to cough up a low box price, (excluding the F2P only crowd) but its cash shop model clearly target it towards gamers with more of a propensity to pay for in game convenience.
No cash shop.
Pick your target market (make sure its broad enough to be financially viable) then make sure to develop the best game possible for it, and ignore trying to fix every "problem.
Sorry, but if you are trying to make the best game possible, you would think fixing problems is part of that process. Why would you make a game for a bunch of people and not fix the main issues those people tend to have with such games?
Again, I think you are confused. You probably thought I meant fix every single problem, as in literally all of them. What I meant was the OPs list of problems. For the most part I already have the basic systems and ideas designed down and documented.
Just to give an example of one of the main systems for questing. I think it's ridiculous to have every player doing the same quests. So I decided to build the game and story in a manner that requires several jobs to be accomplished for quests that need it. So one quest, may have up to 10 jobs or so that need to be done. So every player can be a part of the world in a different way, doing different things. However, it's going to be more about choice, because players don't even have to be part of the main story line if they don't want to. The world will still move forward regardless of player interaction. Heck, if the player wants to take part in being on the opposite side, rather than being a hero, they can.
This is actually pretty easy to accomplish when you decide your game isn't an MMO. If it was an MMO, it would be an impossible task unless you created auto generated content, which in my opinion greatly limits the kinds of quests and story lines you can put together. However, I also didn't want to make a single player game, and that is where the idea of player created servers comes in. You are able to get a very MMO like experience, with out all the bunny hopping heroes running around like maniacs through cities. Instead you can play with people you want to play with. You can make it public or private. You will also be able to control various rules of your world.
So if you don't like a certain mechanic, you can turn it off in the configs of the server. I think I might even allow turning off the main story line entirely for those who like role playing using their own stories. Again, it can't cater to everyone, but I will try at least giving the server creators as much power as need be to make the type of server they like.
Anyway, I am not going to get into too many details of the game, because it's early stages and I want to keep it under the radar for the time being. Heck, I am not even making the game under the same username XD. Trying to learn from past mistakes other developers make.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
Themepark only games will likely be pushed to games like the Division/Destiny for the better. The question becomes will they succeed in making those games.
who are they?
Ubisoft clearly is quite successful with The Division. Blizz is successful with Hearthstone, and probably overwatch.
Sure, companies like DBG may decline, or even die. But there are plenty of AAA companies which are able to make Division/Destiny type games.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
I think the OP was going much deeper than just progression pace. there could be a game with slow progression and one with fast and they could both suck or be great.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
I think the OP was going much deeper than just progression pace. there could be a game with slow progression and one with fast and they could both suck or be great.
Sure.
I am disputing the need to "Just pace the darn game out" because clearly players control the pacing. Again, do you disagree with that?
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
I think the OP was going much deeper than just progression pace. there could be a game with slow progression and one with fast and they could both suck or be great.
Sure.
I am disputing the need to "Just pace the darn game out" because clearly players control the pacing. Again, do you disagree with that?
I'll say that, there is an easy way to pace a game out and the hard way (for devs). The hard way typically works pretty well. Look at vanilla WoW...travel and chain quests across continents were "pacing governer's" but were not intrusive for most. It worked well imo. AO had travel, lots of it and also if you died prior to leveling (didnt take too long to level), you lost all exp. There is another game, for which I cannot say it's name, that has a similar type of non-static pacing.
But pacing by exp numbers and completely micro-managing levels to zones and playfields, is counter-intuitive and I think has really hindered the MMORPG genre, especially less sandboxish type PVE centric MMO's.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
Actually I would like to beg to differ. Let's take for example from level 1 to 2 you need 100 exp. Each beginner monster kill is 20 exp. So if you kill 5 monsters you will level up to 2.
So how do you slow down? The only way is to stop leveling, to stop doing things that gain exp. At which point you might as well just not play. So the option of slowing down is there, but it's not the same thing and you most certainly did miss the point lol.
After all, your logic would be this. If someone said the movie was too short and not paced all that well, then you would tell them to take their time. Pause it and let it sink in. Then continue and pause every now and then to take it all in. Now the movie is 5 hours long.
In games there is only so much faffing around you can do lol. The pace of the game isn't the same thing as the pace that you play the game.
