Assuming this is a not-so-often thing and bob and jan are experienced mmo players, they will *most likely* appreciate the experience and appreciate the grandness and immersion of a living game world. Knowing one's audience and appealing to only one subset of a gamer could make this idea work, the real question is it a niche situation, or a broad-spectrum game (WoW being the prime example).
Boss mobs get tired of groups taking a pass at them. If enough (some randomzied value) failed attempts are made, then the boss aggros and carries the fight to a nearby down, carrying vengeance to any players in its path.
Ex. Groups keep hassling Smaug the Red Dragon. After some randomized number of failed attempts (say 8) to take Smaug down, Smaug spreads his wings and flies down to an inhabitated town or noob area.
Meanwhile, Bob the 1st level warrior and Jan the 3rd level Mage are logging on the hunt beetles together and to knock out some low level quests. Bob stares in terror as Jan suddenly taking 10,000 points of fire damage from Smaug the dragon, who has suddenly appeared out of nowhere. High level players are more saavy and get out of the way, but Bob the 1st level warrior and other new players of low level toons are mowed down by Smaug, who eventually leaves with a half dozen NPC buildings smouldering in his wake.
Stuff like this would be very cool. Would keep the environment alive and keep players on their toes.
Stuff like that is very cool to everyone BUT Bob the warrior and Jan the mage, who are paying the same $$ for a kick ass fun time as the other folks:)
Assuming this is a not-so-often thing and bob and jan are experienced mmo players, they will *most likely* appreciate the experience and appreciate the grandness and immersion of a living game world. Knowing one's audience and appealing to only one subset of a gamer could make this idea work, the real question is it a niche situation, or a broad-spectrum game (WoW being the prime example).
You're right, a "not so often experience." Maybe kind of like that 35th level Griffin in East Commonlands in EQ. It would slowly float by and rarely swoop down from above on unsuspecting lowbies.
The threat of that thing just livened up the zone. It can be fun to be on one's toes once in awhile as long as it's not overdone.
Hehe, another nostagiac EQ memory of mine, and an example of this kind of thing. I was in a group in Befallen (and I got booted for this) as a rogue. I had gone invisible when a train of undead came by. I stayed invisible (pretending like I was AFK) because I assessed the fight I saw as a losing one. Well, the remnants of the group ran upstairs and zoned out and stepped right into the sand giant that someone had inadvertently (we hope) pulled to the Befallen zone line. Hehe.
That kind of stuff is great. I remember and it happend almost 10 years go.
In all honesty to me anyway, that's a living breathing world right? Those things, that 'fear', is missing from AAAA MMO's now in my opinion. Listen I DO remember losing bubbles, I do remember corpse runs, I do remember SOW being a reason in itself to start an alt, I ALSO remember some of my girlfriends in high school being HOT, I remember the HOT girls being hot, I think I remember thinking I wasn't half bad looking...
Then I go back and see my high school year book, and I cringe:)
EQ is at the core of ALL my great memories and stories in MMO's, every single one. Partly because this was a one trick pony space at that time (not a big UO guy). It was all we had, and we loved it. I know I did.
WoW came along..... I didn't need to log in and LFG for 30 minutes to an hour or wait in line in BB for a group, I could log in and have some fun in 20 minutes and log out to run my kid to the baseball game and watch.
We grew up and got families:) Some anyway, and the generation following us grew up with WoW, and many of us, me included, called WoW players noobs, because we were hardcore EQ'ers right? We have DEATH PENALTIES!!! We have 3am RAID CORPSE RUNS!! WOOT! We're tough!!!!
The genre has changed but at the end of the day our needs and wants as gamers will NEVER change. Give us something we CARE ABOUT. A player, a world, and to me A STORY that matters, and I am in.
In all honesty to me anyway, that's a living breathing world right? Those things, that 'fear', is missing from AAAA MMO's now in my opinion. Listen I DO remember losing bubbles, I do remember corpse runs, I do remember SOW being a reason in itself to start an alt, I ALSO remember some of my girlfriends in high school being HOT, I remember the HOT girls being hot, I think I remember thinking I wasn't half bad looking...
Then I go back and see my high school year book, and I cringe:)
EQ is at the core of ALL my great memories and stories in MMO's, every single one. Partly because this was a one trick pony space at that time (not a big UO guy). It was all we had, and we loved it. I know I did.
WoW came along..... I didn't need to log in and LFG for 30 minutes to an hour or wait in line in BB for a group, I could log in and have some fun in 20 minutes and log out to run my kid to the baseball game and watch.
We grew up and got families:) Some anyway, and the generation following us grew up with WoW, and many of us, me included, called WoW players noobs, because we were hardcore EQ'ers right? We have DEATH PENALTIES!!! We have 3am RAID CORPSE RUNS!! WOOT! We're tough!!!!
The genre has changed but at the end of the day our needs and wants as gamers will NEVER change. Give us something we CARE ABOUT. A player, a world, and to me A STORY that matters, and I am in.
I hear you, Curt, and I know about nostalgia. I do have one request as a gamer in regard to your game, which I can hardly wait to see. That request is that "story" not mean "script". I am all for lore, setting, faction, goings-on, and events. In some games, story = script = on-rails game. Meaning to a world, and history and power struggles (like the mercs vs the paladins in Freeport) are great, I just hope to not be handed a script and follow linear cutscenes.
My apologies if I am inferring false assumptions. I sure what you have cooking is great.
