That's a good point, and I guess it was supposed to be a virtual world without combat (never played it). Outside of mundane virtual world simulator, what could you do with say a fantasy MMORPG that lacked traditional or action combat?
That's a good point, and I guess it was supposed to be a virtual world without combat (never played it). Outside of mundane virtual world simulator, what could you do with say a fantasy MMORPG that lacked traditional or action combat?
Not really a good point, since you can put combat in SL if you want As much as I dislike the combat-addiction of today, I don't think lack of combat is the solution. The problem is not combat itself, it's the weight / share of combat within the gameplay.
In RPGs (whether it's solo or multi) combat should be only a fairly rare, often avoidable event, as it is in p'n'p RPGs, and definitely not the main activity. That is fine for shooters, or action games, or brawlers, etc. etc. but RPG is about roleplay, about interaction, story, world building, etc.
Online started like this too, in our MUD there was almost zero xp for killing, and a lot for quests and crafts and roleplay. On a sidenote,
bro i google what is MUD and it is awesome!! its basically a text based mmorpg what is the best mud medieval fantasy theme?
man, that made me feel old (and I'm not ), googling for what is MUD... MUD is where the genre should've been right now, but apparently it isn't. Barely any roleplay, almost no UGC (except in Cryptic's Foundry, or TSW's text adventures), no freedom at all for playing with the engine, etc. As for the question, if you like Pratchett and consider Discworld as "medieval" fantasy, I think that MUD is still pretty active, and it was a great one back in the days, both content-wise and in community.
In short, I agree with @Dullahan . Combat is indeed defining MMOs today, unfortunately. And no, it definitely should not.
Infinitely respawning piñata mobs - which leads to every player essentially being a mass murderer at best, and over time a genocidal maniac.
This is what vast majority of the mmo games have done so far - infinite respawn with infinite killing - it's the design model that the game industry has settled in because it's known and easy to do.
If a MMO was built around a finite resource model (very hard to pull off) - akin to virtual living/breathing world - it would be an entirely different experience, because indiscriminate mass killing wouldn't even exist as a mechanic in such a game at all.
Seasonal hunting with limits (as in RL depending on season and type of animal) would be in, but it would all be controlled as all sustainable ecological systems are.
There would be a balanced cycle of life/death with all things including players and NPCs.
That's really been the foundation of most video games since the beginning, not just mmorpgs. Pop the digital blog aka monster and collect the coin, loot, xp or numeric reward, and get the highest score. Shoot the most and collect the most has been what video games have been about.
The few outside of that, like pong/sports or RTS, have still been about combative point or territory collection. In a competitive 4X sometimes a win is the most territory, sometimes it's an arbitrary point or achievement goal.
Moving from mass killing to a different style of resource competition / point collection only changes the virtual image of how it's done but the underlying tenet is still the same.
Something is what it is. You are correct that is what most video games have been. People want something different, they need to come up with different names for them and not ride on the existing. Golf and Basketball are different, they didn't share the same name.
If people want some kind of different game experience, they need to create that new thing.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
As much as I dislike the combat-addiction of today, I don't think lack of combat is the solution. The problem is not combat itself, it's the weight / share of combat within the gameplay.
In RPGs (whether it's solo or multi) combat should be only a fairly rare, often avoidable event, as it is in p'n'p RPGs, and definitely not the main activity. That is fine for shooters, or action games, or brawlers, etc. etc. but RPG is about roleplay, about interaction, story, world building, etc.
Why is it a problem?
Who said computer RPG is about RP, interaction, ....
If those who are buying these games want combat, and the dev make combat centric games, what is the problem? No one says video game RPG has to be a certain way.
"If not simple, then what about combat that is very serious, and cannot
be entered into lightly, but that represents a small investment of game
time overall?"
I think that would be really cool, but then what are people going to be doing besides combat?
People expect a lot of playtime out of their MMOs. People play MMOs for 8-12 hours a day for months and still complain there isn't enough content and quit.
Combat is an easy out, but it works. It keeps the player engaged (I prefer action-combat because it keeps you slightly more engaged).
If you're going to minimize combat, than what could you put in that would keep the player at least as engaged while they're playing the game for say 8 hours a day?
Your question stumped me lol. I wouldn't want to have to fill a game with only crafting or who knows what else.
