What are the best examples how to make MMOs better multiplayer games.

mmoguy43

In the new MMOs, old MMOs, or even non-MMO multiplayer games, what specific examples can you think of how to make the multiplayer aspect much better in terms of cooperative or competitive play? Not looking for a list of features or "things not to do" but more like how x game does grouping in a way that players want to communicate or participate.

iixviiiix

No level restriction , repeatable contents and no instances .

No level restriction mean player can use any contents he want , with the people he want without get refuse by the system (though people can refuse him lol)

Repeatable contents mean no one time contents (aka current quests/tasks) . It add ability to play the same contents with other

And no instance , no magical resource .
I mean , a multiplayer game that give you things without have to compete ? you can co-op in instance but no compete with other then there are only half of multiplayer .

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Gamer54321

I think OP should start thinking for him- herself

SyndromofaDown

What Pantheon is doing.

Or should i say the newest 1999 technology where you could solo for massive experience but decide to group for shared experience and way more effective killing to where grouping was the main source of min maxing your experience. Everyone except Necros that is.

Scot

DAOC and PS2 give you excellent reasons for "grouping". Zones of combat are always better than scenario combat in a click to get there space that you can only go to for a battle. If you have both, Zones always fail as they put the same rewards in both types of areas and players always follow the easiest route. 

Deivos

There needs to be more time spent assessing what one can do with the extent of persistent world and multi-user experiences. An online framework the likes of an MMO's dedicated server architecture can allow for more complex simulation of game worlds and their ecology, economy, and events.

The evolution of the narrative architecture similarly needs to take place and migrate away from a method where the events of the game are pre-defined and fed to users, and instead utilize a narrative format much more unique in potential to an interactive and collaborative persistent environment.

For example;

Say the game issues a player a quest objective to defeat some tyrant king. Rather than have an explicit sequence of predefined events, the game instead uses the character's stats as well as player's general gameplay behavior to identify certain playstyle preferences, and seeds events from a library in to customize the user experience into a unique series of activities for that player. Not only that, but instead of using a canned delivery method of NPC narrative/text blocks or rigid visual sequences, these events are built using emergent AI behaviors as well as the quest itself tracks player activity as it is relevant to back-end values that contribute towards the completion of the quest to build a story about that character's achievements dynamically (possibly with rewards attached).

Pointing to pre-existing games helps for identifying good basic features, but we really need to consider the potential of the genre and where we can take technology to make a better experience.

iixviiiix

blueturtle13 said:

Albion brings players together because the skill tree is vast and varied and deep and trying to do everything yourself is almost impossible.
Running trade routes for the most profit may require you to go to a town in a 'Red' zone (Open PvP)
and doing so will net you great profit,for you and your guild, if you make it there alive. So grouping up and doing a guild run is highly suggested.
The games is very well thought out in regards to players needing other players to accomplish whatever it is they are hoping to accomplish.

Just my opinion ,
bring players together with comfortable gameplay is better than forced players together because they need to be .

Amathe

Content that moves at a rapid pace does not lend itself to talking. And without talking, there is little to no social aspect to the game. 

Amathe

DMKano said:

Amathe said:

Content that moves at a rapid pace does not lend itself to talking. And without talking, there is little to no social aspect to the game. 

Completing tasks with others without talking is still a social aspect.

I know this is less than what many veteran playera are used to but it is true. 

Social participation without talking (communication via actions and movement) is entirely doable.

Focusing on chat as the only means of socializing is simply not true.

I can understand some people may see it that way. I still don't.

In other mmos I have played, I have grouped with lots of people who I got to know through conversation. In WoW these days, people group up through a LFG tool and go through an entire dungeons without saying a single word to one another. And a big part of that is that people want to rush rush, pew pew through every encounter and could really care less with whom they do it.  

I do not see this as an improvement over my experiences in prior games, such as EQ, EQ2, CoH, SWG and so on. 

I would also suggest that using other people to achieve a goal is not quite the same as playing with other people. 

Theocritus

I always viewed multiplayer RPG games as "cmon town grab your pitchforks, torches, and shovels were going to kill the ogre and his minions!"....Monsters should be strong and take players working together to kill them....Once they decided we can solo just about anything it really ruined the genre to an extent.

Mendel

Age of Conan has some puzzles that require multiple players to complete.  One player must stand on a switch while the others move to a second switch, then a second person must must stand there while the first player joins them.

Any type of synchronized movement / actions would serve, from standing on switches to turn off the death field to launching a nuclear missile.

