Much of what people want can be summed up like this: Nobody knows what they want til they see it.
...doesn't hold true for everything, but think back to before Ultima Online: if you asked a gaming forum "What do you want to see next?" do you honestly think any of them would answer "A massively multiplayer role-playing game"? Of course not.
It's similar with the next "new" game that'll come around the bend and catch people offguard: they'll see it and know it's what they've always wanted.
I remember back before UO and guess what lol, it's what a lot of us old Mud players were asking for and talking about. Most of the features in UO were the things we were talking about and asking for.
Guess what .... it's similar with the next "new" game that'll come around the bend. The devs will look around and check forums and see what players are looking for and see what they can incorperate into there MMO to attrack more players.
Excellent post WSIMike! I completely agree. I greatly enjoyed the route MMOs were taking before WOW and hopefully we have some titles coming out that will be a step in the right direction from here. I have not stuck with an MMO created after WOW came out for more than 6 months. That includes WOW.
There are lots of things I want, but one thing that would be fun to see is veteran players helping out new players; A system where every player of every skill and experience level is important. Where making friends, respect, and loyalty are important. It would be cool to log in as a new player and have things to do to help out the vets, and know that they are doing their best to help you out as well. Probably best in a open world PvP setting where the vets fight for territory and the new players harvent materials for weapons etc. Of course that's not ALL they can do, but if they want to see their faction succeed, they would want to participate in occasionally.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I know what I want, I want MMOs to destroy the rules and start over, I do not want a glorious return to the past, those games were pure garbage.
Erase genre lines and stop living in the past, MMOs it seems more than any other rely heavily on what was done before, there is little to no innovation or genre blending.
But basically I want all my favorite mechanics from my favorite games put into one. I want the action combat, deep stories, platforming, adventure and exploring, puzzles, character customization, interactive worlds, content sharing, I could go on but basically I want to create a whole new genre and redefine roleplaying.
The biggest obsticle I think is the first M, massive, sticking 5,000 people on one server is so limiting to gameplay.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
3) Realize that you cannot please everybody, and that perhaps instead of muddling up one game so much that nobody likes it - make more games. Reuse the parts you can, and offer other games with different playstyles instead of losing customers to other games that never really do well. It would mean better games for the players and more revenue for the company.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
I'm not saying the more casual-friendly MMOs need to "go". I'm just saying they are not the "only answer" to the MMO situation. I think some developers need to go back and pick up the MMO genre where it left off before WoW came out. There was still plenty of growth and improvement that could take place without having to go the WoW route.
Yep, agree with your post. I find it ironic that we that want this formula of game play to exist, to continue on and improve, yet still hold to a co-existence of other games that we dislike (apart yet exist), are continually attacked as if there is only one formula for gaming that can exist at any given time. What do they fear? That is often my thought. Why cant they have their games and we have ours? I'm all for diversity, I don't see why posts and entire threads of this nature need to be shouted down, being told such game play must die. It only continues to hurt themselves, because what goes around comes around eventually.
One thing I know is that most of us old-school vets understand the value of diversity, as our games were very different one to another, beyond eye candy. But now it's like everything needs to be the same as they push for, and then they complain that everything is the same and wonder why. Then we stand up and say we really want this and that again, but are told that we don’t know what we want, and it cant be done because we have different camps of ideas. But they don’t understand that we have been playing these games for over a decade and our games WERE in different camps, even co-existing! It was awesome! But now... *sad* almost to a hopeless state.
Danger of Loss: loss of exp, loss of property, etc. That makes a game exciting.
Character development - start at level 1, earn exp and level up, lears new abilities as you level up. Leveling should be much slower and the "grind" areas should be at all times fun, challenging, and group focused. End game should be the end, pretty much, so there should be no hurry to get there.
Construction - ability to build structures in the world, structures that give you benefits.
Destruction - ability to destroy items in the world, for some personal benefit.
Strategy - all fights need to require strategy. If you mindlesslessly hit skills, then you won't succeed. Make elementals more functional in the game - if a mob has fire elemental buff, then fire heals him instead of damages him, for example. Timing on certain abilities will affect how well the ability works against the mob. elemental armors real improtant as well.
Skill - in addition to strategy being an element of fights, the game also required a certain amount of hand-eye skill to affect the outcome. Timing, aim, order of skills used and things like that. The abilities you use should be affected by visual cues of things that the mob is doing.
Luck - Dice rolls should play a role in the game as well, whether it be for calculating damage ranges for an attack, but also in other areas. There should be random rolls from time for time for various events. Some dungeons could require more luck than skill to complete it based on special traps. Loot drops, of course, require luck to get the rare items.
Rewards - gear. I don't get games that think that gear collecting should not be important. Our quests and the activities we do every day should be driven in our quest to get better and better (level up) and acquiring better and better equipment. Certain dungeons will be fatal to players not properly geared with the top gear for that level of player.
Reputation - game needs to track various performance areas of gameplay and rate everyone. This will encourage players within a class to be the best they can be.
Social systems - game needs to have excellent chat functionality, guild functionality and a website that serves as a wiki in addition to a website that allows you to do things while not logged in. For example, there could be a link that allows players to buy and sell gear while offline.
There should be single, group and raid size content
Single activities would include exploring, hunting, gathering, assassinating(someone being escorted), stealing(a delivery in progres), gambling/lottery.
Group activities would include outdoor camp attacks, dungeon crawls, group vs. group events, escort missions throuhg pvp zones, delivery missions through pvp zones.