A friend of mine came up with an interesting concept. Let's say you learn a skill, and you can level that skill up. His idea is that there is a minimum experience you need before you can level it, but there is also a max experience you can get to gain slight bonuses when you level it. So you can decide to level early, and continue through the game at a quicker pace, but if you want to take the time to gain a little extra benefits you can spend more time on the skill gaining more exp. So if you where to go the slow route all the way to max level on a skill you might have a 10 - 15% improvement on the skill compared to someone who just decided to level quickly.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
A friend of mine came up with an interesting concept. Let's say you learn a skill, and you can level that skill up. His idea is that there is a minimum experience you need before you can level it, but there is also a max experience you can get to gain slight bonuses when you level it. So you can decide to level early, and continue through the game at a quicker pace, but if you want to take the time to gain a little extra benefits you can spend more time on the skill gaining more exp. So if you where to go the slow route all the way to max level on a skill you might have a 10 - 15% improvement on the skill compared to someone who just decided to level quickly.
that sounds VERY similar to LOTRO skill progression (side game sort of)
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
Actually I would like to beg to differ. Let's take for example from level 1 to 2 you need 100 exp. Each beginner monster kill is 20 exp. So if you kill 5 monsters you will level up to 2.
So .. a player can choose to kill one monster a day .. and it will take 5 days. Another will choose to do it in 5 min.
So players can choose any pace they want. What is your point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
Actually I would like to beg to differ. Let's take for example from level 1 to 2 you need 100 exp. Each beginner monster kill is 20 exp. So if you kill 5 monsters you will level up to 2.
So .. a player can choose to kill one monster a day .. and it will take 5 days. Another will choose to do it in 5 min.
So players can choose any pace they want. What is your point?
Are you serious? Kill one monster a day XD.
Again, I will say it one more time. Please try not to miss it this time. The pace of the game is different than the pace a player plays a game. It's really not that hard of a concept to understand. The player has the control of their own pace, but not the pace of the actual game.
I think you already know this though and you are purposefully just saying that for ... whatever reason. Cause I don't believe that you don't understand what we are saying.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
A friend of mine came up with an interesting concept. Let's say you learn a skill, and you can level that skill up. His idea is that there is a minimum experience you need before you can level it, but there is also a max experience you can get to gain slight bonuses when you level it. So you can decide to level early, and continue through the game at a quicker pace, but if you want to take the time to gain a little extra benefits you can spend more time on the skill gaining more exp. So if you where to go the slow route all the way to max level on a skill you might have a 10 - 15% improvement on the skill compared to someone who just decided to level quickly.
that sounds VERY similar to LOTRO skill progression (side game sort of)
Ya, I think I heard about that from another friend while getting their opinion on the idea.
A friend of mine came up with an interesting concept. Let's say you learn a skill, and you can level that skill up. His idea is that there is a minimum experience you need before you can level it, but there is also a max experience you can get to gain slight bonuses when you level it. So you can decide to level early, and continue through the game at a quicker pace, but if you want to take the time to gain a little extra benefits you can spend more time on the skill gaining more exp. So if you where to go the slow route all the way to max level on a skill you might have a 10 - 15% improvement on the skill compared to someone who just decided to level quickly.
that sounds VERY similar to LOTRO skill progression (side game sort of)
Ya, I think I heard about that from another friend while getting their opinion on the idea.
I think you mean the LI leveling multiple bonuses, since skills aren't working that way in LotRO. LIs (legendary items) are weapons which are leveling with you, getting stronger and gain new stats and bonuses on the way. The funny thing is, you don't need to "use" them for that, they can gain xp even in the inventory, if you want to. And the mechanic is similar to what you wrote: the more LIs you level at once, the more xp you get overall, but each LI will advancing slower and slower.
So, you just level your main weapon, you get 100 xp, the weapon gets 100 xp too. If you say, I want to level this other one in my other hand, then when you get 100 xp, both items get only 60. (120 total, but they're advancing slower). The more items you assign for leveling, the slower will they reach the full potential, but the overall xp is better - if you have the time
Skill upgrading was a key factor in CoH, and for a smaller extent it present in CO as well. AoC has auto-advancing skills, as you level up, your skills may be switched with a higher rank version of the same skill.
Great vid and good decision to not post it as a wall of text.
On the note of the trinity though, that was a simplification for Meridian 59 and EQ that kinda stayed since. In pen and paper games (besides the lousy D&D 4th ed) players do constantly co-operates to win combat but not at all in the trinity way. Helping out eachothers with whatever skills you possess, the weapons you wield and tactics is the key to success but there is no real must to have certain classes in most of them.
The trinity is just a very dumbed down system that forces you to always act in a very specific way and always know what to do.
In P&P we often plan combat in a rather realistic way, the unrealistic part is that we usually have time to plan and communicate (though I also GMed games where players need to act fast and think on the spot, there is a charm to that as well).