I see what you mean and I guess that combat as the pillar of design has a very big utility.
What if you got xp for sneaking around or bamboozling enemies? What if you could get XP based on how much conflict the encounter has for you vs. some other measure (level, etc.) ?
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
"If not simple, then what about combat that is very serious, and cannot
be entered into lightly, but that represents a small investment of game
time overall?"
I think that would be really cool, but then what are people going to be doing besides combat?
People expect a lot of playtime out of their MMOs. People play MMOs for 8-12 hours a day for months and still complain there isn't enough content and quit.
Combat is an easy out, but it works. It keeps the player engaged (I prefer action-combat because it keeps you slightly more engaged).
If you're going to minimize combat, than what could you put in that would keep the player at least as engaged while they're playing the game for say 8 hours a day?
Your question stumped me lol. I wouldn't want to have to fill a game with only crafting or who knows what else.
I see what you mean and I guess that combat as the pillar of design has a very big utility.
What if you got xp for sneaking around or bamboozling enemies? What if you could get XP based on how much conflict the encounter has for you vs. some other measure (level, etc.) ?
There are certainly a lot of things you can do, but again you run into the same problem- how do you keep people engaged for very long periods of time without combat?
One of the hallmarks of an MMO is that you can basically play it "forever". This is good for the player (they can have a game to play for as long as they like and still have stuff to do in it), and good for the Devs (they collect subs and/or cash shop purchase fees for years on end).
I think Eve is probably a good example of some of the things you could do. I didn't play it much, but it didn't strike me as very focused on combat.
Then again, it also wasn't very engaging, for me at least. I never made it past a trial on it, but some on here have played it for 10 years.
I would be very interested in a standard medival MMO that wasn't focused on combat, but I have no idea what you could replace combat with. Typical ideas are building or dialogue-box-mini-games, but those aren't very engaging.
Another option is to somehow create a role-playing atmosphere where people create most of the content. This would be more promising, but very difficult to pull off well in a way that would attract a lot of people.
Another option is to somehow create a role-playing atmosphere where people create most of the content. This would be more promising, but very difficult to pull off well in a way that would attract a lot of people.
That won't fly. Most stuff players created is crap, and I prefer not to both with sorting through that. It is not like there is a lack of professional produced, fun games to play.
If u want to go to 3d setting game, make sure your game has amazing graphic. cuz ugly graphic hurt the eyes. if text based like mud, it will give player ability to imagine the perfect world.
Another option is to somehow create a role-playing atmosphere where people create most of the content. This would be more promising, but very difficult to pull off well in a way that would attract a lot of people.
That won't fly. Most stuff players created is crap, and I prefer not to both with sorting through that. It is not like there is a lack of professional produced, fun games to play.
True. I do think that a guildowned dungeon could work though (even in PvE with hired in monsters) as long as the guild is rewarded if they stop the pesky adventurers trying to clear it and the dungeons get scores based on how hard they are.
Letting a single player create a dungeon without much reason for making it hard is not a good idea, games who tried are full with exploit dungeons and usually poorly designed boring ones as well.
Also, stuff like player owned stores, taverns and such do work, but generally is player made content pretty aweful.
@nariusseldon is right about player content in games to date. The barrier to make content needs to weed out making content that is just a "sweetheart dungeon" or otherwise non-sense.
In a game where combat is not the end all you may find better player made content. Slapping a map down with monsters and treasure in it is the first task of the new game master. I think I was in the 5th grade when I first tackled that. Making a serious attempt at something entertaining for mass appeal requires sensibilities not obtained by simply being a meta-player, nor by being only a lore hound. That sort of tuned creativity is hard to quantify even among actual devs.
SWTOR comes to mind, because there were quests and maps in the lower levels of the game that were fantastic, while as the game progressed into the mid levels the Professional Developers created world content that was at the level of the most banal player made maps and quests. Just throwing a lot of mobs at the player with a quest objective at the far end, while losing the feel of the setting.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
so if not a mass murder, u want a farmvile game too? a cooking game, perhaps the sims dating game? all in one mmorpg?
so u start a mmorpg, u dont want to mass murder mobs? start a crafting profesion, then get married to a npc wife then have children, then group of bandits come and slaughter your whole family. then u want revenge and hunt them back. sound like a good roleplay
I don't think the main focus of MMORPGs is combat. The main focus is interacting with other players and developing a character as it should be. C'mon now let's be honest.... combat in MMORPGs are not as good as many single-player games and if companies focused primarily on combat than games would be different today.
