... because the alternative is thus far pretty much impossible to program and maintain.
The answer is NOT 100% player to player interaction with zero NPC's or developer crafted anything because 75% of players are morons and the game would end up like Second Life.
The answer is ridiculously complex multi-layered AI but the complexities of the sytem neccessary to make it work in a MMO is.. staggering to even try and explain on this forum.
Some of it would be hard and other things would just be a different way of developing... some are even being done as we speak.
If a complex system is programmed really, really well at the beginning it should mean less work later. Notice in the quotes below the concept of "Dens"... pretty well what I described in one of my posts above except these "orcs" don't travel as far... they do however behave in a more organic non-respawning way... or in GW2 speak, actually "dynamic"
(from Game Features - Nations)
Growing a city will cause NPCs start to appear in the city, and as players open shops other NPCs will appear to run those shops. Since the mission system we offer is dynamic, it will be able to make use of the NPCs in the cities and the surrounding wilderness area for job offerings. Another important part of the wilderness is spawning areas we refer to as dens. Dens are a physical object that can be destroyed and that will stop critters from spawning out into the world. If the dens go unchecked, the area will start to crawl with critters and eventually they will start to grow in size as well as numbers. Critters offer economical value for crafting, like many other games. They provide all sorts of needed components that can be extracted once they are dead. The critters and dens can also be targeted during missions offering PvE elements from the cities and additional resources for crafters and adventurers both.
...
(from Game Features - Missions)
The generated mission system works on the concept of templates and roles. Missions are created from templates which can specify a variety of criteria. Each of our NPCs has a variety of settings that make them eligible or ineligible for certain generated mission types. This includes a mix of static and changing traits. Their Profession and Personality for example are static traits. While their Mood and Dilemma are mutating traits. Mutating traits can be altered by yourself or other players completing missions. For example, if you double cross an NPC with a Vindictive personality, they may seek revenge. Each Dilemma has a cause, and that cause can be either a player or an NPC
These guys are trying to do The Repopulation as a "sandbox done right" (AKA "hybrid".) I wish them all the success because they have some great ideas:
What happens IRL though in that system is that Player A doesn't follow their carefully laid plans, and farms out/kills every single Den within a days walk from the town. And now, all of a sudden, there are no enemies to fight near the town and players stop coming to the town and the NPC's stop spawning and populating and you get yet another failed ghost town.
The Repopulation devs need to do some research into the history of UO and specifically their whole dynamic ecology system.
I appluad them for trying something new, but systems only work - no matter how complex or how simple - if players follow the rules.
And if they dont follow the rules then they will get punished, that is how systems work. Any type of system. Positive and negative feedback system.
Yeah systems without punishent for breaking the rules does not work. Examples can be found in real life and also in games. In games - in example - the more anonymous and automatic game is the more asshatery there is.
I already did, but you cleverly left it out of your quote.
MMOs will never be good singleplayer games. The strength of an MMO comes from the story generated by the players.
The players produce, in general terms, nothing much more than piles of corpses in all directions.
Crittur corpses, or other players. In one game, clouds of atomized space debris.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
So you want me to kill this bad ass NPC, even though I know he has been killed by a thousands of other players before me in the same "world"?
Except that's where you and others falter.
Your not supposed to think beyond the story and infer that others have killed the same bad ass NPC; that thousands of other players have done the same deeds. That's where the "role play" part comes in and that's where many players mess up because they are too stuck in the "literal" reality of what is happening.
And that's why theme park mmo's don't work for everyone.
Because, if I play a game of skyrim and I kill the Ulfric Storm Cloak that's not stopping thousands of other players from doing the same. The only thing that maintains the illusion is that it's a single player game. He's still being kill by thousands of other players. In an mmo with other players inhabiting the same space, you still have to adopt that "it was only you who was approoached to kill "Thurm the Tall". You are supposed to adopt a role play reason and immerse yourself in the quest that is given.
But players can't seem to do that.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
What happens IRL though in that system is that Player A doesn't follow their carefully laid plans, and farms out/kills every single Den within a days walk from the town. And now, all of a sudden, there are no enemies to fight near the town and players stop coming to the town and the NPC's stop spawning and populating and you get yet another failed ghost town.
The Repopulation devs need to do some research into the history of UO and specifically their whole dynamic ecology system.