I do think games like GW2 actually is moving in the right direction there, the problem is like you said that they instead dumbed down so the characters more or less are too balanced and similar.
The problem with basing MMOs on D&D is that the class variation is so similar there, D&D is still a first gen P&P game and the class variation there always been bad even if 3ed and 5th ed have improved it somewhat. In most other P&P games you make a more or less unique character and use his or her skills together with the other players to make an exiting and varied combat experience.
Of course, there if you have a good DM that balance the opposition right you always get the right level of opposition to your group so you don't really need balancing and can make whatever you think is fun instead of someone that will be invited to dungeons and raids based on skills and gear. One would think that solving that today wouldn't be that hard, certain games already balance difficulty based on how many players there are around.
It is my opinion that MMORPGs should move closer to P&P games then EQ and UO was, not further away as they do. Until that I get my RPG kick from P&P games, no MMOs have ever gotten close (altough some single player games done a good job).
@Brabbit1987 But with that design approach you are not really "solving" any issues are you? Just just choose to exclude anyone who might be of a differing opinion. Not that it is not a valid way but do not paint it as "solving" anything.
And "pacing out" in the way you talk about it is just forced gating... How is that any better than the opposite... it still targts a specific group of players with the sole intention to punish them for playing "wrong"
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it.
why?
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I think you missed the point....
You have a point?
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
Actually I would like to beg to differ. Let's take for example from level 1 to 2 you need 100 exp. Each beginner monster kill is 20 exp. So if you kill 5 monsters you will level up to 2.
So how do you slow down? The only way is to stop leveling, to stop doing things that gain exp. At which point you might as well just not play.
I once spent nearly two years playing a MUD without earning a single point of x.p.
Had a terrific time "not playing" that game.
And I feel bad for players who won't ever know the joy of player-shared experiences that do not revolve around collecting more (and faster) experience points. MMORPGs have robbed modern players of that.
GMs are expensive. GM interaction with players is now unheard of. Goodbye to Events. Ditto roleplay.
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It is a chore to talk to NPCs, and read text, unless you are making a scripted single player games like Dishonored.
When I play with real people (now my son is running a campaign), you can do things like I use the disguise spell pretending to be an goblin, and lure the small band over there into an ambush. You simply cannot do such things in video games. So why not just use video games as what they are good for, action combat hack-n-slash?
And RPG is not about being massively MP anyway. I have at most play with like 5 people .... 20 is probably impossible, not to mention 200.
Most people don';t even have the ability to see utter crap because they have either been brain washed by crap for years or do not have the technical know how to see crap.
yet repeating once again,these devs are just throwing anything with bare minimum gaming to make $$$$$.With nobody stepping up to push the market ,nobody else has to deliver,just more of the same old crap.
Yes there will be on VERY rare occasion that some dev comes along with passion in his game but not often does this happen,that is why we get so few great games over the years.
Right this very moment only COE is trying to put some rpg into their game,NOBODY else is ,Blizzard the biggest money bags on the p[lanet couldn't make a rpg if GOD helped them,all they make is levels,"?" quests and instances,almost nothing that revolves around RPG.How many games have no housing ,LMAO the most obvious facet a game SHOULD have and yet seems the people don't live anywhere ....sigh just l;ots of terrible game design out there.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The trouble with the themepark games is that all they try to do is stimulate people as much as possible like a roller coaster ride, neglect any kind of challenge to produce a sense of engagement, and make immersion breaking systems to throw people into the next quickest source of stimulation. It's like they have a metric of success based on how fast they can get peoples neurons firing.
Just pace the darn game out, let people build their character at a pace they want instead of forcing people into end game, and let the game world have enough breadth to allow players to live in it and enjoy it. Players don't need to be thrust into a non-interactive hero story and into linear Final Fantasy XIII corridor dungeons every twenty to thirty minutes to keep them playing.
Actually, can we all just agree that hero stories need to just go away for a bit in the MMO space? The story of the world is what needs to be polished, not some instance of a disaster we suddenly have to be the chosen one to solve. If I want to be a warrior in an MMO, I want my game to be about getting better at being a warrior, and if I'm into smithing and they make it fun, I want my game to be about my advancement of the smithing profession.
I'm at the point where if I see a game with Cthulu rising up and some angel tells me to go kill it because I'm the chosen one, I'd like to just say no and let it crush / deform / do whatever to the poor kingdoms in it's wake. At least it will make the world more interesting than generic fantasy land 5000.
You can already build your character at any pace you want. No one will care if you slow down, and take 10 years.
