We can't have battles that scale that large until things change.
1. Technology. We need a new gap jump in how things are done. You can't be immersed in PvP when it's not smooth. Turning graphic quality down and visual distance down are not the answers we need.
2. Reason to fight. We need real reasons to do things. Otherwise, it feels like an unrewarding job. You can say factions are at war, but that's not a reason without a backstory you can get behind. You need to feel like your choice makes a difference and have an attachment to your faction/side. We need goals other than capturing a flag or controlling X resources that have no impact on the game.
3. We need real synnergy of classes and tools instead of just "zerg him down! 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2"
4. Numbers. I think new infrastructures are on the right path for making one big seemless world.
1. Technology:
Should be doable now. I remember playing Day Of Defeat 1.x over a 56k modem. Up to 20 players on the map it was smooth enough. That was 10 years ago, in the time of 1GHz single core CPUs and rather puny graphics cards (IIRC I had a Matrox G400 with 32 MByte, that was considered pretty good at the time).
With the improvements since that time, I think 200 players per map should be doable . And I guess Planetside2 will show what is possible.
2. Reason to fight:
Agreed, that is more tricky to get right. Or at least the industry has more trouble getting it right. But it works for EVE Online with its system for occupying territory. Not every day, but there is the occasional megabattle with a few hundred ships. So it is possible to get the players on board.
3. Synergy of classes:
Would be nice, but even the zergfst can work. See EVE...
4. Numbers and big seamless worlds:
Limited partly by technology (again, see EVE for an example that works) and partly by content creation. Designing such a huge world is a lot of effort. But even so, I could see some of the "bigger" MMOs get there, especially after a few expansions.
Overall, I think the technology is there today, the game design needs to catch up.and the players will come when the gane design is right.
unfortunately technology does not work that way. People want decent looking graphics and smooth gameplay and you can't have both AND still have a game for the mass market. Most PC cannot handle render that much people and still run at a sufficient fps which removes the incentives for companies that want to target the masses.
to conclude games are designed for the masses, the masses do not have the latest and greatest pc and so game design need to reflect that reality unfortunately.
MMORPGs are not the most efficiently coded pieces of software. K.I.S.S. is a lost art. Games barely run well on top end equipment, list minimum requirements that won't run the game decently at all, and have to try to support a wide selection of equipment laden with malware and 500 update/monitoring (in case you want to run it instead of actually launching it) processes. Games that barely look better than games from 5 years ago require hardware that's 100x more powerful than what was available those 5 years ago and still play worse. The PC market is a mess and the PC Gaming Market is a mess within that mess. Especially when everything takes 5-7 years and still launches unfinished and unpolished/optimized.
Thanks for responding guys, but i'm not refering to having tons of people on screen at the same time.
Using GW2 as an example again (remember, i'm not hating on it), the land of Tyria, the pve side, is more than 10x the size of wvw.
The size of the landmass should really be the least of your concerns, as it is dependent entirely on the objectives and population density. Having a map the size of Jupiter doesn't do anyone any good if you have to travel for hours to hopefully find someone to fight. Likewise, the population has to fit the landmass size, as the lower the density is, the lower the chance of a combat encounter. Add to that, control points and objectives have to mean something, and a control point or objective a million miles from the faction home usually isn't worth it unless there is some truly contrived benefit being granted.
Density of players on the map, number of objectives, impact of objectives and accessibility of strategic battle areas are all factors that should dictate the size of the map. Big for the sake of big is not only pointless, but can prove to negatively impact the PVP experience. One needs only to visit the open world PVP areas of low pop MMOs to see that in effect today.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
unfortunately technology does not work that way. People want decent looking graphics and smooth gameplay and you can't have both AND still have a game for the mass market. Most PC cannot handle render that much people and still run at a sufficient fps which removes the incentives for companies that want to target the masses.
to conclude games are designed for the masses, the masses do not have the latest and greatest pc and so game design need to reflect that reality unfortunately.
MMORPGs are not the most efficiently coded pieces of software. K.I.S.S. is a lost art. Games barely run well on top end equipment, list minimum requirements that won't run the game decently at all, and have to try to support a wide selection of equipment laden with malware and 500 update/monitoring (in case you want to run it instead of actually launching it) processes. Games that barely look better than games from 5 years ago require hardware that's 100x more powerful than what was available those 5 years ago and still play worse. The PC market is a mess and the PC Gaming Market is a mess within that mess. Especially when everything takes 5-7 years and still launches unfinished and unpolished/optimized.