To be honest story is at the center of what we're trying to achieve. A meaningful story, and by meaningful I mean, well, it has to matter. The world, the heroes, the villains, all of it has to truly matter to the player or else it actually is just a script.
I've played EQ for about 8 years now. The fear of running somewhere, dying along the way and spending 30 minutes looking for your corpse and being naked is what it made both awesome but sometimes frustrating.
I liked how everything was a mystery, we had no maps (added later) and no idea how big or scary this world could get.
After that I joined a raiding guild, had tons of fun in PoP all through UF, but now I lost my desire to play. It all became about statistics and it took away my will to play, burned out.
If I can find even the slightest sense of community, danger and fun moments back in copernicus I'll give it a shot. And I'll tel my friends to come too, EQ wasn't about the game for me, was about my friends there.
There's someone named Rashere who joined a few years ago I think, that's how I remembered the named of 38 studios, most people were sad he left though, hope he's still with 38 studios because he was a pretty level headed designer.
To be honest story is at the center of what we're trying to achieve. A meaningful story, and by meaningful I mean, well, it has to matter. The world, the heroes, the villains, all of it has to truly matter to the player or else it actually is just a script.
What Im thinking is:
Lore (here is what has happened, indicated by NPC talk, books, and maybe the ruins to back it up as evidence of past lore. "There was once an empire here, these ruins are what is left of this empire.)
+ Faction (here is what is going on, this is very cool)
+ Future (unwritten, at least to player knowledge.)
With something like WOW, the Future is as plainly written as a bad knockoff of the Lord of the Rings. I see it coming a mile away, and yawn through the trite cutscenes of Lady Proudmore telling Arthas "You can't, Arthas, you can't do that" as if it's like watching a movie scene play out every single time I re-run an instance.
With EQ, the Lore was there (but probably not the focus it could have been), the Faction was definitely there, but I always felt the Future was open-ended (even though I'm sure devs were planning expansions behind the scenes and that is okay).
Maybe it's me but I went from a hardcore explorer, story driven quest guy, and went after a raiding game play style. I lost interest a month in because the game became nothing more than a job after a few runs. Needing to appropriate time is obviously far different for me with 4 kids now but I know when I enjoy leveling a toon 1-70 on my own something fundamental has changed.
Community, fun, danger? To me they only exist in the raid scenario now. The days of being on TS or Vent and just 'hanging out', which was something I couldn't do much of out of game, were what I played MMO's for, and they went away.
There are guilds out there still doing it, kudos to them, The Syndicate comes to mind, but to be in a top tier raiding guild is something I cannot do for the simple fact my life has to align perfectly with the right group of people, that like me and me them, for me to join and I don't want to play badly enough to work that hard to find it.
It's why I am scouring the MMO landscape right now looking for something fun to play.
I was upset when EQ added a type of vent to their game. We used to sit around in PoK waiting for MGB, we chatted without vent in /say np, my friend is hard-hearing and I didn't want it to become a requirement for raiding. Most people never used it because Vent is still better than EQ's built in system.
I really want people to have vent if it helps build a community, but I do feel excluded in guilds where Vent is used and became a requirement to raid in some EQ guilds. It's a bit faster with vent, but it excludes others who can't use it for a plethora of reasons. As long as vent or TS doesn't become a requirement to raid I have no issue with it.
WoW uses a lot more vent than EQ I think, which is why I didn't feel so inclined to play it. And I'm slightly shy I think.
I think access to voice com HAS to be an easy to use piece of any MMO down the road. Not vent, not a third party, but a one click feature that you can choose if you want.
Whatever it is imo it has to be seamless and insanely easy to use/run/implement.
Oh, while I'm ranting and a developer might actually read this and maybe relate.
Something I miss from EQ that's in none of the MMO I played was /general.
WoW and Vanguard had region chats, not super big 200+ player channels like EQ had. I think /general was added later, but it was great and awesome, every time a guild downed something we gratsed them, there was fun, drama, and lots of laughs from the /general clowns, and you never had to leave it when you zoned or changed region like in WoW or Vanguard. No idea why current MMO don't include that anymore. That channel really made you feel you were part of a community.
Hehe, another nostagiac EQ memory of mine, and an example of this kind of thing. I was in a group in Befallen (and I got booted for this) as a rogue.
I was stuck in Befallen for 2 days because I didn't know how to find the key to get out of the lower level. Didn't know a mob had it on him and I was too small to solo it. After a lot of /ooc spamming I found someone and we became best buddies.
Hehe, another nostagiac EQ memory of mine, and an example of this kind of thing. I was in a group in Befallen (and I got booted for this) as a rogue.
I was stuck in Befallen for 2 days because I didn't know how to find the key to get out of the lower level. Didn't know a mob had it on him and I was too small to solo it. After a lot of /ooc spamming I found someone and we became best buddies.
And that's the very stuff of community building; needing one another to survive or get out of stuff.
I got stuck in that dungeon in South Karanas, I was in the dungeon pit. I was a rogue, so I was invis, but it was pretty scary. Had to have some high levels come down and lead me out. Happened 9 or 10 years ago and I can still remember it.
Scariest time was when I was leaving a Mistmoore group and was deep in Mistmoore castle. Well, I was a paladin with Invis vs Undead cast on me and I got lost in the castle. I kept going from room to room and seeing two or three vampires in each one. Then my invis icon starting blinking and I knew it would go off at anytime, but I was turned around and panicking.
