At least for me if there were factions I would want them factions that work within the culture system I describe in my notes. There are certain things that will cause them to rebel against their leadership but overall the factions are guided by players and not just fake NPC factions with fake NPC leaders and no real politics, possibility of being driven back and making meaningful gains or losses in the territory they control etc.
I'd be ok with factions like that since there is some real ideals and such governing them and not just the fake, fake, fakeness I generally associate with faction warfare.
@nariusseldon - I contend that those battles would be more fun and interesting if the outcome of those battles effected the politics, economies, and territorial gains or losses of governments or realms in a persistent virtual world.
and i contend that most gamers don't care. Otherwise 16 vs 16 FPSes, Overwatch, and MOBAs won't be so popular.
b) MMOs are already innovated with great success. Those are called MOBAs and online shooters (like Destiny). If you want something really different, you can call the really different online games MMO. Problem solved.
That's like someone saying "Horses aren't dying out, look at all these four wheeled horses with engines!"
"Those aren't horses..." "YOU WILL CALL THEM HORSES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE HORSE INDUSTRY DIE!!!"
@nariusseldon - I contend that those battles would be more fun and interesting if the outcome of those battles effected the politics, economies, and territorial gains or losses of governments or realms in a persistent virtual world.
and i contend that most gamers don't care. Otherwise 16 vs 16 FPSes, Overwatch, and MOBAs won't be so popular.
I'm fairly sure it's the lack of grinding that makes that makes those games so popular more than the lack of massively multiplayer elements.
@Eldurian Yes of course, you don't want factions just for good and evil, that is lazy and makes for rather bland RvR. There is a lot of interesting things you can do with factions after all.
Heck, intrigues inside factions opens up a whole can of whop@ss. You don't want people inside the same faction to be able to attack eachother physically unless you get an in-faction revolt but you can certainly have an assassin faction that you can hire in to take out important figures (say that a royalist faction have a king, a queen and some lesser nobles) and if a hired assassin actually succeeds in a hired mission the victim loses rank due to it.
There is so much cool things you can do with factions that it could keep intriguing players busy for years just with it, and then we have temporary alliances, all out faction wars, control of places like castles and much more.
And it adds finesse to the game, instead of randomly murdering people for their gear you get plotting, people fighting for their king (or God if it is a religious faction) and so on.
The real problem I ain't sure of is how many factions that would work best, too few and you miss a lot of the fun, too many and factions just becomes like regular guilds in FFA games. My guess would be 5-9, enough for weak players to feel like they have some protection but many enough to open up for alliances, betrayal and war. But as I said, I am not sure how many would be most fun.
and i contend that most gamers don't care. Otherwise 16 vs 16 FPSes, Overwatch, and MOBAs won't be so popular.
I am not so sure, those games are rather different since they lack a persistent world which is the one advantage MMOs have over those games. Yes, random PvP can be really fun but in a MMO people enjoy working for something and if winning or losing have no impact you loose that part.
But you also don't want your guild to log off for sleeping and working and next day they log on is their entire keep burned down and everything they worked for gone. Too much impact too fast ain't good either.
It is like with gear, if you allow full loot and items actually matters people can loose those gear in a single moment due to a zerg hitting them with no chance, nothing makes a PvEer quit as fast, carebear or not, since they spent months to get that cool gear.
Well I would say the factions should have a certain moral premise behind them. For instance you mention in-faction fighting. How leadership would be determined would be a major defining factor of factions with strict rules on how you can and can't do it. Have your rival assassinated in a Lawful-Good faction and the faction will refuse to accept your leadership. Have your rival assassinated in the a neutral or chaotic evil faction and your faction will respect you more for it. Kill them yourself either through cunning (chaotic) or honorable combat (lawful) and certain cultures will be exceptionally pleased.
Use trickery and subterfuge to damage an evil faction in the chaotic-good faction and you will be applauded for your cleverness. Do it in the lawful-good faction and you will be shamed and discredited for "stooping to their level."
Essentially the culture system sets the hard bounds of a faction's ideologies. Offend the culture of your nation or faction and the NPCs of your faction will rebel against your rule, making it impossible for you to do so. If you stick within the bounds of the culture system then there is still room for you to make decisions on how to best fulfill your duties within the bounds of your faction's culture. This is where players will not see eye to eye and various player made sub-factions and political parties may form.
