It's not about removing progression from the MMORPG genre.
It's about making it better.
You know what kills community? Not being able to play with friends, dividing your playerbase between level appropriate zones.
We've probably all played level based games, WoW, TOR etc. and what happens? After a while, there are a LOT of people in the "end game" max level zones and a fair amount in the first/early zones (alts, etc.) but very, very few people in between.
Why?
Linear statistcal progression.
Other things that kill community - faction locked classes and races.
Phased and instanced story content presented in a linear fashion - people at different stages of the same story, not able to play together because of phasing, instancing etc.
These are the problems (a few among many) with the "modern" MMO - problems that devs have failed to acknowledge or deviate from since about 2004.
Only game that has asked these questions, and provided answers -
GW2.
I don't want to sound like a fan boy, but almost every problem I can define with the MMORPG genre since early 2000's, GW2 is seeking to find an answer to. Will they succeed? Will we, the players, actually enjoy it?
Only time wil tell.
But when I list out the things I would do to create a better, more MMO version of a MMORPG - my list looks a lot like the feature list from GW2.
I have infinite progression in all areas in TTS, although with diminishing returns, and you are still not divided by your levels. Well there aren't levels, better to say you are not prevented from group by a difference of position on the progression curve.
There are no level locks on areas and if you had a sufficiently large group of base stat players you could still take down content that would only require 1 player at base * 20exp stats.
There are no level gates on crafting or using crafted items either.
All without levels or any sort of mentoring or sidekick program.
And there is no story either. So by hanging out with more powerful players and working with them you never miss out on something because you skipped content.
And you can do all that without even WoW style max level caps. There are no classes and only one race, human.
Hell you even have some twitch amusingly enough, given how much I don't consider twitch part of an RPG.
And you can do all that WITHOUT removing progression, one of the top 5 core features of RPGs.
Of course I also scrapped PvP, because RPGs shouldn't have a focus on both PvE and PvP in the same game. And no PvP allows me to do infinite progression and skirt a lot of issues that I couldn't if I had a game with "fair" PvP.
You bring up a great point, why should we have to accomplish anything in life to be rewarded. I mean life would be so much easier if everything was just given to us as reward for just the things we liked to do. Imagine if growing up you never had to do anything you didnt want to do at that moment in return for anything else. You were always just given an allowance. You could just walk into a store and take anything you like. How cool would it be that on your first day of work they made you the CEO without having to prove yourself to anyone!
I cant see how being given everything in life without any effort other than doing exactly the things you want to do could be bad. Say if all you like to do is eat twinkies, you can achive eveything in live based on the number of twinkies you ate, man that would be awesome, I see no download to society, or MMO's which are basically a subset of that. People working together to accomplish things.
Actually they have a game just for you, its called a single player games with god mode.
It's not about removing progression from the MMORPG genre.
It's about making it better.
You know what kills community? Not being able to play with friends, dividing your playerbase between level appropriate zones.
We've probably all played level based games, WoW, TOR etc. and what happens? After a while, there are a LOT of people in the "end game" max level zones and a fair amount in the first/early zones (alts, etc.) but very, very few people in between.
Why?
Linear statistcal progression.
Other things that kill community - faction locked classes and races.
Phased and instanced story content presented in a linear fashion - people at different stages of the same story, not able to play together because of phasing, instancing etc.
These are the problems (a few among many) with the "modern" MMO - problems that devs have failed to acknowledge or deviate from since about 2004.
Only game that has asked these questions, and provided answers -
GW2.
I don't want to sound like a fan boy, but almost every problem I can define with the MMORPG genre since early 2000's, GW2 is seeking to find an answer to. Will they succeed? Will we, the players, actually enjoy it?
Only time wil tell.
But when I list out the things I would do to create a better, more MMO version of a MMORPG - my list looks a lot like the feature list from GW2.
Well, to make it better, we would have to make it work first, linear progression, instancing , phasing, story telling, all has worked in one game, or the other over the time, but some of us still see wow and its systemic spinoffs...
I have nothing agains gw2 or a alternative approach, but judging those mechanics by producs which have warped them completely is like judging the future of car trasportation on a busy work day in new york.
See "R-Type" or any early arcade game that had "power-ups"
The concept is very old, ingrained in the gamer psyche, is there room for a game where you do not become "more powerful", almost certainly, but it will be a break from the norm I expect.