So, it did go off, I did aggro and I ran out of the castle, atop a bridge, jumped down taking damage, and pulled an epic train to zone, and barely got out.
If the MMO has Elder Scrolls-type combat, which I believe I read it does, and tells an actual story that will immerse the playerbase then I think you'll have a runaway hit and I hope you do.
I think it's safe to say gamers appear to be boring of the status quo of online gaming. As expensive as development probably is and as difficult as it probably is to design a game that can accommodate a large selection of styles and technical capabilities, creating something innovative is most likely very challenging.
I enjoyed EQ for a while, SWG early on until I realized it was half-completed at launch, UO had some good qualities (the freedom) but 2-d was just not immersive. I could never enjoy WoW because I always felt so confined to restrictive parameters as was the case with AoC and WAR.
I agree with the "fear" factor. I want to feel like I could die and face consequences every time I run up and start chopping away at a rat. A story that guides the environment would also add that extra element that the player cannot control. Build a game like that and you'll have a hit.
To be honest the combat I am just blown away with right now is Mercury's. Obviously a completely different platform and game but I'm as excited to see the reaction to that as anything we've done so far.
I think access to voice com HAS to be an easy to use piece of any MMO down the road. Not vent, not a third party, but a one click feature that you can choose if you want.
Whatever it is imo it has to be seamless and insanely easy to use/run/implement.
I totally agree with you on this, but you make it sound as if you don't know what's going to be in your game. However I recall reading some time ago that your studio has chosen a customized integrated version of Vivox to accomplish this. Has this changed or is my memory faulty?
There is really only 2 things i need to know at this point in time...
1 Is there a full working staff on this game or is it still in the hiring and thought process?
2 Is it going to be the same desgin as most other games?Quests SHOULD be relegated to items or rewards,XP SHOULD be relegated to killing/combat.
I am at a point in gaming now ,where by these really are the two biggest reasons i play a game or not.I could even go without levels entirely but most of all i want to see some game innovation,especially in combat and that would be amazing if a developer would come along with a great crafting system,so far that has been over looked by all developers.SOE scratched the surface for crafting,but even that design needs a lot to be desired.
in the last 10 years ,what have we had for innovation?FFXI's sub class system,Vanguard brought in that card game,I think Square Enix is still the only developer to introduce a language translator?We really need some innovation in this MMORPG genre.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
To be honest the combat I am just blown away with right now is Mercury's. Obviously a completely different platform and game but I'm as excited to see the reaction to that as anything we've done so far.
And to be honest, I'm looking forward to Mercury just as much as, or more than Copernicus, especially if your game is going to have mod support on the PC (hey, one can hope). Although if your MMO kicks ass and is really that much fun to play, that might change. But I'm not really expecting a radical change in your MMO's combat from the traditional hotbar rotation which to me has grown stale and tiring, but who knows we may be surprised.
Will Copernicus feel more like a living, breathing world vs a grindy level up game? The only games that have pulled this off is EQ and EVE in my opinion.
Serious death penalties makes every close call an adrenaline rush, and every minor achievement a major victory. This alternative rule-set should be in all MMORPGs.
We were at E3, met with MMORPG too. You'll be hearing from us at some point soon, as in this year soon.
Regarding Mercury or Copernicus?
Both. We were there to reach out to the real gaming community, the MMORPG sites of the world. Making sure they understand, that WE understand they are relevent and matter to us, since their communities are the exact people we want to be our guests and consumers for the next 20 years.
Wow. I don't know what is more cool. That a Dev posted. That the Dev is Curt Schilling. Or that Curt Schilling thinks we mmorpg.com posters matter. Somebody pinch me.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
In all honesty to me anyway, that's a living breathing world right? Those things, that 'fear', is missing from AAAA MMO's now in my opinion. Listen I DO remember losing bubbles, I do remember corpse runs, I do remember SOW being a reason in itself to start an alt, I ALSO remember some of my girlfriends in high school being HOT, I remember the HOT girls being hot, I think I remember thinking I wasn't half bad looking...
Then I go back and see my high school year book, and I cringe:)
EQ is at the core of ALL my great memories and stories in MMO's, every single one. Partly because this was a one trick pony space at that time (not a big UO guy). It was all we had, and we loved it. I know I did.
WoW came along..... I didn't need to log in and LFG for 30 minutes to an hour or wait in line in BB for a group, I could log in and have some fun in 20 minutes and log out to run my kid to the baseball game and watch.
We grew up and got families:) Some anyway, and the generation following us grew up with WoW, and many of us, me included, called WoW players noobs, because we were hardcore EQ'ers right? We have DEATH PENALTIES!!! We have 3am RAID CORPSE RUNS!! WOOT! We're tough!!!!
The genre has changed but at the end of the day our needs and wants as gamers will NEVER change. Give us something we CARE ABOUT. A player, a world, and to me A STORY that matters, and I am in.
Well, to test this, I went back to the closest I could get to old EQ. October last year Eqemu had a server called P1999 launched. The server is still steadily rising in population. It's still pre-Kunark. It really helps you puts some kind of perspective on what was nostalgia and new-player experience and what is truly great design. What i've come up with:
Dungeon design in EQ is still pretty tough to beat. I need a complex dungeon with complex (and powerful) enemies in complex pathing rotations. As it turns out, the flash is important once or twice, but for staying appeal design is key (Guk being about the epitome for pre-kunark).
