Problem is everyone tried to make a "WOW Killer" to gain WOWs user base. Thus all you have is WOW clones. Developers are starting to give up on copying WOW and that is a good thing. Wildstar has a good idea but the graphics are a WOW knock off, which turns some off completely. EQNext looks great , because the environments are Planetside 2 like(realistic). Also another problem is everyone tries to be niche, example Darkfall 2, Defiance etc. Try catering to a universal crowd and your game may last more than a year. Off topic, Bill you guys should move to DISQUS messaging for this!
Originally posted by wowclonez Problem is everyone tried to make a "WOW Killer" to gain WOWs user base. Thus all you have is WOW clones. Developers are starting to give up on copying WOW and that is a good thing. Wildstar has a good idea but the graphics are a WOW knock off, which turns some off completely. EQNext looks great , because the environments are Planetside 2 like(realistic). Also another problem is everyone tries to be niche, example Darkfall 2, Defiance etc. Try catering to a universal crowd and your game may last more than a year. Off topic, Bill you guys should move to DISQUS messaging for this!
I agree, no one is ever going to make a game exactly the way "I" want it. but would it hurt to have a few more options than standard theme park #234 and under funded Indy title (theme park or sandbox) #67?
I'm just tired of the current options that are out there, and yes, for the record I did try a lot of titles both AAA and Indy and find the fun in them. Ended up spending anywhere from 1 - 3 months in each, and for the game hoppers this is great, goes well with their play style.
But for the same reason I read very long novels instead of short stories, I prefer longer, more engaging MMORPGs where I might spend 6 months to 5 years in the same virtual world (perhaps on and off) and as of late, there's been few titles in this design category.
Just like you really can't create a game with the perfect blend of PVE and PVP without making tradeoffs somewhere, I don't think you can make a title designed for long term retention and try to make it interesting enough for the short term game players out there at the same time.
Developers keep trying, and so far the majority of the designs seem to favor the short term customer, would be nice to see a title or two designed a bit differently.
Yeah, I know, it won't sell enough to justify the cost.
Pity.
Yes it is a pity and it puts us in the same situation as all the OW FFA PvP crowd. But their model for an MMO was never going to work anyway.
I think a change will come, but when I don't know. I am not sure if it will be the programming that drives it or the hardware. IMO, what lacking to make a "virtual world" is the intelligence of the NPCS's . I think that is where the PvP guys have it wrong. Yes, humans are more intelligent and adaptive to situations and therefore provide more challenge to gameplay. The problem that comes with that is the complete and utter asshattery that those intelligent humans bring to the gameplay. And it is uncontrollable.
However if you can create NPC's that behave intelligently, but behave according to some kind moral guildelines, then you might have the ideal game. Something like Aasimov's rules of robotics. Rule number 4 , "though shalt not behave like a complete asshat against a human player" I think we all want to go "Wow I did not expect that character to do that!! " when we play a game, and not " Oh there is another mob, lets wade in and wipe them out" kind of thing.
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
great article Bill. I often disagree with how you review games but tend to agree with the final judgment about them.
I don't think the cure is all one sided and it's just the devs that need to change. Most vet players are negative people. Negativity is a disease that infects people and only gets worse over time.
So many people here think they just have high standards or think they're doing some public service by always being the one to point out a games flaws but you can't see the good in things when you're only looking for the bad in everything.
Being negative is like any other chemical addiction. The ones who have it the worst will fight the hardest to avoid seeing the problem. To them how they see the world is the right way to view it. It's hard to look at yourself and see you're part of the problem.
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Trying to re-invent the mmo genre when it wasn't broken in the first place. MMO's like EverQuest, WOW, UO, DAOC and FFXI were keeping mmo players happy. Not every mmo was the same and they all provided something different for everyone. When devs and publishers wanted to cater to the casuals and go mainstream that is when the industry started to fail hard. MMOs are not soley just for casuals, they never were.
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
I will start by saying some gamers have solid balanced ideas that could actually be implemented.