I appluad them for trying something new, but systems only work - no matter how complex or how simple - if players follow the rules.
Well actually UO ecology system was not even tried to be saved, at least not for long anyway. Unless my memory fails me, ecology system failed very fast (no animals, mobs especially weaker ones because players slaughtered them way too fast than anticipated) and because it needed to be "fixed" fast. It was replaced with standard spawn system.
Now wonder 'what if' someone would try to adjust and change this system knowing how players behave?
It was one try and scrapped fast. Imho not enough to know that idea is impossible to implement.
Exactly. It just needs to be done with some anticipation and contingency plans. I think what we all hate and have gotten increasingly bored with is the system that regenerates the same 6 mobs you just killed, including the one veteran level mob, 2 minutes after you killed them in exactly the same spot... it's just the same "ride" restarting for the next customer.
There is a lot of room between that extreme and the empty zone. The area should be kept alive and interesting but better mechanics need to be used... In real life ecologies evolve and open niches are taken over by the next species in line. All it takes is some acceleration of natural processes and we have a more immersive and believable changing environment. All a developer would need to do is increase or decrease the rate as needed.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
It had a very great story, but you were not the protagonist...you just happend to be there to assist the main protaganist in that particular story. You weren't "The Chosen One". You were the "Wrong Place Wrong Time One"
I don't know how many times I read in a CS... "Take this/these Adventurer(s) with you" Or "Hey you Adventurer(s)"
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
So you want me to kill this bad ass NPC, even though I know he has been killed by a thousands of other players before me in the same "world"?
Except that's where you and others falter.
Your not supposed to think beyond the story and infer that others have killed the same bad ass NPC; that thousands of other players have done the same deeds. That's where the "role play" part comes in and that's where many players mess up because they are too stuck in the "literal" reality of what is happening.
And that's why theme park mmo's don't work for everyone.
Because, if I play a game of skyrim and I kill the Ulfric Storm Cloak that's not stopping thousands of other players from doing the same. The only thing that maintains the illusion is that it's a single player game. He's still being kill by thousands of other players. In an mmo with other players inhabiting the same space, you still have to adopt that "it was only you who was approoached to kill "Thurm the Tall". You are supposed to adopt a role play reason and immerse yourself in the quest that is given.
But players can't seem to do that.
We can and we do but don't you think there might be a better way in a game designed for thousands? It's just lazy development to do it the same way it was done before and rely on our suspension of disbelief to make it work...one more time.
If you were the guy who killed Ulfric you'll be That Guy Who Killed Ulfric and I won't be. Enjoy your fame while it lasts because his family just put a bounty on your head. We can talk about a suitable amount of gold if you want me and my friends from the companions to hunt down the assassins for you... this should be the MMO way of doing the same story.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
A NPC has lost her ring... even though 1,000,000 players before me had found and returned it. Is she that stupid?
Now my own character talks for me? This doesn't feel like "me" anymore; it feels like I'm turning the pages of a fricken' book.
Quests should not be personalized. Any answer to a quest giver should be a simple YES or NO.
I agree. I long for the days back like in EQ when you got plopped down into the world and you were just another dude trying to make his way. You go up to the gate guard and he says "yeah, you look like a decent guy, i'll give you a chance... we got a rat problem is the sewers nearby, go take care of it and maybe ill tell my seargent about you..."
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
It makes me sick.
Reality is its just a reflection of modern society, or rather i should say the feeling of entitlement newer generations seems to have. They feel like they deserve things just because they exist, not because they've done anything to earn it.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
We can and we do but don't you think there might be a better way in a game designed for thousands? It's just lazy development to do it the same way it was done before and rely on our suspension of disbelief to make it work...one more time.
If you were the guy who killed Ulfric you'll be That Guy Who Killed Ulfric and I won't be. Enjoy your fame while it lasts because his family just put a bounty on your head. We can talk about a suitable amount of gold if you want me and my friends from the companions to hunt down the assassins for you... this should be the MMO way of doing the same story.
That's a great point and it helps support exactly the other component of what I'm saying:
These aren't worlds. Sorry.
The failure is not on the "themepark games" the failure is on the players who insist that they are worlds and that they are piss poor worlds. Well, if they were worlds then they would omdeed be piss poor.
But they are not. They are movie sets, theme parkss, flats, fly system, pyrotechnics and whatever theater terms you can come up with.