In some MMORPGs people can focus primarily on combat and it can be way better than anything but those are PVP games and not the most popular . ..
Saying that combat defines an MMORPG is far from the truth from my experience.
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The Secret World does not agree, but then again 'm not sure TSW is a MMO, it's a coop mystery investigation game, heavy on story, and character building, no real focus on combat other then in theory.
I don't think the main focus of MMORPGs is combat. The main focus is interacting with other players and developing a character as it should be. C'mon now let's be honest.... combat in MMORPGs are not as good as many single-player games and if companies focused primarily on combat than games would be different today.
In some MMORPGs people can focus primarily on combat and it can be way better than anything but those are PVP games and not the most popular . ..
Saying that combat defines an MMORPG is far from the truth from my experience.
I think that you are right, and in my original post I chose what I thought was a bit of an ironic title because MMORPG combat is often pretty uninteresting. Nonetheless when a new game is announced one of the first questions is always about the combat.
Because the games are built upon the combat most of the time regardless of how they seem. The value structure in almost every MMORPG is based on how good you are at killing mobs/other players. The availability of raw materials, the new +15 Floozebang you have, and the levels gained are all because of... yep you guessed it, the combat.
What interactions are you having anyway?
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
so if not a mass murder, u want a farmvile game too? a cooking game, perhaps the sims dating game? all in one mmorpg?
so u start a mmorpg, u dont want to mass murder mobs? start a crafting profesion, then get married to a npc wife then have children, then group of bandits come and slaughter your whole family. then u want revenge and hunt them back. sound like a good roleplay
You are skilled at simplification. I don't know the answer to your question, but what I am asking about here is the phenomenon of Combat as the face of MMORPGs. I don't know if I would want to play the farm/dating/cooking/family revenge simulator, but I would like to examine the standard that prompted you to react to my question.
Maybe what I want is meaningful combat.
Maybe that is what is missing because you know that if there is combat in a movie between characters, the most important thing driving that fight will be conflict between one character and another or one character and whatever the other side represents.
Fighting for fighting's sake can be fun, but it gets old fast and you need some other reason to do it. What MMORPGs do well sometimes is attach meaning to combat. By setting up goals that can be achieved by combat, you are compelled to fight even if you would rather just walk somewhere in the game.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
I don't think the main focus of MMORPGs is combat. The main focus is interacting with other players and developing a character as it should be. C'mon now let's be honest.... combat in MMORPGs are not as good as many single-player games and if companies focused primarily on combat than games would be different today.
In some MMORPGs people can focus primarily on combat and it can be way better than anything but those are PVP games and not the most popular . ..
Saying that combat defines an MMORPG is far from the truth from my experience.
I think that you are right, and in my original post I chose what I thought was a bit of an ironic title because MMORPG combat is often pretty uninteresting. Nonetheless when a new game is announced one of the first questions is always about the combat.
Because the games are built upon the combat most of the time regardless of how they seem. The value structure in almost every MMORPG is based on how good you are at killing mobs/other players. The availability of raw materials, the new +15 Floozebang you have, and the levels gained are all because of... yep you guessed it, the combat.
What interactions are you having anyway?
Well when you first create a character you want to build on it and you go out to do what? Probably combat... which you may find extremely simple like pressing one button a few times or whatever at first. Hopefully the game has some kind of challenge but it probably wont for a starting character unfortunately. Can you honestly think that people continue because of their first combat experience? Its easymode for one thing. Or is it more because they can see that there are other people online chatting and they are not alone and sharing their experience and that they will be able to gain experience and build up their character...??
The possibility of good combat is like a dangling carrot in an MMORPG.. most of the time you never even know if you will ever come across it so you just keep leveling your character to find out I guess?
For me, combat is the most important (so long as its beating down on other people).. but for the MMORPG genre as a whole, I very much doubt others feel the same way. There are many dangling carrots besides combat and its easy to get caught up in one if its fun.. like crafting or just simply socializing. Lets face it, PVE combat is not the main reason that people play these games.. if they do mostly PVE combat, its to play with other people or build their character for some goal but not the combat itself..
