I think the real problem is more that today we have too many levels you pass too fast so gear just wont matter because of that. Also the difficulty is low, I maxed out characters with only starting gear in modern games just out of boredom, that would have been impossible even 12 years ago.
Take Wow for instance, today you get to max level several times faster then back in vanilla and you pass twice as many levels at that time. So Your cool lvl 25 bow will be useless almost 10 times faster today then just after launch. Also, you need it less since the lvl 25 content today is so easy a dog could complete it while you could still die rather easily if you messed up in december 2004.
So: Decrease the amount of levels a lot, to 20 or 30. Have a better difficulty curve then super easy to max level and hard after that so mid level gear is more useful and you easee people into the endgame better. Make maxing out 2-3 times as long as today. Your gear will last you longer and you will need it more. Problem solved.
I like you dynamic crafting idea though.
Then we will never hear the end of it. "It's too GRINDY"
One of the reasons why I enjoyed games like Aion where you can enjoy the armor/weapons acquired longer.
I think the real problem is more that today we have too many levels you pass too fast so gear just wont matter because of that. Also the difficulty is low, I maxed out characters with only starting gear in modern games just out of boredom, that would have been impossible even 12 years ago.
Take Wow for instance, today you get to max level several times faster then back in vanilla and you pass twice as many levels at that time. So Your cool lvl 25 bow will be useless almost 10 times faster today then just after launch. Also, you need it less since the lvl 25 content today is so easy a dog could complete it while you could still die rather easily if you messed up in december 2004.
So: Decrease the amount of levels a lot, to 20 or 30. Have a better difficulty curve then super easy to max level and hard after that so mid level gear is more useful and you easee people into the endgame better. Make maxing out 2-3 times as long as today. Your gear will last you longer and you will need it more. Problem solved.
I like you dynamic crafting idea though.
Then we will never hear the end of it. "It's too GRINDY"
One of the reasons why I enjoyed games like Aion where you can enjoy the armor/weapons acquired longer.
Or you can do what D3 is doing .. all legendaries can roll max level stats. And drop them like candy so there is no point to be attached to an early level gear.
In fact, why is this a problem? It is not like attaching to old pieces of gear is necessary to have fun.
I think the real problem is more that today we have too many levels you pass too fast so gear just wont matter because of that. Also the difficulty is low, I maxed out characters with only starting gear in modern games just out of boredom, that would have been impossible even 12 years ago.
Take Wow for instance, today you get to max level several times faster then back in vanilla and you pass twice as many levels at that time. So Your cool lvl 25 bow will be useless almost 10 times faster today then just after launch. Also, you need it less since the lvl 25 content today is so easy a dog could complete it while you could still die rather easily if you messed up in december 2004.
So: Decrease the amount of levels a lot, to 20 or 30. Have a better difficulty curve then super easy to max level and hard after that so mid level gear is more useful and you easee people into the endgame better. Make maxing out 2-3 times as long as today. Your gear will last you longer and you will need it more. Problem solved.
I like you dynamic crafting idea though.
Then we will never hear the end of it. "It's too GRINDY"
One of the reasons why I enjoyed games like Aion where you can enjoy the armor/weapons acquired longer.
How would that be any grindier then more levels? It still takes the same time to max out and you get new skills at about the same speed, maybe a bit slower in the beginning and faster afterwards.
And since you wont need to replace your gear as often that is less grindy (then again, you pprobably spend about the same time since you want it better then if you have 100 levels.
20 levels. A new skill at every level. That would make leveling mean something without actually increase the grind.
Then again, those people are still complaining that leveling in any game is too grindy anyways so the only way to make then happy would to remove any progression altogether (and I doubt that would help either).
Or you can do what D3 is doing .. all legendaries can roll max level stats. And drop them like candy so there is no point to be attached to an early level gear.
In fact, why is this a problem? It is not like attaching to old pieces of gear is necessary to have fun.
