Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
We need a paradigm shift
blognorg
Member UncommonPosts: 643
Soon, the 'massively' may have to be taken out of MMORPG. Here are some ideas that might help.
1. Less dramatic difference in level. Some might say that we should get rid of levels entirely, which is one option, but let me suggest an alternative. Bring the scale of the game down and design it so that each level makes a smaller leap in power. This will bring everyone closer together, open up more areas to explore ealier in the game, keep those areas valid longer and close the PvP gap. If you have more areas to and more people to contend with at any given time, I think that would help build a stronger community.
2. Slow down. There seems to be a standardized rush to max level. By doing this, there is strong distinction between max level and those whom aren't. It separates the community. Get rid of that endgame line. Make the activites that are enjoyed at the 'endgame' also approachable to others. This kind of goes along wtih my first point. I think that if more of the content can be enjoyed my the majority of the players, then less specific content has to be created and more focus can be placed on stuff for everyone.
3. No more instances or phasing. These fatures were created so that other players coulodn't screw with each other's agendas. Yes, camping was a promblem, but I think there are better ways to solve it. Either do something like what Guild Wars 2 is, and make the content that players would ordinarily camp or fight over, instead, a communal effort. Or, just add randomization, so that people can't camp anymore... or both, or a variety of things that I didn't think of.
4. More random content. By this I don't necessarily mean that stuff unpredictably happens (though, that's part of it). There just needs to be more arbitrary content out in the persistant world for people to enjoy; random events, monsters, items and other valuables. I, like many other players, just want to do their own thing and not have to follow a set path. Give the players the freedom to set their own goals. That sounds a little sandboxy, but it doesn't have to be competely unstructured. Again, harkening back to my first point, take tiers away from crafting and harvesting. That way the variety of materials are just as useful to a veteran as a novice. So really, if all someone wants to do is collect stuff and craft, it can be a viable option. Those are just some ideas, but really anything that gets people out in the world to interact would be work.
5. More flexibilty with customization. I'm one of those people that advocatres a classless system. Here's why: I tihnk ballancing is overrated... to an extent. Developers put so much focusing on making a game evened out that it kills some of the flavor. Part of the issue is that classes need to be about the same, or some of them wouldn't be played. Now, with an open class system, it would be much harder to control that aspect, and the same thing could occure; such as, if the most optimal build were discovered, then that's all people would do. So, the only ballancing that would need to be done is to make sure that there isn't just one, or two, or even fifty optimal builds (or make sure that some skills aren't blatently OP). By not pigeonholing playstyles, people will have to work together in different ways. Not only that, but it will keep PvP fan on their toes because every situation will be different.
6. More diverse combat. I think the reason that quest girnding has taken over is because people got tired of kill grinding. Part of the blame can be put on the combat. Auto-attack and colldowns make fighting quite repetitive. It goes further than that, though. The monsters, themselves, have all been homogenized. Most enemies in games these days are all apporached the same way. Give mobs more qualities to base your strategy on, like: element, race, size, behavior or anything else that makes each enemy a different experience. By doing this, many monsters may not even be apprachable by some builds, causing the need for other players to compensate.
I guess that about all I can think of at the moment. If anyone thinks some of these might not work, or if you have some to add, let's hear your thoughts.
Comments
No that is not a paradiagm shift. That is going back to the old ways and just doing better.
Moving to a more MORPG .. i.e. Diablo 3 with some MMO features is a paradiam shift. That is probably the trend and where the industry is going.
It is really about having a good coop hack-n-slash game.
Well, what's considered a paradigm in an MMO context is fairly subjective. I was refering to the standard that is ubiquitous among AAA titles.
As for Diablo 3 being the way of the future, I'm not so sure. There really hasn't been a flux of hack-n-slash games recently; Torchlight is the only one that I can think of. However, I will admit that people seem to prefer instanced, objective-based content, hence what WoW has turned into. Or look at any FPS, it's all instanced with a clear objectives. The idea of a living, breathing world may be dying off indeed.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
define"we" first
because I disslike everything you listed, especialy the no instances part, I love instances (be they dungeons or raids) and won't touch a game without them
Well it seems we have a few on the horizon and they seem to be more than vapourware,these indie devs can see a niche that needs to be filled,the so called paradigm shift is basically going back to the very essence of a Mo which is freedom and the ability to craft a toon in a virtual playground.
