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Hero's Journey: Dev Journal: The Real World
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
The good folks at Simutronics have delivered another spirited developer journal our way today. GM Erik "Sev" Roggeveen comes at us from every angle in this article. The main focus is on giving power to the players.
;) Again I must insist that the topic of the day be superseded, despite the Shadowbosses desire for me to speak about that fantastic upcoming MMORPG Hero's Journey, so that we can discuss the single most important issue that faces our world today...global warming.
More specifically, the ability for players to "heat things up" themselves and organize and run their own fun events, gala affairs, or flaming jugglethons! Those familiar with Simutronics' level of attention to personalized customer experience in our previous games will be happy to know that we will continue to blow people away with everything from massive festivals to personalized wedding ceremonies for your characters. Seen that before? Not quite! But, sadly, as this is not an official area I'm free to babble publicly about yet, I'll have to bow to the knee-chaffingly wicked wills of my masters. So I will talk about what we are working on right now instead, with little to no preamble. Alright, a light preamble. A gravy-smothered light preamble. (Don't drown your food, kids!) |
You can read more here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
Reading about this game, always makes me more and more anxious to play it. I cant wait until it is released.
I am sure with all these features this game has planned, and from looking at the gameplay at e3, the current MMOs dont stand a chance. Its only a matter of time before more people begin to realize the potential Hero's Journey has.
I just hope that devs will revamp the website, forums and add much more information for people like me who wanna learn as much about the game offline before we jump into the game online.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
It's nice to see that attention is being given to fleshing out the world-y aspects of Hero's Journey. The really interesting stuff in these game worlds comes from the interactions between systems, but all those systems have to be created individually before they can interact. So kudos to the devs and GMs for the energy they're investing in building the pieces of Elanthia.
Having said that... I'm still not ready to conclude that HJ will be The One MMORPG To Rule Them All. Although my mind remains open, I'm not convinced that HJ is truly all that different.
Consider some of the announced features of Hero's Journey:
So while individual pieces of HJ's content may be novel, it seems to me that the meta-level design is actually very traditional.
That's not necessarily a bad thing from a commercial point of view. It's possible that what a lot of gamers really want is just a slightly different version of what they already know how to do.
But from an artistic perspective, it doesn't appear that HJ will be redefining MMORPGs. Again, though, very little solid information about HJ's actual gameplay has been released at this time. If something in the metadesign changes, I reserve the right to change this evaluation.
--Flatfingers
You should make it a point to read through the rest of the developers interviews and Q and A located on www.heroshall.com. After reading them you will have a better understanding of what this game has to offer.
I read them, and watched the movies, located here = http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1750374256486317787&q=hero+journey not much, but still good.
No where will you see the "traditional role" system, Heck if you watch the movie, theres no "Tank" theres 3 guys running and fighting. And for your other statements, there was nothing stated that claimed anything about classes being about combat, infact they said they are offering alternate methods of play, where there will be different methods of influenzing the end of a quest that doesnt involve combat.
Classes have levels.. what do you want, theres no otherway to develop your character without levels. even if the game is only skills like guildwars, if a player is a powerleveler he will find someway of powerleveling no matter what the system, for powerleveling is a playstyle.
They already made hints at a selectable skill system, as well as a method of improving skills so not everyone skills would be the same, they already said that you would not be able to judge a character just purly on his locks and class combination/
And it is an online RPG, every RPG is a fantasy game, if it wasnt it would just be life. I think what your looking for is a first person shooter. Something that is just based on who has the bigger weapon and the quicker finger, because anyone who has read heros journey and has played exsisting MMORPG as well as read upcomming rpgs. they will see that HEros journey is the most innovated MMORPG to date.
from seamless content upgrades, which introduces no server downtime, to player created content, armies of gm that help monitor and control gm related events. Coustimizable characters, pets even mounts. A lot of the things you said are unfounded, but once more people read up and follow this game, they will realize what this game brings to the table.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
Classes and levels - games have two choices - class/level/skill system or a straight skill system. Both have their pros and cons. Obviously H.J is using the class/level/skill system. Nothing wrong with doing that.