As a player, you pick the faction that best meets your ideologies and creates the game environment you wish to play in. Then within that faction you can become politically active if you have strong opinions about how the faction should be lead and goverened. But you can be secure in the knowledge that if you put down roots in areas that for instance, are locked into a setting of not allowing Open World PvP or only allowing it under certain premises, that you never have to worry about Open World PvP or PvP outside those premises in the area you live.
The policies in dispute might be things like where they set a tax slider that slides between 5 and 10%, which factions of similar alignment you are allied to and which ones of dissimilar alignments you are at war with. Certain territories may change hands based on the results of war and political maneuvering while some regions are locked to a certain faction.
What I absolutely don't want is a faction that I subscribe to the scripted ideologies of a faction but there is no true gameplay difference between belonging to one or the other beyond the races I'm allowed to play and there are certain territories we own, certain territories our enemies own, and certain territories labeled as "contested" that are in reality just Open World PvP zones that never change hands or are ever claimed by any faction.
Yes, of course. A palladin order or similar would not sunk to assassination (or if someone did that and word get out they would be kicked into the curve).
Also, that means a player who hates intrigues could pick a faction where that is uncommon or none existing while someone that love that stuff would go for something more chaotically evil.
I dislike games like Guild Wars 2 and The Elder Scroll Online because of progression, no matter how much you level and progress you're as high level as the zone you're in. To me personally that's a no no.
I dislike games like Guild Wars 2 and The Elder Scroll Online because of progression, no matter how much you level and progress you're as high level as the zone you're in. To me personally that's a no no.
You are still way more powerful then any of the people not downleveled, the difference is that the zones aren't greyed out so you still get XP and at least a tiny challenge for it.
So you like going into grey areas or kill everything or what? That seems rather pointless to me at least, the only point with that would to be to annoy people who actually are at the right level.
No-one ever forces you to go back to those zones and in games without the mechanics you wouldn't enter those zones anyways so I don't really see your problem here. I guess you could go into old zones to farm crafting mats or something but you can still do that with minimal risk since you still are way more powerful as a downleveled max level then a lowbie in the zone.
So I think you need to explain the problem a bit more here. What is the problem with it?
The only problem I see myself is that overpowerful players tend to kill the bosses too easy for loot which is a bit annoying for the people in the right levelrange but that is more a risk Vs reward miss, it should be way better reward to kill max level bosses then running a train in the noob zones which GW2 at least had a big problem with a few years back, but they have made that better now even though it could use a bit more work. But it is still better then max level players running in and one shot said bosses to annoy people.
That's why I said personally that's my taste and I love progression. You start playing GW2 and as lv 1 you can join PvP and suddenly you're max lv like wtf? what happened to progression and learning how to play that class? I love the journey to max level and I feel accomplishment when leveling up getting stronger and progressing like a RPG should be.
That's why I said personally that's my taste and I love progression. You start playing GW2 and as lv 1 you can join PvP and suddenly you're max lv like wtf? what happened to progression and learning how to play that class? I love the journey to max level and I feel accomplishment when leveling up getting stronger and progressing like a RPG should be.
Lol, wanna try going against me in PvP with a lvl 1 char in WvW? Heck, bring 2 friends with the same level and you are stilled doomed all 3 of you. 5 could be a bit tricker but you will have close to no skills and would need to take me down with auto attacks but you could do that if you play well.
There is progression, it is your hp that levels up but I still have my speccs, my skills and my gear which mean I have to play rather lousy to get beaten by anyone below lvl 70. In a zerg a bunch of noobs still makes a difference and the upleveling makes some difference there.
Of course in the other type of PvP that is competitive PvP and there you don't really have progression but it wouldn't be competitive if the progression mattered, that part is just skill based. Not that any noob have a chance there, it takes a lot of skill to go anywhere. But yeah, I'll give you that there isn't any progression there but that part is more moba then RPG.
