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When will pve change?
Jazia
Member Posts: 584
ALL current MMO offers the PvE of bashing the same old mobs on the SAME spot over and over, basicly its just the same a few mobs that respawn over and over for you to kill them over and over on the SAME spot! There is no way anyone with a normal brain feel they actually accomplished something by doing that over and over on the same spot.
ALL current MMO offers stupid mindless meaningless boring grinding. As some of them use the excuses of "it's for endgame", and use this "something look forward to" to keep people grinding.
While as the matter of fact, even the games that really have a pretty good endgame or just say lots of things to look forward to for getting to high level, nothing covers the fact PvE takes 90% if not 99% the playing time.
Why do we have to do some meaningless mindless stupid grinding for 90%+ of the time just because they told us there is something "look forward to" at endgame?? Does the less than 10% endgame "fun" really worth the 90% if not 99% stupid grinding??
Grinding to me is the term for the mindless meaningless boring stupid leveling prograss. If the leveling prograss is fun, I wouldn't call it "grinding".
When can't the MMO get out of this same old sickening "rule" of having mobs everywhere outside town walk around like chickens 3 feet away next to each other with respawn time of 20~30 sec.???
Why can't they actually make PvE more interesting by have us have the feeling of we are at least accomplished something, or did something that is having an impact to the game world?
Such as in Neverwinter Nights, on the server of Aventia. All PvE are some sort of dungeons or trip, 1 way through. We have to fight our way to meet the final boss, and it might take 1~3+ hours to kill all the guards just to see the boss. The longest trip of all on Aventia took 3 days to by pass many levels of lesser bosses to get to the final boss, there were thousands different mob guards on each level. At least when we kept moving forward, we knew we were MAKING prograss because we were getting closer and closer to the boss(final goal)! No mobs respawn within 15 min. So when you finally finished a trip.
ANYTHING Is better than slashing the same old mobs that respawn over and over in 20 sec. on the SAME OLD SPOT. You can kill 10000 of them and find yourself stand just at where you were when you first started. All you feel is emptyness.
Aventia server of NWN is one example of how PvE can be actually interesting. I also have an idea of my own, which is beside having static dungeons/trips/mob stronghold that always have mobs for people to do advanture, we should have quests...REAL quests that have interesting process. And the quests will send us to different places to solve cases or such things, and specific mobs will spawn near us at specific TIME or location depend on situation just for us who took the quests. And the important part is, the mobs will NOT respawn like crazy in every single MMO out there. This way we also like playing some advantures and making prograsses, doing true events that feels having impact on the game world instead of slashing the mobs will respawn every 20 sec. forever on the same spot.
I hope people understand what I am saying. I am getting sickening at ALL the MMO out there since every single one of them are having the stupid type of PvE which is actually taking much much more time than the so called endgame contest.
I know quite some of them do have good endgame, such as L2 has great pvp and amazing castle siege. But I just don't think it worth the effort to do some meaningless grinding in the name of "for endgame". (not to mention some stupid games like WOW doesn't even have any real endgame after all the meaningless grinding)
I want to have fun the moment the game is started, not something only happens after almost maxed out on level and gears from months and even years of mindless grinding.(not to mention most of these games which have a real endgame still require continue to grind for 90%+ the time after almost maxed out on lvl, since you can't keep taking the loss of xp from death, and cost for pvp)
Btw, Of course we still need that "endgame" stuff, but I was simply saying the PvE should also be interesting.
Comments
I agree with you completely. Even though most people hate it, I like the way Guild Wars and Phantasy Star Online do things. Where the point isn't just to find a spawn and sit there to level up. PSO had some of the best boss fights in any game, offline or online.
That was wierd... can a mod delete all those other copies it made.
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I'd also like to explain my idea of "real quest" in more details.
For example,
If I take a quest to act as a detective in a murder case, the quest npc tells me that he suspious the boss of the bar on this case, and it asks me to check out the bar while being undercover and look for anyone who talks to the bar boss. So I go all the way to the bar, and sit there protend to be a customer, while keep eyes on the boss. Then there spawned a "customer" walked into the bar and talked to the boss of the bar in private, then both of them walked out with the stranger having a bag from the boss. So I can either sit there fail the quest because of nothing will happen, or follow the newly respawned stranger who just talked to the boss. And I follow the stranger across the town(anything can happen depend on your own action), if you walk too close the target will start to run or turn around try to kill you when reach some corner of the street without anyone else. Or there can randomly respawn some gangsters(buddy of this stranger) at anywhere where it is suitable try to kill you while let the stranger to get away......many random possibilities that is depend on your action or might be just being random. You can be a perfect follower and keep following the stranger to a new building, and watch him having secret conversation with some other newly spawned npc, etc. etc.
