Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
conundrum re mmorpgs and making lasting content
nomadian
Member Posts: 3,490
There are some games you can play over and over again and not get bored of them. Examples for me would be playing a football game on a console, playing something like Chess, Dota( on warcraft 3), a fps game. Each of those games have actually very limited 'content' and yet are very replayable. And this is something I would imaginey the perfect dungeon in a mmorpg to be, one you can do lots and lots of times and not get bored of it.
I think mmorpg developers have tampered around with this idea especially with the idea of 'instances' each time you join an instance its going to be slightly different. However, in practise, they don't work. You do an instance once that is enough, you may want to do it one more time but you've seen it all, theres no lastability, no replayability to it. But while 'instancing' is frowned upon by the most experienced mmorpgers I do think they can offer potential IF it can get solve this problem and make them replayable.
So here is the question, what do you think would make instances more replayable?
-Some ways I've seen include adding locked areas, that way you don't blow all the content in the first go, you go multiple times just to open that locked area. Though in a true sense its not really making it replayable.
- what eq did was made it a random dungeon you got when you entered but this got old fast.
- WoW provide armor sets so as to entice people to do a dungeon again to complete a set.
Though perhaps this isn't what I'm asking, perhaps what I'm asking is how can you vary the experience of an instance each time you play.
What is it that makes a sport enjoyable to play over and over, the unpredictability of the players? or is it the unpredictability of the ball?
So perhaps what is needed is simply to either make abilities requiring skill to play which allows unpredictability, or making the instance unpredictable to enable replayability. Or to introduce a pvp element to instances, for example, players playing the kobalds
Thoughts?
Comments
The games you mentioned that are still fun have one thing in common....an unpredictable opponent i.e. a human opponent. So the answer to your question is.....
make a game with meaningful, challenging, and roleplay-oriented PvP. If someone can do this, they won't need to constantly inflate stats and equipment, nor will they need an endgame.
make a game with meaningful, challenging, and roleplay-oriented PvP. If someone can do this, they won't need to constantly inflate stats and equipment, nor will they need an endgame.[/quote]
Agreed there.
I dont think instancing will ever provide the answer to that problem.
You can of course program in some deviation in any template for an instance, but in the end it all comes down to you+friends v AI that is predictable in its behaviour.
That will always become boring at some point.
I personally think making game content a variable influenced by players as much as possible is the way to go. Less predictability, more emotion -> more content that renews itself.
I agree with you folks about adding the unpredictable nature of players, and really enhancing that social part of the game.
But I do think there's a couple of issues on dungeons here. First of all, I hate instances generally because they take away that feeling of the location belonging in the world. Instancing makes them feel like a separate game all together. And it lacks any cohesive feeling to the game itself. However, I do think instances can be used if the game makes them coherent through a fantasy meaning.
For example, if the "dungeon" were a portal to the Etherial Plane, and going through the portal lands you on a random etherial rock floating in the ether, it now makes more sense. So the randomness factor comes into play to keep things more interesting and replayable.
Alternately, the portals could be time portals, taking you into the past at some random point. It could be a glacial period, or an extremely hot, volcanic, period, or anything in between. The dungeon denizens could change accordingly.
Getting away from the instancing idea all together, dungeons could be alot more interesting if they hold secrets that are very hard to find. Secret rooms, hidden compartments, false floors, etc. Combine this with difficult clues to find the secrets, clues that lead to other clues first, clues that require the understanding of other clues combined, clues that require figuring out puzzles and learning ancient languages, etc. All this combined could add alot to a dungeon to keep it interesting. Many clues and puzzles related to this dungeon could also be out there in the rest of the game world, always drawing you back.
Sure, this aspect doesn't give instant gratification, it might take years to solve a really hard set of clues and puzzles to get to a long lost and valuable treasure. And only one player would "win" each secret, although thousands might be drawn to try to solve the secrets over the few years. But wouldn't this be a fascinating thing to have in a game? Even for all those who were curious and found out in the end what it all meant from the "winner"? And then there's those other, yet unsolved, secrets.
Once upon a time....
already exists. its called Counter strike and Battlefield.
seriously, whats the whole use of an mmorpg if your just playing for the pvp? you might as well go play a fps or a fighting game then, at least its balanced there.
And there are plenty of fighting games and fpses that have mild to severe unbalanced gameplay. The thing is with human opponents they figure out ways to tricks to overcome such issues.
but yeah more MMORPG's need to integrate the PvP make it a part of the end-game, make it meaningful, challenging, roleplay-oriented, and a reason for players to be doing it other then just as it being a late addition to the game or as a part of the game that isn't as well cared about or looked at as a major factor in the game.
