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Breaking the mold. Will it ever happen?
Ponzini
Member UncommonPosts: 534
Most of what I read on these forums dissapoints me. Alot of people support these games that are the same as all the ones before it. If everyone is fine being a cattle and just following blindly there will never be any change. Why do some of you guys have to automatically assume a game has to have a certain level of "PvE" and "PvP". Instead think outside of that. There are other factors that should be looked at first.
Why does the game even need a progression system? I cant wait till a good company with good funding just go nuts and makes something completly different. There is so much more an MMO can be.
How about a survival MMO? The whole point is to survive. That would be your achievement. It could be zombies you have to survive from. Or maybe even just survivng in the wilderness. Storms, temperature, food, etc. all affect you and you have to build shelter and survive against other people. Gain some friends and start a village. Who knows.
Another idea is a sim MMO. Not like the sims but a game where they ask themselves before they add anything into the game: "What would this be like in real life". That would make a game with the ultimate immersion to feel like your there. It could be in medieval era or even sci fi. It would be a simulation of that life.
How about you choose your characters traits in character creation. All his/her strengths and weaknesses defined at the creation of your character. Items wont be sword of +5. Instead it will be like all other swords just maybe with slight quality differences. In real lfe you have good qualities and bad ones. Some of you will think: "Whats the point, we wont have anything to gain or grind for!". Your goal in a game like this wont be to gain levels or items. Instead it will be to gain land or start an empire with a guild. Real time combat and strategy. Create a banner and make yourself known. Diplomacy. There is so much more than items and levels that you can work for.
Character progression is not always necessary. I dont think its fun at all. Its usually a way to keep us playing and grinding away so we dont realize we are paying them money to gain nothing in the end. You wouldnt gain anything in the game I describe either but it will be fun and entertaining which is the point. Instead you gain expieriences.
I can look back to all the MMOs ive played and I could give a damn about what level characters I had or what items he had. Its all gone. The thing I remember most is certain moments. I could say I have the best stories with Shadowbane. I took part in fairly epic battles and there was alot of things going on. It was more than leveling and grinding out items. We had traitors, deception, diplomacy, thievery, rebellions, huge battles over land and dsiputes. I could go into my expieriences but I think you get the point.
One of the things they need to also consider is that everyone should be completly different. Look at City of Heroes character creation. Now imagine if you could customize your characters personality and traits as much as you can their look in CoH. I had so much fun creating the look of my hero in CoH but when it came down to it. I was like everyone else that chose the same powers as me. There were small differences but not enough to notice. If you could customize your powers in the same way you customize your look it would have been a much better game.
I know people post stuff like this all the time and it will proably go by unnoticed. I just want to know if anyone agrees with me and would like the games I describe. I dont go into details on how these types of game would work because that would take alot of time.
I dont see any change coming soon until everyone gets tired of the same old same old.
Comments
You are not alone. But by reading your post I can tell you think like a PVPer. we do not need gear / levels. we love balance. for us our dream MMO has no levels, no classes, and no boundaries.
But the newbies? As soon as they logon and they dont have a level or new uber baubble to show off they probably gonna log
I dream of the day of what u say will come to past. I love Starport for thinking outside the box and look forward to Darkfall (which is in reality a Player Run Sandbox)
your post will fall on deaf ears and get lost in a swarm of excited newbies posting about their latest Everquest clone. would be much better if such quality stories could be read about in a blog
Probably not.
Why?
It's a risk. And with how much it costs to produce a quality MMO, Advertising, developing, etc. etc., there's no room to risk millions upon millions of dollars when you can take the safe way out and use what has worked in the past.
That's what I think anyway.
I wish it would happen, but I doubt it will.
I agree that for the big companies it is a risk. That is why we have so many independant companies coming up with all the good ideas for games but they dissapoint us also in the end because they dont have the funding to make the game. I give WoW credit for being such a polished game. You are lucky if the game you want to play even works these days.