I hope you get the idea lol. We need REAL quests that are fun, and have many many random possibilities for each situation(situations that made by your own action), and npcs that for you to fight can be spawned near you randomly(random time, random location) depend on the situations created by yourself.
(also I think it would be fun if let players to fill in as the bad guys of the quest when there are players registered for the opposite side of the same quest)
Or for example another quest,
You arrived in a village, someone told you there is a tiger in the woods near the village that eats people. The npc tells you the direction, but nobody knows the exactly location. So you go into the woods, and there will spawn some "signs" such as footprint, tiger hairs or waste near you, if you don't notice then you have to spend longer time on searching. If you noticed, and follow the right direction of these "signs", soon tiger will be randomly spawn near you, it can be that the tiger is there and wasn't expecting you, or it can suddenly jump out of no where sneak attack on you. Well it's a random roll of possibilities depend on random situations.
Key point, no fixed spawn spot.
Basicly the idea is to have many programmed "solutions" for each situation that players create. Most quest mobs don't respawn at fixed locations. Instead, it is like you are carrying the spawn point of mobs with you, but nothing will spawn until certain conditions/situations is met.
Also of course the World needs to have thousands of this kind of REAL interesting quests, combine with the static dungeons/mob strongholds just like on Aventia of NWN, and in come case random habit mobs can be randomly spawned near players who are walking on a trip anywhere any time. Plus the open PvP and castle siege such as L2's,
And of course this will require very big world, and realistic complex cities and buildings, etc. Wouldn't mind to have a world that have 5000 miles distance between 2 sides, or actually having a round planet that kind of size for people being able to travel around the world in circle but takes months and months if not years.
also in the case of actual combat, I'd rather having a combat system that players actually control each blow like Street Fighter etc. type of fighting game, so it actually require certain "skills" to do well in combat not just character stats.
And would be nice to have 3D glasses to allow players see things in first person mode, and move around the head to see things around/behind you instead of point and move with mouse. While having ingame voice chat implanted,
I bet this kind of game will be like a dream to most people.
(btw, it's really not that hard to have fun story based real quests. Just hire 100 people go through story books, history books, novels, police files in some cases, movies, etc. and make them come up with 1 good story per day for 1 year, you'll have 36,500 quests right there after having some kind of "movie director" to make dramatic details for each story, You will get a bunch of interesting stories/quests! Of course still need programmers to code them)
Wish I can be the "director" of a huge MMORPG. I have no knowledge about how to programming, but I have great ideas about how the game should be. I think if the game is made the exactly way I like, most ppl will like it.
PVE = Programming the very movement and behavior of monsters
Programming = Limited
Limited = not many options
Not many options = A GAME and not real life, heck even real life is limited, so talk about games.
besides, i get your point, you want something like phantasy star, diablo1 and 2, and what else? these type of games get repeatitive and boring real quick to some people, well some might like the idea but many won't.
but let me tell you something, games are made for fun, the whole purpose of the game is to let you have fun and escape the woriness of real life, if you don't understand that then you're no longer a human being.
games DO NOT equal real life, that's one thing, games are supposed to make you have fun, at least, that's another thing, and the final thing, if you are not having fun with certain games, find others that you find amusing, simple as that.
Your answer: Guild Wars
I know someone said it already, but it could do with reinforcing. It's the whole reason why well executed instancing is THE way of the future for MMOs.
I don't think what I suggested was out of the reach of programming technology. But simply just require a lot more work. And they can be done.
But the important part is, before something great can be done, someone needs to get the idea first. None of the game companies seem to have the brain to make something other than camp the same spot slash 10000 times a day on the same a few mobs that respawn every 20 sec. And people like you are probably the reason that encourage more bandwagons keep making the same old grinding clones.
btw, I never played diablo.
<blockquote><hr><i>Originally posted by hadz</i>
<b><p>Your answer: Guild Wars
I know someone said it already, but it could do with reinforcing. It's the whole reason why well executed instancing is THE way of the future for MMOs.</b><hr></blockquote>
Guild war is probably the same PvE style of Neverwinter Nights. Which is fine, and way better than the mindless grinding on the same spots.
But if you actually read my entire posts, you'll find there is none like what I suggested. (in my second post).
I was saying NWN had way better PvE than mindless grinding, but obivously the reason I stopped playing NWN was also because I was bored. Though you have to admit it is a much more interesting PvE way compare to camp the same spot type of grinding, but it is far from perfect and can get ppl bored too after a while.
