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I've received mod approval for this thread, though its not quite like the rest of the threads in this forum. Everyone has their own ideas about what makes an MMO better, and I think that we should have a centralized location for anyone who wants to voice their ideas, instead of shitposting in game threads about why their MMO sucks and isn't what we want it to be. I think this can be cathartic, and can also inspire really great ideas. So let loose with your ideas about quests/raid mechanics/class dynamics or whatever idea you have floating around your head that you think only you have thought of, yet aren't willing to do anything about. Also, civility and respect are the utmost concern here. I don't want any shitposting about someone else's idea, even if you think it is stupid. If you disagree with someone's idea, that's fine, but be constructive in criticism and offer up a solution to a problem you see as well. Don't be an rear end in a top hat. Don't make mods have to work harder. I'll start things off first: Every one, in every game, dreads the escort mission, especially if you're caught off guard by it. It's a groan worthy experience, that I think can be turned completely upside down into a fun experience. Instead of escorting a helpless NPC, I want to see the NPC be incredibly stronger than the PC. The NPC makes a bee-line for wherever he needs to go, as fast as he can, completely annihilating anything in his path. Your job is to keep up, while the game starts spawning more and more things behind you. It essentially turns into a chase, where your survival is sticking with the guy who's one shotting creatures 10 levels above you. If you fall behind, you're eaten. The circumstances around why a much higher level NPC isn't so tough. There's definitely ways of writing a reason why. Now its your turn. Remember, don't be an rear end in a top hat.
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Aug 10, 2011 23:21
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I don't really like how streamlined and formulaic MMOs have become. It frustrates me how WoW has set the precedent for what seems to be the "right stuff" to put in a game. Not to say the game hasn't brought fourth good ideas, it has. I just don't see any risk/reward in games anymore; nothing has to be sacrificed other than time. Games like EverQuest and Ultima Online were so unforgiving and great because there were some serious penalties (relative to what is out today, please don't cite Darkfall) when making a mistake. Now, in an mmo, you're a little rendition of a god running around the landscape with an over-sized glowing sword and disproportionate muscles, breasts and armor collecting 14 toothed necklaces, or tiger manes, or whatever for some NPC that really wouldn't even give a gently caress about having them in the first place, anyway. Also, games don't need to be in the fantasy setting. It's becoming over-developed and bland. It seems to me like everyone and anyone trying to develop a MMO can't conceptualize a class system outside of a Tank, Thief/Rogue, Priest/Cleric and Mage/Magic caster. And it's becoming more and more apparent that studios are playing games coming out and saying, "Oh I really liked this PVP/Quest/Raid/Town/etc system, but I can think of a way to improve it!", set out to implement 10 zillion features (iPhone, anyone) and before they even polish the biggest most important detail, playable classes/characters, they release a game with both classes which aren't fun to play and an unfinished game world with an eighth of the promised features. Further, why is locking in people to classes such a popular choice? I'd really enjoy an open-ended sandbox type game where you can switch your role on the fly and specialize in a variety of skills and utility. I suppose from a developmental point-of-view it's easy to code a constrained class and from a business perspective if there's a formula that works, don't mess with it. But if that's what games are becoming then I don't want any part of it. And is that really what the original guys sitting behind Macintosh 128Ks, or etc, were thinking when they wanted to make some awesome textual adventure game? How to make the most money in the least amount of time? When UO or EverQuest came out the reason they were so novel was because they pushed the envelope on what was new and brought something completely stunning and never-before seen. I'd like to see any modern MMO, excluding WoW, make it to as far as UO and EQ has - extending to beyond 10 years of playtime. If my mission in MMOs is forever destined to slay every living and undead thing in existence, I'd rather play an action RPG like Diablo. I'm beyond that; I thirst for a dynamic world where my character counts beyond waving my
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Aug 11, 2011 00:33
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I see your frustration, but what would you do to solve those problems? What kind of setting would you like to see, instead of fantasy? Would you like steampunk? Sci-fi? What do those settings bring to the table, other than being a fresh change of scenery? Can you think of something those settings can do that you can't accomplish in a fantasy setting? I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'd like this thread to not just be bitching about what we don't like, but a concentrated effort to suggest new ideas, instead of just criticizing the old ones.
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Aug 11, 2011 00:53
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Well I think people have become fixated on the idea that to play an MMO you need a visible character in the 3rd person. Maybe it's time to branch away from this genre. I have a thread I made on Dofus, here, in the MMO HMO mostly because I wanted to expose people to the game because it's something entirely new - for an MMO, at least. I like it a lot because it's like Final Fantasy Tactics/Disgaea and isn't all about clicking big yellow "!" over NPCs heads. The allure for me is that you get to weigh your characters actions - placement, limited action potential, etc - and if you gently caress up, you can potentially lose. And the game keeps getting harder which I think just rules. But, a little on the spot, if I had to make an MMO I'd like some overhead tactics/strategy MMO set in a modern-ish era where you're a military commander over control of a territory/country/whatever. And you plot campaigns over a dynamic world and have like... instanced battles similar to the total war games or age of empires. And character progression could be something like: you start out with just infantry and work your way up to advanced flight, robotics weaponry, etc. Hell, the game could even evolve as you play, sort of like Civilization. And people could roll back their characters to the "start" but with added bonuses if they get tired being at the highest level/ latest era/ etc. And maybe if I was some sort of gallsy developer I'd think of a way to incorporate an FPS aspect to the game, as well. Ugh, now you've got me all excited about something perfectly tailored for me which won't ever come out.