Even if your HP and damage go down as you enter a lower zone that does not mean there is no progression, it just means the powergap is smaller then in games like Wow. And while you might think a RPG must be like Wow that is your opinion, try a game like Eve that also have a lower powergap (at least compared to Wow, no matter how cool ship you have and how long you played it is still far lower).
and i contend that most gamers don't care. Otherwise 16 vs 16 FPSes, Overwatch, and MOBAs won't be so popular.
I am not so sure, those games are rather different since they lack a persistent world which is the one advantage MMOs have over those games.
Lol .. first, few MMOs have true persistent worlds. Most are instanced. Secondly, an advantage? I would say it is a disadvantage, otherwise, it won't be taken out of so many MMOs.
Those games are more popular than persistent world MMOs. That should tell you something.
@Eldurian and Loke - You can also have racial hatreds and national enmities in factions that reward players for defeating members of hated races and enemy nations. Reputation or fame with a faction can increase or decrease based on player choices and actions. You could even have Disrepute or Infamy if you go too far in the other direction. The amount of reputation or fame a character possesses can give him or her different privileges within their faction. Everquest 2 did this a bit, but the system could be improved upon and become more interesting in PvP.
I suppose it would also be possible to give bonuses to players who fight together often. But that might be too artificial, since players that group together often should fight better when grouped together anyway.
@nariusseldon - I don't think rpgs have ever been the most popular kind of game, so I wouldn't expect mmorpgs to be more popular than other genres either.
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@nariusseldon - I don't think rpgs have ever been the most popular kind of game, so I wouldn't expect mmorpgs to be more popular than other genres either.
Are you kidding me? Final Fantasy. Diablo. Fallout. Mass Effect. Skyrim. Zeldar. RPG franchises are popular and big businesses.
Even WoW was a big big game at its prime.
Sure, MMORPGs have declined ... but that has nothing to do with the "RPG" part.
I think the decline of MMORPGs roots from a single issue. There hasn't been a legitimately new MMO released with a sizable budget in over ten years. Every single major MMO released in the last ten years (And even a bit further back) has been a rehashing of the WoW model. Every last damn one.
Now this comes with a myriad of sub-problems. They're all based on grinding and vertical progression. They're all based on scripted quests and grinding predictable dungeons for gear. PvP is heavily restricted and lacks heart. Etc.
All it would take to completely revive the MMO industry is a commitment to innovation. Thankfully we are seeing that in one area. Kickstarters. Of course Kickstarters come with their own issues. When players invest directly into games it raises their expectations. For instance Star Citizen could release as the best MMO ever made but if they did so without fulfilling many of their current promises they'll be massacred in the court of public opinion rather than judged on what they deliver. And Star Citizen is the only kickstarter MMO that has the kind of budget we expect from games like SWTOR, ESO, etc.
So we'll see what happens. I'm expecting either one or two kickstarter MMOs to turn out good enough to spark an MMO revival or to see the genre go into further decline, not to come back in any major way for years to come.
I don't expect it will ever go away permanently. I don't know about anyone else but the first time I was introduced to the idea of an MMO wasn't UO, EQ, Lineage or Runescape.
The first time I was introduced to the idea of an MMO was by my childhood fantasies of what I wanted a game to be like. I've heard others say the same. Ideas that are implanted in our heads from before we realize they even exist in the real world, and not just our heads but the heads of many, are enduring ideas. MMOs could die out for decades and be nearly forgotten but someone is going to come along with the same bright idea and try again. Kind of like how democracy and republics kept trying and failing until James Madison came along and said "Lets try this again, but do it better than anyone else has ever done it before." (Not an actual quote, just my conclusion on his thoughts based on how meticulous he was about dealing with the issues that brought down previous republics and democracies.)
I think the decline of MMORPGs roots from a single issue. There hasn't been a legitimately new MMO released with a sizable budget in over ten years. Every single major MMO released in the last ten years (And even a bit further back) has been a rehashing of the WoW model. Every last damn one.
That is a symptom, not a cause. There are plenty of legitimate big budget online games which become popular. The issue is that while they have MMO elements (Destiny, anyone?), they are not classified (at least by the diehards here .. though most gamers don't care).