Class design and interdependance is important, but EQ really didn't quite hit it on the mark. The casters are fairly interactive while the rogues / warriors of the bunch are downright pathetic class design. I don't think anyone really considers that good class design, but it helps to revisit it.
The biggest thing you can take from going back to a classic server is going back to non-instanced content. Instancing (whether through a WoW phasing system or more obvious instancing) has become mandatory in the genre. On P1999 the server reaches only up to 800 or so each evening (which is quite impressive for an eqemu ^_^). Even with only 800 or so on each night and the levels fairly spread out among the lower levels, the amount of upper tier content in a non-instanced setting is abysmal. We end up with guilds camping raid mobs, where the majority of time spent in EQ is on ventrilo and tabbed out. This is not how games are meant to be played, and it surely is not conducive to an immersive world, which I believe to be one of the goals of the Copernicus project.
Boss mobs get tired of groups taking a pass at them. If enough (some randomzied value) failed attempts are made, then the boss aggros and carries the fight to a nearby down, carrying vengeance to any players in its path.
Ex. Groups keep hassling Smaug the Red Dragon. After some randomized number of failed attempts (say 8) to take Smaug down, Smaug spreads his wings and flies down to an inhabitated town or noob area.
Meanwhile, Bob the 1st level warrior and Jan the 3rd level Mage are logging on the hunt beetles together and to knock out some low level quests. Bob stares in terror as Jan suddenly taking 10,000 points of fire damage from Smaug the dragon, who has suddenly appeared out of nowhere. High level players are more saavy and get out of the way, but Bob the 1st level warrior and other new players of low level toons are mowed down by Smaug, who eventually leaves with a half dozen NPC buildings smouldering in his wake.
Stuff like this would be very cool. Would keep the environment alive and keep players on their toes.
Stuff like that is very cool to everyone BUT Bob the warrior and Jan the mage, who are paying the same $$ for a kick ass fun time as the other folks:)
Yes, but you would know more than anyone, that with no real risk or possibility of sting of defeat, there is no true sense of victory. Like playing a sports game where both teams on the field are guaranteed a win.
It might suck to lose a ballgame, but it must feel so much the sweeter to win, partially in light of the pain that was avoided in not losing. (I can only speak of non-professional games in that regard, but you would know about the pro stuff.)
I've been smacked down in EQ before, lost a bubble of experience, once or twice even cancelled in nerd rage. But I was back on the next day playing, more excited than before. Like the PVP'ers in other kinds of games slam the keyboard when they're pwned, but end up back playing soon again for the rush. Different people have different tolerances for defeat, but there are lots of folks who are losing their tolerance for freely-handed victories (i.e., some veteran WOW players). The "challenge" in MMO gaming has got to come back.
But, like you said, you have chosen your market direction and are three years into development. We will have to see what you have cooking.
Random death because some uncaring guild decided to poke the dragon too many times doesn't sound like that much fun. Maybe that dragon should go and poke guild members that didn't attend the raid or other high "ranking" people. However, this really only sounds entertaining if it is an EQ type setup where zerging the boss or another guild moving in and taking down the target is possible. Plus, harsh death penalty required.
Bringing back random newb stomp npcs might be fun but they really only worked in EQ, to me, because it was possible to kill them with minimal loses through coordinated zerging since levels and equipment were not overly important (aside from non-necro casters). They were like the bully on the street that you knew could be taken down if everyone would simply cooperate. These might not work in todays era due to these games and their tactics no longer being new.
And no, I hated spectre trains, 30 min long dvinn rampages, ghoul lord trains, random goober touching the wrong wall bringing down the entire house karnor's trains. I'd rather have helped retrieve the bodies and res people than deal with the lame concept of training. Though equally hate hard leashed mobs. Things like this do not make or break the game for me. I will put up with either assuming the game as a whole is entertaining.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Boss mobs get tired of groups taking a pass at them. If enough (some randomzied value) failed attempts are made, then the boss aggros and carries the fight to a nearby down, carrying vengeance to any players in its path.
Ex. Groups keep hassling Smaug the Red Dragon. After some randomized number of failed attempts (say 8) to take Smaug down, Smaug spreads his wings and flies down to an inhabitated town or noob area.
Meanwhile, Bob the 1st level warrior and Jan the 3rd level Mage are logging on the hunt beetles together and to knock out some low level quests. Bob stares in terror as Jan suddenly taking 10,000 points of fire damage from Smaug the dragon, who has suddenly appeared out of nowhere. High level players are more saavy and get out of the way, but Bob the 1st level warrior and other new players of low level toons are mowed down by Smaug, who eventually leaves with a half dozen NPC buildings smouldering in his wake.
Stuff like this would be very cool. Would keep the environment alive and keep players on their toes.
Stuff like that is very cool to everyone BUT Bob the warrior and Jan the mage, who are paying the same $$ for a kick ass fun time as the other folks:)
Yes, but you would know more than anyone, that with no real risk or possibility of sting of defeat, there is no true sense of victory. Like playing a sports game where both teams on the field are guaranteed a win.
It might suck to lose a ballgame, but it must feel so much the sweeter to win, partially in light of the pain that was avoided in not losing. (I can only speak of non-professional games in that regard, but you would know about the pro stuff.)