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Aug 11, 2011 01:12
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I'd really like to see dynamic worlds. A gripe I have with MMOs is that the world is static. Whether you clear a dungeon/instance or wipe out, it doesn't matter. If you won a battleground in WoW, it didn't matter. Games like Shadowbane did this to an extreme though: the game was purely pvp with player-made towns. When you were attacking someone, you were potentially wiping their town from the map and destroying their guild. The problem is that eventually one giant uber guild would win out and basically hold a monopoly over the server. I guess I'm asking for something in between. A "good vs. evil" progressive storyline where towns get destroyed, new ones get founded, and battle lines are shifting. It would be terrible if good or evil won outright and the server was stagnant though; you'd have to have GMs or something moderating it so that there's some kind of balance. I never played Dark Age of Camelot, which I think was something close to this. IIRC it had three factions fighting against each other.
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Aug 11, 2011 01:16
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Over time I've played many different MMOs, from messing around with the awesome character creator in City of Heroes/Villains to Maple Story (yuck! so much grind and all kinds of issues) to Dungeon Fighter Online (which, in my opinion, is just about the best a typical Korean MMO grind game could ever hope to be due to a wide variety of unique classes and fun gameplay based entirely around beat em up arcade games), but by far the most influential MMO to me was a game called Graal. Graal started off under the title Zelda Online. It used mainly Link to the Past art assets or edited art assets. Nintendo eventually contacted them with a cease & desist over the name so they changed the name to Graal Online or something like that. Graal was a top down zelda-like game where you had a decently sized world with plenty of things to do in it, from exploring around to changing you sprite to look like whatever the game let you change it to (a pretty big list of heads and clothing and wings and shoes and whatnot were available and you could even make your own sprites to include into the game if you could cut some manner of deal with whoever ran the game). However, the original leader of the game left the project due to some stuff I'm not all that familiar with, some kind of drama, and the dude who took over immediately turned it into a pay to play game with a horribly bastardized free mode where you couldn't do anything. At this point, a free version of Graal popped up run on fan servers. In this free version, fans could make their own servers and make their own content so that the map was being procedurally generated due to user content. Unfortunately, after far too short of a time, the servers went down and never came back up. I believe you could still play it in single player, but who cares about that? Graal was great. It didn't have parties, you just had people who met up and decided "hey, let's go run around the map exploring and killing stuff" Things I did in Graal: Grab a horse and go speeding around, racing other people Pick up a bush and hide underneath it and stalk other players Get rid of the bush and immediately attack other players (PKing was awesome in Graal) Throw bombs at people at random Go make money at the targeting range by learning how to shoot good Find some cool player-made items like Moonwalking Boots that let you walk backwards or a cool bow & arrow that lets you shoot a bolt of fire, ice, and lightning all at once Enjoy all manner of cool events that the admins set up Enjoy new user-made content like an entire dungeon that is balls hard and nets you a single gem out of it (totally worth it) Go through other dungeons that actually are worth going through in order to get more heart containers Mess around in town and set up your own shops Contact the admin with your own maps and houses so that you can make your own town, shop, dungeon, etc. All I want out of an MMO is the freedom that Graal gave me. A game that lets you run around and have fun PKing people, exploring the landscape for all manner of hidden secrets, checking out all of the cool and unique treasures, setting up your own house and such to gently caress around in, and generally creating the story as you go along. All of this combined with the chill admins who would incorporate tested user-made content into the game as well as the map editor that comes with the game that is easy to learn and hard to master (thus allowing for a variety of possibilities) is why all I really want from an MMO nowadays is that sense of freedom. I don't want to go to an NPC and have him/her tell me to go to an area and kill poo poo. I want to find that place on my own and explore on my own and maybe get some friends together so we can go looting and have a good time.
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Aug 11, 2011 02:43
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The main thing I want is meaningful character progression choices, I mean honestly how different are different WoW Rogues for example? I was excited for The Old Republic until I saw the talent trees were a bunch of 10% to that and +4% to this stat that you will never notice the difference of. In order to accomplish this they are gonna have to vastly improve loot tables and give loot some sort of choice not "this one has 2 dex higher then this one so it is the obvious better choice" and they are going to have some sort of skill talent branching trees with meaningful differences.
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Aug 11, 2011 03:00
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I'd like for more MMO's to have a less "traditional" play style. I'm a huge fan of games like EVE and Black Prophecy where the combat is less based on numbers and more based on player interaction. That combined with large "siege" type events for the players (I like Incursions in EVE, although I always wished for a Siege of Stormwind/Orgrimmar in WoW raid). I guess I'd just like for people to kind of break out of these predefined roles and tropes that all the other MMO's out there seem to fall prey to. I mean, yes, they are a good way to explain and categorize (damage dealers, supporters, tanks, etc.). And it doesn't even have to be the same styles or genres that are common these days. hell, after going back through Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines again, I'm actually interested in a vampire MMO. Hell, anything that does something different. Air/Vehicle based combat in a steam punk world that is played from the perspective as a person with a clan or guild serving as the crew of a zeppelin that fights other such things sounds fun, I'd play the poo poo out of that, so long as the art style for it was done well (I'm thinking the Borderlands style cel-shading would work fine; anything more detailed than that sounds fairly difficult). I think I might make that game if I happen to come into a pile of money somehow. My problem with this is that I know that I would play it, but how many others would? What would the endgame be, if there was one? Should there be one? Too many things to think and get worked up about. Guess I'll just suffer and hope the next MMO catches my eye.