I just wonder how much longer will people keep playing the same game. I don't think it can be that much longer but who knows.
well recall sandbox has just barely started gaining more & more strength in offline games. not to mention the technology for dynamic lighting etc has really jsut now became a bit more viable on PCs which is pretty much needed if you gonna let people build stuff anywhere. not to mention destroying things which requires dynamic collision algorithms. BSP (quake, unreal) has been the most viable method to deliver collision for a long time and it was all static.
so it is inevitable we'll eventually see more sandbox gradually make it into MMOs. but the question is will vertical progression get abandoned? Not anytime soon its a guaranteed hook to keep people around and the Sandbox MMOs like Saga of Ryzom, etc hasn't really been a strong indicator
EVE has been the most successful sandbox game I am sure more will follow. The Infinity prototype shows a lot of promise and some other stuff
edit- note EVE follows my rule it allows players to impact the enviroment but it occurs in space which is a lot easier on PCs
Also, I downloaded that starport game but there is never anyone on and I don't know what to do
im on the rebangs and theres always sharks around that will gladly take everything u got. beginer's galaxy is pretty popular but this bang might be ending soon. the permas are a lot more popular
you gotta read the walkthrough on the starport site. look at the forums its stickied. this is a player run sandbox type of game its nothing like the other games. so the ramp up is pretty tough
im not even sure what advice to give ya assassin8 wiped out all my colonies,etc. lost pretty much all i own lol so u dont want advice from a loser like me.
Ive been looking forward to darkfall for quite some time. I hope it is still in good progress. The main game im looking forward to is Pirates of the Burning Sea. It is extremly different than alot of the new MMOs, seems well polished, and it looks like they offer another goal other than items and level.
It also looks like it will be a good game to play with my friends. Most MMOs that I play with friends gets very boring. We dont really have time to talk because we are grinding and theres nothing fun to do together other than grind more.
As long as the big software houses are the ones releasing the MMO's, as long as they (mis)use well known franchises then no, it won't happen.
What we need is an independant small developer who hasn't been infected with the "OMG lets not at all take a risk, lets make an <insert actual/old MMO> clone. Who doesn't have more marketing people than developers and who kicks their accountants in the butt when they talk about cutting corners for cost effectiveness. They need to live on a virtual island and should have never heard of any of the 'management decision' types.
Actually, I'm describing CCP in their early years; they wanted to make a great game which to would/could/wanted to play themselves, regardless of what others thought of it. And BECAUSE they didn't listen to others (management, whining customers, the "accepted ideas") they actually made a great game. Listening and looking at others is the best way to lose any kind of a chance to make a good game.
We had a class that just did character id ( hair stylests) . The game was designed overly so for almost forced interaction which required players to go and communicate with other players. For whatever reason long past history mistakes were made in changing the game and experimentation and now it is what it is.
The issue is that at first it is shiny and new, then folks go through content, or develop a community or try the economy and discover pretty soon this guild this pa has a fixed pricing on whatever item or service. Then it gets old dealing with the haves verses the have nots.
At what point do the developers do ? Add new content new quests new story archs? New shinny things?
The biggest issue is the sure cost of development on putting on a huge open ended world.
With the big pink elephant still doing amazingly well, unless it comes from the longing of other gamers ground floor houses we will not see the ingenuity of creativaty again in a long while.
So our choices are to wait ten years for technolgy to catch up to virtual happenings via touch screen and or eye movement for cursor or we just accept what we have and deal with it is just the same with different skins?
We do have choices now they are limited though and it will be interesting to see if any company decides to try and i hope the community will find something worth it to them to support.
There have been alot of games come out that had potential, but those games fail due to lack of mainstream playability and thats what it all boils down to. Alas, I wish it wasn't so..................
Perhaps if Darkfall and others like it make it to the light of day and garner some popularity, then maybe we can see another gaming revolution that brought about online gaming in the first place.
I guess you could do a lot of things with guild progression with city's or such but I don't enjoy huge raids. I'm sure by the % of raiding players in wow that majority don't ether. So find an idea that will work with an mmo without an advancing leveling/skill system.
Here an idea: In Warcraft 3 DoTA mod It like a BG in WoW/DAoC. You could have Battlegrounds that last around an hour where you build up your chracter or city while playing. It will reset every battleground. You could spend your winning points on character looks or team flags. You would start to look like your advancing to look more "high level".