Computers these days are getting more advance and more dependent on drivers than ever before. Not only that but they have to cater to a whole range of different PCs and blah blah blah, which pretty much means it is not really cost effective to try either. That is one of the reasons why developers kinda like consoles because they are standardize and they pretty much require less work than PCs overall.
Green startement: I have never seen something like that happen except when you are trying to emulate a program whether is 16 bit on a 64 bit pc or console game on a PC.
I'm unsure how, for example. World of Warcraft's PVP server's contested areas aren't exactly what the OP is looking for.
He's asking for large landmass for PVP. Well, the entire overland zones of many MMOs that have PVP servers should satisfy that, shouldn't they? Heck, even EQ2, Mortal Online, Vanguard, Age of Conan had such things either currently or at some point.
Or is there some other criterea the OP is looking for that I missed? He already said many players on screen at once isn't it, but size of the map is.
You need to stop thinking like a player and a dev. Start thinking like the suits that now run our gaming companies. Does large scale pvp have a following? Yes, but many players are put of by any sort of pvp at all. PvP servers in particular end up dying out.
So what you get is a watered down pvp concept. Take SWTOR, they have a unused open PvP zone. They made the lobby style Warzones yield more pvp rewards, catering more for the casual PvPer. They have made no effort to make the open PvP zone viable, the Warzones are seen as the one size that fits all.
In the effort to please every player, no one is happy, but that’s MMO gaming these days, ruled by audience demographic charts, not good ideas.
In the effort to please every player, no one is happy
[...]
Sadly that is true. Large scale PvP hurts small scale PvP and vice versa. Not to mention you have to balance both and likely neither will be as good as it would be if it were just the one.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
When Darkfall first came out there was some truly massive PVP battles... during big wars.. of course small scale was pretty good as well..
Shame the devs messed up and people lost faith..
Hoping DF2.0 will be out soon haha...
Other than that the only recent AAA title i can think of with big pvp is TSW not sure what they set it do for release but 150v150v150 is possible and more than that...
cant remember what GW2 was.. think it was similar..
but yeah other than DAOC and maybe SWG i cant remember any themepark MMORPGs with large scale pvp..
You need to stop thinking like a player and a dev. Start thinking like the suits that now run our gaming companies. Does large scale pvp have a following? Yes, but many players are put of by any sort of pvp at all. PvP servers in particular end up dying out.
So what you get is a watered down pvp concept. Take SWTOR, they have a unused open PvP zone. They made the lobby style Warzones yield more pvp rewards, catering more for the casual PvPer. They have made no effort to make the open PvP zone viable, the Warzones are seen as the one size that fits all.
In the effort to please every player, no one is happy, but that’s MMO gaming these days, ruled by audience demographic charts, not good ideas.
There are a large number of players who THINK they want a massive open PvP system but when they are given one the realities start to settle in and many find they dont have the stomach for it, take things to personally and in the end blame game mecahnics instead of just admiting that they might have been mistaken in what they wanted.
Not sure that is the majority of players but its a large number. So as a developer there is a trick between what players SAY they want and what they ACTUALLY want and that is not an easy target to hit.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
1. large scale PvP usually means persistent territorial PvP, best case GvG
territorial PvP is about ressources, because human greed about ressources are the best motivation to fight each other
this means player-driven economy, which is not very popular in theme-parks and tricky to implement, because it harms the usual quest/reward system.
2. you also need huge landmasses (10 times the WvW in GW2 or even more) to give a lot of guilds a chance for their own territory
to create such huge landmasses in a fantasy setting means a huge effort, at least with all the details we are used to. EVE provides here some thousand solar systems which are pretty equal.
you could just provide computer generated and partially repetitive wastelands and give the players tools for terraforming, city-building, planting and breeding to do the rest. they will then create their own, better world.
but this is again a sandbox feature
3. it is also a difference if you have 2000 red crosses on the radar of a scifi-game or 2000 unique player avatars jumping around. so you need restrictions for the graphics (automatic donwscaling of quality in such zones, all use a mask = no faces, all use simple uniforms, less effects, etc ...). also a good load-balancer and server-architecture helps.
i dont say large scaled pvp is not possible in a theme-park, but it is harder to implement.
