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Will mmo's ever change?
SinzOfMan
Member UncommonPosts: 224
They all have the same basic element in that you kill things for experience. seems like 95% of games in general are based on fighting. Is this the most fun thing we can come up with in games?
If you could make your own mmo that wasn't based on fighting. What would you base the game around and have us do? there's gotta be something better than killing isn't there?
I never tried second life, any fun? but let's hear some idea's. Could you make an mmo based on purely puzzles that required teamwork to finish? lemmings online?!!
Comments
One word, Eve.
Sinz, I agree. Different mechanics and goals would be better than a rehash of the fantasy hack'n'slash of decades old campaigns that even many D'n'D fans have out grown. I couldn't imagine Robert Heinlein or Ray Bradbury covering the exactly the same subject the same way as some MMO developers have done. It seems that most don't know how to be creative, let alone learn how to sell it to VCs in a way that is positive. It seems change is the bane of the MMO developer in this age.
-- Brede
I'm talkin completely different. My only idea so far was the puzzle mmo. some crazy maps that you gotta solve all these puzzles to make it through and find whatever crazy rewards at the end. You'd still have different classes with cool abilities but they would be geared towards team strategy and solving complex traps and puzzles.
how would pvp work though lol? you run by someone, lay a puzzle down. solve that bitch!! and they can't move until they solve it lol..
I'm just getting tired of killing mobs.
Second Life isn't based around combat (though i hardly call it a game).
There's also a couple of Asian games coming out that are not combat base...they are infact about living life or some bs.
To be honest I buy games to play a game not live a life in a virtual world. To me games usually involve puzzles, combat, exploring, etc etc. If an MMO was nothing but sitting around poking my ass while solving puzzles it really wouldn't feel ilke an MMO just an online puzzle game like Puzzle Pirates and that to me is not worth my cash.
I want interaction with other players beyond a virtual chat room..and if that interaction involves combat then so be it. I just dont' see how you can make an MMO without it unless its a Sims game..and we see how craptastic that MMO turned out.
If you dont' want to kill mobs my best suggestion to you is find a game where you can be a Crafter and Crafters aren't required to Level through PvE / PvP gameplay. There are a few but not enough...honestly if a Crafter doesn't want to do the Adventurer path I dont think they should have too. EvE does actually allow you to do this, EQ1 used to but you needed a supplier for the goods, WAR's crafting system doesn't seem dependant on your Adventure level (atleast from what they've said recently anyway) though I suspect you'll have to Adventure some if you want to reach the city and not have to buy all your supplies from the AH, UO's crafting system is independant of skill & combat.
Pretty much its be an Adventurer or be a Crafter / Economist. There really isn't much else choice unless its a pure sandbox virtual world (not Game but Virtual world) like Second Life.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
To answer the original question... yes, at least IMO. There actually are devs out there working on some unique and original ideas. So, the question is more like "when will MMOs change". The ultra casual, watered-down, themepark era wont last forever...
I agree games shouldn't be like real life. I don't need to live a fake live in a game and go to the grocery store onilne. Just anything creative other than combat! I bet if the puzzle mmo was done right, with amazing complex maps with good graphics, characters that felt important in advancing through, it could catch on. People would reject it at first but if it was done right, ya never know.
I had another idea of a jungle where you choose what animal you want to be. and although there is combat in this game, it's more about the chase like it is in the wild. If your a lion or something, everything you go to fight runs away from you and it's more about chasing them down then killing them. In pvp, you'd have a certain amount of time before you got tired so if your chasing your prey and your stamina runs out well, they won that battle. I don't know kinda dumb lol...
but let's brainstorm some possible ideas. I don't think games need the combat so much to be fun but since it's been so successful it's hard to change the norm. Could a racing mmo be fun? or a sports mmo?
If anyone's played the new star soccer series, there's a great idea for an mmo. You could have all the socializing and funny "life of a soccer" player stuff between games, and then have the scheduled games. Each clan would be a soccer team. I guess they do leagues and stuff in other online soccer games, but to have the trading of players, making money, skill sets, etc added would be much better in my opinion. I don't know how you would handle forcing people to play at the right times though.