Could probably argue that "becoming more powerful" is a function of human existence to some degree....becoming faster, stronger, better, wiser, wealthier, healthier, safer, etc etc we do a lot of things to those ends, no reason to expect games to diverge from that "improvement path" of life, but if there is a medium most apt to explore the concept it could be gaming.
No, you understood something very wrong, like in every response you make. You dont understand what you are replying to.
No you don't understand what you are saying. Its not my fault you either can't use english properly or can't follow a logic path to its natural conclusion.
If you read through my posts you know that I dont want to remove progression, if you think that I actually do want to remove progression from RPG's after all I've said, then you simply just dont understand, and that's why this conversation has no point, basically we havent even started since you hear all the time anything but what I have to say. It's like, I say blue and you hear yellow, to no end apparently.
Lowering progression to an infinitesimally small amount is effectively the same as removing it.
Its like a limit.
The limit of f(x)=1/x
x->infinity
is is 0. The value of the equation is not and never will be actually infinity but it becomes infinitely close to zero.
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Flame on!
Misquote? I never asked to abolish leveling
No, you just want to make it so irrelevant it might as well be abolished. You keep not getting this.
If all the content in the game scaled to your party size and level, all of the content would be repeatable as well as remaining static so you could repeat it and feel your advancement.
An instance in game could start at level 10. You beat it, level up some, and come back at level 17. Now you have the choice of doing the static level 10 instance, or switching the difficulty to scaled which will punch in the number and scale the difficulty to match your current level and party size and allow you to do it at level 17, have a challenge, as well as have scaled up loot. Wanna do it at level 33? No problem, same thing. How about Max level? Absolutely...wait...you've hit max level and overgeared so even a level 50 instance is too easy? No problem. How about another "Heroic" difficulty which will bump up the challenge and rewards? Let's go one OPTION further, how about doing "heroic" difficulty will also scale it at level 17? Now at level 17 if you do the heroic, it will be level 17 but harder and also have a greater level 17 reward.
I'm no programmer, but it seems this is the way to handle content. Every dungeon you create would not be forgotten. It will always be available for you and your party to play in. Can you imagine the amount of content that would be available at end game for World of Warcraft today? It's a no brainer, but apparently no brainers create MMORPGs these days so they just haven't figured it out.
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Flame on!
Misquote? I never asked to abolish leveling
No, you just want to make it so irrelevant it might as well be abolished. You keep not getting this.
Yeah, because it would be so bad if you could in a multiplayer game, within just one planet to do the content with everyone else in that planet. Not the next one, or the one after that, but the one you are in. If you would loosen up the steepness of leveling just a bit to make it possible for people to play together within that same area, it would be abolishing the purpose of leveling completely. That's some seriously failed logic right there.
You know why so many fail games get released these days, especially mmorpgs? Because stubborn people like you are on the reigns, chanting: "there's nothing wrong with my game, the players just arent getting it" lol. Good luck making your own multiplayer game where your top priority is to make sure people cant play together (please dont tell me you are actually a developer in some game company).
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low " - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Flame on!
Misquote? I never asked to abolish leveling
No, you just want to make it so irrelevant it might as well be abolished. You keep not getting this.
Yeah, because it would be so bad if you could in a multiplayer game, within just one planet to do the content with everyone else in that planet. Not the next one, or the one after that, but the one you are in. If you would loosen up the steepness of leveling just a bit to make it possible for people to play together within that same area, it would be abolishing the purpose of leveling completely. That's some seriously failed logic right there.
You know why so many fail games get released these days, especially mmorpgs? Because stubborn people like you are on the reigns, chanting: "there's nothing wrong with my game, the players just arent getting it" lol. Good luck making your own multiplayer game where your top priority is to make sure people cant play together (please dont tell me you are actually a developer in some game company).
I am working on an MMORPG. And players can certainly play together.
MMORPGs fail because nobody actually wants to play an MMORPG. They want to play coop lobby games. MMOs got thrust into the limelight because businesses liked the subscription model. They were never intended to allow casuals access to all the content.
MMOs like Ultima Online and MUDs were virtual worlds.
I can't make an MMO for casuals BECAUSE ITS NOT AN MMO.
You could certainly make a coop flat progression lobby game for casuals. Is that what you want to do?
I can't make an MMO for casuals BECAUSE ITS NOT AN MMO.
I dont see why casuals have anything to do with it beeing an MMO or not.