Fantasy GENRE - you missed the important word GENRE. 98% of MMORPG are in the fantasy GENRE (WOW, Guild Wars, HJ, EQ, Lineage etc) as opposed to the sci-fi (planetside, tabula rasa etc), super-hero (city of heroes), space (EVE) etc etc GENREs.
seamless content upgrades dont guarantee no server downtime. The only thing that will almost guarentee no server downtime is a server farm (aka Guild Wars) as opposed to individual shards. With a server farm you can pull out individual servers to apply operating system patches, replace failed hardware etc. With shards you can still have downtime for operating system patches and other issues.
Seamless content upgrades means you dont have to download and install large game patches before playing - the game will stream game patches, content updates as you play. (aka Guild Wars).
At the end of the day Elanthia appears to be a world torn by cataclysm, and political differences, and some ugly bad dudes as well. So yes every character can expect to face combat. In a world struggling to survive thats part of life. That doesnt mean you wont have quests/ missions in towns that require no combat (ie diplomatic solutions), it does mean you shouldnt expect to be able to explore the entire world without combat and you should expect to craft / diplomacy your way from level 1 to level NNNN.
You should make it a point to read through the rest of the developers interviews and Q and A located on www.heroshall.com. After reading them you will have a better understanding of what this game has to offer.
I read them, and watched the movies, located here = http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1750374256486317787&q=hero+journey not much, but still good.
No where will you see the "traditional role" system, Heck if you watch the movie, theres no "Tank" theres 3 guys running and fighting. And for your other statements, there was nothing stated that claimed anything about classes being about combat, infact they said they are offering alternate methods of play, where there will be different methods of influenzing the end of a quest that doesnt involve combat.
Classes have levels.. what do you want, theres no otherway to develop your character without levels. even if the game is only skills like guildwars, if a player is a powerleveler he will find someway of powerleveling no matter what the system, for powerleveling is a playstyle.
They already made hints at a selectable skill system, as well as a method of improving skills so not everyone skills would be the same, they already said that you would not be able to judge a character just purly on his locks and class combination/
And it is an online RPG, every RPG is a fantasy game, if it wasnt it would just be life. I think what your looking for is a first person shooter. Something that is just based on who has the bigger weapon and the quicker finger, because anyone who has read heros journey and has played exsisting MMORPG as well as read upcomming rpgs. they will see that HEros journey is the most innovated MMORPG to date.
from seamless content upgrades, which introduces no server downtime, to player created content, armies of gm that help monitor and control gm related events. Coustimizable characters, pets even mounts. A lot of the things you said are unfounded, but once more people read up and follow this game, they will realize what this game brings to the table.
Ok, that is odd. I had an actual post, not just a repost, but I guess I'll have to recreate it.
Point 1: In the dev. journals classes are described by their role in combat using the categories melee/ranged/support. (See Dev. Journals #4, 5, & 6.) I've not read about any alternate methods of advancement. If you can point me in the way of an article I'd appreciate it.
Point 2: Levels are not the only way to advance characters, games such as Eve Online and table-top systems such as tri-stat (BESM uses this) are examples of leveless systems with character advancement.
Point 3: I've not read about class conbination being a bad way to judge character capability, nor does that make much sense to me. Any articles on the topic will be appreciated.
Point 4: Fantasy is one of the many words in English with many meanings. In reference to RPG's it refers to a specific genre typically involving swords and sorcercy with themes from the medieval and/or classical era.
The only potentially unique trait you've listed is the 'armies of GM's,' but Simu will not be the first company to make this promise. Fortunately, unlike other companies they have a history to back up the claim. We'll see how well it turns out in reality.