1. large scale PvP usually means persistent territorial PvP, best case GvG
territorial PvP is about ressources, because human greed about ressources are the best motivation to fight each other
this means player-driven economy, which is not very popular in theme-parks and tricky to implement, because it harms the usual quest/reward system.
2. you also need huge landmasses (10 times the WvW in GW2 or even more) to give a lot of guilds a chance for their own territory
to create such huge landmasses in a fantasy setting means ahuge effort, at least with all the details we are used to. EVE provides here some thousand solar systems which are pretty equal.
you could just provide computer generated and partially repetitive wastelands and give the players tools for terraforming, city-building, planting and breeding to do the rest. they will then create their own, better world.
but this is again a sandbox feature
3. it is also a difference if you have 2000 red crosses on the radar of a scifi-game or 2000 unique player avatars jumping around. so you need restrictions for the graphics (donwscaling of quality generally, all use a mask = no faces, all use simple uniforms, less effects, etc ...)
i dont say large scaled pvp is not possible in a theme-park, but it is harder to implement.
not only is it possible the all of the ones who do it are 'indie' developer with far less cash then the big boys.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
not only is it possible the all of the ones who do it are 'indie' developer with far less cash then the big boys.
indie-games are usually sandboxes. a sandbox has the right tools and philosophy, in order to enable this type of pvp. the big theme-parks all avoid large-scale-pvp due to the above reasons. you cannot just add large-scale pvp to your standard theme-park. you have to change it, in order to be prepared for this type of endgame. and the big companies are not willing to change their theme-parks dramatically (e.g. player-driven economy). the impact to their core-design would be just too heavy.
Most ASA companies only bet on what they know will sell..
as long as people are happy with big battlegrounds like GW2, they will provide just this artificial kind of pvp.
dont get me wrong. GW2s WvW is better than in most other theme-parks. but it could have been better.
PS: i am not talking about pvp-ffa. i talk about a fantasy EVE with a fully safe and large Empire, a player driven economy and tons of dynamic events and some EQ1 style epic-quests for PVE. and even larger wastelands with territorial pvp, terraforming & city-building and also some dynamic events for further entertainment.
Thanks for responding guys, but i'm not refering to having tons of people on screen at the same time.
Using GW2 as an example again (remember, i'm not hating on it), the land of Tyria, the pve side, is more than 10x the size of wvw.
The size of the landmass should really be the least of your concerns, as it is dependent entirely on the objectives and population density. Having a map the size of Jupiter doesn't do anyone any good if you have to travel for hours to hopefully find someone to fight. Likewise, the population has to fit the landmass size, as the lower the density is, the lower the chance of a combat encounter. Add to that, control points and objectives have to mean something, and a control point or objective a million miles from the faction home usually isn't worth it unless there is some truly contrived benefit being granted.
Density of players on the map, number of objectives, impact of objectives and accessibility of strategic battle areas are all factors that should dictate the size of the map. Big for the sake of big is not only pointless, but can prove to negatively impact the PVP experience. One needs only to visit the open world PVP areas of low pop MMOs to see that in effect today.
That's very true, but that's why i say that map design factors alot into pvp. The problem i have with these medium sized areas is that you can reach the next keep/castle/control point in less than 3 minutes. And as uch as i wished i was joking, i'm not. There's no reason to put transport vehicles because of the proximity.
Large scale isn't just big battles with tons of people.
Originally posted by Naevius There was an article recently about a group attempting a world record of 1000 people in a single (ground type) battle.(Space ala EVE is easier because the information about other players is less.)If we all eventually get fiberoptic connections, huge battles should be no problem at all.
Landscape is processed client side, it has no bearing on bandwidth.
In the effort to please every player, no one is happy, but that’s MMO gaming these days, ruled by audience demographic charts, not good ideas.
Market decides what ideas are good, not you.
People decide what game is good, not market.
Imagine this example:
A guy ask you and more 10000 guys what they like in a book and make a book based on that pool. You read the book and love it.
Now imagine a second situation, a guy make a book making the a similar poll but using only your opinion and 3 more guys opinions.
What book you think that you will love more? The second one of course.
In the first one you need to change stuff add/remove to please everyone, in the second book you just need to do this take into account 4 players.
In mmorpg as a example, many HATE pemadeath, this feature WOULD need to be removed to a game being made to everyone, and this feature, in the opinion of some, would improve alot the game, those guys (permadeath ones) would be player a crappier game because they are playing a game made to everyone.
If people love wow, the specific players that play it would prefer the stuff more specific at them.