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Aug 11, 2011 03:34
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I've had an idea in my head for an MMO for a while now. An MMO which addresses a lot of the issues I have with MMORPGs today. I'll just cite a few ideas I had for my game as examples of things I'd like to see more games do. Meaningful Non-Combat Classes: In my MMO, there are nine classes. Of those nine, only three are specifically combat-focused. See, the classes are divided into three categories, as follows... Power Classes: Warrior, Rogue, Paladin Knowledge Classes: Sage, Wizard, Enchanter Wealth Classes: Thief, Pirate, Merchant What separates each class is how they gain EXP. Only Power types gain EXP from killing enemies and their abilities are centered around combat and drawing aggro towards themselves. Wealth types gain EXP from finding treasure and selling goods, and their powers are based around mobility and getting access to hidden treasures. Knowledge types...it's a bit complicated but basically they get EXP from "researching" items and from crafting, and their powers are centered around "studying" things and using what they've learned to help those around them. Basically, I got tired of the way so many MMORPGs all boiled down to combat. You have all these crafting systems and loot mechanics and different classes with varied powers, but every inch of it circles back to combat. For some people, the fun of an MMORPG comes from crafting items or selling goods to other players, so why not actually have a class built around those archetypes to create an even deeper experience? Now, every time I say this, someone mentions that Galaxies did it. So, I'm aware, but...that was Galaxies. Give players real reasons to group: In most MMORPGs, whether or not you can solo content is just dependent on your level. Anyone can solo just about anything up until the endgame, at which point the devs lash together something with such ridiculous stats that you are finally, finally forced to find a group. I say screw that. MMORPGs should be designed as multiplayer experiences and require player cooperation as a core of their mechanics. The way you do this is to make sure every player has something they can offer another player. Here's an example of how I hope my game would work, and this ties into the non-combat class thing from before. If you're a Knowledge-class player, just venturing into the woods alone is dangerous. So you check to see if any Power-types are offering their services as bodyguards. Their rates, if they ask for anything at all, would hopefully be cheap because they get bonus XP just for being grouped with and protecting you. Now you can go deep into the forest and research monsters you couldn't get to before. So while you're out there you find a locked chest neither you nor your new acquaintance can open. Fortunately, Wealth-types are natural lockpickers, so you head back to town and find a Thief offering her services as a lockpicker. In exchange you give her a couple of golden troll teeth you found in the woods, as they're useless to you but mean hefty EXP for her. She opens the chest and inside there's a map. Brilliant Knowledge-type that you are, you decode it (getting EXP) and discover it leads to a previously unknown dungeon. Dungeons are dangerous and complex places, so the three of you agree to go together, as you'll need all of your skills. You three use the map ("maps" are used by going to a specified location and using them from your inventory, at which point your party is transported to a procedurally-generated, instanced location) to reach the dungeon and slowly make your way through. The Power-type handles the monsters and smashes weak barriers, the Wealth-type disarms the traps and opens locked doors, and you the Knowledge-type decrypt clues on the walls to solve puzzles. In the end you walk away with a bunch of EXP from decoding the ruin's mysteries as well as a couple "tomes" (basically free EXP items for Knowledge-types). The Power-type walks away with a bevy of EXP from the dungeon boss as well as some nice armor. The Wealth-type walks away with all the gold and gems she could find, ready to pawn it off for her own EXP. This scenario required three players to work together, but it also (and this is perhaps even more important) brought them together organically by giving them similar simultaneous goals and easy access to one another for help. Rat-in-a-Maze Syndrome: I came up with this term to describe a trend I really hate in MMORPGs. The very artificial segregation of areas by level really gives players the feeling that the path they're taking to the level cap is the exact same one everyone else takes. This is not fun. MMORPGs need to take greater advantage of procedural content and divergent quest paths. I feel like too many MMOs try to make you feel like the "hero," but that isn't really what I value. What I value much more highly is feeling like my adventures in this game are unique, and that through my interactions with the world and other players I'm having a different experience than what everyone else is having. Honestly, I kinda explained how my game would be different in the previous example, though.
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Aug 11, 2011 03:45
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The siege of Stormwind/Org would be awesome. A massive battleground unlike any ever saw, done like maybe once every other week per race. Holy poo poo.
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Aug 11, 2011 04:21
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Ambition and cool ideas haven't really been lacking in the MMO scene. Good execution has been. What sort of things would help game developers execute better on their grand ideas?
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Aug 11, 2011 04:34
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FirstAidKite posted:Graal This game was incredibly amazing and was a staple of my childhood. It had some really serious user content too. Everything from new online worlds to singleplayer 'campaigns' or puzzle games. The p2p poo poo was lame, but I think it was a one time fee? The 'official' server was kind of BS after they reshaped it away from the original. Graal is actually still around, I noticed it a few weeks ago, though I have no idea what it has become now. I did take note that Valikorlia was around, that place was kind of neat. I think that was the one with a kingdom and farming and such. Almost wondering if it'd be worth checking out again, after like 12 years.  i am really surprised that someone actually mentioned graal, and so quickly at that e: Rocketlex, I'd play that game. 
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Aug 11, 2011 04:35
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Cicero posted:Ambition and cool ideas haven't really been lacking in the MMO scene. Good execution has been. What sort of things would help game developers execute better on their grand ideas?