Then you should take a good look at my second suggestion on how PvE can be made. It should be the near "perfect" PvE. And not so hard to be done, simply need a lot more programmers as well as story collecters to make the extra work.
You simply cannot get the same gaming experience as NWN offers, in an MMORPG, same is equal the other way around.
To be honest, i don't think your suggestions are anything special. All you say, is that you want to quests, with unclear goals. But if players doesn't do [This], he will fail. Where's the fun in that? The most fun quests, would obviously be controlled by a GM/DM. But that's not possible in an MMORPG, since there is maybe 1000's of players on each server.
One of the problems is that PvE AI is usually incredibly simple so they save on server CPU cycles. This is one of the problems.
Does this remind anyone of team missions in Anarchy Online or Shadowlands static dungeons?
The Rubi-Ka team mission consists of a procedurally generated dungeon containing 3 levels (plus a boss level) with various mobs on each level.
Well such problem can be solved by having a more powerful server. Besides technologies impove so fast, it is a lesser problem with time pass.
Imo, the biggest problems are
1. Stupid game developers who just want fast cash and doing nothing but clone a game off the most successful ones that are already on the market. So they have nothing new, but same old boring stuff.
2. Players' fault. I blame many hardcore grinders, include those 3 who voted for option 2. They are the ones encouraging the game developers by make it look like people are actually enjoying the mindless slashing the same mobs 10000 times on the same spot. I doubt most ppl are really enjoying such stupid PvE, simply there is nothing else, so they basicly just live with that they have. Of course there are a few ppl who have less brain cells than us really pleased by the mindless repeating crap.
In order to have better games, first must have majority players make it clear to game developers "We are sick of your crap!". This won't change unless MMO market is shrinking fast. Game developers today aren't getting the right message from the players about what they want. All the so called "suggestions" are basicly minor changes here and there, nothing truely revolutionary. Game developers see more and more ppl are playing MMO, and successful piece of crap like WOW, what would make them change their mind on making PvE more interesting instead of camp the same spot type of boring crap?
I for one, will not play another mindless camping grinding game for real any more. At most mistakeningly play them while on trial for trying out.
If you actually read my second post carefully, you would say otherwise.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding in your mind about what I suggested in my second post. Of course there are CLEAR goals for each quest. Such as the first example I listed, the goal is clearly to solve that murder case and put the real criminal to justice. Second example was all about to be able to kill the man-eater tiger.
The only things are unclear would be the process of achieving these goals, which actually are quite clear to the programmers, because what I was saying is to have for example 10 random possibilities for each of your 10 different descisions you made during the quest. You didn't really fail the quest and have to pick it up again if you didn't follow the stranger out of the bar from the first quest example. All it would happen is ... nothing will happen(well even that was just one example after all, to make it more realistic if I have more time and I am a real director of a MMO, I would put up more options for what will happen if you didn't do the first step "right", or the most efficient way), probably have some other undercover criminals come into the bar talk to the boss, or having boss let some gangster called you for a chatting in private, while try to murder you secretly in there. Anyway, since I am not really making the game, what's the point of what I suggested wasn't a 100% completed quest?
All I try to say is, there is no fixed spawn point for most mobs, and there is no fixed details in each quest story, but of course the goal or the end will be limited, just how you achieve the goal would depend on how you do. It's really NOT hard at all to make the spawn points following YOU around, but for example the npc thieves will only spawn when you get too close to the criminal you were secretly following and being spotted. Otherwise nothing would spawn. Again, it was just one example of which should be just a very small part of a long quest.
The basicly idea is most of the quest mobs will only spawn near the questing player only when the player did something to trigger it. Of course there are still some of them are kind "fixed", such as the boss of the bar would be found in the bar, and the stranger would walk into the bar from outside after you sit inside for a while, etc. but the major npc require you to fight will be spawned at random time/location depend on what you did. And the "fixed" npcs might attack you too depend on your behavor.
And there is another thing you need to realize, it's not always fun that you know you will 100% complete all the quests at the end. Might as well give a little possibility of you might fail the quest, but still gain skills from the part you did. Nothing to lose.
I don't think my idea of having spawn points being "carried" with players is an old idea. It is from me, and I haven't seen anything like it from other ppl's suggestion yet.
who says you need lvling in a game at all. statagy based is far more entertaining for fights.
i'd perfer to put the player energies somewhere else so they actually have fun.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Of course not.
But one of the things to make a game fun is to have customerized characters. One of the most important customerization things is - characters' skills.