I've been smacked down in EQ before, lost a bubble of experience, once or twice even cancelled in nerd rage. But I was back on the next day playing, more excited than before. Like the PVP'ers in other kinds of games slam the keyboard when they're pwned, but end up back playing soon again for the rush. Different people have different tolerances for defeat, but there are lots of folks who are losing their tolerance for freely-handed victories (i.e., some veteran WOW players). The "challenge" in MMO gaming has got to come back.
But, like you said, you have chosen your market direction and are three years into development. We will have to see what you have cooking.
Random death because some uncaring guild decided to poke the dragon too many times doesn't sound like that much fun. (Losing is the least fun part of playing any game, but without losing there is no thrill to winning. What is really unfun is seeing lobotomized mobs that pass by you as if you were in another instance.)
Maybe that dragon should go and poke guild members that didn't attend the raid or other high "ranking" people. However, this really only sounds entertaining if it is an EQ type setup where zerging the boss or another guild moving in and taking down the target is possible. Plus, harsh death penalty required.
Bringing back random newb stomp npcs might be fun but they really only worked in EQ, to me, because it was possible to kill them with minimal loses through coordinated zerging since levels and equipment were not overly important (aside from non-necro casters). They were like the bully on the street that you knew could be taken down if everyone would simply cooperate. These might not work in todays era due to these games and their tactics no longer being new.
And no, I hated spectre trains, 30 min long dvinn rampages, ghoul lord trains, random goober touching the wrong wall bringing down the entire house karnor's trains. (Well, different strokes, but I always had a laugh watching a train. I pulled one on the Karnor's exit once, you know how they had informal agreed upon traffic; go in this exit, please leave only at that exit. Well, I pulled it in reverse where there were a bunch of folks, mostly mages who had just exited and were sitting down getting back mana. Many were probably AFK. Well, I pulled the train, then zoned in, went invis as a rogue, then zoned out and saw three of four these mages standing and casting spells, trying to control the situation. I laughed because I could imagine folks scrambling back to their keyboards, knocking over soda or chips just to get their character back into action.)
I'd rather have helped retrieve the bodies and res people than deal with the lame concept of training. Though equally hate hard leashed mobs. Things like this do not make or break the game for me. I will put up with either assuming the game as a whole is entertaining. (Then, not to be patronizing, games more like WOW or Free Realms (in their league of challenge, not the kiddy-ish ness of Free Realms) might be more down your ally. Just as there are hardcore PVP players, there is the other end of the spectrum (carebears? and not disrespectfully) that prefer relaxed predictable cooperative gameplay. No problem with that. The gameplay I am describing, with trains and such, is probably somewhere in between; maybe a harsh PVE or hardcore PVE type of playstyle that is just a notch or two down from PVP itself.)
To be honest story is at the center of what we're trying to achieve. A meaningful story, and by meaningful I mean, well, it has to matter. The world, the heroes, the villains, all of it has to truly matter to the player or else it actually is just a script.
Obviously I know nothing about your game or how you intend to accomplish this but it seems like a difficult trick to pull off. Making a pre-planned story that really matters, I mean.
Offhand I'd say there are two ways to approach this. One way is to present the story to individuals and have their actions within the story impact their characters (but nothing else because you can't have one person screwing things up for all the others who follow). The other way is to have the game world itself altered by the cumulative actions of all the players.
With the individual approach, almost certainly in instances, you have a player go kill the villian or save the princess and for him the story progresses to the next stage/chapter. Well that's fine but deep down inside he'll know that what he did doesn't really matter. The villian or the princess will be there for the next guy and the next and the next. The player gains levels/skills/equipment in the process but the story itself doesn't really matter except that it's the stuff he's required to do to progress his character. In this approach I think for most people the story is quickly reduced to a checklist of things to do to progress and hardly anyone really cares that they saved the princess or gave the dastardly villian his come-upance. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own attitude onto others but for me, in that type of game, I usually find myself wishing I could escape from the story and just go have fun finding my own adventures.
In the cumulative approach in which all the players contribute, well, I'm not sure if any MMORPG has really done that. It could possibly be really great but it would be very hard I think to pull it off so that everyone felt like they were really a part of it. You know, I was going to blather on about my thoughts about this but I guess I'll spare everyone that. I'll just say that you would probably end up with a lot of people feeling like they missed the boat.
To be honest story is at the center of what we're trying to achieve. A meaningful story, and by meaningful I mean, well, it has to matter. The world, the heroes, the villains, all of it has to truly matter to the player or else it actually is just a script.
Obviously I know nothing about your game or how you intend to accomplish this but it seems like a difficult trick to pull off. Making a pre-planned story that really matters, I mean.
Offhand I'd say there are two ways to approach this. One way is to present the story to individuals and have their actions within the story impact their characters (but nothing else because you can't have one person screwing things up for all the others who follow). The other way is to have the game world itself altered by the cumulative actions of all the players.
With the individual approach, almost certainly in instances, you have a player go kill the villian or save the princess and for him the story progresses to the next stage/chapter. Well that's fine but deep down inside he'll know that what he did doesn't really matter. The villian or the princess will be there for the next guy and the next and the next. The player gains levels/skills/equipment in the process but the story itself doesn't really matter except that it's the stuff he's required to do to progress his character. In this approach I think for most people the story is quickly reduced to a checklist of things to do to progress and hardly anyone really cares that they saved the princess or gave the dastardly villian his come-upance. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own attitude onto others but for me, in that type of game, I usually find myself wishing I could escape from the story and just go have fun finding my own adventures.