I don't think anyone wear old gear at levelcap. The point of any gear under levelcap is to help you get there.
But throwing away something you just got kinda makes it meaningless. You want the cool gear people get to be helpful for a while, it makes aquiring that gear far more fun then something that will be pointless after 2 hours gameplay.
If you want people to actually caring about improving their gear it should be something they don't do all the time but not something so rare that they tire off it either. People will get more of a kick if it isn't constant, modern MMOs have often so high replacement rate of gear that people loose that kick or at least get a lot less kick.
I think the real problem is more that today we have too many levels you pass too fast so gear just wont matter because of that. Also the difficulty is low, I maxed out characters with only starting gear in modern games just out of boredom, that would have been impossible even 12 years ago.
Take Wow for instance, today you get to max level several times faster then back in vanilla and you pass twice as many levels at that time. So Your cool lvl 25 bow will be useless almost 10 times faster today then just after launch. Also, you need it less since the lvl 25 content today is so easy a dog could complete it while you could still die rather easily if you messed up in december 2004.
So: Decrease the amount of levels a lot, to 20 or 30. Have a better difficulty curve then super easy to max level and hard after that so mid level gear is more useful and you easee people into the endgame better. Make maxing out 2-3 times as long as today. Your gear will last you longer and you will need it more. Problem solved.
I like you dynamic crafting idea though.
Then we will never hear the end of it. "It's too GRINDY"
One of the reasons why I enjoyed games like Aion where you can enjoy the armor/weapons acquired longer.
How would that be any grindier then more levels? It still takes the same time to max out and you get new skills at about the same speed, maybe a bit slower in the beginning and faster afterwards.
And since you wont need to replace your gear as often that is less grindy (then again, you pprobably spend about the same time since you want it better then if you have 100 levels.
20 levels. A new skill at every level. That would make leveling mean something without actually increase the grind.
Then again, those people are still complaining that leveling in any game is too grindy anyways so the only way to make then happy would to remove any progression altogether (and I doubt that would help either).
That's the thing you say Progression. I feel folks have forgotten the RPG at the end of MMORPG, for some folks they feel punished.
Taking progression out of the equation really defeats the purpose of an RPG game.
How would that be any grindier then more levels? It still takes the same time to max out and you get new skills at about the same speed, maybe a bit slower in the beginning and faster afterwards.
And since you wont need to replace your gear as often that is less grindy (then again, you pprobably spend about the same time since you want it better then if you have 100 levels.
20 levels. A new skill at every level. That would make leveling mean something without actually increase the grind.
Then again, those people are still complaining that leveling in any game is too grindy anyways so the only way to make then happy would to remove any progression altogether (and I doubt that would help either).
That's the thing you say Progression. I feel folks have forgotten the RPG at the end of MMORPG, for some folks they feel punished.
Taking progression out of the equation really defeats the purpose of an RPG game.
Well, you don't technically have to have progression to make a roleplaying game but 99.99% of them still do. RPG really mean that roleplay someone else in a different world, immersion is more important than progression.
I do feel that a MMORPG need progression one way or the other but not because of the RPG. A persistent world without progression would be.....weird.
I could live with something else then personal progression, something CIV like where your entire realm progress together and give you access to new skills and technology for instance would probably be fun as well if you go for a PvP game. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to progress in a group instead of as an induvidual.
For PvE I think it certainly is fun with progression, and while I can see more then one interesting alternative to levels they seems to be the standard progression model and they work well if done right.
How would that be any grindier then more levels? It still takes the same time to max out and you get new skills at about the same speed, maybe a bit slower in the beginning and faster afterwards.
And since you wont need to replace your gear as often that is less grindy (then again, you pprobably spend about the same time since you want it better then if you have 100 levels.
20 levels. A new skill at every level. That would make leveling mean something without actually increase the grind.
Then again, those people are still complaining that leveling in any game is too grindy anyways so the only way to make then happy would to remove any progression altogether (and I doubt that would help either).