They are put together to offer a scripted experience. No more no less.
I would be one of the first people who would say that mmo's, those that want to be worlds, just don't work when you attach anything greater than player interaction to them.
A proper lord of the rings mmo just doesn't work unless you throw out a lot of what make middle earth "middle earth".
When you kill the world boss in some Sandbox that boss will probably come back again. Unless there is a storied reason for it to do so the only way to make it remotely believable and palatable is to change it's color and reassign it some random name so someone can do it again.
My thought, espeically if I was to make a themepark mmo, is to create expansions that are essentially "stories" but stories for the whole server. The playerbase would do what they wanted and each time something was done, accomplished, etc, it would then move the story of that server along to the next point.
So, there is a king and that king is making a peace treaty that would hamper players abilities to freely trade certain items. Allow for a player or group of players to try to assassnate him or a group of players to catch wind of this and try to stop those players. there are quests but those quests lead players to the appropriate spot in the quest chain that leads up to a possibility of assassination/warning the king.
Make it hard, make it something that requires players to think and work together and make quests world events of sorts.
but what does that do? It alienates those players who don't have time to play and they feel like they aren't really a part of the world and what's going on. So that's why we have everyone participating and being "the chosen one" in these themepark games.
but that's what themepark mmo's are about. They are about developer created story and not about player created events.
And note "not player created stories" because players rarely create "story" and create something more akin to anecdotes.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
As an experiment, try designing some dynamic plot lines on paper. Completely ignore the technical details of how it would happen and focus on what would actually happen for the player. Create a pool of resources for the system to pull from, and then walk through the scenarios. Do a story board kind of thing. The number of options you have to have available will escalate quickly because the system will not be intelligent enough to create those options on the fly like a person would. Once you've done that, think about scaling the process up for an entire game. The source options for a small town are not going to be the same source options for a large city and they won't work for the bandit camp either.
Talk is cheap and it's fair to ask me to take another step if I'm so convinced, but I dislike storyboards. The problem with a storyboard is that they're a creative trap. If you find a pane of the storyboard that you don't like and try to tweak it, the most expedient fix is to add a static event - and step by step that just drags you down the path of a scripted story.
I prefer to think in terms of information. When you happen across a bandit camp, what does that tell you? In a scripted game, it tells you nothing to see a bandit camp because the author just arbitrarily dumped one there. In a simulation-based game, if I see a bandit camp, that's telling about the social and economic situation of the area. Whatever other loot or gossip or future friends the camp might contain, its mere existance is already meaningful. How many scripted games can honestly say that?
one thing fun in guildwars is starting an escort quest and letting the quest npcs get hacked to death by monsters then just walking off into the sunset.... but it's till not worth the price of admission to the game.
I see a bandit camp, I would like to talk to the bandits, join them and kick that NPC's butt for sending me after there teddy bear. then help the bandits farm other do-gooders trying to take back the teddy bear from the hard working bandit gentlemen.
A NPC has lost her ring... even though 1,000,000 players before me had found and returned it. Is she that stupid?
Now my own character talks for me? This doesn't feel like "me" anymore; it feels like I'm turning the pages of a fricken' book.
Quests should not be personalized. Any answer to a quest giver should be a simple YES or NO.
I agree. I long for the days back like in EQ when you got plopped down into the world and you were just another dude trying to make his way. You go up to the gate guard and he says "yeah, you look like a decent guy, i'll give you a chance... we got a rat problem is the sewers nearby, go take care of it and maybe ill tell my seargent about you..."
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
It makes me sick.
Reality is its just a reflection of modern society, or rather i should say the feeling of entitlement newer generations seems to have. They feel like they deserve things just because they exist, not because they've done anything to earn it.
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
Wow! Sounds cool! That must've been on the Alliance side, though, because over on the Horde side we were sent to beat orcs with sticks or kill bugs when we started, and the rewards were usually a 'worn' or 'tattered' slightly better version of what we were using.
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
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
Wow! Sounds cool! That must've been on the Alliance side, though, because over on the Horde side we were sent to beat orcs with sticks or kill bugs when we started, and the rewards were usually a 'worn' or 'tattered' slightly better version of what we were using.