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"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
Battlegrounds is like an FPS game. not trying to hate but man Instances is where all the problems are coming from. Yeah, they make it easier to raid bosses but why can only a small group raid a boss? Why cant they scale the encounter to the number of people farming the boss. Would be awesome to see 100+ people PVEing and making an impact. Instances remove all that
next, you dont really have to have progression. Ive spent hours and hours just simply designing costumes in cvity of heroes. What if I could've designed outfits for others and sold them? Would keep me busy for hours
And skills? Current MMOs are Stat driven. gimme a break stats made sense for pen & paper and text driven MUDs but now we have a Mouse and WASD. in starport it adds so much depth being able to fully control my ship. There are still stats but they do not determine if I win or lose a fight
making everything viable is the way to go. OP has great ideas. So let's say theres hundreds of many swords and they're all equally viable. but lets say some have different attributes like weight, sharpness, density, penetration, etc. Players will experiment with all the combinations
you can have progression sure. but instead id like to see the sort of progression we have in Starport whereas I can spend my money on ships and each ship pretty much gives me a reason to fly it. they all viable in their own way (I might be slightly exaggerating but u get my point).
theres many console Mecha games on xbox360 where you just infinitely tweak your mech with endless customization
thats the fun of guild wars at level cap. Experimenting with all the powers. and because they're all viable in certian situations, the gameplay is like infiinite
Battlegrounds bring balance to the game with numbers and more control of the scenario. I love battlegrounds. Also they have nothing todo with first person shooter that a style of a game. In DoTA you level and gain items. It why I use that example. You get stronger and gain items as the game moves on like an mmo.
If you have no character progression it just a 3d chat room. There needs to be something... crafting, stats, item, looks or so on. That why I talk about customizing people looks. I was just coming up with idea that would keep everyone on the same level but with character progress.
Edit: If you make character progression by items it be just a WoW or eq2? end game clone.
Edit: Also did you every try IMVU(I believe that what it called). It 3d chat room where there is no limit with close and your rooms.
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"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
The reason im saying you dont need character progression is because there are other things you can spend ur time doing. Think of this: Instead of grinding you can be battling your enemies (like players) or defending your land against invading NPCs. Instead of doing it for EXP you will have other reasons like simple disputes with players or over territory.
Its hard to think about if all your used to is EXP grind but trust me its fun. Im sure when ur exp grinding your always thinking "I cant wait until im max level" Well why not start the player on max level. Everyone is balanced and it comes down to skill of using your character. If you create the right setting you will have plenty to do in diplomacy, crafting, battles, survival, etc.
You said "I dont want to play a game that is like real life". Well what I meant was it would be a simulation not real life. It can be a simulation of life in the medieval era or in a sci fi theme.
Lets say its a medieval era theme simulation. You can own a business, create a family, become mayor of your town, etc. A simulation of life in that time. World War 2 Online is considered a simulation of world war 2. Its very detailed in realism.
Diplomacy and crafting would fall under character progression. A new character would not have much infuence over land or players as a vet.
I never played an mmo where there were great city/bg battles/crafting with no character progression gain that wasnt riden with balance or bug issues(DAoC / Shadowbane). but even them had character progression gain that gave you more reasons to try it out.
You got to make the content fun but also replayable fun. In raid content the first time you down the boss was fun. But then it wasnt fun and all you were doing is grinding for gear till next boss came out.
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"Any free people have the right to choose how it wants to be govern thats the essence of democracy. It's sad when America has chosen for the stability and consistency of a dictatorship and doing it democratically" -utnow
One thing I would like to start by saying is that there is becoming less and less of a "mold" for mmorpgs. If you dont believe me, then look around the net at all the mmo games in creation. I would also like to say that a game that requires a monthly fee also demands rewards from it's player base. The majority of players would hate to spend months or even years progressing at a game only to have a new batch of players "beat" them at whatever the ingame accomplishments are. One poster wrote about aspects of players having true balance where something like pvp would be decided from skill rather then gear or character level. That is great and is actually incorporated into more games then you might think, however, only first person shooters are truly able to keep this system 100% accurate.