I think AoC did probably the best job with PVE combat in some ways because of the gore and stuff but mostly I find the PVE combat bland and very boring. I've only done it in the past because I wanted to play with other people or because I wanted to reach some goal for PVP.
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So what you said there is that PvE is boring and so the only reason people engage in PvE combat is to do something with other people? While that is a great ideal, there is far too much solo play in MMORPGs to solidify your image of the social grouping machine and its technicolor combat.
Your lens here is pretty obvious.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
If you want to design an MMO where combat isn't the primary focus, it means you need to spend more time analysing personality types and then finding activities that are fun for those personality types.
As a basic example, the bartle types - explorer, killer, achiever and socialiser.
Killer we have - combat. We have action combat, traditional, turn based, pve or pvp. Killer types are covered with a wide variety of combat preferences
Explorer - this is 100% dependant on developers and, usually, has a finite ending. Until we get procedurally generated content, eventually explorers will have explored everything so will leave. Why waste resources on a playerbase that will leave?
Achiever - This is the biggest room for expansion. Players set their own goals for achievement but things like crafting (making money or simply being the best), hobbies, actual unlockable achievements etc are all part of fulfilling this personality type.
Socialiser - This is what has been neglected. We have grouping and chat, but there really isn't much minute-to-minute gameplay that is purely social. Things like mini-games - cards, draughts etc, these could be implemented and turned into purely social activities away from combat.
People like to play games, so there needs to be minute-by-minute gameplay that also fulfils their personality type. Most of the time, devs choose combat as the gameplay then extend combat to encompass more personality types (kill 200 of x to unlock achievement, group up to kill boss etc).
What I'd like to see:
- Social classes like entertainer and musician from SWG - provides the social types with minute-by-minute gameplay fun whilst meeting their social needs. - Hobbies / mini-games - like the card games from final fantasy, various fishing games or whatever. Non-combat but still minute-by-minute fun for those who like that sort of thing, can be extended to be social and achievement based. - Support / Odd classes - the trinity makes combat dull and very narrow minded. Support classes and just weird classes (like swg beastmaster) open up your game, putting more of the social aspect back into combat - 100% player driven economy - again, takes the focus away from killing stuff for loot and back on killing stuff for fun. Also makes crafting (social and achievement) more important so pleases a wider variety of players.
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Fighting for fighting's sake can be fun, but it gets old fast and you need some other reason to do it. What MMORPGs do well sometimes is attach meaning to combat. By setting up goals that can be achieved by combat, you are compelled to fight even if you would rather just walk somewhere in the game.
loot. It works in Diablo, and it works in mmorpgs.
But combat has to be fun. Otherwise, I will just choose another game that has fun combat.
But should it? I am wondering if an MMORPG has to have absolutely spellbinding combat. WTF is spell binding combat? Is combat really role-playing? Isn't MMORPG combat really pretty boring anyway?
MMORPGs seem to be largely built on the Kill and Collect model.
Is the combat mechanic the thing which must define a game the most? Maybe it is, but I wondered what the thinkers here have to say about it. In an MMORPG you will typically engage in tens of thousands of fights until it becomes an almost rote task. Could an MMORPG work with a very simple, low importance, or summarized combat system?
If not simple, then what about combat that is very serious, and cannot be entered into lightly, but that represents a small investment of game time overall?
Videogame RPGs have been combat-centric since the very beginning of the genre. This means:
It's been completely normal for MMORPGs to continue being combat-centric.
If you designed a game that was much less combat-centric, it would actually feel less deserving of being called an "RPG" because it was so different from what the term has been associated with in videogames.
If MMORPG combat is "really pretty boring" then it's been designed wrong. Combat designed correctly is a series of interesting decisions. WOW combat constantly strove to provide those interesting decisions, both in its rotation design, its mob design, and the handful of other factors that generate interesting decisions in combat.
When combat is the most common activity in a game, it basically is the game. So the game will live or die based on whether that combat is enjoyable. And since most MMORPGs fail to provide combat as interesting as WOW (when they should be aiming to provide combat more interesting than WOW,) that explains why a lot of MMORPGs are very short-lived. There simply aren't enough interesting decisions to hold players' interest.