If people rush to the end game, it is because they want to. No one is forced to play a video game.
I do know one game where you have to search for quests, they aren't some marker on a head or map...you have to ask around and stuff and it's fun. But also need a fully immersive world that really "tells the story" when you lay eyes on it...you know what you are doing, what has happened and what must be done just by being in it. That is rare these days because the first thing you see is some dude introducing you to the quest grind.
Rather than being a grind mob game (exp catered toward it) or a themepark quest a thon, why not implement both, but make it un-obvious which is best...instead, let a player choose that. Make group centric areas and solo areas (equally). Don't add anything to the game unless it's perfectly done....housing means nothing when it sucks or is mere fluff.
Tell a story of the world, not each toon created. Let us players, make our own stories inside the world.
I think personal story is dead outside of Asia. Not a single MMORPG coming out is anywhere near that. Themepark only games will likely be pushed to games like the Division/Destiny for the better. The question becomes will they succeed in making those games.
But it is not all the fault of games that try to do pve and pvp together. If you had a game that strictly adhered to pve, you would still have the same problem: no one wants to need a healer in order to tank; no one wants to be depending on a tank in order to dps; and so on. Both gamers and developers hate and fear characters getting stuck on content (bottlenecking) because they can't find someone to fill a needed role. So devs cave and make every class solo-friendly and ta-da! No real sense that your character and your particular skill set is vital to the group's success. If every group can just say, "well, we don't have a [insert class], so Joe will just trait and gear for those things and that will be good enough", there's really no point.
In the end, the mmorpg went stale when people decided they wanted lots of people around in their games, but didn't want to actually deal with them or even (gasp!) rely on them.
Of course, and it's one of the reasons I decided not to make it an MMO. By limiting the amount of players from the 1,000s down to as low as double digits, you can make design choices that you simply could not make other wise.
Not making an MMO. Thought I already made that clear in my first post lol.
I really don't see what this has anything to do with the specific problems I had planned to fix. It's not like I said the game would be meant for everyone XD. Of course it's only going to be for a particular audience.
There are plenty of people who will be interested and willing to pay for a great game regardless if it's an MMO or not. I won't get "whales" of course, but that isn't what I am going for anyway. It's not an MMO. It's going to be a game designed in a manner that makes it feel similar though.
I only mentioned minecraft to give an idea of how the servers will work. Other wise, it's not going to be anything like minecraft unless you count the ability to craft things, but most games these days has that.
No cash shop.
Sorry, but if you are trying to make the best game possible, you would think fixing problems is part of that process. Why would you make a game for a bunch of people and not fix the main issues those people tend to have with such games?
Again, I think you are confused. You probably thought I meant fix every single problem, as in literally all of them. What I meant was the OPs list of problems. For the most part I already have the basic systems and ideas designed down and documented.
Just to give an example of one of the main systems for questing. I think it's ridiculous to have every player doing the same quests. So I decided to build the game and story in a manner that requires several jobs to be accomplished for quests that need it. So one quest, may have up to 10 jobs or so that need to be done. So every player can be a part of the world in a different way, doing different things. However, it's going to be more about choice, because players don't even have to be part of the main story line if they don't want to. The world will still move forward regardless of player interaction. Heck, if the player wants to take part in being on the opposite side, rather than being a hero, they can.
This is actually pretty easy to accomplish when you decide your game isn't an MMO. If it was an MMO, it would be an impossible task unless you created auto generated content, which in my opinion greatly limits the kinds of quests and story lines you can put together. However, I also didn't want to make a single player game, and that is where the idea of player created servers comes in. You are able to get a very MMO like experience, with out all the bunny hopping heroes running around like maniacs through cities. Instead you can play with people you want to play with. You can make it public or private. You will also be able to control various rules of your world.
So if you don't like a certain mechanic, you can turn it off in the configs of the server. I think I might even allow turning off the main story line entirely for those who like role playing using their own stories. Again, it can't cater to everyone, but I will try at least giving the server creators as much power as need be to make the type of server they like.
Anyway, I am not going to get into too many details of the game, because it's early stages and I want to keep it under the radar for the time being. Heck, I am not even making the game under the same username XD. Trying to learn from past mistakes other developers make.
Do you dispute the fact that a player can take as much time as he want to level? If most people choose to level fast, that does not mean that the option of slow level is not there.
who are they?
Ubisoft clearly is quite successful with The Division. Blizz is successful with Hearthstone, and probably overwatch.
Sure, companies like DBG may decline, or even die. But there are plenty of AAA companies which are able to make Division/Destiny type games.