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Aug 11, 2011 04:56
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Tsurupettan posted:Almost wondering if it'd be worth checking out again, after like 12 years. I remember checking out the free servers within the past year or so and found it to be completely empty. Someone had decided to run it but there was absolutely nothing happening in it at all. It had become a graveyard. It was really disappointing since in the older days you could just run around and run into all sorts of fun people trying to kill each other or teaming up to not die to one another. Or just hiding under bushes. Tsurupettan posted:i am really surprised that someone actually mentioned graal, and so quickly at that That would be because Graal was loving great
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Aug 11, 2011 05:36
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I think that threat is the limiting factor in MMO design. as long as combat is based on threat, and thus the concept of tanking and healing, then no one's going to come up with a better design than WoW. I don't know what the answer is but I think for real innovation we're going to have to break away from this paradigm.
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Aug 11, 2011 06:50
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Graal was the best, and way, way before its time. If there was some way to bring back the same kind of experience FirstAidKite talked about with Graal in a new game, I would easily pay 15$ a month for that. Of course, I would expect more polish, but the basics of Graal couldn't possibly that hard to implement, and I'm surprised a Graal-like hasn't been made since Graal itself.
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Aug 11, 2011 06:58
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Bobfromsales posted:I think that threat is the limiting factor in MMO design. as long as combat is based on threat, and thus the concept of tanking and healing, then no one's going to come up with a better design than WoW. Again, I think a shift away from entirely combat-based gaming is a large part of it. Make enemies just one of many possible obstacles that can be thrown at the player. Obstacles some classes are better equipped to deal with than others.
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Aug 11, 2011 07:11
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I want to play a genuine first person MMORPG. Not necessarily a MMOFPS, but a game where the only camera view is through your character's eyes. I want a game where you don't end up playing from a bird eye view because it's best for raiding/PvP whatever, where you don't peek around corners, where "stealth" consists of hiding behind things and attacking from the back not turning invisible, where monsters can jump at you and surprise you. Even group tactics might evolve if instead of just having tank/healer, etc.. you'd want people to literally "watch your back". Also i think MMO worlds would be so much more immersive / awe inspiring from a first person perspective.
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Aug 11, 2011 08:12
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Oh my god Graal, played the poo poo out of that, probably more than any MMO since. I believe there is a project called Graal Reborn that tries to bring back the game of old without the P2P but I can't get the website running properly. For me, take out the click to cast function and make it more dynamic, requiring timing of sword swings, aiming of spells/bows and movement as a part of the battle. Make it more like Oblivion in combat and less like WoW and EQ2. I agree about exploration, and I thought of a method of easy grouping. Select a quest, and look for people also attempting that quest or have interest in doing it because they are in the area. You can automatically try to group with them and you all will be doing a quest you want to do. Some quests require large groups but may need dividing. Example: A tower that the only way to get to the boss that requires 8 people is to divide into two groups of 4, because two different switches must be pressed on different parts of the tower at the same time. This allows for a small group experience leading to a large group encounter. Have one account where the person can change classes at a waypoint so they can be the proper level for their group or to try a dungeon that may be below their level. So a level 20 necromancer can go to a waypoint and turn into his level 50 berserker alt to join his friends, or he may want to change into his level 5 rogue to play a low level dungeon. This way a person can easily exchange battle equipment for mage gear on the same account and maintain all the same friends etc without having to switch characters. Make tradeskills not, "Click on this rock, watch it for five seconds and get some iron" but make mini-games to go along with the games, kind of like Puzzle Quest 2 where lockpicking is more dynamic, by matching keys Bejeweled style or picking like it is done in Oblivion. And the last thing I can think of for the moment is quests. No more NPCs asking you to kill 40 slugs or whatever, either have the quests automatically in your book when you are near them. I think of Borderlands but where you receive all the quests at the start of the area and you can choose accordingly due to your level or group needs. Escort missions can be better, fetch quests can be better, mostly my favorites are go here kill this guy, they seem to work well. Quests do seem to be getting more creative but there is always room for creative improvement. Basically, toss the story, add more adventure, allow for dynamic combat, leveling, questing and grouping, and toss out anything that might induce the thought of "grinding", make death mean something, and I think you would be well on your way to an awesome MMO.
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Aug 11, 2011 08:28
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TurboFlamingChicken posted:I agree about exploration, and I thought of a method of easy grouping. Select a quest, and look for people also attempting that quest or have interest in doing it because they are in the area. You can automatically try to group with them and you all will be doing a quest you want to do. Some quests require large groups but may need dividing. Example: A tower that the only way to get to the boss that requires 8 people is to divide into two groups of 4, because two different switches must be pressed on different parts of the tower at the same time. This allows for a small group experience leading to a large group encounter. Another way to do it would be to have a special "Looking for group" mode a character can go into. You turn it on and your character glows or something, then people can group with you instantly just by right-clicking you. You can set the parameters of who you're looking for, and you'll only appear in LFG mode for people who fit the criteria. If a person in LFG Mode has the same active quest you do, they'll appear on your mini-map.
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Aug 11, 2011 08:32
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Rocketlex posted:Another way to do it would be to have a special "Looking for group" mode a character can go into. You turn it on and your character glows or something, then people can group with you instantly just by right-clicking you. You can set the parameters of who you're looking for, and you'll only appear in LFG mode for people who fit the criteria. If a person in LFG Mode has the same active quest you do, they'll appear on your mini-map. Rift more or less does this.
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Aug 11, 2011 08:36
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Dauq posted:I want to play a genuine first person MMORPG. People want to see their characters and dress them up though. I'm not even that much into it, but when I played WoW, I remember trying on different tabards and armor, just to see what it looked like.