That's the thing you say Progression. I feel folks have forgotten the RPG at the end of MMORPG, for some folks they feel punished.
Taking progression out of the equation really defeats the purpose of an RPG game.
Well, you don't technically have to have progression to make a roleplaying game but 99.99% of them still do. RPG really mean that roleplay someone else in a different world, immersion is more important than progression.
I do feel that a MMORPG need progression one way or the other but not because of the RPG. A persistent world without progression would be.....weird.
I could live with something else then personal progression, something CIV like where your entire realm progress together and give you access to new skills and technology for instance would probably be fun as well if you go for a PvP game. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to progress in a group instead of as an induvidual.
For PvE I think it certainly is fun with progression, and while I can see more then one interesting alternative to levels they seems to be the standard progression model and they work well if done right.
Either way when you introduce the concept of progress into a world, it has to affect you as a participant as well. I think it's an awesome idea for introducing some sort of a global progress in a world. But you still have to have personal as well alongside of it. We'd like to feel unique, even in the small things. If I'm a soldier among thousands of others, I'd still like to add a funny patch to my backpack.
Without being able to tailor my personal progress, or if I want to be really fanatic about it, my personal story, a game loses the RPG part for me and it would become just a G.
I'm all in with your idea of new levels of progress, that's just awesome. But I'm too much of a conservative to lose the fundamentals.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
Either way when you introduce the concept of progress into a world, it has to affect you as a participant as well. I think it's an awesome idea for introducing some sort of a global progress in a world. But you still have to have personal as well alongside of it. We'd like to feel unique, even in the small things. If I'm a soldier among thousands of others, I'd still like to add a funny patch to my backpack.
Without being able to tailor my personal progress, or if I want to be really fanatic about it, my personal story, a game loses the RPG part for me and it would become just a G.
I'm all in with your idea of new levels of progress, that's just awesome. But I'm too much of a conservative to lose the fundamentals.
Yes, with just group progression things would be different but it does not mean you can't have your own spec.
What it would mean is that you wouldn't get your own XP, when your realm levels up (gain a new tech level or whatever you call it) you would get access to more skills to pick from, maybe better stats or more HP and new technology (or higher level of gear).
Say that your guild levels in from stone age to bronze age. That would open up new craft skills to you (like metalworking), new gear (like swords) and new skills.
You would still have your own build of course, the difference would be working together with others to progress. A common goal and working together with others tend to make better game communities.
It is just a theoretical experiment though, I was just thinking of alternative to personal progression.
A CIV like MMO that run it's servers for a few months before resetting with nations that progress through the ages would be a interesting concept, PvP or PvE. You could focus on giving out XP for learning new things, exploring, spying and such instead of just killing things. It woulld also have the possibility to make crafting really fun.
Either way when you introduce the concept of progress into a world, it has to affect you as a participant as well. I think it's an awesome idea for introducing some sort of a global progress in a world. But you still have to have personal as well alongside of it. We'd like to feel unique, even in the small things. If I'm a soldier among thousands of others, I'd still like to add a funny patch to my backpack.
Without being able to tailor my personal progress, or if I want to be really fanatic about it, my personal story, a game loses the RPG part for me and it would become just a G.
I'm all in with your idea of new levels of progress, that's just awesome. But I'm too much of a conservative to lose the fundamentals.
Yes, with just group progression things would be different but it does not mean you can't have your own spec.
What it would mean is that you wouldn't get your own XP, when your realm levels up (gain a new tech level or whatever you call it) you would get access to more skills to pick from, maybe better stats or more HP and new technology (or higher level of gear).
Say that your guild levels in from stone age to bronze age. That would open up new craft skills to you (like metalworking), new gear (like swords) and new skills.
You would still have your own build of course, the difference would be working together with others to progress. A common goal and working together with others tend to make better game communities.