This doesn't mean games have to make combat the most common activity. Plenty of games like Sim City or Don't Starve Together or Civilization offer more non-combat decisions than combat ones. This lets them survive without combat being as deep as other games, because there's a constant flow of decisions.
If you make a game where combat isn't common then because combat has been common in nearly all videogame RPGs to date, you might end up with a game that isn't considered a MMORPG. This shouldn't panic anyone, as plenty of games are enjoyable without being MMORPGs, but it's just sort of the nature of game genres that if you do something significantly different you're going to be a different genre.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You can play EVE for 13 years and never fire a gun. I have a friend who runs an industrial empire and all he does anymore is build Carriers, Dreadnoughts,Force Auxiliary ships, Super Carriers and Titans.
He uses the profits to make even more money on market speculation.
The best games have options for many different types of players. The worst games force you to go on genocidal rampages across the landscape, murdering hundreds of thousands of naked mole rats so you can turn their spleens in at a static quest marker.
I read once of a guy who was new to Eve and did what a lot of new people do. Just take off and start exploring. After he got his ship promptly blown-up he became a trader and never left the station again.
Second Life is games within a game. There are strong RP groups there running mini MMO's. As a virtual world you can pretty much develop any type of character you want as well as making a RL living off the that character with actual crafting and sales.
Lots of game let you dedicate characters to crafting most do make you level first at first as an intro to the game.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
As much as some would like to railroad computer RPGs and MMOs, there is no such mandatory limitation on a game that it has to be focused on combat. To the contrary we have had cooperative puzzle, crafting, and other types of games that can all be wrapped into or under the RPG genre that offer a variety of alternative yet still challenging and engaging gameplay.
We've even had a few different forays into noncombat MMORPG titles in the past as minor games.
Point being, that an MMORPG or any other needs to have combat as it's mainstay, is simply a false argument.
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"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Another option is to somehow create a role-playing atmosphere where people create most of the content. This would be more promising, but very difficult to pull off well in a way that would attract a lot of people.
That won't fly. Most stuff players created is crap, and I prefer not to both with sorting through that. It is not like there is a lack of professional produced, fun games to play.
True. I do think that a guildowned dungeon could work though (even in PvE with hired in monsters) as long as the guild is rewarded if they stop the pesky adventurers trying to clear it and the dungeons get scores based on how hard they are.
Letting a single player create a dungeon without much reason for making it hard is not a good idea, games who tried are full with exploit dungeons and usually poorly designed boring ones as well.
Also, stuff like player owned stores, taverns and such do work, but generally is player made content pretty aweful.
And what is all of this player-created content going to consist of? Oh right, combat. Unless creating content is itself the content in some meta way.
If MMORPG combat is "really pretty boring" then it's been designed wrong. Combat designed correctly is a series of interesting decisions. WOW combat constantly strove to provide those interesting decisions, both in its rotation design, its mob design, and the handful of other factors that generate interesting decisions in combat.
When combat is the most common activity in a game, it basically is the game. So the game will live or die based on whether that combat is enjoyable. And since most MMORPGs fail to provide combat as interesting as WOW (when they should be aiming to provide combat more interesting than WOW,) that explains why a lot of MMORPGs are very short-lived. There simply aren't enough interesting decisions to hold players' interest.
Except that WoW combat leans much further in the direction of level and gear checks and away from interesting decisions than most MMORPGs. A difference of five levels in WoW can be the difference between a given battle being completely trivial and just shy of impossible. That's not true of most games.
Comments
As much as I dislike the combat-addiction of today, I don't think lack of combat is the solution. The problem is not combat itself, it's the weight / share of combat within the gameplay.
In RPGs (whether it's solo or multi) combat should be only a fairly rare, often avoidable event, as it is in p'n'p RPGs, and definitely not the main activity. That is fine for shooters, or action games, or brawlers, etc. etc. but RPG is about roleplay, about interaction, story, world building, etc.
Online started like this too, in our MUD there was almost zero xp for killing, and a lot for quests and crafts and roleplay. On a sidenote,
man, that made me feel old (and I'm not
As for the question, if you like Pratchett and consider Discworld as "medieval" fantasy, I think that MUD is still pretty active, and it was a great one back in the days, both content-wise and in community.