The Repopulation is gathering a lot of interest,and with Archeage as well we may have some choice's instead of Linear based gameplay designed only for endgame and with no soul or substance.
Honestly, I don't think we need a paradigm shift. The current formula is working for the majority of the people that play these games. That is why they play them.
But you are right in that the genre needs to contonue to evolve down new routes. And you'll notice that many of the new games coming out have been going down new paths, or at least tweaking things little by little, because frankly, making an MMO is an incredibly expensive venture. And in order to make that money back, you have to make sure that the audience your game is appealing to is going to spend that money.
This is why you are seeing things progress in the way they are. They can only push the mold so much before their core audience will no longer pay for it.
Not all change happens overnight. Just looking ahead and seeing what is on the horizon is incredibly interesting.
-Seeing all those old games go free to play
-SWTOR: staying true to tried and tested doctrine while adding little bits and peices to make it different.
-Games like GW2 going in a different direction (or at least taking a different approach)
-TERA exploring new combat mechanisms.
-ArcheAge: blending sandbox and themepark, can it be done?
-Has anyone even seen the new lineage game? I'm impressed.
The age of clones is largely over outside if the asian F2P crap that just gets pumped out year after year.
Keep voicing your opinion and then put your money where your mouth is. Unless you are a developer or willing to invest millions of dollars, that's the only way to have an effect on the system.
MMOs played: Horizons, Auto Assault, Ryzom, EVE, WAR, WoW, EQ2, LotRO, GW, DAoC, Aion, Requiem, Atlantica, DDO, Allods, Earth Eternal, Fallen Earth, Rift
Willing to try anything new
You're right, MMOs are a finaincial risk. I'm not saying that a company needs to bite the bullet to accommodate me, but it's sad that companies can get ruined by taking a risk. However, I tihnk that much of the appeal and popularity of a game is determined by its quality and presentation. Rift did an excelent job in that area; I'm pretty sure that's why it didn't immediately die. Hell, even I played it for a while, despite not really liking that formula. I think enough people are ready for something different that a game could be financially successful if done well. Just look at the following that Guild Wars 2 has. We'll have to wait until launch to find out just how removed from the standard that it really is, but I thnk a l of the hype has to do with the sheer production value; the quality really come across in what I've seen so far.
I don't know that much about Archeage; parts of it look cool, but other parts bother me a bit. From what I've read and a few of the videos that I've seen, it seems that much of the leveling is pretty typical quest grinding. It's still on my radar though.
Well, I suppose 'we' would imply the people would like something different in a mainstream game. So, you really don't like anything that I've posted? Is that because you just don't like those six things, or is it because you really don't want anything to change? Because I left the floor open for more suggestions. My thought is that there are tonnes of AAA titles with those features. What's wrong with a little variety?
There are lot's of people who don't want things to change. That would screw up the $Billions RMT industry (2009 report from Asian markets alone was $3 Billion).
I don't want to point fingers at anyone in particular, and I certainly can't say I know of any individual in particular. But com'on, with that kind of money at stake, you know there are people working the boards everywhere to support it. Running down the threat of Sandbox games, supporting their Themepark-made-for-farming bread and butter.
Not that Sandbox games can't be farmed, it's just not as ideal as a Themepark where you know where what is and can script it to death, and in an instanced setting where no one can see you doing it...except for game developers, if they care to look.
Once upon a time....
You just described everything GW2 is "PROMISING". Very hugeeeeeee key word there. The Korean devs over in Arche age described it perfectly.