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Aug 11, 2011 08:40
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Which then created, "Let me strut around town in my level 80 Mythic Boner Inducing armor and show off how much of a life I don't have."
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Aug 11, 2011 08:44
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I know it goes against the generally accepted "idea" of MMO's but I'd love to see a strategy-style MMO where player skill (or ingenuity) goes further than time invested. Sort of like a FFT style game where you control a group of characters from a preset pool and do battle against other players. Over time you (the player) would level up (by winning matches or something) and gain access to a wider and deeper (new/enhanced versions of previously available classes) pool of characters to choose from. Eventually you'd be able to moderately augment the available classes and so on and so forth. Basically you'd end up playing a very deep, very open game of Pokemon where the only difference is that you whole team plays at once. Ideally this game would have larger grids on which to have 2v2 player matches. (Or even larger matches.) Gear and other items would not be drops but instead be regular items available to all players for set amounts of currency from item shops in hubs. The true "advancement" or "customization" would come from the depth and variety of player "teams" you could encounter. I just want a FFT/Pokemon hybrid MMO. Is that too much to ask!?
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Aug 11, 2011 08:44
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TurboFlamingChicken posted:
What I don't understand is how games (and Warhammer said they were gonna loving fix it, and they didn't, god drat lying paul barnett) can't check to see if you have killed a pre-requisite number of creatures before sending you on some stupid kill quest. The beauty of EQ's quest system is that you got quest drops, possibly well before you'll ever encounter the quest, if you do at all. This should continue to exist. It's stupid only getting quest items when you have the quest. That kills exploration in my opinion because if you are going questing, you dont want to waste time dicking around killing Bears and Bandits when you could have a quest to kill Bears and Bandits. Especially if you have something like WARs big book of poo poo where it tracks if you've killed 100 wolves or something. If you can do that, then you can set the quest giver to CHECK the logs or for things to update immediately. Urgh.
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Aug 11, 2011 09:30
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Red Baron posted:I know it goes against the generally accepted "idea" of MMO's but I'd love to see a strategy-style MMO where player skill (or ingenuity) goes further than time invested. Sort of like a FFT style game where you control a group of characters from a preset pool and do battle against other players. Over time you (the player) would level up (by winning matches or something) and gain access to a wider and deeper (new/enhanced versions of previously available classes) pool of characters to choose from. Eventually you'd be able to moderately augment the available classes and so on and so forth. Basically you'd end up playing a very deep, very open game of Pokemon where the only difference is that you whole team plays at once. Ideally this game would have larger grids on which to have 2v2 player matches. (Or even larger matches.) Gear and other items would not be drops but instead be regular items available to all players for set amounts of currency from item shops in hubs. The true "advancement" or "customization" would come from the depth and variety of player "teams" you could encounter. I'm not sure this really fits with an MMO model, though. If you don't have large scale PvP (2v2 is not large scale), and you don't have players involved in the economy, and you don't have any way to brag about but my numberz... well, how is it any different from just playing one of those pokemon battle simulators?
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Aug 11, 2011 09:39
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One of the big things, I think, that pretty much all MMOs need to start doing is allowing for something like CoH's sidekick system. People play the game because of their friends, they want to play with their friends. They want to do fun things with other people in the game. Telling people 'you must be this tall to ride' to access any of the high end content is horrible. Sure, there ARE things that have a barrier to entry in CoH, but the core game mechanics and locations are accessible to everyone.
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Aug 11, 2011 11:41
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One of the main things I want in a MMORPG is a sense of exploration and adventure. I like fantasy as much as the next guy, but a half-assed design for the world ripped off from Tolkein/D&D kills it completely. What cultures exist in this world and how do they clash? Oh... the dwarves keep to themselves in the mines, the elves don't like others interfering with nature, the orcs are primitive warriors and the humans are advancing the boundaries of learning and technology. Whats the city like? How is it defended? How do citizens travel? What are the oldest buildings and how has architecture changed? What is the difference between the rich and poor and how is this reflected in different districts? Oh... Out of the entire city I can only explore the city center, on completely level ground with no citizens apart from quest-givers and merchants. There are some generic houses, some market stalls and a main square. It really is a shame since world design has always been a huge part of single player RPG's, producing some amazingly beautiful places with different themes and cultures. Yet when we get to explore at our own pace with friends? It's the same generic cities, plains, woods and dungeons with the same generic D&D races and classes. I wish Imperial Boy would get hired as a MMO concept artist.  Gearhead posted:Telling people 'you must be this tall to ride' to access any of the high end content is horrible. Definitely, I hate having to play catchup in multiplayer games with levels. If my friends are still actively playing then its impossible.
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Aug 11, 2011 12:04
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quote:Also, games don't need to be in the fantasy setting. I hate to nitpick this out of your entire post but actually the market has decided that yes, games need to be in a fantasy setting. MMO's that aren't in fantasy settings don't sell. I'm going to be probably the odd man out in this entire thread. Let me be clear, I'm a core gamer. I am very good at video games, but I think MMO's should be more accessible and easier. There is a lot of numbers to crunch and too much poo poo for new players to learn. People complain WoW for instance is too easy, but I think it's way too hard. Being effective in the game requires you to visit out of game websites and research, and get mods. That's actually really poor development. It's fun, but only for us hard core players. We're also an extremely vocal minority. A good MMO I would think is one where the player starts the game, and within an hour would have mastered the basics of the game and could be viable in all content they're willing to tackle. I think raids had their time and in the future should do one of two things: 1. Be only a few people on the small populated end. 4 to 5 players. or 2. Have multiple difficulties, and have one of those options allowing the raid to be completely puggable. Everyone should be able to experience all the content and story no matter what. I think the future of MMO's is going to be far more active combat as well. You see all these cutscenes with fantastic combat, but then you get ingame and it's very click and button press. I think there can be a proper marriage for twitch combat, which allows the player to be more immersed, and traditional RPG combat which requires more brain power, and helps even the playing field skill-wise.