But why do I have to become more powerful? Well, most MMO tends to bring you that way in some way or another, that is more powerful/craftier/better in some way either through levels/gear/skills/knowledge/experience/exploration etc.
You dont have to become more powerful, but beeing idle sure does bring much to the table on the fun side.
It all adds down to the fact that there are goals in an MMO, even if its sandbox (you make them yourself within the context of the game) or themepark (premade goals).
In my opinion the successful MMO caters to the needs of the casual and the hardcore and find a dynamic where all these can thrive. I've seen way to many MMO's fail by giving it all for the hardcore or the casual.
But back to the you dont have to become more powerful..... surely not, I hate obstacles in my way to domination, so just be what you are and let me consume you to enhance my power!
I am working on an MMORPG. And players can certainly play together.
MMORPGs fail because nobody actually wants to play an MMORPG. They want to play coop lobby games. MMOs got thrust into the limelight because businesses liked the subscription model. They were never intended to allow casuals access to all the content.
MMOs like Ultima Online and MUDs were virtual worlds.
I can't make an MMO for casuals BECAUSE ITS NOT AN MMO.
You could certainly make a coop flat progression lobby game for casuals. Is that what you want to do?
Of course not. I can't fathom why anyone would want to make a MMO, aside from companies who have the know-how and adequate amount of investments.
Coding huge amount of behavior, doing detailed graphics work, doing mechanics design ... all fun to discuss but a lot of hard work if you want to make a real game. Do you how many man-hours are put into a decent SP game? not to mention a MMO which costs a lot more resources.
And if some amateur want to mae a co-op lobby RPG, i highly doubt he can do better than Diablo 3.
Comments
I have infinite progression in all areas in TTS, although with diminishing returns, and you are still not divided by your levels. Well there aren't levels, better to say you are not prevented from group by a difference of position on the progression curve.
There are no level locks on areas and if you had a sufficiently large group of base stat players you could still take down content that would only require 1 player at base * 20exp stats.
There are no level gates on crafting or using crafted items either.
All without levels or any sort of mentoring or sidekick program.
And there is no story either. So by hanging out with more powerful players and working with them you never miss out on something because you skipped content.
And you can do all that without even WoW style max level caps. There are no classes and only one race, human.
Hell you even have some twitch amusingly enough, given how much I don't consider twitch part of an RPG.
And you can do all that WITHOUT removing progression, one of the top 5 core features of RPGs.
Of course I also scrapped PvP, because RPGs shouldn't have a focus on both PvE and PvP in the same game. And no PvP allows me to do infinite progression and skirt a lot of issues that I couldn't if I had a game with "fair" PvP.
You bring up a great point, why should we have to accomplish anything in life to be rewarded. I mean life would be so much easier if everything was just given to us as reward for just the things we liked to do. Imagine if growing up you never had to do anything you didnt want to do at that moment in return for anything else. You were always just given an allowance. You could just walk into a store and take anything you like. How cool would it be that on your first day of work they made you the CEO without having to prove yourself to anyone!
I cant see how being given everything in life without any effort other than doing exactly the things you want to do could be bad. Say if all you like to do is eat twinkies, you can achive eveything in live based on the number of twinkies you ate, man that would be awesome, I see no download to society, or MMO's which are basically a subset of that. People working together to accomplish things.
Actually they have a game just for you, its called a single player games with god mode.
Well, to make it better, we would have to make it work first, linear progression, instancing , phasing, story telling, all has worked in one game, or the other over the time, but some of us still see wow and its systemic spinoffs...
I have nothing agains gw2 or a alternative approach, but judging those mechanics by producs which have warped them completely is like judging the future of car trasportation on a busy work day in new york.
Flame on!
See "R-Type" or any early arcade game that had "power-ups"
The concept is very old, ingrained in the gamer psyche, is there room for a game where you do not become "more powerful", almost certainly, but it will be a break from the norm I expect.
Could probably argue that "becoming more powerful" is a function of human existence to some degree....becoming faster, stronger, better, wiser, wealthier, healthier, safer, etc etc we do a lot of things to those ends, no reason to expect games to diverge from that "improvement path" of life, but if there is a medium most apt to explore the concept it could be gaming.