I am disputing the need to "Just pace the darn game out" because clearly players control the pacing. Again, do you disagree with that?
But pacing by exp numbers and completely micro-managing levels to zones and playfields, is counter-intuitive and I think has really hindered the MMORPG genre, especially less sandboxish type PVE centric MMO's.
So how do you slow down? The only way is to stop leveling, to stop doing things that gain exp. At which point you might as well just not play. So the option of slowing down is there, but it's not the same thing and you most certainly did miss the point lol.
After all, your logic would be this. If someone said the movie was too short and not paced all that well, then you would tell them to take their time. Pause it and let it sink in. Then continue and pause every now and then to take it all in. Now the movie is 5 hours long.
In games there is only so much faffing around you can do lol. The pace of the game isn't the same thing as the pace that you play the game.
A friend of mine came up with an interesting concept. Let's say you learn a skill, and you can level that skill up. His idea is that there is a minimum experience you need before you can level it, but there is also a max experience you can get to gain slight bonuses when you level it. So you can decide to level early, and continue through the game at a quicker pace, but if you want to take the time to gain a little extra benefits you can spend more time on the skill gaining more exp. So if you where to go the slow route all the way to max level on a skill you might have a 10 - 15% improvement on the skill compared to someone who just decided to level quickly.
So players can choose any pace they want. What is your point?
Again, I will say it one more time. Please try not to miss it this time. The pace of the game is different than the pace a player plays a game. It's really not that hard of a concept to understand. The player has the control of their own pace, but not the pace of the actual game.
I think you already know this though and you are purposefully just saying that for ... whatever reason. Cause I don't believe that you don't understand what we are saying.
Ya, I think I heard about that from another friend while getting their opinion on the idea.
LIs (legendary items) are weapons which are leveling with you, getting stronger and gain new stats and bonuses on the way. The funny thing is, you don't need to "use" them for that, they can gain xp even in the inventory, if you want to. And the mechanic is similar to what you wrote: the more LIs you level at once, the more xp you get overall, but each LI will advancing slower and slower.
So, you just level your main weapon, you get 100 xp, the weapon gets 100 xp too. If you say, I want to level this other one in my other hand, then when you get 100 xp, both items get only 60. (120 total, but they're advancing slower). The more items you assign for leveling, the slower will they reach the full potential, but the overall xp is better - if you have the time
Skill upgrading was a key factor in CoH, and for a smaller extent it present in CO as well. AoC has auto-advancing skills, as you level up, your skills may be switched with a higher rank version of the same skill.
On the note of the trinity though, that was a simplification for Meridian 59 and EQ that kinda stayed since. In pen and paper games (besides the lousy D&D 4th ed) players do constantly co-operates to win combat but not at all in the trinity way. Helping out eachothers with whatever skills you possess, the weapons you wield and tactics is the key to success but there is no real must to have certain classes in most of them.
The trinity is just a very dumbed down system that forces you to always act in a very specific way and always know what to do.
In P&P we often plan combat in a rather realistic way, the unrealistic part is that we usually have time to plan and communicate (though I also GMed games where players need to act fast and think on the spot, there is a charm to that as well).
I do think games like GW2 actually is moving in the right direction there, the problem is like you said that they instead dumbed down so the characters more or less are too balanced and similar.
The problem with basing MMOs on D&D is that the class variation is so similar there, D&D is still a first gen P&P game and the class variation there always been bad even if 3ed and 5th ed have improved it somewhat. In most other P&P games you make a more or less unique character and use his or her skills together with the other players to make an exiting and varied combat experience.
Of course, there if you have a good DM that balance the opposition right you always get the right level of opposition to your group so you don't really need balancing and can make whatever you think is fun instead of someone that will be invited to dungeons and raids based on skills and gear. One would think that solving that today wouldn't be that hard, certain games already balance difficulty based on how many players there are around.
It is my opinion that MMORPGs should move closer to P&P games then EQ and UO was, not further away as they do. Until that I get my RPG kick from P&P games, no MMOs have ever gotten close (altough some single player games done a good job).
And "pacing out" in the way you talk about it is just forced gating... How is that any better than the opposite... it still targts a specific group of players with the sole intention to punish them for playing "wrong"
This have been a good conversation
Had a terrific time "not playing" that game.
And I feel bad for players who won't ever know the joy of player-shared experiences that do not revolve around collecting more (and faster) experience points. MMORPGs have robbed modern players of that.
GMs are expensive. GM interaction with players is now unheard of. Goodbye to Events. Ditto roleplay.
You now accept watered broth and call it stew.