EVE-Online is doing it pretty well for meaningful PvP, and challenging too. chasing down players invading a star system can be quite fun.
Balance in games is hard to do. Even in chess, I think white has been shown to have a statistically significant better advantage to winning or tieing because it gets to move first.
Regarding instancing, I can see in a way how it is detrimental to some mmorpgs, however, I do think it can be a viable replayable mechanic especially for something like Guild Wars or DDO. What Guild wars, DDO and WoW have all tried to do with instancing is encompass an experience(less so guild wars), but they don't do that. I guess in a way mmorpg developers may have to look all the way down to the basics. Does every mob need to kill you? And the answer is no, there could be a variety of mechanics here. I mean what if there was this monster who could steal of you, it didn't want to kill you even though it could. It just wanted to do something else.
The problem is it's hard to implement meaningful RP based PvP and stop sad social deviants from griefing. Alot of PvP in EVE ( as it was brought up ) consists of gate campers in battleships sniping people as they go about there business. Yes there are fleet battles, skirmishes and integrated pvp but the system also allows the former to occur.
Alot of these people that brand themselves as 'pvp ers' get a kick out of 'pwning' charcters unable to defend themselves or offer a challange. For some people pvp is only 'meaningful' if their victim loses something and is thus punished for being defeated.
Wherever there is intergrated pvp there is griefing, and by integrated I'm not talking about arenas or a small selection of pvp optional zones, I'm talking about games like Neocron which has/had a small number of safe zones but the other 90% of the world was open pvp. Even EVE has a large number of safe systems which allow people to play without ever having to engage in pvp.
Neocron had gankers and griefers whose sole purpose was to log in and ruin someone elses day and often these people had cheated to gain an advantage ( money duping and item duping ).
Sure, people have a choice of not playing games with these sort of environments but that makes games like this a niche market and not a big money game.
Am I a 'carebear'? I guess so, I like playing BF, WW2 online and other FPS pvp games but not so much in MMORPGs given there rule of thumb is play more=higher lvl=better equipment=I win button.
Nikoliath, what if the game had open PvP but also had a very heavy justice system that prevented players from griefing? Then, only roleplayers who were willing to accpet the penalties would be playing the "murderer", with a few exceptions. Those few exceptions would still suffer the penalties, and not likely have a strong enough character for very long to succeed at griefing. Would that be an acceptable trade off for the roleplay that can be added to the game due to this?
And if you're wondering about griefers stealing loot, make that a crime also, and mark the stolen loot so that anyone handling it gets a criminal flag for that too.
Basically, make crime allowable, but also punishable. Crime won't pay.
Once upon a time....
I have the opposite opinion, I find that non-instanced dungeons take away from the feeling of even being in a game world. Going in and down a corridor, then standing in line with the other groups waiting for the boss to respawn so they can kill him in turn is just absurdly gamey and takes me right out of the feeling of adventuring and into a feeling of working a job.
I have the opposite opinion, I find that non-instanced dungeons take away from the feeling of even being in a game world. Going in and down a corridor, then standing in line with the other groups waiting for the boss to respawn so they can kill him in turn is just absurdly gamey and takes me right out of the feeling of adventuring and into a feeling of working a job.
I think that is more of an over population problem, or game makers making only certain dungeons valuable.
The way I would do it is have monsters constantly spawn around you, the faster you kill them the faster they spawn.
Your four examples--a console football game, chess, Warcraft III, or a (good) FPS game, all combine two factors--PvP play with a deep, challenging combat system. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that that is what an MMORPG would require for infinite replayability.
Chris Mattern
Original thinking but confusing. What you're suggesting is people get to the endlevel and then they've finished? Or that there is some sort of worldly aim that once accomplished is end of game for all the server even if that meant new players just joined and would have to start afresh?
They have developed poker and chess AI's that make the best human players sweat; precisely *because* the AI occasionally does the unexpected. This proves that AI need not always remain predictable.
And I've played many games where the humans become predictable, precisely because there is only one valid move to make at any given time. Tic Tac Toe, for a blatant example.
Persistance of effect. Well, at least in theory; modern games have taken hold of the 'PvP is for Counterstrike players who want RPG statistics instead of twitch' fallacy, and made... Battlegrounds.
(And actually, the lack of balance is where part of the skill comes in - when it's a subtle imbalance that has to be spotted and exploited, at least, rather than a gross imbalance that any monkey could take advantage of.)