In response to your other claims:
"from seamless content upgrades (Guild Wars), which introduces no server downtime (it eliminates on cause of server downtime, it does not guaruntee no server downtime), to player created content (I can create verbal content in any MMO I've played, and from what I understand only GM's get the tools to add physical content to the game), Coustimizable characters (CoH/CoV), pets even mounts.(Is there a game that doesn't have pets and/or mounts?)"
-Rogue Leader X
I've often wondered why people make such a fuss over class based vs skill based when in the end, they end up the same thing, with class based being easier for most players to learn and the developers to balance.
Skill based systems end up with the "Template of the Month" or "Day" depending on how often nerfs come down from upon high, and there's generally only 3 types of characters in them, since being a "jack of all trades" in these games generally means this: You suck at everything and rock at nothing. The 3 "templates" of skill based systems (as seen in AC1/SWG, etc): Ranged attacker (whether with arrows/bolts or fireballs), close range attacker (the tank, or perhaps, a rogue damage dealer), and the healer (whether that be crowd control mez type stuff, or real healing spells/abilities). SW:G had 50 million skills, all the same as the rest with different nouns thrown in "Carbine/Pistol/Rifle", and the 3 melee variants as well that I can't remember.
Skill based systems are harder to balance than classes because if, for instance, "Rifle" skill was just SO much better than carbine and pistol that NO ONE took carbine or pistol, they'd have to nerf Rifle down to the other's levels. But now, Carbine is better, even if only sligtly, so EVERYONE is now a carbine user, and no one uses Rifles or Pistols.... nerf.... rinse.... repeat.....
As for the complaints about the game being about combat, um. Most are? Xtreme Knitting Online isn't due out for another 20 years. In my 26 years of playing table-top games, I can say that I've never, ever, played an RPG (or mud) that didn't have combat it in it. If you just want to talk and chat, IRC and other chat rooms work fine.
And the "typical" roles comment, that's the same thing as the skills issue you brought up. There's only 4 things that matter in RPG combat systems (And, pretty much in reality too):
1) Damage Dealing (the ability to inflict damage)
2) Damage Mitigation (The ability to tank, and to minimize damage inflicted by dodging, armor, etc)
3) Damage Avoidance (crowd control, mezzing, rooting, stunning)
4) Damage Healing (the ability to remove damage from players)
That's it. That's everything. There's nothing else in combat that really matters. If you are not good at one of those things, people won't want you in their groups, etc. That's where skill based systems fall down. People can "gimp" themselves because they don't know which is "best". And, of course, we have the unrealisitc expectation that all skill based systems will let you "re-spec" at any time because your "template" might just have been nerfed, so you give yourself a frontal lobotomy to unlearn all that you have learned... (yoda!)
Imagine Han Solo in the Cantina... you go up to him asking for a ride in his Millenium Falcon... he says: "Sorry, I can't pilot it anymore. I got tired of smuggling so I took up dancing instead!" and he proceeds to jump up and do the Macarena in front of everyone perfectly. /shudder.
And don't think for a minute that skill based systems are immune to grinding. It takes just as much grinding to "max out your skills" as it does to "max out your level", except in macro based games like SW:G used to be where you could automate yourself to play 24/7 to "avoid the grind".
Ah, there's nothing like stating an opinion clearly to bring out objections.
For the record, I've been an active participant in the discussions about Hero's Journey over on the official play.net forum for several months now. I also long ago read the available information about HJ here at MMORPG.com and at RPGvault, as well as items at TenTonHammer and the recently refurbished Stratics site.
I don't claim to remember perfectly every detail of everything I've seen, and I certainly may be guilty of being mistaken when I try to guess at the implications of official developer statements. But the argument that my observations must be the result of ignorance is, to put it politely, uninformed.
On to specifics.
Concerning my statement that "combat copies well-worn roles (tank/nuker/healer + aggro)", the current official information is that there will be nine character classes available. Three are primarily concerned with melee combat (which is generally a tanking function); three are about ranged combat (generally a nuker/DPS function); and three are about combat support (generally about healing). The use of aggro by mobs has also been officially stated. So I stand by my statement.