In the cumulative approach in which all the players contribute, well, I'm not sure if any MMORPG has really done that. It could possibly be really great but it would be very hard I think to pull it off so that everyone felt like they were really a part of it. You know, I was going to blather on about my thoughts about this but I guess I'll spare everyone that. I'll just say that you would probably end up with a lot of people feeling like they missed the boat.
No, I think you are dead on right about this. It may be, just like the old nostalgia argument, that the illusion given by a storyline really works best with newer gamers. The epic thread of "rescue the princess, defeat the lich king" is dry. Heck, Tolkien himself, were he alive, would have his hands full making it fresh.
A storyline game will never feel like a world. Now, not to say there cannot be epic events in the making (i.e., a war brewing). But the days of the trite staple fantasy story line are over in gaming, I think, and best left to books and movies.
Still, who knows how they are designing it. Like I have said in previous posts, "story" can be more about "what has happened" and "what is going on now" without handing a script to players and telling them "you must do this and in this order." If they build story and leave the future open, this could be very cool. If they pre-plan the future and do this in an obvious manner (like WOLTK), this will wear thin very quickly.
Comments
Agreed
Curt Schilling
Chairman, Founder, 38 Studios
Geek
You're right, a "not so often experience." Maybe kind of like that 35th level Griffin in East Commonlands in EQ. It would slowly float by and rarely swoop down from above on unsuspecting lowbies.
The threat of that thing just livened up the zone. It can be fun to be on one's toes once in awhile as long as it's not overdone.
Hehe, another nostagiac EQ memory of mine, and an example of this kind of thing. I was in a group in Befallen (and I got booted for this) as a rogue. I had gone invisible when a train of undead came by. I stayed invisible (pretending like I was AFK) because I assessed the fight I saw as a losing one. Well, the remnants of the group ran upstairs and zoned out and stepped right into the sand giant that someone had inadvertently (we hope) pulled to the Befallen zone line. Hehe.
That kind of stuff is great. I remember and it happend almost 10 years go.
Couldn't agree more.
In all honesty to me anyway, that's a living breathing world right? Those things, that 'fear', is missing from AAAA MMO's now in my opinion. Listen I DO remember losing bubbles, I do remember corpse runs, I do remember SOW being a reason in itself to start an alt, I ALSO remember some of my girlfriends in high school being HOT, I remember the HOT girls being hot, I think I remember thinking I wasn't half bad looking...
Then I go back and see my high school year book, and I cringe:)
EQ is at the core of ALL my great memories and stories in MMO's, every single one. Partly because this was a one trick pony space at that time (not a big UO guy). It was all we had, and we loved it. I know I did.
WoW came along..... I didn't need to log in and LFG for 30 minutes to an hour or wait in line in BB for a group, I could log in and have some fun in 20 minutes and log out to run my kid to the baseball game and watch.
We grew up and got families:) Some anyway, and the generation following us grew up with WoW, and many of us, me included, called WoW players noobs, because we were hardcore EQ'ers right? We have DEATH PENALTIES!!! We have 3am RAID CORPSE RUNS!! WOOT! We're tough!!!!
The genre has changed but at the end of the day our needs and wants as gamers will NEVER change. Give us something we CARE ABOUT. A player, a world, and to me A STORY that matters, and I am in.
Curt Schilling
Chairman, Founder, 38 Studios
Geek
I hear you, Curt, and I know about nostalgia. I do have one request as a gamer in regard to your game, which I can hardly wait to see. That request is that "story" not mean "script". I am all for lore, setting, faction, goings-on, and events. In some games, story = script = on-rails game. Meaning to a world, and history and power struggles (like the mercs vs the paladins in Freeport) are great, I just hope to not be handed a script and follow linear cutscenes.
My apologies if I am inferring false assumptions. I sure what you have cooking is great.
To be honest story is at the center of what we're trying to achieve. A meaningful story, and by meaningful I mean, well, it has to matter. The world, the heroes, the villains, all of it has to truly matter to the player or else it actually is just a script.
Curt Schilling
Chairman, Founder, 38 Studios
Geek
I've played EQ for about 8 years now. The fear of running somewhere, dying along the way and spending 30 minutes looking for your corpse and being naked is what it made both awesome but sometimes frustrating.
I liked how everything was a mystery, we had no maps (added later) and no idea how big or scary this world could get.
After that I joined a raiding guild, had tons of fun in PoP all through UF, but now I lost my desire to play. It all became about statistics and it took away my will to play, burned out.
If I can find even the slightest sense of community, danger and fun moments back in copernicus I'll give it a shot. And I'll tel my friends to come too, EQ wasn't about the game for me, was about my friends there.
There's someone named Rashere who joined a few years ago I think, that's how I remembered the named of 38 studios, most people were sad he left though, hope he's still with 38 studios because he was a pretty level headed designer.
What Im thinking is:
Lore (here is what has happened, indicated by NPC talk, books, and maybe the ruins to back it up as evidence of past lore. "There was once an empire here, these ruins are what is left of this empire.)
+ Faction (here is what is going on, this is very cool)
+ Future (unwritten, at least to player knowledge.)
With something like WOW, the Future is as plainly written as a bad knockoff of the Lord of the Rings. I see it coming a mile away, and yawn through the trite cutscenes of Lady Proudmore telling Arthas "You can't, Arthas, you can't do that" as if it's like watching a movie scene play out every single time I re-run an instance.