Raid activities would include city construction, seiges, city defense, controlling resource areas, and raid dungeons
The economy should be balanced, and can include property control as part of the economic generating - farm areas, lakes, quarries, mines, roads, etc.
Comments
I remember back before UO and guess what lol, it's what a lot of us old Mud players were asking for and talking about. Most of the features in UO were the things we were talking about and asking for.
Guess what .... it's similar with the next "new" game that'll come around the bend. The devs will look around and check forums and see what players are looking for and see what they can incorperate into there MMO to attrack more players.
Excellent post WSIMike! I completely agree. I greatly enjoyed the route MMOs were taking before WOW and hopefully we have some titles coming out that will be a step in the right direction from here. I have not stuck with an MMO created after WOW came out for more than 6 months. That includes WOW.
There are lots of things I want, but one thing that would be fun to see is veteran players helping out new players; A system where every player of every skill and experience level is important. Where making friends, respect, and loyalty are important. It would be cool to log in as a new player and have things to do to help out the vets, and know that they are doing their best to help you out as well. Probably best in a open world PvP setting where the vets fight for territory and the new players harvent materials for weapons etc. Of course that's not ALL they can do, but if they want to see their faction succeed, they would want to participate in occasionally.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I know what I want, I want MMOs to destroy the rules and start over, I do not want a glorious return to the past, those games were pure garbage.
Erase genre lines and stop living in the past, MMOs it seems more than any other rely heavily on what was done before, there is little to no innovation or genre blending.
But basically I want all my favorite mechanics from my favorite games put into one. I want the action combat, deep stories, platforming, adventure and exploring, puzzles, character customization, interactive worlds, content sharing, I could go on but basically I want to create a whole new genre and redefine roleplaying.
The biggest obsticle I think is the first M, massive, sticking 5,000 people on one server is so limiting to gameplay.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
1) Stop trying to fix what is not broken.
2) Stop breaking what was fine.
3) Realize that you cannot please everybody, and that perhaps instead of muddling up one game so much that nobody likes it - make more games. Reuse the parts you can, and offer other games with different playstyles instead of losing customers to other games that never really do well. It would mean better games for the players and more revenue for the company.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Yep, agree with your post. I find it ironic that we that want this formula of game play to exist, to continue on and improve, yet still hold to a co-existence of other games that we dislike (apart yet exist), are continually attacked as if there is only one formula for gaming that can exist at any given time. What do they fear? That is often my thought. Why cant they have their games and we have ours? I'm all for diversity, I don't see why posts and entire threads of this nature need to be shouted down, being told such game play must die. It only continues to hurt themselves, because what goes around comes around eventually.
One thing I know is that most of us old-school vets understand the value of diversity, as our games were very different one to another, beyond eye candy. But now it's like everything needs to be the same as they push for, and then they complain that everything is the same and wonder why. Then we stand up and say we really want this and that again, but are told that we don’t know what we want, and it cant be done because we have different camps of ideas. But they don’t understand that we have been playing these games for over a decade and our games WERE in different camps, even co-existing! It was awesome! But now... *sad* almost to a hopeless state.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I had this written down somewhere -- What I want:
Game with all of the following elements:
Danger of Loss: loss of exp, loss of property, etc. That makes a game exciting.
Character development - start at level 1, earn exp and level up, lears new abilities as you level up. Leveling should be much slower and the "grind" areas should be at all times fun, challenging, and group focused. End game should be the end, pretty much, so there should be no hurry to get there.
Construction - ability to build structures in the world, structures that give you benefits.
Destruction - ability to destroy items in the world, for some personal benefit.
Strategy - all fights need to require strategy. If you mindlesslessly hit skills, then you won't succeed. Make elementals more functional in the game - if a mob has fire elemental buff, then fire heals him instead of damages him, for example. Timing on certain abilities will affect how well the ability works against the mob. elemental armors real improtant as well.
Skill - in addition to strategy being an element of fights, the game also required a certain amount of hand-eye skill to affect the outcome. Timing, aim, order of skills used and things like that. The abilities you use should be affected by visual cues of things that the mob is doing.
Luck - Dice rolls should play a role in the game as well, whether it be for calculating damage ranges for an attack, but also in other areas. There should be random rolls from time for time for various events. Some dungeons could require more luck than skill to complete it based on special traps. Loot drops, of course, require luck to get the rare items.
Rewards - gear. I don't get games that think that gear collecting should not be important. Our quests and the activities we do every day should be driven in our quest to get better and better (level up) and acquiring better and better equipment. Certain dungeons will be fatal to players not properly geared with the top gear for that level of player.
Reputation - game needs to track various performance areas of gameplay and rate everyone. This will encourage players within a class to be the best they can be.
Social systems - game needs to have excellent chat functionality, guild functionality and a website that serves as a wiki in addition to a website that allows you to do things while not logged in. For example, there could be a link that allows players to buy and sell gear while offline.
There should be single, group and raid size content
Single activities would include exploring, hunting, gathering, assassinating(someone being escorted), stealing(a delivery in progres), gambling/lottery.
Group activities would include outdoor camp attacks, dungeon crawls, group vs. group events, escort missions throuhg pvp zones, delivery missions through pvp zones.
Raid activities would include city construction, seiges, city defense, controlling resource areas, and raid dungeons
The economy should be balanced, and can include property control as part of the economic generating - farm areas, lakes, quarries, mines, roads, etc.