As online games, the classical MMO design (i.e. virtual world, blah blah blah) is no longer popular. That is the issue. People now play MOBAs, online shooters, Destiny/Division .. games with some MMO elements, ARPGs .....
Two solutions. Expand the definition of MMOs and the genre survives or let it be marginalized (probably not dead dead .. but only with indie and small games).
Let's say the trance genre of music is struggling (It's not, it's actually doing quite fine.) There are two options. Let the trance genre die out, or start calling any song including country and rap songs that put some synthetic beats into their music trance.
I would rather let it die, despite the fact that I love trance. Why? Because "trance" that isn't trance isn't something I'm going to enjoy. When it loses the qualities that make trance into trance there is no point in calling it trance anymore.
Same thing with MMOs. When I say I want someone to make a good MMO I mean just that. I want someone to make a good Massively Multiplayer Online Game. I want a great game set in a world where hundreds or thousands of players can play together, all in the same persistent world.
Sure, SMITE is a fun game sometimes and I enjoy it. But it's not an MMO. It doesn't fulfill what I am looking for in an MMO. Calling it an MMO isn't going to suddenly make it one, or have it suddenly magically fulfill what I'm looking for in an MMO either.
While this might seem to be a similar topic to others in existence I'm actually asking a different question here. I'm less asking if you like progressing or not and more asking that if you do, please quantify it. Consider the following:
1. New players being defined as a character that has made it through some brief initial content taking between five minutes and five hours to complete (such as tutorials or starter zones) as opposed a freshly created character, and assuming equal player skill, no tactical advantages etc. how many new characters should a max level / max gear character be able to defeat?
2. If your answer to 1 is "infinite" how high should a level gap be before it becomes insurmountable?
3. Should characters reach a point that they can go afk in zones that were previously dangerous to them and be safe / be able to one shot enemies that previously took a lengthy and difficult fight to overcome? How high should the level gap be before this happens?
4. How many levels do you want in a game (Either for characters or for individual skills). At what rate should you progress through those levels? Describe the kind of curve you want the leveling process to follow if there is one.
1 through 4.
I liked the (Sorry to beat this dead horse) SWG system with some refinement.
I hate the term 'End game" as it pertains to MMORPG games. Therefore I am not a fan of traditional (think WoW) levels. I like that idea of building a skill set based on the tools you use. ie, you pick up a sword, and eventually you will get better with it (or kill yourself, but let's keep RL out of this) you learn to sew and eventually you will be a master seamstress.
While I am against levels per se, I do agree with growing a skill set. You may not on day 1 with your sword know how to parry/riposte but over time that will become a part of your skill set. Where a Swordmaster has many skills she can choose from, a new Swordsman may only know thrust. So while the day one Swordsman might be able to land a lucky shot, the Swordmaster, can set themselves up to guarantee a killing blow. Obviously, this extends to Crafting, gathering, trading, etc.
Again, touting SWG here, as far as worlds/zones/areas are concerned I loved how SWG was a very open world with theme parks dispersed throughout. You could progress and not ever do a theme park. I would extend that to PvP, so players that enjoy that could progress that way. So open world with Parks is my favorite. Also, animals (NPC's) should have a better AI, with some of them being migratory. So one day you are out hunting wabbits in an area, and you come back 2 weeks later and a very ornery bear has taken over that area, a bear that happens to be much stronger than the wabbits. Basically, your safety is not guaranteed. Obviously, I would start this after a getting started area. Not too much hand holding, but enough so a new player (of any MMO experience) can get the feel for the basics of the game, and get a start.
If a person with absolutely no training with a firearm picks one up and tries to make it work, chances are something is getting shot (google accidental homicide). Sorry RL reference, but it works for this argument, you should never reach a state of invulnerability. That day one noob may land a lucky shot, if you are AFK he/She damn well SHOULD land a crit and destroy you. Same for Npc's. You should never be safe 'afk'.
I do not want levels. I would like it if were possible to just have a never ending (lol I guess this has been tried and flopped) world. Where once you have rung all the adventure out of one area you can explore a new area.