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Aug 11, 2011 12:39
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I wondered how would this scenario play out with the way servers work. Everyone is given a unique character. First and last name, and whatever customizations you pick. This character is saved onto the login server, and instead of setting up a permanent server of residence, you log into the login server, and then pick your destination from there. Maybe you want to go to a PVP server today, or maybe you want to go the PVE server another day. DAOC has a form of this due to the fact that the population is so small, they just have 11 different shards of the same world, incase for whatever reason your little dungeon in BFE is too full with those 3 people in there. I feel like this would solve problems of people not being able to play together because of servers getting full, or just how things are split up upon release. To address the inevitable griefing questions, I think that's just inevitable. It already happens, and server reputation doesn't mean poo poo-all in any kind of modern MMO. I would however, love to see, in a PVP game, a bounty system. Where you can put a hit out on a player that anyone can collect on. You get the bounty, and then you get a name, a level at the time of bounty creation, and an indicator if they're online or not. I think that would make for a really fun component to world pvp. Especially if dying from a bounty was worse than just a regular death. Can that system be exploited, or griefed? Potentially. But boy you musta pissed someone off for them to grief you that bad.
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Aug 11, 2011 12:41
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Nelson Mandingo posted:
I think this could be done in a really easy, and accessible way: gear scaling. WoW already has a system of "gearscore" implemented. How hard would it be to engineer a formula that monsters scale towards your gearscore? So instead of always getting a gear check, you get stuff that's supposed to be challenging, but still totally do-able. And it is silly how only the top 1% get to take part in some of the tougher dungeons, when really, it's not like those 1%ers beating it actually changes the world. It's still there, waiting for more people. Why can't everyone participate? And if you want tougher, have a sliding scale that adjusts your gear score by a percentage. Too easy at your current gear score? Slide the scaler up 10% and the monsters think you have a higher score.
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Aug 11, 2011 12:46
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Nelson Mandingo posted:I'm going to be probably the odd man out in this entire thread. Let me be clear, I'm a core gamer. I am very good at video games, but I think MMO's should be more accessible and easier.  ".And I'd also chime in on having games that are not centered around combat. Myst Online, while it failed in many regards, at least loving tried to do something else.
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Aug 11, 2011 13:31
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Aisar posted:Graal was the best, and way, way before its time. If there was some way to bring back the same kind of experience FirstAidKite talked about with Graal in a new game, I would easily pay 15$ a month for that. Of course, I would expect more polish, but the basics of Graal couldn't possibly that hard to implement, and I'm surprised a Graal-like hasn't been made since Graal itself. This is the part where an aspiring goon steps up and says, 'Hey, maybe I can get the Graal files and start up a server!'. Then we kick around the idea for a while and nothing comes of it, though it'd be spectacular to have a goon run graal server. Not private, make it public. It'd be the best pubbie murdering simulator since Space Station 13.  You know what, I wonder if the Graal files are public...
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Aug 11, 2011 14:22
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Nelson Mandingo posted:A good MMO I would think is one where the player starts the game, and within an hour would have mastered the basics of the game and could be viable in all content they're willing to tackle. I like this idea but let's go a step further with it. They should ditch levels and leveling in the current sense. You should start a game and in an hour master all the basics as you said. But then that's it. You're ready to take on the WHOLE game's universe. Sort of like in EVE where you can start impacting the game right out the dock. Develop a world where brains and twitch-based skill are your 'levels'. Let's get some real PvE into the game. Develop nations that have their own cultures and belief systems and give them and your character reasons to interact. Don't throw a pile of scorpions in coordinates 12334,12553 of map A. Make the scorpions a tribal species that develops hives in places and threaten towns. "Adventurer will you help us deal with some scorpions? There's totally coin in it for you!" and you can choose to be like "Sure, eff scorpions!" or "Nope." The only issue I need to figure out in this scenario is how to handle gear. The in-game economy and reason you want money could be a host of cosmetic or crafting reasons, but there has to be a way to remove gear requirements. This has been a stable of the MMO/RPG world since Diablo, everyone wants that gear. So any game without gear might just sink in the water. I really would like an alternative because the idea of being able to do ANYTHING in the MMO world after mastering the basics is fantastic to me.
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Aug 11, 2011 14:31
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Nelson Mandingo posted:1. Be only a few people on the small populated end. 4 to 5 players. I'd agree with this. I'd add that anything a game can do to allow people to play with friends should be implemented. For example, if I have a level 60 char and a friend just started, it would be great to be able to go help them out at their level. Tank some instances for them or maybe heal. (I think FFXI has something like this but having never played I'm not sure, and I think I need to try that game once) That actually leads me to my next point. More instances would be great. More instances that take 5-7 people. I'd actually like to see a game try to implement a dungeon creator to allow for more player created content.