It is just a theoretical experiment though, I was just thinking of alternative to personal progression.
A CIV like MMO that run it's servers for a few months before resetting with nations that progress through the ages would be a interesting concept, PvP or PvE. You could focus on giving out XP for learning new things, exploring, spying and such instead of just killing things. It woulld also have the possibility to make crafting really fun.
I can see some problems with this system but nothing game breaking. To be fair, I love your idea and would love to play it. However, I still like to have some sort of a personal progression alongside this. Although the absence of it would make new players more valuable. Not sure if that's entirely a good thing though.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
Take the whole leveling and gear progression out period. You decide on what you want to use. If you use a Bow you get better at using it and learn skills that way from trainers. The same with armor. And making crafting your own gear key and not overly complicated like devs for some reason think they have to do. You character has every skill in his menu at the start but they are at zero until you decide what you want to be. No classes to pick from. You become the master of your character. And i really think a studies system is a really unique idea. It was the only cool idea in the game Alganon. And it would work even if your offline. Like Eve onlines skill training.
But throwing away something you just got kinda makes it meaningless. You want the cool gear people get to be helpful for a while, it makes aquiring that gear far more fun then something that will be pointless after 2 hours gameplay.
So? Some digital gear is meaningless after 2 hours ... sounds like a game. And gear at max level is useful for longer.
Heck, some single player game is "meaningless" after you finish it after 20 hours. Is that a bad thing? You can move on to other games & entertainment, you know.
Take the whole leveling and gear progression out period. You decide on what you want to use. If you use a Bow you get better at using it and learn skills that way from trainers. The same with armor. And making crafting your own gear key and not overly complicated like devs for some reason think they have to do. You character has every skill in his menu at the start but they are at zero until you decide what you want to be. No classes to pick from. You become the master of your character. And i really think a studies system is a really unique idea. It was the only cool idea in the game Alganon. And it would work even if your offline. Like Eve onlines skill training.
Ultima Online.
But if you think it takes out the progression and repetitive grinding, you're wrong. Leveling just turns into skill grinding.
Here's the thing. For Themepark lovers, "grind" is the act of repeatedly bashing the same MOBs in one outing. Or bashing on metal to make swords, or whatever repetitiveness. For Sandbox lovers, "grind" is the game style of repeatedly getting quests and running predetermined game play throughout the long term of the game. Going where the game has designed for you to go, and killing what the game has designed for you to kill. And making level based items that run out if usefulness over and over throughout the game.
You get "grind" of the Themepark gamer's thinking in any game type to one degree or another.
I can see some problems with this system but nothing game breaking. To be fair, I love your idea and would love to play it. However, I still like to have some sort of a personal progression alongside this. Although the absence of it would make new players more valuable. Not sure if that's entirely a good thing though.
Lol, of course there are some problems with something I just thought up when I wrote a post.
In this case I was thinking of some hybrid game where a server pass through different time periods in a rather fast pace until one faction/realm wins and the server starts again. In that case I think personal progression would be less useful since your character would eventually go back to the stone age again. I guess you could add in some bonuses for every round after the first based on personal and realm achivements or something.
To tweak the system into a permanent MMO I would have to consider a lot more since it is a different kind of MMORPG. The original idea was kinda mixing in a little DaoC, a bit of CIV and some WW2 online with some of my own ideas.
A 100% persistent world that will be around year after year offers it's different challenges to a world that resets every few months after all.
So? Some digital gear is meaningless after 2 hours ... sounds like a game. And gear at max level is useful for longer.
Heck, some single player game is "meaningless" after you finish it after 20 hours. Is that a bad thing? You can move on to other games & entertainment, you know.
In a low budget game that is acceptable but a MMO where people only spend 20 hours before quitting is a disaster.