Of course the game might not have to be level based, but there should be some sort of requirements for gaining each new skills. Something like skill points for example, instead of experience points.
Imagine everyone has unique skills learned from hiden npc masters throughout the world.
Well you have to remember a couple of things. For starters most of these games are being created as economic ventures. The idea is to suck up a lot of people's time in order to get them to keep playing. Grinding is an easy way to do this.
One also has to remember that to do anything really "Fancy" takes programmers who spend time on it. This means more money invested in the game to begin with, more time to make sure all the elaborate elements work, and of course all of this can cut into the profits (or require more money to be made to make the investment profitable).
Games like WoW and Earth And Beyond did exactly what you want to an extent, grinding is possible, but there are also very involved quests that will spawn NPCs and such specifically for the quest. Both of these games however suffered from issues related to the amount of content. Both had pretty good pacing (you could grind, but for the most part if you did the quests and storylines you could solo to the endgame without really having to sit at a camp for hours) but they maxxed out quickly as to make the game last at that level would have taken far more programming than the companies were willing to put in. Blizzard ultimatly had to add a lot of high-end grind content, rare drops, and uber-raids (which is pathetic compared to the rest of the game) to try and keep people playing until they could release a new expansion.
To be honest a lot rides on the new WoW expansion because Blizzard has to basically do the impossible. If the game doesn't maintain good pacing and get out of it's rut a lot of people are going to leave, by the same token with only 10 levels if people max that out too quickly and then have to go back to grinding people are going to get annoyed and leave before the next expansion.
To be frank I agree with your general attitude, I agree that we should expect more from MMOs, but by the same token I also understand why doing this is not viable. To create a game that involved the level of pacing of WoW that would take an average (never mind a highly skilled) player a year or more to "maxx out" without having to grind would be an insane undertaking for a company involving so many programmers and so much development time it might not be possible to keep it technological competitive, and the dev costs would possibly require a monthy fee that would be out of the reach of people people to pay (I myself might be willing to pay as much as $25 a month, but I wouldn't go over that. Right now the $12-$20 price tag is fairly reasonable for what your getting from most games).
Consider also right now that one of the reasons why we have yet to see a science fiction RPG that allows players to both do "on the ground" stuff and spacecraft stuff right from the beginning is the fact that to do it would ultimatly involve developing two entire games which means twice as many programmers/developers (who expect to be paid) and of course the fact that most people are not going to be willing to pay double current monthy fees for an MMO to make it financially viable. Honestly though this is the kind of game that I most want to see eventually appear though, and frankly I do not consider "Star Wars Galaxy" with it's twitch-based "X-wing Vs. Tie Fighter" space expansion to truely possess these kinds of elements. When someone combines say Anarchy Online with EVE (minus the real-time based skilling system) I'll be quite happy.
Also if you read this far there is one other thing to consider, and I apologize for anyone who is offended as my intent is not really be be racist: The Oriental Factor.
Like it or not Orientals are a huge market for MMOs and in general they tend to be less well educated and generally 'intelligent' than people from the West. All comments about competition in the educational system aside, remember that even the more developed nations down there have huge tracts of poverty and problems with their educational systems that make what is going on here seem pathetic in comparison. On the other hand some of these nations in an attempt to "be modern" have managed to build serious computer infrastructures. Thus you can LITERALLY have some semi-educated factory worker from a quasi-socialist state operating a simple interface like Windows and playing an MMO. As expensive as it might be consider that for a lot of these people any kind of escapism is good and it's better than drugs and stuff I suppose (if they can afford to knock themselves out with drugs they can afford an MMO). The finanicial gains possible in selling items and gold and such to Westerners for money has also attracted a lot of people from these nations, and there are literally people who play these things 'hot seat' like some kind of a business. There has been a lot said about this for a long time.
Experience has shown that a lot of these Oriental players can't get their minds around the idea of some of the more involved quests. But they do understand the idea of grinding, and even that seems new and revolutionary to a lot of them. Remember a lot of these people are not as techno-jaded as we are and simply grinding in an RPG kept the very first computer gamers occupied for hours in games like "Bards Tale" which didn't involve any kind of online elements.
Given the sheer number of these people playing (the number of accounts sold) it's in the best interests of game developers to literally plan around this market. I mean if you add up all the oriental farmers who pretty much live in areas like "Tyr's Hand" (very infamous and highly discussed) you begin to see why regions/grind locations like this are a sound design desician from a commercial viewpoint.