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Aug 11, 2011 14:35
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The problem I see with MMOs is the goal they set for the players. What do you want out of the game and what does it deliver? Pretty much all level based games point you in one direction: up. In level, gear, access to content etc. 90% of which becomes loving pointless because your players want to finish it as fast as possible to get to the only worthwile top content. And the thing is that the players have been trained to expect this progression. They now want to be handheld all the way to the end. Follow one quest chain to the next town you base out of until you outlevel the content, again. Rinse and repeat until you join your buddies at the level limit where you can start having fun. This should not happen, if you don't have fun on the journey there something is rotten and must be changed. New players should be able to provide useful aid to older player characters and be rewarded for it. The CoH sidekick system is a good example for removing the old/new barrier but ideally I would like this to happen without adding power scaling. I want to see a game where a novice medic can actually fully heal a veteran character within seconds instead of barely denting his lifebar at all without the need for a game mechanic that levels the playing field. I also don't like how lower level characters cannot even touch another character in pvp when he's 10+ levels higher just because he's higher level. Breaking up pvp into character tiers only leads to twinked out characters at the top level of the tier who massacre normally levelled and geared characters without fear of reprisal. My idea to make this happen is to make character progression extremely simple and shallow. I'm talking about a top level veteran only having about three times the HP of a freshly made newbie character of similar archetype. Also give every character access to all skills of their class early in their career, don't make them chose the extend of their abilites on level up. Make them chose when to use what instead. Suddenly a gang of newbies who band together can still accomplish something even without the need to become better before having fun is possible. At least that's what I hope this would lead to. Now I also agree with the distaste of some that advancement should not come exclusively from fighting and killing exp pinatas. The worst I have seen was in Ragnarok Online where the blacksmith class is the only source of weapons imbued with elemental properties but the mechanics are so dumb: the formula that determines your success demands a specific spread of your stats and skills that effectively gimps your character for everything else. This wouldn't be so bad if making stuff also made you better but it doesn't. Your guildmates have to drag your useless rear end through the dungeons where you sit in a corner doing nothing while you absorb exp from them killing monsters just to become useful. Forcing players who want to make item creation their main thing in a game to not play is loving dumb. Most crafting or market focused characters are made as alts for combat mains. I also don't like how other MMOs handle crafting professions as tacked onto an existing combat class. "I'm a warrior, but in my spare time I sew shirts and grow plants." Because wanting to be the one to provide things should be enough of a reason to do it, not "because it supplements my core combat skills nicely". This would require a proper sandbox environment where you can chose to be a mechanic/merchant/dog breeder/whatever without any combat ability whatsoever and it is accepted as a perfectly valid way to play the game. Unfortunately I have no idea to make a perfect sandbox where this is possible.
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Aug 11, 2011 14:35
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A few things I'd like to see: One, a crafting system that isn't utter poo poo. That is to say, one that actually involves crafting unique items, rather than 'it's like buying things, except more tedious'. Say, for example, you want to create a chestpiece. Instead of choosing something like 'Elvish Gimp Armor' from a list and getting 'Elvish Gimp Armor +1' or the like, you choose 'Shape: Bustier 2', 'Pattern: Elvish Gimp 1', 'Neck Detail: Gimp Collar 4', and so on, set the color of each part, possibly add a custom emblem or something, and set the stats to determine the materials and overall cost. The end result is something that the player can actually say they, to a reasonable degree, made themselves, and allow for creativity to be rewarded. Two, I'd like to see the huge amounts of 'FETCH ME TEN HIGH UPPER LOWER QUALITY TAILS OF HIGHER LOWLANDS RAT WEASELS' quests tossed out in favor of fewer, but more complex and higher quality quests that actually have a story to tell and give the player a reason to care about what's happening. I'd like to see more MMORPGs that have a well written main quest that lets the player actually feel like an important part of the world, instead of just 'Phil, the level 50 Rogue who's really good at fetching Kobold Dicks'. I'd like to see side quests that give the player meaningful choices that effect both the game world and the player's experience. Perhaps a quest could alter spawn rates upon completion, perhaps it could change NPC market values, or maybe the player would be forced to choose whether or not to sell out an NPC to the city guard, either granting the player access to the NPC's unique services, or granting them a large amount of gold and new quest line. Three, I'd like to see services become a marketable commodity in MMORPGs. Perhaps a player who focused more on crafting than they did combat, and need materials from a higher-end area where the monsters would maul them. Instead of running around hopelessly trying to find someone to help them, they could visit the market and place a 'Help Wanted' ad. They could set a list of goals (Gather X items, no deaths, 30 minutes), the price they're willing to pay, and an adventurer could come on by and take the service. When all is said and done, the adventurer would be paid a set amount based on the number of goals met, and both players could rate each-other to provide feedback for their performance.
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Aug 11, 2011 14:51
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Miijhal posted:Generally good ideas. I really like the idea of giving people freedom when making useful items while retaining some limits. I'm definitely not a fan of certain pieces of gear being drops only. Crafters should be able to, in theory, replicate every item in the game, well except conjuring up raw materials from nothing. At least being able to make something that has the same stats as a unique weapon. That way the drop will retain some prestige value for those that want to show off their shinies and everyone else just gets the equally useful but probably cheaper manufactured version. Player made missions/quests is a fantastic idea. It reminds me of Face of Mankind which tried to do alot of the things we are tossing around: No leveling whatsoever, pure crafting careers as a viable choice and the only advancement is of the social and monetary variety. The provided factions are all fully player run. Does anyone know anything more about that game? I stopped following its development some time ago and it just fell off the radar. I am fully endorsing your idea to implement quests that impact other players as well, no matter how little. Now about implementing story quests instead of those awful fetch quests that plague our MMOs. What do you think happens when you revisit the content with another character? You know the story already and generally just want it over with to get the mechanical rewards for finishing it. It is possible to provide alternate routes or mutually exclusive chains to keep things fresh when the player revisits that portion of the content again but then you run into problems of practicality. Do you want your developers to spend their time to make new content for everyone or to make alternate content for those that revisit a specific piece of your game world?