As for the class/level thing, that subject has been done to death here on MMORPG as elsewhere, but just to reiterate: Of course there are perfectly workable alternatives to both classes and levels. The fact that some people can only see what's currently in front of them doesn't mean that other things don't exist now or won't exist in the future.
More specifically, classes are popular in MMORPGs because they make it easy to know your role (tank, etc. -- see above) in combat, which is what most MMORPGs are about. (I'll get to that in a minute.) But change some of those assumptions, and hard-coded classes become unnecessary. Why not offer skills, and group some of those skills in convenient blocks for players who don't care to spend time optimizing? Why must players who aren't interested in combat be forced to use the same role-specific, class-bound system that combat-oriented players demand? Since when was "one size fits all" an intelligent marketing decision?
Levels are also one of those features that some people inexplicably assume has to exist. Why? Is it so difficult to imagine a game in which you don't have to spend weeks or months levelling up because there aren't any levels? Why does the fact that D&D used classes with levels mean that every RPG, tabletop or otherwise, has to have classes with levels?
Consider Traveller, for years the single most popular science fiction RPG of them all. Although skills in Traveller had levels, you generally couldn't increase them once your character was created. It was thus functionally a game without levels... and yet people found it a blast to play.
Nor, had Traveller been a multiplayer online computer game, would it have been a MMOFPS. (A genre I don't personally care for, BTW.) Not having class or skill levels doesn't disqualify a game from being an RPG -- that's a very silly argument. Not having to worry about increasing one's class/skill levels through play doesn't make an MMORPG any less of an RPG -- you're still roleplaying a character with capabilities that you, the player, probably don't have. You just don't have to spend time trying to increase those levels before getting to play the "fun" content. How is that a bad thing?
Oh, and no, not every skill-based system is subject to grinding -- skills in EVE Online, for example, are learned in real time. No grinding for increased levels is even possible. (Yes, there's still grinding in EVE, but not for levels.)
Considering the claim that "every RPG is a fantasy game," that could actually be a defensible position, depending on how broadly you define "fantasy." Even science fiction could be classified as fantasy -- after all, it's not real.
Still, _Shadowmage was right -- we're talking genres here. And the fact is that the fantasy genre has been done to death. To set yet another game in another world with elves and magic and big swords... sigh. I can't help but see that as a bad business decision. I could turn out to be wrong about that, of course, in which case I'll be the first to admit I was wrong.
Finally, concerning my statement that "all available classes are about combat (devaluing other playstyles)", I've said this before but I guess I need to say it again: I'm not anti-combat in MMORPGs. I think combat is fun. MMORPGs that want to attract a lot of players need combat.
But I think they need more than combat. Combat alone is boring, and doesn't attract enough players with different playstyles to insure that a stable, long-lasting community will emerge. For that, Achievers aren't enough; a good game will also be designed from the very start to offer features that attract Explorers and Socializers, and won't treat them like second-class citizens by failing to give them full classes or skills of their own.
But that's precisely what HJ's design doesn't do. It's nice that HJ will allow dual-classing, but it's still a fact -- until and unless they change the design -- that every one of the nine classes are combat classes. Maybe there will also be features that support crafting and relationship maintenance, but no such features have yet been described... and even if they were, if everyone can learn them then they'll still be less valuable than the two-to-a-customer combat classes.
Again: there are a lot of things I'm seeing in Hero's Journey that I like personally, as well as things that I believe and hope will help to make it successful commercially. And I'm willing to take on faith that it will innovate in some areas. But I stand by my original assertion: so far, Hero's Journey does not appear to be as innovative as some people claim it will be.
And as I said, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe its conventional "fantasy combat" design is necessary to bring in the subscribers. Maybe so... but you can't have that and claim to be hugely innovative, too.