A Tale in the Desert shows how it is possible to have a game without fighting. While it can be boring, I think it demonstrates the concept. They have a lot of neat things in that game that go unnoticed if you don't dig deep enough, with cool quests that do involve having other players. I would like to see some of these ideas tried in other games, it feels like a one of a kind and it shouldn't be.
Second Life is just crap in my opinion. It's far too open, there may be beautiful places somewhere in the world, but every time I have tried it everything is ugly and strewn about. I never found anything fun to do there. Just a bunch of sex shops. Video game sex is boring, I don't see the draw at all.
I think shared puzzles could be fun. But not puzzles like in puzzle pirates. Puzzles like in monkey island. But on a more general level, and constructed in ways that always need several people to solve them. Also, it would be good if the puzzles could be completed over a period of time. For instance, one person goes in, and has the right item to solve a part of it, but then can't complete it; later someone else comes along and gets a bit further etc. I think this could work if handled well; I think this is what Uru was trying to do but I never got a chance to try that, and I don't think they ever developed the idea to completion.
All in all, I don't think killing stuff for exp will ever go out of style. But on the fringe you will always have other people trying things differently. I just hope that the fringe somehow gets a bit more successful (both financially and in successfully developing their ideas) in the future.
You don't have to. Some people call EVE an economy simulator. You can spend your entire life in EVE as a trader/manufacturer and never once fire your guns at a single NPC or PC.
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You may come under attack, but you don't have to fight. The main question is whether that is of interest to you or not.
You can also consider A Tale in the Desert. There is no combat in that game either.
An MMO without fighting is a difficult concept because the main draw for MMO's is interacting with players, and the easiest way for companies to have their customers interact is by having them compete against each other, IE PVP, and the simplest PVP would obviously be combat against one another in some form
Can you have an MMO without combat. Certainly, but no one has yet to master this. THere is an online racing game called project torque where you race others online, build up your car, and keep racing, and everyone has certain levels. Its pretty fun, but gets repetitive fast IMO.
Possible ideas for game plays that would work for MMOs but isn't combat? Well, racing is possible. SPorts would be pretty awesome. Like everyone plays on a team, but for soccer it would be a little harder since you need a bigger team. But basketball you could go from 1 on 1 to 5 on 5 games, and you could have clans or "teams" and everyone plays a different custom character. You could have huge indepth leagues with top team rivalries, different leagues and inter-league play. That would be pretty awesome
You could have like theif-like stealth play, where the objective of missions and quests is to steal stuff, rob houses/castles/tombs/ etc. etc. The higher level dungeons would lead to higher level stuff, and you could have different stealth classes, like the carrier, the grabber, scouts, etc. and each person would have their own role in the mission. For pvp, you could have people protecting a certain stash, and people trying to rob the house. That may be pretty cool.
The best thing to do though, in my opinion, would be to combine all these elements. Allow players to choose what they want to do, and have different levels for each thing like combat, mercentile, etc. etc. and people have an overall level, and a skill level, and the higher it is, the more they can do.
Am I ever wrong??
www.atitd.com/
I personally have not played this game, but my wife is into it. The fact that the game actually ends is also unique. The game is currently on its third iteration, and the 4th should be coming out fairly soon. I would recommend waiting till the new one started instead of getting in on a game that is almost over.
i think the problem is that mmo are very expensive and its easier to use the same tested design then to create something totally different that may or may not be popular.
looking at most mmo people are getting tired of the grindfest that most games now produce so the future in mmo is either they change the whole game to focus less on grinding and focus on another part of the game (i.e instead of fighting it will focus on exploration) or to change the gameplay of the same concept like the Wii does with its games.
i was actually thinking how awsome would a samurai mmorpg game would be on a Wii.
if anyone played kengo imagine that as an mmo and utilizing the Wiimote
for a free 100% unique MMORPG try The Universal http://theuniversal.net/index.php
it's the only game that dosen't bored me really....
Be an industrialist, miner, researcher, marketer, recruitment consultant, trader or explorer. The whole point is that you have a choice. You do not have to kill other ships. This is essential to a true virtual world and imo what an MMORPG really is. Not these multiplayer games we are seeing nowadays.
If The Elder Scrolls Online ever happens you can say "bye bye" to experience based leveling. Well... hopefully.
I think experience is just part of the majority of the genre we know and love/loathe.