Just my 2creds, I have other ideas, but this is a decent synopsis of what I would prefer.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
@nariusseldon - On the list of the best selling video games of all time, two RPGs are in the top 10, Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue in 8th place and Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim in 10th place. Only three are in the top 20, and the third is an ARPG (Diablo III in 12th place). I didn't say rpgs weren't popular, I said they weren't the most popular compared to other genres. And those three aforementioned titles are the only RPGs or ARPGs in the top 50. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
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@nariusseldon - On the list of the best selling video games of all time, two RPGs are in the top 10, Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue in 8th place and Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim in 10th place. Only three are in the top 20, and the third is an ARPG (Diablo III in 12th place). I didn't say rpgs weren't popular, I said they weren't the most popular compared to other genres. And those three aforementioned titles are the only RPGs or ARPGs in the top 50. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
and from the *same* list, only 3 FPSes are in the top 20 (call of duty at 16, 17 and 19) so i will say RPGs are *more* popular than FPSes.
There are NO RTS, or point and click adventures on the top 20 list. Now we have establishes that RPGs, by YOUR methodology, is more popular than FPSes, RTS and point & click adventures. We can also say it is more popular than racing games (only mario kart is in the top 20, and you can argue that it is not a proper racing game).
So RPG is more popular than many genres. In fact, tell me what genre is represented better than RPGs in the top 20? Sports? (Again, only 3, Wii Sports & Wii Sports resort + duck hunt, if you count it).
Comments
At least for me if there were factions I would want them factions that work within the culture system I describe in my notes. There are certain things that will cause them to rebel against their leadership but overall the factions are guided by players and not just fake NPC factions with fake NPC leaders and no real politics, possibility of being driven back and making meaningful gains or losses in the territory they control etc.
I'd be ok with factions like that since there is some real ideals and such governing them and not just the fake, fake, fakeness I generally associate with faction warfare.
I'm fairly sure it's the lack of grinding that makes that makes those games so popular more than the lack of massively multiplayer elements.
Yes of course, you don't want factions just for good and evil, that is lazy and makes for rather bland RvR. There is a lot of interesting things you can do with factions after all.
Heck, intrigues inside factions opens up a whole can of whop@ss. You don't want people inside the same faction to be able to attack eachother physically unless you get an in-faction revolt but you can certainly have an assassin faction that you can hire in to take out important figures (say that a royalist faction have a king, a queen and some lesser nobles) and if a hired assassin actually succeeds in a hired mission the victim loses rank due to it.
There is so much cool things you can do with factions that it could keep intriguing players busy for years just with it, and then we have temporary alliances, all out faction wars, control of places like castles and much more.
And it adds finesse to the game, instead of randomly murdering people for their gear you get plotting, people fighting for their king (or God if it is a religious faction) and so on.
The real problem I ain't sure of is how many factions that would work best, too few and you miss a lot of the fun, too many and factions just becomes like regular guilds in FFA games. My guess would be 5-9, enough for weak players to feel like they have some protection but many enough to open up for alliances, betrayal and war. But as I said, I am not sure how many would be most fun.
But you also don't want your guild to log off for sleeping and working and next day they log on is their entire keep burned down and everything they worked for gone. Too much impact too fast ain't good either.
It is like with gear, if you allow full loot and items actually matters people can loose those gear in a single moment due to a zerg hitting them with no chance, nothing makes a PvEer quit as fast, carebear or not, since they spent months to get that cool gear.
Use trickery and subterfuge to damage an evil faction in the chaotic-good faction and you will be applauded for your cleverness. Do it in the lawful-good faction and you will be shamed and discredited for "stooping to their level."
Essentially the culture system sets the hard bounds of a faction's ideologies. Offend the culture of your nation or faction and the NPCs of your faction will rebel against your rule, making it impossible for you to do so. If you stick within the bounds of the culture system then there is still room for you to make decisions on how to best fulfill your duties within the bounds of your faction's culture. This is where players will not see eye to eye and various player made sub-factions and political parties may form.
As a player, you pick the faction that best meets your ideologies and creates the game environment you wish to play in. Then within that faction you can become politically active if you have strong opinions about how the faction should be lead and goverened. But you can be secure in the knowledge that if you put down roots in areas that for instance, are locked into a setting of not allowing Open World PvP or only allowing it under certain premises, that you never have to worry about Open World PvP or PvP outside those premises in the area you live.