With EQ, the Lore was there (but probably not the focus it could have been), the Faction was definitely there, but I always felt the Future was open-ended (even though I'm sure devs were planning expansions behind the scenes and that is okay).
Maybe it's me but I went from a hardcore explorer, story driven quest guy, and went after a raiding game play style. I lost interest a month in because the game became nothing more than a job after a few runs. Needing to appropriate time is obviously far different for me with 4 kids now but I know when I enjoy leveling a toon 1-70 on my own something fundamental has changed.
Community, fun, danger? To me they only exist in the raid scenario now. The days of being on TS or Vent and just 'hanging out', which was something I couldn't do much of out of game, were what I played MMO's for, and they went away.
There are guilds out there still doing it, kudos to them, The Syndicate comes to mind, but to be in a top tier raiding guild is something I cannot do for the simple fact my life has to align perfectly with the right group of people, that like me and me them, for me to join and I don't want to play badly enough to work that hard to find it.
It's why I am scouring the MMO landscape right now looking for something fun to play.
Curt Schilling
Chairman, Founder, 38 Studios
Geek
I was upset when EQ added a type of vent to their game. We used to sit around in PoK waiting for MGB, we chatted without vent in /say np, my friend is hard-hearing and I didn't want it to become a requirement for raiding. Most people never used it because Vent is still better than EQ's built in system.
I really want people to have vent if it helps build a community, but I do feel excluded in guilds where Vent is used and became a requirement to raid in some EQ guilds. It's a bit faster with vent, but it excludes others who can't use it for a plethora of reasons. As long as vent or TS doesn't become a requirement to raid I have no issue with it.
WoW uses a lot more vent than EQ I think, which is why I didn't feel so inclined to play it. And I'm slightly shy I think.
I think access to voice com HAS to be an easy to use piece of any MMO down the road. Not vent, not a third party, but a one click feature that you can choose if you want.
Whatever it is imo it has to be seamless and insanely easy to use/run/implement.
Curt Schilling
Chairman, Founder, 38 Studios
Geek
Oh, while I'm ranting and a developer might actually read this and maybe relate.
Something I miss from EQ that's in none of the MMO I played was /general.
WoW and Vanguard had region chats, not super big 200+ player channels like EQ had. I think /general was added later, but it was great and awesome, every time a guild downed something we gratsed them, there was fun, drama, and lots of laughs from the /general clowns, and you never had to leave it when you zoned or changed region like in WoW or Vanguard. No idea why current MMO don't include that anymore. That channel really made you feel you were part of a community.
I was stuck in Befallen for 2 days because I didn't know how to find the key to get out of the lower level. Didn't know a mob had it on him and I was too small to solo it. After a lot of /ooc spamming I found someone and we became best buddies.
And that's the very stuff of community building; needing one another to survive or get out of stuff.
I got stuck in that dungeon in South Karanas, I was in the dungeon pit. I was a rogue, so I was invis, but it was pretty scary. Had to have some high levels come down and lead me out. Happened 9 or 10 years ago and I can still remember it.
Scariest time was when I was leaving a Mistmoore group and was deep in Mistmoore castle. Well, I was a paladin with Invis vs Undead cast on me and I got lost in the castle. I kept going from room to room and seeing two or three vampires in each one. Then my invis icon starting blinking and I knew it would go off at anytime, but I was turned around and panicking.
So, it did go off, I did aggro and I ran out of the castle, atop a bridge, jumped down taking damage, and pulled an epic train to zone, and barely got out.
If the MMO has Elder Scrolls-type combat, which I believe I read it does, and tells an actual story that will immerse the playerbase then I think you'll have a runaway hit and I hope you do.
I think it's safe to say gamers appear to be boring of the status quo of online gaming. As expensive as development probably is and as difficult as it probably is to design a game that can accommodate a large selection of styles and technical capabilities, creating something innovative is most likely very challenging.
I enjoyed EQ for a while, SWG early on until I realized it was half-completed at launch, UO had some good qualities (the freedom) but 2-d was just not immersive. I could never enjoy WoW because I always felt so confined to restrictive parameters as was the case with AoC and WAR.
I agree with the "fear" factor. I want to feel like I could die and face consequences every time I run up and start chopping away at a rat. A story that guides the environment would also add that extra element that the player cannot control. Build a game like that and you'll have a hit.
Tecmo Bowl.
To be honest the combat I am just blown away with right now is Mercury's. Obviously a completely different platform and game but I'm as excited to see the reaction to that as anything we've done so far.
Curt Schilling
Chairman, Founder, 38 Studios
Geek
I totally agree with you on this, but you make it sound as if you don't know what's going to be in your game. However I recall reading some time ago that your studio has chosen a customized integrated version of Vivox to accomplish this. Has this changed or is my memory faulty?
There is really only 2 things i need to know at this point in time...
1 Is there a full working staff on this game or is it still in the hiring and thought process?
2 Is it going to be the same desgin as most other games?Quests SHOULD be relegated to items or rewards,XP SHOULD be relegated to killing/combat.
I am at a point in gaming now ,where by these really are the two biggest reasons i play a game or not.I could even go without levels entirely but most of all i want to see some game innovation,especially in combat and that would be amazing if a developer would come along with a great crafting system,so far that has been over looked by all developers.SOE scratched the surface for crafting,but even that design needs a lot to be desired.
in the last 10 years ,what have we had for innovation?FFXI's sub class system,Vanguard brought in that card game,I think Square Enix is still the only developer to introduce a language translator?We really need some innovation in this MMORPG genre.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
And to be honest, I'm looking forward to Mercury just as much as, or more than Copernicus, especially if your game is going to have mod support on the PC (hey, one can hope). Although if your MMO kicks ass and is really that much fun to play, that might change. But I'm not really expecting a radical change in your MMO's combat from the traditional hotbar rotation which to me has grown stale and tiring, but who knows we may be surprised.