I'm not sure its possible to have a real high stakes/high reward endgame and be true to roleplaying these days. It might have been possible before, but not now.
Because wherever you have a competitive endgame that requires cooperation, you'll have teamspeak.
And whenever one team uses a voice app, everyone else who wants to compete at that level will have to get it.
When voice apps become an expectation for raid leaders and guild leaders, then new players are going to have to hook up to get to content.
And as soon as they are hearing real things and saying real things, roleplay becomes a pointless exercise in wasting time.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
I'm going to resort to some old school examples and open blasphemy of the MMORPG cannon in my reply to this. I'm not doing this to offend anyone, this is ONLY MY OPINION.
When you're talking about instanced dungeons, the best way to make them infinitely replayable is to make them random and have some set of values that custom fits the instance to the party. The closest thing I can think of at the moment is Anarchy Online. In AO, when you go to get a mission you can adjust three or four sliders to set the overall difficulty and the emphasis of the dungeon (stealth, combat, hacking, etc.). Now imagine that the server analyzed the party and set all those things for you. That's step one.
Step number two involves some deepening of the dungeon crawling experience. Anyone familiar with Rogue-like games can tell you that the dungeon crawl can be one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences around. If you want the best gameplay you can find in a dungeon crawler, try out Ancient Domains Of Mystery. If the instanced dungeons in MMOs were even half as good as ADOM, you wouldn't hear too many people bitching.
Another thing that I'm kind of thinking about is scaling the mobs to be within an acceptable level of the player. Kind of what they did in Morrowind. You could have certain mobs set to where they wouldn't drop below a certain level, but you should only need to do that with bosses or unique mobs. It gets a little sticky when you get a whole party with wildly differing levels attacking the same mob or entering an instance. However, if you have a bunch of high level wizards and fighters but only one thief, the dungeon could have all kinds of low level traps and locks for the thief to bypass as well as mobs with a lower ability to detect hidden. This would kind of get rid of losing your in-game friends when they get to a higher, or lower, level than you. The scaling thing is also kinda difficult in "the wild" when you're killing a mob and a much higher player decides to help you kill the monster. You have to set the monster to a level in between which opens up the possibility of a whole new kind of griefing.
Any MUD coders on the site wanna give these concepts a whirl? Maybe we could open a custom Diamonin server to try this stuff out with.....
I really like the idea of an end to the game and reset.
Of course there are pro's and con's.
Pro's
A reset will make it much more fun for new players to join an established game. It would encourage all players to play many different types of character rather than stick with the high end one that they started with. There would be a much stronger sense of group comunity with all players of the same faction working towards the same collective goal. The game economy would be easier to manage with resets. Early content would retain it's quality and wouldn't become deserted as the game matures. It detracts from the pain of grinding - faction grinding will have a great sense of reward, and personal grinding (which is more solo and has less kudos) will have reduced reward (as your character will get deleted in time).
Con's
Casual players will never get to see the toughest parts of the game, because the hard core players will get the victory before the casuals catch up. It could end at a really awkward time just before you got to do something that you were really looking forward too. The relative popularity of the factions becomes even more important, the populations HAVE to be balanced for the concept to work. People will whine even more over every perceived injustice.
Still I think on balance it's a cracking idea that's well worth a look. I think the WWII game does something similar, with a reset when either the axis or allies win the war, but I haven't played it (looked a bit long in the tooth).
Nick
The race doesn't always go to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strongest, but that's the way to bet.
They have developed poker and chess AI's that make the best human players sweat; precisely *because* the AI occasionally does the unexpected. This proves that AI need not always remain predictable.
Poker? Examples, please. As far as chess is concerned, chess AIs make the best human players sweat because they can exhaustively search all the possibilities. They beat humans not because of unpredictability but because of sheer brute computational force. Which, come to think of it, would probably apply to Poker as well. Look at a game where there are too many possibilities for the computer to run them all down--go. The best go programs play about as well as a lousy club player.
Chris Mattern
They have developed poker and chess AI's that make the best human players sweat; precisely *because* the AI occasionally does the unexpected. This proves that AI need not always remain predictable.
Poker? Examples, please. As far as chess is concerned, chess AIs make the best human players sweat because they can exhaustively search all the possibilities. They beat humans not because of unpredictability but because of sheer brute computational force.
Chris Mattern
Poker example: look up Poki-X, developed at the University of Alberta. And at least one of the games Kasparov lost against Deep Blue was a forfeit of a game that he would have otherwise drawn, when the computer defied his predictions (tho this example I get second hand, from a friend who was following the match.)