The policies in dispute might be things like where they set a tax slider that slides between 5 and 10%, which factions of similar alignment you are allied to and which ones of dissimilar alignments you are at war with. Certain territories may change hands based on the results of war and political maneuvering while some regions are locked to a certain faction.
What I absolutely don't want is a faction that I subscribe to the scripted ideologies of a faction but there is no true gameplay difference between belonging to one or the other beyond the races I'm allowed to play and there are certain territories we own, certain territories our enemies own, and certain territories labeled as "contested" that are in reality just Open World PvP zones that never change hands or are ever claimed by any faction.
Also, that means a player who hates intrigues could pick a faction where that is uncommon or none existing while someone that love that stuff would go for something more chaotically evil.
I think we are in agreement here.
So you like going into grey areas or kill everything or what? That seems rather pointless to me at least, the only point with that would to be to annoy people who actually are at the right level.
No-one ever forces you to go back to those zones and in games without the mechanics you wouldn't enter those zones anyways so I don't really see your problem here. I guess you could go into old zones to farm crafting mats or something but you can still do that with minimal risk since you still are way more powerful as a downleveled max level then a lowbie in the zone.
So I think you need to explain the problem a bit more here. What is the problem with it?
The only problem I see myself is that overpowerful players tend to kill the bosses too easy for loot which is a bit annoying for the people in the right levelrange but that is more a risk Vs reward miss, it should be way better reward to kill max level bosses then running a train in the noob zones which GW2 at least had a big problem with a few years back, but they have made that better now even though it could use a bit more work. But it is still better then max level players running in and one shot said bosses to annoy people.
There is progression, it is your hp that levels up but I still have my speccs, my skills and my gear which mean I have to play rather lousy to get beaten by anyone below lvl 70. In a zerg a bunch of noobs still makes a difference and the upleveling makes some difference there.
Of course in the other type of PvP that is competitive PvP and there you don't really have progression but it wouldn't be competitive if the progression mattered, that part is just skill based. Not that any noob have a chance there, it takes a lot of skill to go anywhere. But yeah, I'll give you that there isn't any progression there but that part is more moba then RPG.
Even if your HP and damage go down as you enter a lower zone that does not mean there is no progression, it just means the powergap is smaller then in games like Wow. And while you might think a RPG must be like Wow that is your opinion, try a game like Eve that also have a lower powergap (at least compared to Wow, no matter how cool ship you have and how long you played it is still far lower).
I suppose it would also be possible to give bonuses to players who fight together often. But that might be too artificial, since players that group together often should fight better when grouped together anyway.
@nariusseldon - I don't think rpgs have ever been the most popular kind of game, so I wouldn't expect mmorpgs to be more popular than other genres either.
Even WoW was a big big game at its prime.
Sure, MMORPGs have declined ... but that has nothing to do with the "RPG" part.
Now this comes with a myriad of sub-problems. They're all based on grinding and vertical progression. They're all based on scripted quests and grinding predictable dungeons for gear. PvP is heavily restricted and lacks heart. Etc.
All it would take to completely revive the MMO industry is a commitment to innovation. Thankfully we are seeing that in one area. Kickstarters. Of course Kickstarters come with their own issues. When players invest directly into games it raises their expectations. For instance Star Citizen could release as the best MMO ever made but if they did so without fulfilling many of their current promises they'll be massacred in the court of public opinion rather than judged on what they deliver. And Star Citizen is the only kickstarter MMO that has the kind of budget we expect from games like SWTOR, ESO, etc.
So we'll see what happens. I'm expecting either one or two kickstarter MMOs to turn out good enough to spark an MMO revival or to see the genre go into further decline, not to come back in any major way for years to come.
I don't expect it will ever go away permanently. I don't know about anyone else but the first time I was introduced to the idea of an MMO wasn't UO, EQ, Lineage or Runescape.