--Flatfingers
Well from a business point of view we can either say 98% of MMORPG's are in the fantasy genre, or we could look at the number of people playing games by genre and say 90% of MMORPG players play games in the fantasy genre. In which case making a fantasy MMORPG is a great business decision as thats where 90% of the customers are.
The trick would be to make a game thats different from the other fantasy genre games, and one that will build a long term player base as you are making your money on player retention, not on box sales.
So should a company make another space MMORPG - look at EVE, consistently awarded the title of best MMORPG year after year, and their numbers are slowly growing, but obviously there isnt a huge market there.
Personally I love both the sci-fi and fantasy genres - so I am looking to Heroes Journey for my fantasy fix, and hopefully Tabula Rasa for my sci-fi fix.
I used to play Runequest and Call of Cthulu as tabletop RPG's, now there are two great skill based games. And lots of non combat play, as the combat is brutal. In a MMORPG I think you need a system that is a bit less brutal in combat, otherwise your player base gets annoyed and goes somewhere else.
Classes give goals to people to achieve, its a lot more impressive to get your character from level 9 to level 10, than it is to get your riding skill from 45 to 46. The D&D type class/hit point system is a bit more forgiving in combat as well as your level 20 character with 50 hit points isnt likely to die from a single blow.
Classes also provide more structure by using the classic fantasy arch-types (warrior, thief, mage, priest) and variations of these which make it easy for people who are new to RPG's to get into the swing of things.
From what I have read of H.J their system is a hybrid class/skill system, but so far we have seen outlines of the major classes but not a lot more. So I am keen to see what they do.
I like what I have read of the character customisation, clothing options and the little bit that has come out about the wyr system. This should mean everyone is not running around in the uber-leet platemail of geekiness.
What I would like to see is a system where you didnt get experience from killing things, and monsters dropped realistic treasure.
Instead you would get experience from completing quests. Monsters would then just be obstacles in the way, the same as a rockfall, flooded river, avalanche , puzzle trap are obstacles to be avoided or overcome.
Monsters should only drop currency if they use currency. So slaying a bandit might give you gold and weapons and armour. Shooting a rabbit or deer with a bow could yield a hide. Shooting a deer with a fireball would give you nothing but some burnt remains.
Changes like that to the experience and loot system would do a lot to remove the just go out and kill everything mentality that is prevalent in current MMORPG's.
The way I always understood (before I became a GM, and until now) was that you will level faster (i.e. gain more exp) from doing Quests (and hero points!) and that normal combat (i.e. getting a group of people to stand around fighting) will be available if you choose to do it that way.
I personally think the Quests will be waaay more fun.
And uh, when was Aggro officially stated? I don't remember that. I'm not saying it isn't, I just can't remember seeing it.. A quote would be rather nice.
(also, note I don't really do any combat stuff, like MAKING the systems, so.. I don't know exactly what's going on there)
HJ-Diviana
Hero's Journey GM
Hero's Journey Official Site
Hero's Hall
Well first off Sev, thanks for telling us the game is being made and offering up images to roll with it. Plus that bit of info did indeed, much more so than that last restatment piece of crap you dropped on us, stimulate one's intrest. Plus it seemed reassuring that things are underway.
Now you guy's tooth and nailing Flat failed to notice he has a big point. Something I've noticed as well. HJ was to be the be all end all, we're going to do things differently and way more fun than everyone else.
Then they dropped that they have solid classes to contend with. Instanced zones. Questing.. Dual classing. Wyr adds stuff rather than equpitment.. All things other games have done, and until we get further along one can only assume will me like everyone else's system before hand. There's been nothing uniquely HJ presented since the big bruhaha at the 05 E3.
One can only hope it'll be a well made game now. Cuz there's nothing actually innovative being tossed at us anymore. Which being a well made video game isn't a bad goal to strive for. That's basically WarCraft's biggest selling point that people like to bemoan. It's a well crafted video game and straight up MMO. Right now that's what's working.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Diviana, I think you may have a valid point.