Now keep in mind that I'm speaking from experience, and I understand the flames I might garner here. The idea is to speak about this commercially rather than to really 'knock' anyone thought it's impossible to mince words on part of that.
Look also at games developed in various Oriental countries, and the fact that many of these games are very simple, very linear, grind fests. Again showing what the expectations are from that market and what areas of the game attract them.
I'll also point out that not all orientals/asians are like this. It's darkly amusing but during my brief flirtation with RF Online (which I thought was going to rock to begin with) some of the nastiest anti-korean/chinese statements I've ever heard came from people who claimed to be Japanese. People who had things to say about what that game "proved for a fact" that go well beyond anything I'm saying.
Games like FF XI developed largely by the Japanese for a generally Japanese mentality include some of the same elements but also include very involved storylines and cinematics. As Japan is heavily developed/educated/etc overall compared to other nations in the region (understand I am an Anime fan and stuff but NOT a Japanaphile, and I stopped playing FF XI for reasons related to it's central group-centric design and that all the options amounted to an illusion since your forced down specific dev paths) I notice that it's games (MMOs for example) tend to be made at a higher standard.
All told however remember that with the spread of globalization any massive commercial venture has to be designed with the intent of reaching people outside of the more educated and developed countries.
Even with server segregation to try and cut down on the real money for game money aspects, your still looking at a situation where the game being presented is the same from server-to server. It's more viable to target everyone with one game that tries to do a bit of everything rather than to develope entirely differant games for exclusive markets (and honestly with the way the world is people are still going to jump from market to market, and the world's attitude is going to be negative if we start getting too "elitist" with our game development).
These are my thoughts on the subject.
>>>----Therumancer--->
1. FFXI is a grinding too.
WOW is a grinding of kill 10 this, kill 10 that, bring me this, bring him that too, each quest is also a camp slashing over and over until you meet the requirements.
2. Not true about western players all like higher standard. As the matter of fact, tell me about the 150k NA players of Lineage2. And not true asians all like grinding, don't ask me why.
3. of course I know it will require A LOT more programmers to make a game like what I suggested. Probably 100x more programmers. But lets say, as the matter of fact I know some western companies' big programs/games are indeed made by cheap labor from India and China. They are filled with good programmers too, but as the living standard has such huge difference, most of them expect $2,000 per year as pay. You can hire 10000 programmers with only 20 million cost per year. And yes even with 10000 programmers, it might take several years to finish such a complex game of my dream. SO what? Can't take 100million or maybe 200 million cost?
If such dream game comes out, I bet all MMO players will rushed to play it, and all the players of other games, and many ppl who never played a video game too. Wouldn't be hard to get 10x players of WOW. If you have 50million players, think about how fast you can make the cost back.
To the guy who said oriental people aren't as intelligent as the people in the west, I think you have it backwards.
"Time.." I chuckled "I hold no secret to time, though it's mystery puzzles me. Deny it's existence and lie to myself not with hopes of a quickened pace."
WOW didn't get 50m players for a reason. It's simply sucked imo. Their so claimed 6m people are mostly MMO newbies and who just went for it for its name.
Talking about it briefly, WOW is NOT a fun game at all. It is just like every other MMO out there with minor differences.(gameplay style wise)
While on the other hand, my number of 50m is based on the fact that be able to attract almost ALL MMO players, and other video game players, and lots of non video game players who look for new form of entertainment,
think about MMO players first,
WOW has 6m players, L2 has 3m players(world wide), 2 games alone have total 9m players. Plus DAoC(heard it got 1m more as soon as it went free), EQ, EQ2, FFXI, EVE, RF, SRO, etc. etc. 1 million other MMOs,
I am pretty sure there are 20m+ MMO players on this planet RIGHT NOW. Yes I believe if a game created just like I dreamed, these 20m+ ppl will ALL go for it.
Then as I know, there are more players of other video games than MMO players, simply because 1. many of them never tried one 2. some of them don't think MMO are fun(and I agree current MMO all suck in one way or another).
It can easily sum up to 50m video gamers. Plus the non gamers who can be interested in a fun game.
50m players in 1 game is not impossible, if this game is made to be "perfect" like dream come true! (a revolutionary HUGE game that makes everything else look so primitive. btw WOW is nothing revolutionary at all, just a copycat)
btw 50 million player accounts doesn't mean there will be 50m people play at the same time. Unless you think everyone will play 24/7.
I'd say average hours each player of the 50m spend on the game would be no more than 2~3 hours a day. Even if there is a peak time, it obiviously will not have more than 1/3 registered players online at the same time.(imo 20~25% would be reasonable during peak time)