Running throw 100+ gear sets of crap as you level up is not very exciting to me at least, it is the same crap you constantly get thrown on you and gaining a new one is not exciting or fun. Getting something good that will last you a while is way more fun, and that BTW is why getting that endgame gear that last longer as you talk about is way more fun then getting another trashy piece or armor you will trash within the next 2 hours.
It was not so long ago that we actually bothered to do lower level dungeons to get some nice gear that would make things simpler for us, most games still had that 12 years ago.
But someone figured out that people did enjoy looting stuff so they overdid it until getting new gear is painful instead of exciting until you finally reach max level. Another thing that makes leveling less fun without any benefits to the players at all.
In a low budget game that is acceptable but a MMO where people only spend 20 hours before quitting is a disaster.
Not really. You don't need everyone to stay for long term, only the whales. Or do a low budget KS type MMO. In fact, the best solution is not to make a new AAA MMO, which i think all the devs know by now.
Not really. You don't need everyone to stay for long term, only the whales. Or do a low budget KS type MMO. In fact, the best solution is not to make a new AAA MMO, which i think all the devs know by now.
You keep saying that but you still need the whales to stay long term.
As for not making AAA MMOs some of them have made rather incredible sums of money and not just Wow. Lineage is still earning lots of cash 18 years after launch to mention one, please name a game of another genre that are doing the same.
MMOs are only a good investment if you play long term investment, a MMO will keep earning money for years and years if you do them right and if you aren't in a hurry a good MMO will give you loads of cash for at least 10 years.
If you just want a short term investment that pays out after 2 years they are a terrible choice, it will take 5 years before you get anything back at all.
All that means you need the game to be long term fun, if you can't accomplish that then you have a very expensive regular multiplayer game that will be forgotten a year after launch by general gamers and while you can make some good cash the first few months from whales it is a lousy investment compared to a single player game.
Not really. You don't need everyone to stay for long term, only the whales. Or do a low budget KS type MMO. In fact, the best solution is not to make a new AAA MMO, which i think all the devs know by now.
You keep saying that but you still need the whales to stay long term.
As for not making AAA MMOs some of them have made rather incredible sums of money and not just Wow. Lineage is still earning lots of cash 18 years after launch to mention one, please name a game of another genre that are doing the same.
Lol .. keep using really old MMO as examples. The world has changed since then. Not even blizz is making a AAA MMO.
You don't need whales to stay that long, if you just make a cheap game. Heck, just make a TCG and i bet the return on investment is much better than MMOs with just a few whales playing for a few months.
Comments
Then we will never hear the end of it. "It's too GRINDY"
One of the reasons why I enjoyed games like Aion where you can enjoy the armor/weapons acquired longer.
In fact, why is this a problem? It is not like attaching to old pieces of gear is necessary to have fun.
And since you wont need to replace your gear as often that is less grindy (then again, you pprobably spend about the same time since you want it better then if you have 100 levels.
20 levels. A new skill at every level. That would make leveling mean something without actually increase the grind.
Then again, those people are still complaining that leveling in any game is too grindy anyways so the only way to make then happy would to remove any progression altogether (and I doubt that would help either).
But throwing away something you just got kinda makes it meaningless. You want the cool gear people get to be helpful for a while, it makes aquiring that gear far more fun then something that will be pointless after 2 hours gameplay.
If you want people to actually caring about improving their gear it should be something they don't do all the time but not something so rare that they tire off it either. People will get more of a kick if it isn't constant, modern MMOs have often so high replacement rate of gear that people loose that kick or at least get a lot less kick.
I feel folks have forgotten the RPG at the end of MMORPG, for some folks they feel punished.
Taking progression out of the equation really defeats the purpose of an RPG game.
I do feel that a MMORPG need progression one way or the other but not because of the RPG. A persistent world without progression would be.....weird.
I could live with something else then personal progression, something CIV like where your entire realm progress together and give you access to new skills and technology for instance would probably be fun as well if you go for a PvP game. There are advantages as well as disadvantages to progress in a group instead of as an induvidual.