I think what he was trying to convey is that in eq1 back in 99 you had to have a magic user buddy and reach level 15 or so before you could even quest for a weapon that had the word magic in it, because without that word magic in it you couldn't even harm certain creatures that were 4-5 levels lower than you at the time. and by level 20 you ran if you seen a level 20 normal monster and you didn't have a buddy or 5 nearby with heals available for you... and lets hope they have a big enough mana pool to keep you alive while you're getting trounced.
The quests got you like 1-4 silver, some faction gains and after you did the quest 2-3 times you had enough coin to get drunk in the tavern if you stuck with the cheap ales... when you went to a dungeon you many friends, when you wanted exp you found a group, when you wanted to die a lot, you played hero. And lost levels in death, about 1/2 hour or 2 good hours of grinding's worth of experience.
Originally posted by maplestone Originally posted by lizardbonesAs an experiment, try designing some dynamic plot lines on paper. Completely ignore the technical details of how it would happen and focus on what would actually happen for the player. Create a pool of resources for the system to pull from, and then walk through the scenarios. Do a story board kind of thing. The number of options you have to have available will escalate quickly because the system will not be intelligent enough to create those options on the fly like a person would. Once you've done that, think about scaling the process up for an entire game. The source options for a small town are not going to be the same source options for a large city and they won't work for the bandit camp either.
Talk is cheap and it's fair to ask me to take another step if I'm so convinced, but I dislike storyboards. The problem with a storyboard is that they're a creative trap. If you find a pane of the storyboard that you don't like and try to tweak it, the most expedient fix is to add a static event - and step by step that just drags you down the path of a scripted story.
I prefer to think in terms of information. When you happen across a bandit camp, what does that tell you? In a scripted game, it tells you nothing to see a bandit camp because the author just arbitrarily dumped one there. In a simulation-based game, if I see a bandit camp, that's telling about the social and economic situation of the area. Whatever other loot or gossip or future friends the camp might contain, its mere existance is already meaningful. How many scripted games can honestly say that?
The storyboard thing is just an example of how trying to give players more options in a story driven environment increases the resources you need to tell the story. That story is a simulation. It's a very limited simulation because you really only have one input and one output possible. In order to create the type of thing you are talking about, the number of possible inputs and outputs needs to be increased. It doesn't change the process, only the scale.
If you increase the number of possible results based on user input, the simulation gets better, until it no longer appears scripted, by appears dynamic. The problem is that to create that great simulation, you have to have the story boards for all the possible player actions and all the possible system responses. It's not feasible to have all that stuff programmed into the system's rules. It's not possible to have a system that can create responses based on user input.
The only way to bridge the gap is with an AI that understands humans well enough to create responses on the fly that make sense not only to humans, but makes sense to humans in the context of the game that's being played. The AI has to be capable of telling a story. I don't know how far away we are from being able to do that, but I'm guessing a decades.
Using bandits, for each bandit that exists, you have a set of rules for them. For each player action, the bandits have a response. If the player does nothing, a bandit will watch the player, eventually trying to force the player to move on. Eventually the bandit will attack the player. If the player attacks the bandit, the bandit attacks the player, and the other bandits will attack the player also. If the player runs from the bandit, the bandit will attack the player, but the other bandits will just watch. If the player tries to initiate a trade with the bandit, the bandit will trade with the player, but might try to cheat the player. So far, so good, but players might do other stuff, like attack mobs that the bandits are attacking or attack players that the bandits are attacking. If you don't write the rules in, the bandits don't know what to do. Do you fall back to a default rule of attack the player or do you roll the dice and pick an action at random? You can't just ask the system to create a response because it can't. You have to write a rule that tells the bandits what to do. If you write enough rules, and your system is powerful enough to process all the rules, you might end up with something that accurately simulates bandit activity. Especially if you don't give all the bandits the exact same responses and vary the responses with probabilities. Some bandits have a higher aggression ratio than others, so are much more likely to attack versus trade. Some bandits are more likely to cheat. Some bandits would be more likely to trust the player if they attack a mob that's attacking the bandits.