My recollection of aggro in HJ was based on a comment I remembered from Stephanie Shaver, as well as the long debate we had about it on the play.net HJ forum.
However, the only certain quote I can find was Steph's statement here on MMORPG.com: "MMORPGs are not primarily twitch games. They are less about how fast you can aim and fire, and more about advancing a set of tools that you strategically employ. Sure, timing is involved -- when you aggro a creature, when you use a certain spell effect, monitoring your health and so on ..." But she wasn't necessarily talking about Hero's Journey there. And the play.net forums aren't searchable.
HJ producer Erik Slick has also talked here about "pulling" creatures, but again, he was describing other MMORPGs, not necessarily meaning HJ as well.
Accordingly, I retract my claim that HJ will be reusing the old notion of aggro in how creature mobs behave toward attacking player characters. It might still turn out to be an accurate claim, but it's not correct for me to assume now that it's the case. Thanks for the gentle nudge for me to get my facts straight.
That said... the rest of my point that HJ's classes are about the traditional combat roles still holds true (see here, here, and here), as do my other points, all of which still lead to the conclusion that while some features of HJ may be innovative, certain key design decisions are not. In particular, focusing on making Hero's Journey another fantasy combat game may prove to be a bad idea in an industry glutted with fantasy combat games.
But we'll see. I still hope HJ does well.
--Flatfingers
I agree completely. In fact I recently posted the following on another forum:
The problem with current MMORPGs is that most developer-generated content goes into the process of mastering, and it is pointless. Once you master, all you can basically do is turn around and do the whole thing over again with a new character. This is the dirty little secret of online gaming.
The thing is, MMORPG designers consistently fail to develop alternative content unconnected with combat or mastering that might make the game deeper. They concentrate on making the grind more interesting and making combat more exciting, but in the end the grind and the result of the grind is not why we’re here. What’s important is the game world and how much fun we can get out of it ‘outside’ the limits of the grind. If there’s nothing there, no matter how interesting combat is, and no matter how palatable the grind can be made, the game will still leave us empty.
This is why it’s so important for game designers to develop minigames and non-combat content. But at the moment game designers are moving away from that. Instead they are focusing in on combat more and more, as if there’s something there that can fill the vast creative void that is at the centre of most MMORPGs. The thing is, the people who make these games are looking in the wrong place. It’s not about combat. The more they look to combat to fill that void, the larger the void will become. Until they figure out that it’s all about the richness of the world and the depth of our options, MMORPGs will always have that feeling that they’re missing something.
The first game designer who realises the truth will be on the gravy train.
Well said, Beery! I couldn't have done a better job myself of articulating the value of non-combat content.
It's puzzling that so many developers of complex games, whom you'd think must be Explorer-types, focus so monomaniacally on making the game nothing but a continuous adrenaline rush. It's as though the goal were to keep every player in a permanent state of frenetic excitement.
For a recent example of this, check out the blog of David Jaffe, designer of God of War. Here's the most amazing section of his comments:
OK, yes, there are certainly people for whom this go-go-go mode is the most satisfying kind of entertainment... but what about the many other consumers for whom this idea of entertainment is just exhausting? Yes, Do and Have are emotional goals that games can and should try to satisfy... but what about Think and Feel? MMORPGs can satisfy those needs, too -- shouldn't they try?
I think so. My thesis is that massive online games -- if they have any intention of being around for the long haul -- need both gameplay and worldplay. They need the rush of combat, but they also need puzzles and stories; they need to satisfy not just the desire of some gamers for perpetual excitement but also the desire of other gamers for intellectual stimulation and social engagement.
A MMORPG that was designed to offer that balance, and whose developers insisted on preserving that balance throughout all content updates and expansions, would, I believe, be both critically and financially successful for quite a long time.
--Flatfingers