We are in desperate need of a 3rd gen mmo. A mix of sandbox/themepark playstyle with a payment model that the poor little f2p peeps will touch. Also need something so sepearate from WoW it can not be touched.
well, the new Lineage game feels very much like the original lineage which of course was influenced by diablo.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I swear that list is a copy paste from about a year ago. Sorry but I cant agree with much of it:
1 Progression is a carrot on a stick for many players. Progression is defined by difference.
2 Repetitiveness decreases incentive to go slow. Nobody is waiting for the noob that hasn't seen this dungeon before.
3 Dont see how this will help or not, somne games like VG and EQ have already tried this. Boss camping and other things made this unattractive. Also performance is affected when you have several guilds hanging around waiting for the boss to spawn.
4 This I'd like to see but quality randomisation that is more than window dressing; like what type of monster to spawn, is no small acheivement. Look at Rift, at first the world events are exciting and varied but once you start recognising the patterns it grows old.
5 and 6 This sounds good but having specialisations lead to several things:
A) Players need to remember more situational responses. "quick google what response is best if a bugbear with a short sword starts to cast heal using a mighty staff of heals and I'm a fire mage that specialises in dots... now check what button I press if he does a charge and I am waiting for my zap to cool down but my toast is up only I want to save that for if he does a sunder... Better to use it for the charge?... but not if he is using a great sword or is above level 5 because then he can dispell it?"
I only want a half a dozen spells, maybe a few stances, a dispell, an escape. The only whack a mole I want is if the mob starts casting a bad spell, I interrupt it. Apart from that I dont want to have to memorise extra crap. Thats just me, I understand some people like situational high twitch combat.
C) Games that have a lot of specialisation dont seem to work out the way they should. EG in Skyrim you basically are a stealth archer, a smash and bash melee, or a magic user which is best off stealthing as well. Although a magic user could just conjure or just specialise in fire damage, they will be gimped and need to use all abilities available to them, eg use fireball, maybe put points into it but still conjure pets and still cast sheild spells and still cast heal. Some MMO's like Mortal Online and darkfall are also examples of this.
I humbly ask you all this.
Imagine if you will.
You download a New Online Game, the features are such.
Open World Gameplay:
Caves,Temples,Creature Remains,Dungeons as the settings:
Underwater Exploration
Terrain Exploration
Sky Exploration
Solve Puzzles, Riddles, Survive Traps, Mazes, content is as hard as you make it for yourself.
Character progression: No Levels/Gear/Stats/Talent Points
Obtain relics to increase basic abilities to shape who you are in the world and your appearance.
Relic of Air: Gain the ability to fly or glide or hover and have your character altered to fit the ability:Wings,Energy,Air current.
Relic of Water: Gain the ability to swim faster or breath or travel through connected bodies of water, Character is altered by growing gills or fins or aquatic natures.
Relic of The Crow: Gain both the ability of flight and Crow form
These would be examples of unlimited combinations. A game with over 100's of possible alterations that reflect the phsyical growth of the character you play.
Every Digital Avatar is a player
You see a pack of wolves, those are players, Birds in the sky, Players, Sea creatures, also players.
Monthly GM Events: Game Masters using the information collected from feedback of player status to craft story and lore around, truely uniqe to this once in a life time living breathing world.
Mentoring System: No NPC Quest/ Player Created Quests
Each player has the ability to go out into the world, discover its secrets and take on a student or become one, forming a bond that grows the longer they stay together unlocking the ability to create lairs, huts, housing or towns.
Mentors and Student Can:
Create Adventures for each other
Recruit like minded players
Embles to show togetherness
Share abilities while together
Display trophies outside of the housing they share
I don't want to stray from the original post but to see these features in a online game are a step forward in the right direction. And this is not even the full list of features I have been thinking over.
1. Call progression what you want, but it's what drives people to play. If there was no form of progression, then the game would get stale and people would stop playing in a much shorter period of time. Again, I'm going to reference FPSs; even those have adopted progression to extend the game. I'm not saying that an MMO can't (or shouoldn't) be made like that; I'm just not sure it would have longevity.