Strict level requirements are limit, not the lack of them. I was playing TOR yesterday on my alt on Taris. I just got there, and I saw a bit later "LFG Heroic blahblah lvl20+" in the general chat. I thought "meh I'd like to join but I'm only lvl16". At the end of Taris I was looking for players to join the last HC's, and some people even replied in general "I'd like to join but I'm few levels too low
" - Now if the leveling curve was not so steep and restrictive we all would've happily joined eachothers HC quests and I would have less reason to stay on this thread saying why I think steep leveling curve hp/power/accessibility wise is a worse solution than a system that does not bind people into content that is only few levels around their level, if the range would be even little bit more wide in TOR people could actually play with eachothers more freely in each planet and it would be a better mmorpg and a better game. That's just the fact of things, steep leveling progression prevented us from doing content in the same area together.
Sooo, if i get it straight, we should abolish levels because some game does it stupidly?
Flame on!
Shh, logic is not allowed here!
Misquote? I never asked to abolish leveling
No, you just want to make it so irrelevant it might as well be abolished. You keep not getting this.
The answer? Scalable content.
If all the content in the game scaled to your party size and level, all of the content would be repeatable as well as remaining static so you could repeat it and feel your advancement.
An instance in game could start at level 10. You beat it, level up some, and come back at level 17. Now you have the choice of doing the static level 10 instance, or switching the difficulty to scaled which will punch in the number and scale the difficulty to match your current level and party size and allow you to do it at level 17, have a challenge, as well as have scaled up loot. Wanna do it at level 33? No problem, same thing. How about Max level? Absolutely...wait...you've hit max level and overgeared so even a level 50 instance is too easy? No problem. How about another "Heroic" difficulty which will bump up the challenge and rewards? Let's go one OPTION further, how about doing "heroic" difficulty will also scale it at level 17? Now at level 17 if you do the heroic, it will be level 17 but harder and also have a greater level 17 reward.
I'm no programmer, but it seems this is the way to handle content. Every dungeon you create would not be forgotten. It will always be available for you and your party to play in. Can you imagine the amount of content that would be available at end game for World of Warcraft today? It's a no brainer, but apparently no brainers create MMORPGs these days so they just haven't figured it out.
It's broken!! Fix it!
Yeah, because it would be so bad if you could in a multiplayer game, within just one planet to do the content with everyone else in that planet. Not the next one, or the one after that, but the one you are in. If you would loosen up the steepness of leveling just a bit to make it possible for people to play together within that same area, it would be abolishing the purpose of leveling completely. That's some seriously failed logic right there.
You know why so many fail games get released these days, especially mmorpgs? Because stubborn people like you are on the reigns, chanting: "there's nothing wrong with my game, the players just arent getting it" lol. Good luck making your own multiplayer game where your top priority is to make sure people cant play together (please dont tell me you are actually a developer in some game company).
I am working on an MMORPG. And players can certainly play together.
MMORPGs fail because nobody actually wants to play an MMORPG. They want to play coop lobby games. MMOs got thrust into the limelight because businesses liked the subscription model. They were never intended to allow casuals access to all the content.
MMOs like Ultima Online and MUDs were virtual worlds.
I can't make an MMO for casuals BECAUSE ITS NOT AN MMO.
You could certainly make a coop flat progression lobby game for casuals. Is that what you want to do?
I dont see why casuals have anything to do with it beeing an MMO or not.
But why do I have to become more powerful? Well, most MMO tends to bring you that way in some way or another, that is more powerful/craftier/better in some way either through levels/gear/skills/knowledge/experience/exploration etc.
You dont have to become more powerful, but beeing idle sure does bring much to the table on the fun side.
It all adds down to the fact that there are goals in an MMO, even if its sandbox (you make them yourself within the context of the game) or themepark (premade goals).
In my opinion the successful MMO caters to the needs of the casual and the hardcore and find a dynamic where all these can thrive. I've seen way to many MMO's fail by giving it all for the hardcore or the casual.
But back to the you dont have to become more powerful..... surely not, I hate obstacles in my way to domination, so just be what you are and let me consume you to enhance my power!
Of course not. I can't fathom why anyone would want to make a MMO, aside from companies who have the know-how and adequate amount of investments.
Coding huge amount of behavior, doing detailed graphics work, doing mechanics design ... all fun to discuss but a lot of hard work if you want to make a real game. Do you how many man-hours are put into a decent SP game? not to mention a MMO which costs a lot more resources.
And if some amateur want to mae a co-op lobby RPG, i highly doubt he can do better than Diablo 3.