In short, I agree with @Dullahan . Combat is indeed defining MMOs today, unfortunately. And no, it definitely should not.
Something is what it is. You are correct that is what most video games have been. People want something different, they need to come up with different names for them and not ride on the existing. Golf and Basketball are different, they didn't share the same name.
If people want some kind of different game experience, they need to create that new thing.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Who said computer RPG is about RP, interaction, ....
If those who are buying these games want combat, and the dev make combat centric games, what is the problem? No one says video game RPG has to be a certain way.
I see what you mean and I guess that combat as the pillar of design has a very big utility.
What if you got xp for sneaking around or bamboozling enemies? What if you could get XP based on how much conflict the encounter has for you vs. some other measure (level, etc.) ?
One of the hallmarks of an MMO is that you can basically play it "forever". This is good for the player (they can have a game to play for as long as they like and still have stuff to do in it), and good for the Devs (they collect subs and/or cash shop purchase fees for years on end).
I think Eve is probably a good example of some of the things you could do. I didn't play it much, but it didn't strike me as very focused on combat.
Then again, it also wasn't very engaging, for me at least. I never made it past a trial on it, but some on here have played it for 10 years.
I would be very interested in a standard medival MMO that wasn't focused on combat, but I have no idea what you could replace combat with. Typical ideas are building or dialogue-box-mini-games, but those aren't very engaging.
Another option is to somehow create a role-playing atmosphere where people create most of the content. This would be more promising, but very difficult to pull off well in a way that would attract a lot of people.
If u want to go to 3d setting game, make sure your game has amazing graphic. cuz ugly graphic hurt the eyes. if text based like mud, it will give player ability to imagine the perfect world.
Letting a single player create a dungeon without much reason for making it hard is not a good idea, games who tried are full with exploit dungeons and usually poorly designed boring ones as well.
Also, stuff like player owned stores, taverns and such do work, but generally is player made content pretty aweful.
In a game where combat is not the end all you may find better player made content. Slapping a map down with monsters and treasure in it is the first task of the new game master. I think I was in the 5th grade when I first tackled that. Making a serious attempt at something entertaining for mass appeal requires sensibilities not obtained by simply being a meta-player, nor by being only a lore hound. That sort of tuned creativity is hard to quantify even among actual devs.
SWTOR comes to mind, because there were quests and maps in the lower levels of the game that were fantastic, while as the game progressed into the mid levels the Professional Developers created world content that was at the level of the most banal player made maps and quests. Just throwing a lot of mobs at the player with a quest objective at the far end, while losing the feel of the setting.
so u start a mmorpg, u dont want to mass murder mobs? start a crafting profesion, then get married to a npc wife then have children, then group of bandits come and slaughter your whole family. then u want revenge and hunt them back. sound like a good roleplay
In some MMORPGs people can focus primarily on combat and it can be way better than anything but those are PVP games and not the most popular . ..
Saying that combat defines an MMORPG is far from the truth from my experience.
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The Secret World does not agree, but then again 'm not sure TSW is a MMO, it's a coop mystery investigation game, heavy on story, and character building, no real focus on combat other then in theory.
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Because the games are built upon the combat most of the time regardless of how they seem. The value structure in almost every MMORPG is based on how good you are at killing mobs/other players. The availability of raw materials, the new +15 Floozebang you have, and the levels gained are all because of... yep you guessed it, the combat.
What interactions are you having anyway?
Maybe what I want is meaningful combat.
Maybe that is what is missing because you know that if there is combat in a movie between characters, the most important thing driving that fight will be conflict between one character and another or one character and whatever the other side represents.
Fighting for fighting's sake can be fun, but it gets old fast and you need some other reason to do it. What MMORPGs do well sometimes is attach meaning to combat. By setting up goals that can be achieved by combat, you are compelled to fight even if you would rather just walk somewhere in the game.
The possibility of good combat is like a dangling carrot in an MMORPG.. most of the time you never even know if you will ever come across it so you just keep leveling your character to find out I guess?