Trying to please everyone is stupid. In theory developers would come and start to develop to the specific market without needing to remove add stuff to please the other unrelated market, and would get the time/money of those specific players they aimed to. The problem is there arent those, type of developers, or (a small amount of developers) do stuff like wurm online or they try to make a ultra rip-off copy of wow.
3. it is also a difference if you have 2000 red crosses on the radar of a scifi-game or 2000 unique player avatars jumping around. so you need restrictions for the graphics (automatic donwscaling of quality in such zones, all use a mask = no faces, all use simple uniforms, less effects, etc ...). also a good load-balancer and server-architecture helps.
i dont say large scaled pvp is not possible in a theme-park, but it is harder to implement.
I guess a modern gamer rig could handle rendering a few hundred avatars at Half Life 1 quality. Which was not that bad IMHO. It was not as pretty as recent games but it had everything needed to support gameplay. If that is the result of your automatic donwscaling of quality, I'd consider it acceptable, especially if it is only in mass scenes.
But then again, I'm easy to please when it comes to graphics .
Comments
MMORPGs are not the most efficiently coded pieces of software. K.I.S.S. is a lost art. Games barely run well on top end equipment, list minimum requirements that won't run the game decently at all, and have to try to support a wide selection of equipment laden with malware and 500 update/monitoring (in case you want to run it instead of actually launching it) processes. Games that barely look better than games from 5 years ago require hardware that's 100x more powerful than what was available those 5 years ago and still play worse. The PC market is a mess and the PC Gaming Market is a mess within that mess. Especially when everything takes 5-7 years and still launches unfinished and unpolished/optimized.
The size of the landmass should really be the least of your concerns, as it is dependent entirely on the objectives and population density. Having a map the size of Jupiter doesn't do anyone any good if you have to travel for hours to hopefully find someone to fight. Likewise, the population has to fit the landmass size, as the lower the density is, the lower the chance of a combat encounter. Add to that, control points and objectives have to mean something, and a control point or objective a million miles from the faction home usually isn't worth it unless there is some truly contrived benefit being granted.
Density of players on the map, number of objectives, impact of objectives and accessibility of strategic battle areas are all factors that should dictate the size of the map. Big for the sake of big is not only pointless, but can prove to negatively impact the PVP experience. One needs only to visit the open world PVP areas of low pop MMOs to see that in effect today.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Computers these days are getting more advance and more dependent on drivers than ever before. Not only that but they have to cater to a whole range of different PCs and blah blah blah, which pretty much means it is not really cost effective to try either. That is one of the reasons why developers kinda like consoles because they are standardize and they pretty much require less work than PCs overall.
Green startement: I have never seen something like that happen except when you are trying to emulate a program whether is 16 bit on a 64 bit pc or console game on a PC.
I'm unsure how, for example. World of Warcraft's PVP server's contested areas aren't exactly what the OP is looking for.
He's asking for large landmass for PVP. Well, the entire overland zones of many MMOs that have PVP servers should satisfy that, shouldn't they? Heck, even EQ2, Mortal Online, Vanguard, Age of Conan had such things either currently or at some point.
Or is there some other criterea the OP is looking for that I missed? He already said many players on screen at once isn't it, but size of the map is.
Sadly that is true. Large scale PvP hurts small scale PvP and vice versa. Not to mention you have to balance both and likely neither will be as good as it would be if it were just the one.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
When Darkfall first came out there was some truly massive PVP battles... during big wars.. of course small scale was pretty good as well..
Shame the devs messed up and people lost faith..
Hoping DF2.0 will be out soon haha...
Other than that the only recent AAA title i can think of with big pvp is TSW not sure what they set it do for release but 150v150v150 is possible and more than that...
cant remember what GW2 was.. think it was similar..
but yeah other than DAOC and maybe SWG i cant remember any themepark MMORPGs with large scale pvp..
'Large scale pvp' brings a host of other design choices actually.
It is probably the biggest word that'll influence your game design other than 'themepark / sandbox'.
Large scale pvp brings the following
Battles are long because of the sheer amount of people involved.
Battles has to mean something because it is 'long and large'.
A consistant mechanic to keep the players coming back other than character progression.
You are essentially 'EVE Online' which we then have other out-of-game 'issues' like player behaviour; metagaming.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
There are a large number of players who THINK they want a massive open PvP system but when they are given one the realities start to settle in and many find they dont have the stomach for it, take things to personally and in the end blame game mecahnics instead of just admiting that they might have been mistaken in what they wanted.