Panther2103

If you make the best form of EXP a monster that requires you to group to kill, then you will get more people to talk. Or having a meaningful guild system, you tend to get more of a multiplayer experience than the loner games. My most talkative MMO groups have been in games that require you to group to get good exp, like BDO, Lineage 2, and games like that.

VengeSunsoar

Coh. Have all  combinations of groups be very effective. Create a dynamic synergy between players in a group (Buzz words i know but when teamed up the effects multiplied each  other). thismakes people want to group and avoid almost all of the you suck crap. 

LynxJSA

Asheron's Call had many quests that were simply fun group events in that higher level players could help lower level ones. The Focusing Stone, Atlan weapons, and Bandit Hilts were some of the quests that were very commonly done by groups, not so much out of necessity but by choice. 

Although Luna is now the exclusive hang out for people in UO due to the current low population, back when the game was well populated, there were multiple locations that were viable to use as a "base", allowing players to choose what groups they would hang out with and to allow communities/cultures within the larger community to form. Some towns even had multiple sub communities within that town ( ex: east and west side crowds in Trinsic, and three distinct groups in Britain). 

CrazKanuk

Destiny and The Division, because somehow they created a game that is very grindy without making me feel like I want to blow my brains out. 

Loke666

There are several things MMOs can do way better.

Interaction & Cooperation: MMOs need to be better here. Interaction with many players is the one thing MMOs can do that no other genre can (well, there are MUDs)... Some early MMOs like UO and SWG actually did better then the modern games there, get rid of the auction house and have player or guild owned shops, market stands and even trade houses (who could have several guilds).

GW2 got on thing right, seeing other players should be a good thing, not someone that steals your mobs and loot. Also, the need and greed mechanics only leads to complains. Let us choose between master loot (group leader decides, good for guilds), random loot and random loot that tries to give an item firstly to the player who needs it most.

The group combat mechanics also needs a new look, each player needs to be as important as the rest but working together should be way more effective then everybody just doing their own stuff. Trinity and mechanics that just have people standing really close while fighting isn't good enough.

PvP: MMOs do this part really badly. If you don't believe me, compare the percentage of PvP fans in MMOs with the percentage in other genres with PvP. PvP focused MMOs usually just do the same thing as PvE MMOs and that wont cut it. The goal is a system where every combat is exciting but you still have some kind of progression (I didn't say it was easy, but it is possible).

Crafting: Crafting is usually just a huge grind and making a simple item takes loads of resources (which are easy to get). All items of a kind looks identical and usually you can't see who made it. Crafting needs to be more about designing cool stuff and less about just gathering. Less materials but make them harder to get. Legendary stuff should have the mark of the maker on it as well as a custom name.

Character builds: WE need more flexibility here, when every character of the same class is the same, either due to limited options or bad balance of skills you make the game more predictable which is bad.

AI: The mob AI is as bad as it always been, at least some opponents need to be smarter. They don't need to be so smart that things are impossible for the players but they need to be able to react to the players tactics and surprise them now and again. A 3 line wiki article on how to beat a boss means you are doing something wrong.

mmoguy43

Gamer54321 said:

I think OP should start thinking for him- herself

You assume I don't have my own thoughts on the topic. I can't share my opinion in the OP or it would just be about that rather than what everyone else' opinion or experience in a game I have not played, which I think is more valuable in an open ended topic. That is, for posters that do contribute.

mmoguy43

Amathe said:

Content that moves at a rapid pace does not lend itself to talking. And without talking, there is little to no social aspect to the game. 

Rapid paced games, like shooters tend to go the voice com route but not very many people like to participate in that way even though it can dramatically improve winning odds or fun MP gameplay.
Slower paced combat allows for text chatting. Otherwise the communication is left to down time between fights or after a dungeon or goal completion.

SEANMCAD

iixviiiix said:

No level restriction , repeatable contents and no instances .

lol.

they very first line after him explictly saying he doesnt want what 'not to do'.

lol

mmoguy43

Deivos said:

There needs to be more time spent assessing what one can do with the extent of persistent world and multi-user experiences. An online framework the likes of an MMO's dedicated server architecture can allow for more complex simulation of game worlds and their ecology, economy, and events.

The evolution of the narrative architecture similarly needs to take place and migrate away from a method where the events of the game are pre-defined and fed to users, and instead utilize a narrative format much more unique in potential to an interactive and collaborative persistent environment.