Honestly I love these types of games and I feel they are only getting better and better. Look back at meridian 59 and compare that to vanguard:saga of heroes. Big difference, but same theme. People like to roleplay whether they admit it or not. And if you dont then maybe you should stick to puzzle games.
My point is, the market is huge and thriving. Try out something new and dont automatically deem a game unworthy because it has the same theme as others. You will probably start having a lot of fun in no time
I think within a couple of years we will start seeing new types of mmos pop up. Then again I've been saying this for a couple of years now... I hope I turn out right sooner or later..
[DTE]
Another example i just thought up is dreamlords which is sort of like a mmo/rts. So booya
I guess, no big company will ever make one of those games, without a game which proves that something like that is successful.
They follow the money, and only the money. But we have some hope, that at one time a more independent developer, or even a well funded singleplayer developer will bring something new to the table.
Darkfall and/or PotBS could be the first success, and i have some hope about Raph Kosters new company and project, not really a lot information around about this, but it will be more a virtual world than the cooky cutter mmo we are used to. He is known to be a sandbox fanatic(worked at UO and SWG), and also Richard Bartle is a consultant of this, as much as i know. And he has the right ideas about virtual worlds, and what a virtual world should be.
Up to now we can just wait, the last mmo i played was 2 years ago, and i will not play another one of those item/level grinders. And anyway, there are a lot of other things to do, and nowadays i play more normal multiplayer games like RTS and so on. They are at least honest, you join, you play, you leave.. nothing happend, but fun for a lil bit.
Good post Ponzini. I agree with a lot of what you said. Especially this part:
I've preached that line myself from time to time. But I don't think I ever got as good a response to it as you have.
As has already been pointed out there would have to be something to motivate players if the game didn't have any significant character progression. But it could be done.
But setting motivaters aside for a moment, just think about what a virtual world could be if developers moved away from the character progression model. Well, first think about what they are now.
Right now most mmorpg worlds are not really worlds. They are a series of stratified areas. From low level to high level. Like a flight of stairs. The world is broken up into areas of varying difficulty based on the level the area is designed for. It means that at any given point in your characters progression most of the world is useless to you. Areas you have out-leveled are just a waste of space for you to run through and areas too high level for you are certain death.
Ok, imagine a level 30 character. Let's say that he goes into a level 30 area. Alright, now let's say he has great fun there. That's nice, right? But it's such a small, limited area. Now imagine that the ENTIRE world was designed for level 30 characters. Think about that for a minute. This level 30 guy is no longer boxed in to a few small areas. He has an entire world that is just right for him.
Ok, so just throw character progression out the window. Everyone starts out within the appropriate power range that the game world is designed for. Now everybody has an entire world to enjoy right from the start and they will never out-level it. In this case the ENTIRE game world could be one huge adventuring area. You could give people quests to go from one side of the world to the other and the ENTIRE trip would be through areas designed for characters of their "level". If the developers wanted to they could design the ENTIRE world as one huge dungeon crawl.
I think it could be truly fantastic. The whole problem of traveling being boring could be eliminated because no one would ever have to run through an area that is too low level for them because there wouldn't be any areas that are too low level for anyone. If developers did this they could make a game world that focuses on having adventures. Adventures that feel like adventures and not just sitting around in a little area slaughtering the same crap over and over again.
Seriously, I hope someone tries this sometime soon. I'm so sick of these ladder climbing, linear games.
I've preached that line myself from time to time. But I don't think I ever got as good a response to it as you have.
As has already been pointed out there would have to be something to motivate players if the game didn't have any significant character progression. But it could be done.
But setting motivaters aside for a moment, just think about what a virtual world could be if developers moved away from the character progression model. Well, first think about what they are now.
Right now most mmorpg worlds are not really worlds. They are a series of stratified areas. From low level to high level. Like a flight of stairs. The world is broken up into areas of varying difficulty based on the level the area is designed for. It means that at any given point in your characters progression most of the world is useless to you. Areas you have out-leveled are just a waste of space for you to run through and areas too high level for you are certain death.