For PvE I think it certainly is fun with progression, and while I can see more then one interesting alternative to levels they seems to be the standard progression model and they work well if done right.
Without being able to tailor my personal progress, or if I want to be really fanatic about it, my personal story, a game loses the RPG part for me and it would become just a G.
I'm all in with your idea of new levels of progress, that's just awesome. But I'm too much of a conservative to lose the fundamentals.
What it would mean is that you wouldn't get your own XP, when your realm levels up (gain a new tech level or whatever you call it) you would get access to more skills to pick from, maybe better stats or more HP and new technology (or higher level of gear).
Say that your guild levels in from stone age to bronze age. That would open up new craft skills to you (like metalworking), new gear (like swords) and new skills.
You would still have your own build of course, the difference would be working together with others to progress. A common goal and working together with others tend to make better game communities.
It is just a theoretical experiment though, I was just thinking of alternative to personal progression.
A CIV like MMO that run it's servers for a few months before resetting with nations that progress through the ages would be a interesting concept, PvP or PvE. You could focus on giving out XP for learning new things, exploring, spying and such instead of just killing things. It woulld also have the possibility to make crafting really fun.
So? Some digital gear is meaningless after 2 hours ... sounds like a game. And gear at max level is useful for longer. Heck, some single player game is "meaningless" after you finish it after 20 hours. Is that a bad thing? You can move on to other games & entertainment, you know.
For Themepark lovers, "grind" is the act of repeatedly bashing the same MOBs in one outing. Or bashing on metal to make swords, or whatever repetitiveness.
For Sandbox lovers, "grind" is the game style of repeatedly getting quests and running predetermined game play throughout the long term of the game. Going where the game has designed for you to go, and killing what the game has designed for you to kill. And making level based items that run out if usefulness over and over throughout the game.
You get "grind" of the Themepark gamer's thinking in any game type to one degree or another.
Once upon a time....
In this case I was thinking of some hybrid game where a server pass through different time periods in a rather fast pace until one faction/realm wins and the server starts again. In that case I think personal progression would be less useful since your character would eventually go back to the stone age again. I guess you could add in some bonuses for every round after the first based on personal and realm achivements or something.
To tweak the system into a permanent MMO I would have to consider a lot more since it is a different kind of MMORPG. The original idea was kinda mixing in a little DaoC, a bit of CIV and some WW2 online with some of my own ideas.
A 100% persistent world that will be around year after year offers it's different challenges to a world that resets every few months after all.
In a low budget game that is acceptable but a MMO where people only spend 20 hours before quitting is a disaster.
Running throw 100+ gear sets of crap as you level up is not very exciting to me at least, it is the same crap you constantly get thrown on you and gaining a new one is not exciting or fun. Getting something good that will last you a while is way more fun, and that BTW is why getting that endgame gear that last longer as you talk about is way more fun then getting another trashy piece or armor you will trash within the next 2 hours.
It was not so long ago that we actually bothered to do lower level dungeons to get some nice gear that would make things simpler for us, most games still had that 12 years ago.
But someone figured out that people did enjoy looting stuff so they overdid it until getting new gear is painful instead of exciting until you finally reach max level. Another thing that makes leveling less fun without any benefits to the players at all.
As for not making AAA MMOs some of them have made rather incredible sums of money and not just Wow. Lineage is still earning lots of cash 18 years after launch to mention one, please name a game of another genre that are doing the same.
MMOs are only a good investment if you play long term investment, a MMO will keep earning money for years and years if you do them right and if you aren't in a hurry a good MMO will give you loads of cash for at least 10 years.
If you just want a short term investment that pays out after 2 years they are a terrible choice, it will take 5 years before you get anything back at all.
All that means you need the game to be long term fun, if you can't accomplish that then you have a very expensive regular multiplayer game that will be forgotten a year after launch by general gamers and while you can make some good cash the first few months from whales it is a lousy investment compared to a single player game.