It's just a lot of work. Especially for something that players are probably going to ignore anyway. Which is my guess as to why there isn't more research in this type of thing. Game developers are some of the most intelligent and cutting edge people writing software today. It's not worth their time though. There's more benefit to writing network code that cuts down on lag than writing AI for a mob that makes them appear more dynamic because the player is just going to kill that mob. They don't care that it's migrated across half the continent looking for a suitable place to live.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Lizardbones, I'm concerned we've hit an impass where our imaginations are in two incomplatable places and we're beginning to talk past each other instead of to each other, so I'm going to step back. I just wanted to acknowledge that I did read your post and try long and hard to wrap my ideas into another response
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
Wow! Sounds cool! That must've been on the Alliance side, though, because over on the Horde side we were sent to beat orcs with sticks or kill bugs when we started, and the rewards were usually a 'worn' or 'tattered' slightly better version of what we were using.
I think what he was trying to convey is that in eq1 back in 99 you had to have a magic user buddy and reach level 15 or so before you could even quest for a weapon that had the word magic in it, because without that word magic in it you couldn't even harm certain creatures that were 4-5 levels lower than you at the time. and by level 20 you ran if you seen a level 20 normal monster and you didn't have a buddy or 5 nearby with heals available for you... and lets hope they have a big enough mana pool to keep you alive while you're getting trounced.
The quests got you like 1-4 silver, some faction gains and after you did the quest 2-3 times you had enough coin to get drunk in the tavern if you stuck with the cheap ales... when you went to a dungeon you many friends, when you wanted exp you found a group, when you wanted to die a lot, you played hero. And lost levels in death, about 1/2 hour or 2 good hours of grinding's worth of experience.
Wow... what a horrible, masochostic experience. No wonder he views killing five scorpions on a hill for a couple copper and a worn dagger as some epic town-saving action with magic treasures and blowjobs as rewards. Compared to the mundane, unrewarding and subpar experience you EQers describe, starter quests in todays MMOs are a pretty epic experience!
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
I think what he was trying to convey is that in eq1 back in 99 you had to have a magic user buddy and reach level 15 or so before you could even quest for a weapon that had the word magic in it, because without that word magic in it you couldn't even harm certain creatures that were 4-5 levels lower than you at the time. and by level 20 you ran if you seen a level 20 normal monster and you didn't have a buddy or 5 nearby with heals available for you... and lets hope they have a big enough mana pool to keep you alive while you're getting trounced.
The quests got you like 1-4 silver, some faction gains and after you did the quest 2-3 times you had enough coin to get drunk in the tavern if you stuck with the cheap ales... when you went to a dungeon you many friends, when you wanted exp you found a group, when you wanted to die a lot, you played hero. And lost levels in death, about 1/2 hour or 2 good hours of grinding's worth of experience.
Wow... what a horrible, masochostic experience. No wonder he views killing five scorpions on a hill for a couple copper and a worn dagger as some epic town-saving action with magic treasures and blowjobs as rewards. Compared to the mundane, unrewarding and subpar experience you EQers describe, starter quests in todays MMOs are a pretty epic experience!
Exactly.
Amazing what people realize when they take off the rose colored glasses.
Originally posted by maplestone Lizardbones, I'm concerned we've hit an impass where our imaginations are in two incomplatable places and we're beginning to talk past each other instead of to each other, so I'm going to step back. I just wanted to acknowledge that I did read your post and try long and hard to wrap my ideas into another response
I was kind of thinking that exact same thing. After awhile, I wasn't sure my responses had as much to do with your posts as my imagination. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There is a very simple solution to your problem.....don't do the story line. Go explore, craft, kill things (PvP and PvE) and just adventure in general. If you don't want to be the special little snowflake, then don't be. In most games you can get gear that's equivalent or better than whatever you'd get from completing the story so that's not an issue either.
If the story is a waste of time and is useless anyway simply don't do it.
I also wonder if the people who don't want to be a special snowflake are the same ones who complain when they don't get the uber kick ass gear on killing a boss. Doesn't that make you a snowflake too? How about "discovering" a crafting recipe?
What you're really looking for is an MMO that is specifically tailored to you. I don't think it's that you don't want to be the special snowflake, it's that you want to be the ONLY snowflake. Unless you just want to always remain the "everyman", just that one guy of many who fought in the war..... If that's all you want then just play real life.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
Wow! Sounds cool! That must've been on the Alliance side, though, because over on the Horde side we were sent to beat orcs with sticks or kill bugs when we started, and the rewards were usually a 'worn' or 'tattered' slightly better version of what we were using.
Well, modern MMOs do bear a striking resemblance to what we used to call Monty Haul gms...