The first time I was introduced to the idea of an MMO was by my childhood fantasies of what I wanted a game to be like. I've heard others say the same. Ideas that are implanted in our heads from before we realize they even exist in the real world, and not just our heads but the heads of many, are enduring ideas. MMOs could die out for decades and be nearly forgotten but someone is going to come along with the same bright idea and try again. Kind of like how democracy and republics kept trying and failing until James Madison came along and said "Lets try this again, but do it better than anyone else has ever done it before." (Not an actual quote, just my conclusion on his thoughts based on how meticulous he was about dealing with the issues that brought down previous republics and democracies.)
As online games, the classical MMO design (i.e. virtual world, blah blah blah) is no longer popular. That is the issue. People now play MOBAs, online shooters, Destiny/Division .. games with some MMO elements, ARPGs .....
Two solutions. Expand the definition of MMOs and the genre survives or let it be marginalized (probably not dead dead .. but only with indie and small games).
I would rather let it die, despite the fact that I love trance. Why? Because "trance" that isn't trance isn't something I'm going to enjoy. When it loses the qualities that make trance into trance there is no point in calling it trance anymore.
Same thing with MMOs. When I say I want someone to make a good MMO I mean just that. I want someone to make a good Massively Multiplayer Online Game. I want a great game set in a world where hundreds or thousands of players can play together, all in the same persistent world.
Sure, SMITE is a fun game sometimes and I enjoy it. But it's not an MMO. It doesn't fulfill what I am looking for in an MMO. Calling it an MMO isn't going to suddenly make it one, or have it suddenly magically fulfill what I'm looking for in an MMO either.
Your argument is ridiculous.
I liked the (Sorry to beat this dead horse) SWG system with some refinement.
I hate the term 'End game" as it pertains to MMORPG games. Therefore I am not a fan of traditional (think WoW) levels. I like that idea of building a skill set based on the tools you use. ie, you pick up a sword, and eventually you will get better with it (or kill yourself, but let's keep RL out of this) you learn to sew and eventually you will be a master seamstress.
While I am against levels per se, I do agree with growing a skill set. You may not on day 1 with your sword know how to parry/riposte but over time that will become a part of your skill set. Where a Swordmaster has many skills she can choose from, a new Swordsman may only know thrust. So while the day one Swordsman might be able to land a lucky shot, the Swordmaster, can set themselves up to guarantee a killing blow. Obviously, this extends to Crafting, gathering, trading, etc.
Again, touting SWG here, as far as worlds/zones/areas are concerned I loved how SWG was a very open world with theme parks dispersed throughout. You could progress and not ever do a theme park. I would extend that to PvP, so players that enjoy that could progress that way. So open world with Parks is my favorite. Also, animals (NPC's) should have a better AI, with some of them being migratory. So one day you are out hunting wabbits in an area, and you come back 2 weeks later and a very ornery bear has taken over that area, a bear that happens to be much stronger than the wabbits. Basically, your safety is not guaranteed. Obviously, I would start this after a getting started area. Not too much hand holding, but enough so a new player (of any MMO experience) can get the feel for the basics of the game, and get a start.
If a person with absolutely no training with a firearm picks one up and tries to make it work, chances are something is getting shot (google accidental homicide). Sorry RL reference, but it works for this argument, you should never reach a state of invulnerability. That day one noob may land a lucky shot, if you are AFK he/She damn well SHOULD land a crit and destroy you. Same for Npc's. You should never be safe 'afk'.
I do not want levels. I would like it if were possible to just have a never ending (lol I guess this has been tried and flopped) world. Where once you have rung all the adventure out of one area you can explore a new area.
Just my 2creds, I have other ideas, but this is a decent synopsis of what I would prefer.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
moba? 15 minutes
and from the *same* list, only 3 FPSes are in the top 20 (call of duty at 16, 17 and 19) so i will say RPGs are *more* popular than FPSes.
There are NO RTS, or point and click adventures on the top 20 list. Now we have establishes that RPGs, by YOUR methodology, is more popular than FPSes, RTS and point & click adventures. We can also say it is more popular than racing games (only mario kart is in the top 20, and you can argue that it is not a proper racing game).
So RPG is more popular than many genres. In fact, tell me what genre is represented better than RPGs in the top 20? Sports? (Again, only 3, Wii Sports & Wii Sports resort + duck hunt, if you count it).
Seriously .. no game lasts forever. And i prefer quality (fun) than quantity (length).