Not sure that is the majority of players but its a large number. So as a developer there is a trick between what players SAY they want and what they ACTUALLY want and that is not an easy target to hit.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
1. large scale PvP usually means persistent territorial PvP, best case GvG
territorial PvP is about ressources, because human greed about ressources are the best motivation to fight each other
this means player-driven economy, which is not very popular in theme-parks and tricky to implement, because it harms the usual quest/reward system.
2. you also need huge landmasses (10 times the WvW in GW2 or even more) to give a lot of guilds a chance for their own territory
to create such huge landmasses in a fantasy setting means a huge effort, at least with all the details we are used to. EVE provides here some thousand solar systems which are pretty equal.
you could just provide computer generated and partially repetitive wastelands and give the players tools for terraforming, city-building, planting and breeding to do the rest. they will then create their own, better world.
but this is again a sandbox feature
3. it is also a difference if you have 2000 red crosses on the radar of a scifi-game or 2000 unique player avatars jumping around. so you need restrictions for the graphics (automatic donwscaling of quality in such zones, all use a mask = no faces, all use simple uniforms, less effects, etc ...). also a good load-balancer and server-architecture helps.
i dont say large scaled pvp is not possible in a theme-park, but it is harder to implement.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
not only is it possible the all of the ones who do it are 'indie' developer with far less cash then the big boys.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
indie-games are usually sandboxes. a sandbox has the right tools and philosophy, in order to enable this type of pvp. the big theme-parks all avoid large-scale-pvp due to the above reasons. you cannot just add large-scale pvp to your standard theme-park. you have to change it, in order to be prepared for this type of endgame. and the big companies are not willing to change their theme-parks dramatically (e.g. player-driven economy). the impact to their core-design would be just too heavy.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Yup comes down to betting on the wow factor....
Most AAA companies only bet on what they know will sell..
as long as people are happy with big battlegrounds like GW2, they will provide just this artificial kind of pvp.
dont get me wrong. GW2s WvW is better than in most other theme-parks. but it could have been better.
PS: i am not talking about pvp-ffa. i talk about a fantasy EVE with a fully safe and large Empire, a player driven economy and tons of dynamic events and some EQ1 style epic-quests for PVE. and even larger wastelands with territorial pvp, terraforming & city-building and also some dynamic events for further entertainment.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Market decides what ideas are good, not you.
That's very true, but that's why i say that map design factors alot into pvp. The problem i have with these medium sized areas is that you can reach the next keep/castle/control point in less than 3 minutes. And as uch as i wished i was joking, i'm not. There's no reason to put transport vehicles because of the proximity.
Large scale isn't just big battles with tons of people.
There was an article recently about a group attempting a world record of 1000 people in a single (ground type) battle.
(Space ala EVE is easier because the information about other players is less.)
If we all eventually get fiberoptic connections, huge battles should be no problem at all.
Landscape is processed client side, it has no bearing on bandwidth.
What makes the difference is combat system tho.
People decide what game is good, not market.
Imagine this example:
A guy ask you and more 10000 guys what they like in a book and make a book based on that pool. You read the book and love it.
Now imagine a second situation, a guy make a book making the a similar poll but using only your opinion and 3 more guys opinions.
What book you think that you will love more? The second one of course.
In the first one you need to change stuff add/remove to please everyone, in the second book you just need to do this take into account 4 players.
In mmorpg as a example, many HATE pemadeath, this feature WOULD need to be removed to a game being made to everyone, and this feature, in the opinion of some, would improve alot the game, those guys (permadeath ones) would be player a crappier game because they are playing a game made to everyone.
If people love wow, the specific players that play it would prefer the stuff more specific at them.
Trying to please everyone is stupid. In theory developers would come and start to develop to the specific market without needing to remove add stuff to please the other unrelated market, and would get the time/money of those specific players they aimed to. The problem is there arent those, type of developers, or (a small amount of developers) do stuff like wurm online or they try to make a ultra rip-off copy of wow.
I guess a modern gamer rig could handle rendering a few hundred avatars at Half Life 1 quality. Which was not that bad IMHO. It was not as pretty as recent games but it had everything needed to support gameplay. If that is the result of your automatic donwscaling of quality, I'd consider it acceptable, especially if it is only in mass scenes.
But then again, I'm easy to please when it comes to graphics
.