But the top end is balanced for it. The system doesn't collapse under its own weight like AD&D does. Blizzard just (slowly) shifts the scale up the Colors.
The main complaint seems to be "Epics aren't Epic!"--but epic's just another color on the sliding scale, when itemization IS your entire system. It's more a matter of getting hung up on the Title than anything.
People look back at AD&D systems (where magic is rare, rare, rare) and shake their heads. But other people raised on a Diablo model--it's just a green, dude--millions disenchanted every day. I envision one with a dozen archmages living in huts producing all of the magic items in the lands one by one---and giant magic factories with archmage mass production lines turning them out by the millions on conveyoer belts.
Yes, hand made Bugattis are more valued than Rusty Ford Pintos. Go figure.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Comments
Yeah systems without punishent for breaking the rules does not work. Examples can be found in real life and also in games. In games - in example - the more anonymous and automatic game is the more asshatery there is.
The players produce, in general terms, nothing much more than piles of corpses in all directions.
Crittur corpses, or other players. In one game, clouds of atomized space debris.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Except that's where you and others falter.
Your not supposed to think beyond the story and infer that others have killed the same bad ass NPC; that thousands of other players have done the same deeds. That's where the "role play" part comes in and that's where many players mess up because they are too stuck in the "literal" reality of what is happening.
And that's why theme park mmo's don't work for everyone.
Because, if I play a game of skyrim and I kill the Ulfric Storm Cloak that's not stopping thousands of other players from doing the same. The only thing that maintains the illusion is that it's a single player game. He's still being kill by thousands of other players. In an mmo with other players inhabiting the same space, you still have to adopt that "it was only you who was approoached to kill "Thurm the Tall". You are supposed to adopt a role play reason and immerse yourself in the quest that is given.
But players can't seem to do that.
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
Exactly. It just needs to be done with some anticipation and contingency plans. I think what we all hate and have gotten increasingly bored with is the system that regenerates the same 6 mobs you just killed, including the one veteran level mob, 2 minutes after you killed them in exactly the same spot... it's just the same "ride" restarting for the next customer.
There is a lot of room between that extreme and the empty zone. The area should be kept alive and interesting but better mechanics need to be used... In real life ecologies evolve and open niches are taken over by the next species in line. All it takes is some acceleration of natural processes and we have a more immersive and believable changing environment. All a developer would need to do is increase or decrease the rate as needed.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
FFXI did it right, for the style game it was.
It had a very great story, but you were not the protagonist...you just happend to be there to assist the main protaganist in that particular story. You weren't "The Chosen One". You were the "Wrong Place Wrong Time One"
I don't know how many times I read in a CS... "Take this/these Adventurer(s) with you" Or "Hey you Adventurer(s)"
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
We can and we do but don't you think there might be a better way in a game designed for thousands? It's just lazy development to do it the same way it was done before and rely on our suspension of disbelief to make it work...one more time.
If you were the guy who killed Ulfric you'll be That Guy Who Killed Ulfric and I won't be. Enjoy your fame while it lasts because his family just put a bounty on your head. We can talk about a suitable amount of gold if you want me and my friends from the companions to hunt down the assassins for you... this should be the MMO way of doing the same story.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I agree. I long for the days back like in EQ when you got plopped down into the world and you were just another dude trying to make his way. You go up to the gate guard and he says "yeah, you look like a decent guy, i'll give you a chance... we got a rat problem is the sewers nearby, go take care of it and maybe ill tell my seargent about you..."
Instead (and i blame WOW for this) every MMO comes out you are the world savior captain mcbadass and within seconds of logging into the game and creating your character, invariably you're saving a town from an incoming horde of goblins or kobolds or something like that. And then you basically have the entire town trying to kick eath other down in a rush to fellate you because you're just so damn awesome.
Then they reward you with a fantastical magical sword of ass kickery +5 for your heroic deeds.
It makes me sick.
Reality is its just a reflection of modern society, or rather i should say the feeling of entitlement newer generations seems to have. They feel like they deserve things just because they exist, not because they've done anything to earn it.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
single player game = one heroe
MMOs = many heroes
*shrugs*
That's a great point and it helps support exactly the other component of what I'm saying:
These aren't worlds. Sorry.
The failure is not on the "themepark games" the failure is on the players who insist that they are worlds and that they are piss poor worlds. Well, if they were worlds then they would omdeed be piss poor.