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Aug 11, 2011 15:35
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I could probably write a dissertation on the various mechanics and core concepts of the MMOs I've played over the years. There are some key concepts which really define an MMO and I think developers by and large have mailed it in regarding sections of gameplay. You also don't really need to fish for new ideas, much like the movie industry almost everything has been done before in some fashion and bits and pieces of various MMOs have hit the mark with some concepts while being terrible in others. The first and most important has to be combat. In the vast majority of MMOs, with few exceptions (A tale of the desert comes to mind), fighting is the key gameplay in the MMO. It should be as interesting and engaging as possible, since its what you're doing like 80% of the time. While WoW has refined the 'target, autoattack, and use skills' paradigm, there are better ways for the player to interact and that gameplay really suffers from repetitiveness and there are only so many ways to challenge the player. Games like Vindictus have adopted a more visceral from of combat which relies on chaining combos and dodging attacks, which is an improvement over point and click, and leads to a more FPS-style, twitch experience which I think gamers have more fun with. It just makes more sense to actually dodge an attack or connect your sword with a boss than it is to rely on dodge and hit rate stats on a die roll. There are also full-on FPS, RTS and tactical RPG MMOs that appeal to their respective audiences and are engaging in their own right. For games with a large portion of PvE based combat, I think developers need to put forward the effort to really challenge and engage the player from level 1. The reason grinding is called such is that fighting these brainless mobs takes little to no effort and is frankly just wasting players time. I think fighting a single, challenging monster for 5 minutes would deliver a richer experience than grinding through 50 dudes you just autoattack through. I really haven't seen a PvE-based MMO which really tries to challenge the player early on with smart NPCs – you end up with a content problem where players just want to grind to max level to fight the hard stuff and the work before is almost meaningless. Adopting a “challenging encounters” based gameplay also can help lead away from 'kill 10 rats/goblins' questing and make the gamer feel more heroic by fighting a strong monster. The second big concept is player interaction. Lines have really been blurred between the glorified single player RPG with multiplayer mode and a chatroom to full on persistent, non-instanced worlds that it's hard to tell where MMOs begin and end. While a game like EVE's ship to ship combat is mind-numbingly boring, the richness of player interactions keeps players interested. Gamers play a MMO mostly to play with other people – this can range from teamwork involving small or large groups, to PvP, or even simply building, destroying, changing the game world in manners that affect other players. How players interact with each other is what I feel is the heart of an MMO. Implementations of it run the gamut and are heavily dependent on the gameplay and setting, but I think it can drill down to three major areas – How players interact helping eachother (teamwork), against eachother (PvP), and with the game world itself. Entire essays can be written about this but I think the best games allow for as much freedom as possible when playing with your friends, allow players to challenge eachother and compete with rewards and consequences, and allow the player to shape and change the game world itself. Apart from the big subjects, there's also economies and crafting, content progression, character progression, theme and story. Could write pages about these but I'm going to try to keep it brief as this post is way too long already. Economies, and crafting which is heavily tied to it is something that really feels tacked on or ignored in a a lot of MMOs. Too many have a 'rare-drop' based economy with an auction house and shallow crafting tacked on. Bluntly, Star Wars Galaxies did it right and everyone should just copy what they did as they had an interactive player-based economy with the most complex and rewarding crafting system I've seen in an MMO which let players be crafters as their main profession in the game. Content progression I've hinted to before but level-based content that caps at the end with some hard encounters really trivializes a lot of the journey to the point and is a waste of the player's time and the content. Either make the level curve short and have the majority of content 'end-game', or just make all content challenging and engaging and perhaps do away with linear progression. Character progression has also gotten lazy, level-based characters binds itself to level-based content which creates the issue above. Also apart from very specific cases gamers should not have to be locked into a certain character archetype, they should be free to grow their character into the play style they enjoy. UO, EVE, and SWG are some examples of games that let players progress in the areas they wish – this also can help move away from 'holy trinity' gameplay if implemented correctly. Gamers want to play with their friends, and they don't want to be forced to find a cleric or tank or whatever if none of them enjoy the archetype. Theme, story, and the game world is really polarized – some players care very little about lore and the reasons behind the quests that are given while it can really engross other types of players. I'm not really sure what would be the 'best' but immersion into the game world really enriches the experience of almost everyone. This is really only the tip of the iceberg, and I know there's nothing approaching the 'perfect MMO' which implements all the gameplay concepts in the best way, but I feel there's been a lot of shark-jumping involved with copying the staler, but familiar paradigms found in the majority of MMOs and a lot less analysis and investigation into the niche MMOs which really got a piece of that core gameplay spot on correct. It's created a landslide of sorts where we are now conditioned to kill 10 rats questing, to rare drop economies, to level based gameplay and developers deliver on those things since that's what we know and expect.
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Aug 11, 2011 16:04
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Last Transmission posted:Also give every character access to all skills of their class early in their career, don't make them chose the extend of their abilites on level up. Make them chose when to use what instead. The thing you'd need to make sure of is that your power level didn't depend (much) on your access to the later skills. For example, if you're leveling a healer, you'd put the primary healing spell pretty early in the progression, and maybe you leave the more complicated abilities for later.
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Aug 11, 2011 17:58
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