Ok, imagine a level 30 character. Let's say that he goes into a level 30 area. Alright, now let's say he has great fun there. That's nice, right? But it's such a small, limited area. Now imagine that the ENTIRE world was designed for level 30 characters. Think about that for a minute. This level 30 guy is no longer boxed in to a few small areas. He has an entire world that is just right for him.
Ok, so just throw character progression out the window. Everyone starts out within the appropriate power range that the game world is designed for. Now everybody has an entire world to enjoy right from the start and they will never out-level it. In this case the ENTIRE game world could be one huge adventuring area. You could give people quests to go from one side of the world to the other and the ENTIRE trip would be through areas designed for characters of their "level". If the developers wanted to they could design the ENTIRE world as one huge dungeon crawl.
I think it could be truly fantastic. The whole problem of traveling being boring could be eliminated because no one would ever have to run through an area that is too low level for them because there wouldn't be any areas that are too low level for anyone. If developers did this they could make a game world that focuses on having adventures. Adventures that feel like adventures and not just sitting around in a little area slaughtering the same crap over and over again.
Seriously, I hope someone tries this sometime soon. I'm so sick of these ladder climbing, linear games.
So whats the motivator behind a game like this, adventure? Most people who play MMO's play more than enough hours to finish off a gaming world, then what? Whats the motivation behind going to each of these zones and killing mobs or going through dungeons? Does your character get stronger at all as he adventures either by gear or by stats? Just some questions, as you stated there needs to be motivation, so what would be a possible motivator for this type of game? PVP/PVE
If i understood the OP well, then the challenge could be just adventuring&surviving, conquering zones, defending them from other players that have set another kingdom or maybe just they want to be your enemy. No ladder is needed. No linear progression. You log on and you start the fight, or wandering, or whatever you want to do. And surviving because the enemy is out there and there is no magical boundaries to stop them attacking you. Is that not enough for a good game?
I think its a good sample of 're-thinking' MMO's. This MMO would be a blast on the mold.
It is a question of fangs.
I've preached that line myself from time to time. But I don't think I ever got as good a response to it as you have.
As has already been pointed out there would have to be something to motivate players if the game didn't have any significant character progression. But it could be done.
But setting motivaters aside for a moment, just think about what a virtual world could be if developers moved away from the character progression model. Well, first think about what they are now.
Right now most mmorpg worlds are not really worlds. They are a series of stratified areas. From low level to high level. Like a flight of stairs. The world is broken up into areas of varying difficulty based on the level the area is designed for. It means that at any given point in your characters progression most of the world is useless to you. Areas you have out-leveled are just a waste of space for you to run through and areas too high level for you are certain death.
Ok, imagine a level 30 character. Let's say that he goes into a level 30 area. Alright, now let's say he has great fun there. That's nice, right? But it's such a small, limited area. Now imagine that the ENTIRE world was designed for level 30 characters. Think about that for a minute. This level 30 guy is no longer boxed in to a few small areas. He has an entire world that is just right for him.
Ok, so just throw character progression out the window. Everyone starts out within the appropriate power range that the game world is designed for. Now everybody has an entire world to enjoy right from the start and they will never out-level it. In this case the ENTIRE game world could be one huge adventuring area. You could give people quests to go from one side of the world to the other and the ENTIRE trip would be through areas designed for characters of their "level". If the developers wanted to they could design the ENTIRE world as one huge dungeon crawl.
I think it could be truly fantastic. The whole problem of traveling being boring could be eliminated because no one would ever have to run through an area that is too low level for them because there wouldn't be any areas that are too low level for anyone. If developers did this they could make a game world that focuses on having adventures. Adventures that feel like adventures and not just sitting around in a little area slaughtering the same crap over and over again.
Seriously, I hope someone tries this sometime soon. I'm so sick of these ladder climbing, linear games.
yeah that is exactly what I was thinking. such a system would get rid of so many problems
They could still have linear progression. Guild Wars is like that at max cap. Or no progression. instead the progression is the community. The cities you and the community create together. And you can still try to make different weapons and armor. However, every item- like real life, has some value.
people keep talking about PoTBS I need to go look them up right fast