But they are not. They are movie sets, theme parkss, flats, fly system, pyrotechnics and whatever theater terms you can come up with.
They are put together to offer a scripted experience. No more no less.
I would be one of the first people who would say that mmo's, those that want to be worlds, just don't work when you attach anything greater than player interaction to them.
A proper lord of the rings mmo just doesn't work unless you throw out a lot of what make middle earth "middle earth".
When you kill the world boss in some Sandbox that boss will probably come back again. Unless there is a storied reason for it to do so the only way to make it remotely believable and palatable is to change it's color and reassign it some random name so someone can do it again.
My thought, espeically if I was to make a themepark mmo, is to create expansions that are essentially "stories" but stories for the whole server. The playerbase would do what they wanted and each time something was done, accomplished, etc, it would then move the story of that server along to the next point.
So, there is a king and that king is making a peace treaty that would hamper players abilities to freely trade certain items. Allow for a player or group of players to try to assassnate him or a group of players to catch wind of this and try to stop those players. there are quests but those quests lead players to the appropriate spot in the quest chain that leads up to a possibility of assassination/warning the king.
Make it hard, make it something that requires players to think and work together and make quests world events of sorts.
but what does that do? It alienates those players who don't have time to play and they feel like they aren't really a part of the world and what's going on. So that's why we have everyone participating and being "the chosen one" in these themepark games.
but that's what themepark mmo's are about. They are about developer created story and not about player created events.
And note "not player created stories" because players rarely create "story" and create something more akin to anecdotes.
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
Talk is cheap and it's fair to ask me to take another step if I'm so convinced, but I dislike storyboards. The problem with a storyboard is that they're a creative trap. If you find a pane of the storyboard that you don't like and try to tweak it, the most expedient fix is to add a static event - and step by step that just drags you down the path of a scripted story.
I prefer to think in terms of information. When you happen across a bandit camp, what does that tell you? In a scripted game, it tells you nothing to see a bandit camp because the author just arbitrarily dumped one there. In a simulation-based game, if I see a bandit camp, that's telling about the social and economic situation of the area. Whatever other loot or gossip or future friends the camp might contain, its mere existance is already meaningful. How many scripted games can honestly say that?
BINGO well said mate.
Wow! Sounds cool! That must've been on the Alliance side, though, because over on the Horde side we were sent to beat orcs with sticks or kill bugs when we started, and the rewards were usually a 'worn' or 'tattered' slightly better version of what we were using.
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
I think what he was trying to convey is that in eq1 back in 99 you had to have a magic user buddy and reach level 15 or so before you could even quest for a weapon that had the word magic in it, because without that word magic in it you couldn't even harm certain creatures that were 4-5 levels lower than you at the time. and by level 20 you ran if you seen a level 20 normal monster and you didn't have a buddy or 5 nearby with heals available for you... and lets hope they have a big enough mana pool to keep you alive while you're getting trounced.
The quests got you like 1-4 silver, some faction gains and after you did the quest 2-3 times you had enough coin to get drunk in the tavern if you stuck with the cheap ales... when you went to a dungeon you many friends, when you wanted exp you found a group, when you wanted to die a lot, you played hero. And lost levels in death, about 1/2 hour or 2 good hours of grinding's worth of experience.
I prefer to think in terms of information. When you happen across a bandit camp, what does that tell you? In a scripted game, it tells you nothing to see a bandit camp because the author just arbitrarily dumped one there. In a simulation-based game, if I see a bandit camp, that's telling about the social and economic situation of the area. Whatever other loot or gossip or future friends the camp might contain, its mere existance is already meaningful. How many scripted games can honestly say that?
The storyboard thing is just an example of how trying to give players more options in a story driven environment increases the resources you need to tell the story. That story is a simulation. It's a very limited simulation because you really only have one input and one output possible. In order to create the type of thing you are talking about, the number of possible inputs and outputs needs to be increased. It doesn't change the process, only the scale.
If you increase the number of possible results based on user input, the simulation gets better, until it no longer appears scripted, by appears dynamic. The problem is that to create that great simulation, you have to have the story boards for all the possible player actions and all the possible system responses. It's not feasible to have all that stuff programmed into the system's rules. It's not possible to have a system that can create responses based on user input.