For me, combat is the most important (so long as its beating down on other people).. but for the MMORPG genre as a whole, I very much doubt others feel the same way. There are many dangling carrots besides combat and its easy to get caught up in one if its fun.. like crafting or just simply socializing. Lets face it, PVE combat is not the main reason that people play these games.. if they do mostly PVE combat, its to play with other people or build their character for some goal but not the combat itself..
I think AoC did probably the best job with PVE combat in some ways because of the gore and stuff but mostly I find the PVE combat bland and very boring. I've only done it in the past because I wanted to play with other people or because I wanted to reach some goal for PVP.
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So what you said there is that PvE is boring and so the only reason people engage in PvE combat is to do something with other people? While that is a great ideal, there is far too much solo play in MMORPGs to solidify your image of the social grouping machine and its technicolor combat.
Your lens here is pretty obvious.
As a basic example, the bartle types - explorer, killer, achiever and socialiser.
Killer we have - combat. We have action combat, traditional, turn based, pve or pvp. Killer types are covered with a wide variety of combat preferences
Explorer - this is 100% dependant on developers and, usually, has a finite ending. Until we get procedurally generated content, eventually explorers will have explored everything so will leave. Why waste resources on a playerbase that will leave?
Achiever - This is the biggest room for expansion. Players set their own goals for achievement but things like crafting (making money or simply being the best), hobbies, actual unlockable achievements etc are all part of fulfilling this personality type.
Socialiser - This is what has been neglected. We have grouping and chat, but there really isn't much minute-to-minute gameplay that is purely social. Things like mini-games - cards, draughts etc, these could be implemented and turned into purely social activities away from combat.
People like to play games, so there needs to be minute-by-minute gameplay that also fulfils their personality type. Most of the time, devs choose combat as the gameplay then extend combat to encompass more personality types (kill 200 of x to unlock achievement, group up to kill boss etc).
What I'd like to see:
- Social classes like entertainer and musician from SWG - provides the social types with minute-by-minute gameplay fun whilst meeting their social needs.
- Hobbies / mini-games - like the card games from final fantasy, various fishing games or whatever. Non-combat but still minute-by-minute fun for those who like that sort of thing, can be extended to be social and achievement based.
- Support / Odd classes - the trinity makes combat dull and very narrow minded. Support classes and just weird classes (like swg beastmaster) open up your game, putting more of the social aspect back into combat
- 100% player driven economy - again, takes the focus away from killing stuff for loot and back on killing stuff for fun. Also makes crafting (social and achievement) more important so pleases a wider variety of players.
But combat has to be fun. Otherwise, I will just choose another game that has fun combat.
- It's been completely normal for MMORPGs to continue being combat-centric.
- If you designed a game that was much less combat-centric, it would actually feel less deserving of being called an "RPG" because it was so different from what the term has been associated with in videogames.
If MMORPG combat is "really pretty boring" then it's been designed wrong. Combat designed correctly is a series of interesting decisions. WOW combat constantly strove to provide those interesting decisions, both in its rotation design, its mob design, and the handful of other factors that generate interesting decisions in combat.When combat is the most common activity in a game, it basically is the game. So the game will live or die based on whether that combat is enjoyable. And since most MMORPGs fail to provide combat as interesting as WOW (when they should be aiming to provide combat more interesting than WOW,) that explains why a lot of MMORPGs are very short-lived. There simply aren't enough interesting decisions to hold players' interest.
This doesn't mean games have to make combat the most common activity. Plenty of games like Sim City or Don't Starve Together or Civilization offer more non-combat decisions than combat ones. This lets them survive without combat being as deep as other games, because there's a constant flow of decisions.
If you make a game where combat isn't common then because combat has been common in nearly all videogame RPGs to date, you might end up with a game that isn't considered a MMORPG. This shouldn't panic anyone, as plenty of games are enjoyable without being MMORPGs, but it's just sort of the nature of game genres that if you do something significantly different you're going to be a different genre.
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Second Life is games within a game. There are strong RP groups there running mini MMO's. As a virtual world you can pretty much develop any type of character you want as well as making a RL living off the that character with actual crafting and sales.
Lots of game let you dedicate characters to crafting most do make you level first at first as an intro to the game.
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We've even had a few different forays into noncombat MMORPG titles in the past as minor games.
Point being, that an MMORPG or any other needs to have combat as it's mainstay, is simply a false argument.
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