Will Copernicus feel more like a living, breathing world vs a grindy level up game? The only games that have pulled this off is EQ and EVE in my opinion.
Serious death penalties makes every close call an adrenaline rush, and every minor achievement a major victory. This alternative rule-set should be in all MMORPGs.
Wow. I don't know what is more cool. That a Dev posted. That the Dev is Curt Schilling. Or that Curt Schilling thinks we mmorpg.com posters matter. Somebody pinch me.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Well, to test this, I went back to the closest I could get to old EQ. October last year Eqemu had a server called P1999 launched. The server is still steadily rising in population. It's still pre-Kunark. It really helps you puts some kind of perspective on what was nostalgia and new-player experience and what is truly great design. What i've come up with:
Dungeon design in EQ is still pretty tough to beat. I need a complex dungeon with complex (and powerful) enemies in complex pathing rotations. As it turns out, the flash is important once or twice, but for staying appeal design is key (Guk being about the epitome for pre-kunark).
Class design and interdependance is important, but EQ really didn't quite hit it on the mark. The casters are fairly interactive while the rogues / warriors of the bunch are downright pathetic class design. I don't think anyone really considers that good class design, but it helps to revisit it.
The biggest thing you can take from going back to a classic server is going back to non-instanced content. Instancing (whether through a WoW phasing system or more obvious instancing) has become mandatory in the genre. On P1999 the server reaches only up to 800 or so each evening (which is quite impressive for an eqemu ^_^). Even with only 800 or so on each night and the levels fairly spread out among the lower levels, the amount of upper tier content in a non-instanced setting is abysmal. We end up with guilds camping raid mobs, where the majority of time spent in EQ is on ventrilo and tabbed out. This is not how games are meant to be played, and it surely is not conducive to an immersive world, which I believe to be one of the goals of the Copernicus project.
Random death because some uncaring guild decided to poke the dragon too many times doesn't sound like that much fun. Maybe that dragon should go and poke guild members that didn't attend the raid or other high "ranking" people. However, this really only sounds entertaining if it is an EQ type setup where zerging the boss or another guild moving in and taking down the target is possible. Plus, harsh death penalty required.
Bringing back random newb stomp npcs might be fun but they really only worked in EQ, to me, because it was possible to kill them with minimal loses through coordinated zerging since levels and equipment were not overly important (aside from non-necro casters). They were like the bully on the street that you knew could be taken down if everyone would simply cooperate. These might not work in todays era due to these games and their tactics no longer being new.
And no, I hated spectre trains, 30 min long dvinn rampages, ghoul lord trains, random goober touching the wrong wall bringing down the entire house karnor's trains. I'd rather have helped retrieve the bodies and res people than deal with the lame concept of training. Though equally hate hard leashed mobs. Things like this do not make or break the game for me. I will put up with either assuming the game as a whole is entertaining.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Obviously I know nothing about your game or how you intend to accomplish this but it seems like a difficult trick to pull off. Making a pre-planned story that really matters, I mean.
Offhand I'd say there are two ways to approach this. One way is to present the story to individuals and have their actions within the story impact their characters (but nothing else because you can't have one person screwing things up for all the others who follow). The other way is to have the game world itself altered by the cumulative actions of all the players.
With the individual approach, almost certainly in instances, you have a player go kill the villian or save the princess and for him the story progresses to the next stage/chapter. Well that's fine but deep down inside he'll know that what he did doesn't really matter. The villian or the princess will be there for the next guy and the next and the next. The player gains levels/skills/equipment in the process but the story itself doesn't really matter except that it's the stuff he's required to do to progress his character. In this approach I think for most people the story is quickly reduced to a checklist of things to do to progress and hardly anyone really cares that they saved the princess or gave the dastardly villian his come-upance. Or maybe I'm just projecting my own attitude onto others but for me, in that type of game, I usually find myself wishing I could escape from the story and just go have fun finding my own adventures.
In the cumulative approach in which all the players contribute, well, I'm not sure if any MMORPG has really done that. It could possibly be really great but it would be very hard I think to pull it off so that everyone felt like they were really a part of it. You know, I was going to blather on about my thoughts about this but I guess I'll spare everyone that. I'll just say that you would probably end up with a lot of people feeling like they missed the boat.
No, I think you are dead on right about this. It may be, just like the old nostalgia argument, that the illusion given by a storyline really works best with newer gamers. The epic thread of "rescue the princess, defeat the lich king" is dry. Heck, Tolkien himself, were he alive, would have his hands full making it fresh.
A storyline game will never feel like a world. Now, not to say there cannot be epic events in the making (i.e., a war brewing). But the days of the trite staple fantasy story line are over in gaming, I think, and best left to books and movies.
Still, who knows how they are designing it. Like I have said in previous posts, "story" can be more about "what has happened" and "what is going on now" without handing a script to players and telling them "you must do this and in this order." If they build story and leave the future open, this could be very cool. If they pre-plan the future and do this in an obvious manner (like WOLTK), this will wear thin very quickly.