The only way to bridge the gap is with an AI that understands humans well enough to create responses on the fly that make sense not only to humans, but makes sense to humans in the context of the game that's being played. The AI has to be capable of telling a story. I don't know how far away we are from being able to do that, but I'm guessing a decades.
Using bandits, for each bandit that exists, you have a set of rules for them. For each player action, the bandits have a response. If the player does nothing, a bandit will watch the player, eventually trying to force the player to move on. Eventually the bandit will attack the player. If the player attacks the bandit, the bandit attacks the player, and the other bandits will attack the player also. If the player runs from the bandit, the bandit will attack the player, but the other bandits will just watch. If the player tries to initiate a trade with the bandit, the bandit will trade with the player, but might try to cheat the player. So far, so good, but players might do other stuff, like attack mobs that the bandits are attacking or attack players that the bandits are attacking. If you don't write the rules in, the bandits don't know what to do. Do you fall back to a default rule of attack the player or do you roll the dice and pick an action at random? You can't just ask the system to create a response because it can't. You have to write a rule that tells the bandits what to do. If you write enough rules, and your system is powerful enough to process all the rules, you might end up with something that accurately simulates bandit activity. Especially if you don't give all the bandits the exact same responses and vary the responses with probabilities. Some bandits have a higher aggression ratio than others, so are much more likely to attack versus trade. Some bandits are more likely to cheat. Some bandits would be more likely to trust the player if they attack a mob that's attacking the bandits.
It's just a lot of work. Especially for something that players are probably going to ignore anyway. Which is my guess as to why there isn't more research in this type of thing. Game developers are some of the most intelligent and cutting edge people writing software today. It's not worth their time though. There's more benefit to writing network code that cuts down on lag than writing AI for a mob that makes them appear more dynamic because the player is just going to kill that mob. They don't care that it's migrated across half the continent looking for a suitable place to live.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Lizardbones, I'm concerned we've hit an impass where our imaginations are in two incomplatable places and we're beginning to talk past each other instead of to each other, so I'm going to step back. I just wanted to acknowledge that I did read your post and try long and hard to wrap my ideas into another response
Wow... what a horrible, masochostic experience.
No wonder he views killing five scorpions on a hill for a couple copper and a worn dagger as some epic town-saving action with magic treasures and blowjobs as rewards. Compared to the mundane, unrewarding and subpar experience you EQers describe, starter quests in todays MMOs are a pretty epic experience!
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
Exactly.
Amazing what people realize when they take off the rose colored glasses.
I was kind of thinking that exact same thing. After awhile, I wasn't sure my responses had as much to do with your posts as my imagination. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Actually I just wanna be a TKM/MSwordsman again, gosh!
There is a very simple solution to your problem.....don't do the story line. Go explore, craft, kill things (PvP and PvE) and just adventure in general. If you don't want to be the special little snowflake, then don't be. In most games you can get gear that's equivalent or better than whatever you'd get from completing the story so that's not an issue either.
If the story is a waste of time and is useless anyway simply don't do it.
I also wonder if the people who don't want to be a special snowflake are the same ones who complain when they don't get the uber kick ass gear on killing a boss. Doesn't that make you a snowflake too? How about "discovering" a crafting recipe?
What you're really looking for is an MMO that is specifically tailored to you. I don't think it's that you don't want to be the special snowflake, it's that you want to be the ONLY snowflake. Unless you just want to always remain the "everyman", just that one guy of many who fought in the war..... If that's all you want then just play real life.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
So, you wanna end up just sitting at your house waiting for the bad guys to come kill you?
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
Well, modern MMOs do bear a striking resemblance to what we used to call Monty Haul gms...
But the top end is balanced for it. The system doesn't collapse under its own weight like AD&D does. Blizzard just (slowly) shifts the scale up the Colors.
The main complaint seems to be "Epics aren't Epic!"--but epic's just another color on the sliding scale, when itemization IS your entire system. It's more a matter of getting hung up on the Title than anything.
People look back at AD&D systems (where magic is rare, rare, rare) and shake their heads. But other people raised on a Diablo model--it's just a green, dude--millions disenchanted every day. I envision one with a dozen archmages living in huts producing all of the magic items in the lands one by one---and giant magic factories with archmage mass production lines turning them out by the millions on conveyoer belts.
Yes, hand made Bugattis are more valued than Rusty Ford Pintos. Go figure.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.