2. This conept feeds into the rest of the ideas, in the sense that endgame-focused MMOs aren't my cup of tea. By squeezing together the player-base and making more content applicable to a larger range of players, then perhaps there would be less of a need to breeze through the game, and to take some time to enjoy it.
3. I don't believe that camping is all that difficult to fix. I think that GW2 has some pretty good ideas on it, but we'll have to see how they pan out.
4. I guess if you want to have a lot of imoprtant content based on randomization (such as bosses or large events), but I think simpler stuff could work as window dressing.
5 & 6.
A)Well, my idea isn't to have a circus of hotkeys for every mob, but instead make monsters different. People would have to know what they're up against. Any given monster may only need a few skills. So, let's say that you have 30 skills, you may only need 3 or 4 against one enemy, or 5 other skills against another.
C) I agree that it's defintely trickier than using classes, but one thing I like is character building. I like revamping a build and seeing where I can cut corners to make an optimal character. I made a pretty good hybrid in Skyrim. I had to make several characters before I could figure out what skills are essential, but it's certainly doable. To be honest, I like when some configurations are blatently better than others. Systems that try to make every little apect ballanced lack a certain personallity and tend to feel bland. Like I said, the main thing is to make sure that there isn't just one build that is better than the rest. Making more battles situational will give validiity to lots of other random stkills; with that, you'll have less of "this skill is better than that one", and more of "this skill is different than that one".
Sounds intersting. I'd play it. However, I have a few questions.
What kind of gameplay would be associated with being a bird or sea monster? If you're suggesting that each of those apects have their sepparate gamplay mechanics; such as the bird will will fly around all day eating worms and crapping on stuff, and the sea monster could... uh... do whatever is a sea monseter does. I guess what I'm getting at is a brid is pretty removed from a sea monster, and it would be nearly impossible to facilitate all those modes of gameplay, if I'm understanding you correctly.
Regarding the mentor/student idea. I tihnk that may put too much emphasis on just two people interacting together. I idea of a village is more conventional, but you don't want people too isolated from each other. It is an MMO after all.
On a side note, I've also considered territory that has yet to be utilized, such as the in the sky, under water or under ground. However, GW2 seems to be taking greater leaps for under water content. They even have a seperate combat mechanic for it; that seems interesting.
OPs points are all good and make sense, even if the random event thing is harder to make good than I think most people know.
The last point about combat is really true, the similarities and repetivness of MMO combat is not good at all for the genre. I can't believe that the first combat system someone tried in a MMO is the best and only possible. The genre really should experiment more and try different ways to simulate combat, it is after all the core of the game together with character development and customization.
I also think that the last 2 things there needs some experimenting as well. TSW is on the right track there. Don't give us levels, give us points instead that we use to buy improvements for the characters.
To elaborate
The reaon for being a bird/wolf/animal and so forth is to show the relics you worked for add to who you decide to be as a player in the game. If i go to the Temple of water for swimming relic I may get gills on my character and a swimspeed boost but if I go to the underware temple of a creature I would get the same swim speed boost but a whole body transformation to go with it in respect to the temple I visted.
Just like going to say the temple of Speed and gaining the speed relic gives me the ability to run fast and changing my characters feet into a cheeta, I could go to the temple of Cheeta and change my entire character into a cheeta when I am traveling from place to place.
Both Cheeta and Water Creature would turn back into your normal avatar when abilities are canceled but there would be a visual addition, a tail or a fin showing you have aquired something more to your character.
Visual change to the character for the time spent getting the abilities/powers you enjoy.
As for the Mentoring/Student, It takes 2, and starts with 2. It could grow into a Acadamy or Town/Castle Village of Like minded players sharing the same interest in water abilities with their very own island or sea fortress, same for sky players or ground players. Starting with a party of two and growing from that into a community would be a smooth flow instead of trying for 3 or 5 players.
2 Players would absorb another 2 players or unit with a already established group. It could even hold Open world PVP Elements of Water Players Vs Ground Players Vs Air or Water Vs Water or who knows, what ever the player commmunity comes up with.