For example;

Say the game issues a player a quest objective to defeat some tyrant king. Rather than have an explicit sequence of predefined events, the game instead uses the character's stats as well as player's general gameplay behavior to identify certain playstyle preferences, and seeds events from a library in to customize the user experience into a unique series of activities for that player. Not only that, but instead of using a canned delivery method of NPC narrative/text blocks or rigid visual sequences, these events are built using emergent AI behaviors as well as the quest itself tracks player activity as it is relevant to back-end values that contribute towards the completion of the quest to build a story about that character's achievements dynamically (possibly with rewards attached).

Pointing to pre-existing games helps for identifying good basic features, but we really need to consider the potential of the genre and where we can take technology to make a better experience.

A dynamic narrative of events certainly sounds interesting. But I wonder how it further enhances multiplayer gameplay. Do events play out in a way that it brings players together? Ex. You and another player are sent to encourage Sad farmer 0/2. Does it give players at an equal distance a race delivery, be the first to complete a goal? Would everyone have a quest to defeat the tyrant king but in a different way? It would add complexity to existing tired old quest systems, that's true.

I do wonder though, if game events were to replace a directed story, would it feel like some kind of story is still missing? It would probably weigh more own how many possible events (non-repetitious) there are and the amount of explorable areas in the game world.

Phry

The whole how to make an MMO a better multiplayer game, reminds me of the joke, how do you become a millionaire, you start will a billion and make an MMO...

SEANMCAD

This is an area I am not sure I would be good at giving an answer because its something I personally dont want to do. Having said that to me it seems the best way to get some good baseline answers is to look at how it happens in real life.

How I see it in real life is most likely biased toward my personality type however the main pillars of the observation are likely accurate, which are:

1. many people like to contribute to the greater community without actually interacting with the greater community. Builders for example. I might want to build a great community block that is ideal for good living and high levels of social interaction but I reallly dont want to interact with people myself.

2. People who enjoy the social interaction from others because they are intrested in others has fellow human beings. This is really hard to 'abstract' into a game because a game is designed to be more like work. you have goals and/or building you are not really just wanting to hear the life story of a real life person.

3. People who like to orchestrate other people. I dont mean that in a bad way i am just saying from a 'project' motivation to affect a change some people like to manage, other people like to do.

so that is your pillar set.

The OP seems to want number 2. however how does one get number 2 into a tasked/project based motovation I dont know

mmoguy43

Phry said:

The whole how to make an MMO a better multiplayer game, reminds me of the joke, how do you become a millionaire, you start will a billion and make an MMO...

It's funny that it somewhat aligns with my thought that they could be better with fewer players.
(not always)

SEANMCAD

I think in short to what I was saying awhile ago to me a game is an 'objective based project' if you will.
although projects can contain others, the central point of motivation is not socialization, its the project in question.

Thus anything that is artifically inserted into the project time line that is not really related to the core goals of the project is likely going to be a problematic expression.


for example:
I am coming to you because you have the third rail needed for the magic spell. all three of use will say our part at once and the spell will be cast.

ok...cool, social. yeah but is the real motivation to be buddies or is the real motivation to get the spell cast? if the real motivation is the spell casting then artificially inflating the importance of the social is likely to backfire in some way

Or I could be completely wrong. if i am I aks others to please be civil about it.

mmoguy43

SEANMCAD said:

This is an area I am not sure I would be good at giving an answer because its something I personally dont want to do. Having said that to me it seems the best way to get some good baseline answers is to look at how it happens in real life.

How I see it in real life is most likely biased toward my personality type however the main pillars of the observation are likely accurate, which are:

1. many people like to contribute to the greater community without actually interacting with the greater community. Builders for example. I might want to build a great community block that is ideal for good living and high levels of social interaction but I reallly dont want to interact with people myself.

2. People who enjoy the social interaction from others because they are intrested in others has fellow human beings. This is really hard to 'abstract' into a game because a game is designed to be more like work. you have goals and/or building you are not really just wanting to hear the life story of a real life person.

3. People who like to orchestrate other people. I dont mean that in a bad way i am just saying from a 'project' motivation to affect a change some people like to manage, other people like to do.

so that is your pillar set.

The OP seems to want number 2. however how does one get number 2 into a tasked/project based motovation I dont know

That is an interesting thought. You are right that not everyone wants to be socially involved the same way. Some directly, like charismatic and communicative group/guild leaders while others prefer subtly or indirectly influencing a larger group. Communication really isn't a primary goal in socializing as much as it is getting people involved. All you can do is make it easier for it to happen if it does, great, and if not, it shouldn't detract from the game.
1,3  So you'd have a play style of not just being a guild leader but someone that creates the social infrastructure for a faction or alliance, an architect creating a player social hub, or some kind of faction goal manager/tactician.