That being said, most don't. I'll use Asheron's Call as an example. They were going to do a major change to the weapon skills (the short jist of it was take all of their melee skills which were broken up by weapon type as sword, axe, dagger, mace etc. and make 2 new skills: Heavy and Finesse weapons). They brought this to the player base months before it was implemented to open up the discussion and get feedback to adjustments. A group of the player base became adamant that they needed three skills: Heavy, Finesse, and Light. The Asheron's Call devs put up that they didn't think this was wise and that it wouldn't be a skill that was used much and would essentially just bloat the game that they were trying to remove bloat and balance issue from. The players insisted and they added the third skill.
The patch came around and quickly players avoided light weapons. Almost no one uses that skill, but now there is more loot that gets in the way of finding what you want (because light weapons drop) there are more quest weapons that aren't liked (because they are light weapons) and there is another whole skill that gets in the way that people don't take.
So why did this happen when players think they know what is the best design so often? They were blinded by how they currently play and not by how they would play with these changes. Because of this they felt light weapons filled a role that it didn't (and which wouldn't really be there after the changes) so they demanded it. Even with developers directly trying to point this out they were sure that they were right and now there is a permanent skill in the game that everyone dislikes and avoids because it always makes more sense to use Heavy or Finesse instead of light.
So there is an issue with opening up your plans early as players will all think they have the best change/solution that should be added. Listen to them and you could end up with stuff people don't like, don't listen to them and people could complain you never listen. It is a no win situation.
I actually think MMOs should remain fully silent until they are hitting beta. No hype, no misinformation, no false expectations, none of it. Just "hey here is our game try it out for what it is".
I've seen far fewer rage/panic posts with Asheron's Call's new approach which is to essentially not hint/hype anything about upcoming big patches until the patch notes come out (traditionally the Thursday/Friday before patch). Because instead of players twisting and distorting what COULD happen, they instead jump right in to see what DID happen and it is never as bad, and often far better, than their mind would have made it out to be.
excellent example, one reason why test servers and an ACTIVE incentive program to get people to use it can be so valuable. And while a lot of a mmo's have test servers, they rarely incentivize and hardly ever focus test
most test servers end up being nothing more the "build/skill testers" for the min/maxers
EDIT
I give Cryptic/PWE a lot of crap for basic design but in this area they do ok or at least better than the average. At least in the area of getting people on the test server.
That could help that particular situation a bit, but wouldn't help the point I was trying to illustrate overall.
The article suggested to be open with information very early (basically we've just started making this game stage). There would be no test server or anything at that point in time. The type of gamers who follow all of that early info, every tweet, every tease, etc. tend to have minds which twist and distort the information put out into what they WANT it to be instead of what it is.
Those are the ones who get all hyped up over every new release only to be either disappointed when all the fine details get released or who get disappointed a week into the game because although the game may be exactly as advertised, it isn't what their brain turned it into.
I don't think there is any way you could give information early to those people that would let this happen so I don't think releasing information even earlier would help. Instead I think being silent until you are ready to open the game up for beta and then doing a "Hey we're making a new MMO, here's all the details and btw sign up for beta below and try it out." Now players don't have time to twist any of the information because it comes out at the same time they can get their hands on it. I think those players who appreciate the game more for what it actually is with that method.
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
If you are designing your game for only one type of predictable play style then yes you can do it. but currently someone who prefers easier content want ai to act a certain way. Hard cores want it different. Rprs something else. groupers...you guessed it. Eventually all your clock cycles are solely devoted to controlling the infinite number of ai responses and the game stops.
I will start by saying some gamers have solid balanced ideas that could actually be implemented.
That being said, most don't. I'll use Asheron's Call as an example. They were going to do a major change to the weapon skills (the short jist of it was take all of their melee skills which were broken up by weapon type as sword, axe, dagger, mace etc. and make 2 new skills: Heavy and Finesse weapons). They brought this to the player base months before it was implemented to open up the discussion and get feedback to adjustments. A group of the player base became adamant that they needed three skills: Heavy, Finesse, and Light. The Asheron's Call devs put up that they didn't think this was wise and that it wouldn't be a skill that was used much and would essentially just bloat the game that they were trying to remove bloat and balance issue from. The players insisted and they added the third skill.
The patch came around and quickly players avoided light weapons. Almost no one uses that skill, but now there is more loot that gets in the way of finding what you want (because light weapons drop) there are more quest weapons that aren't liked (because they are light weapons) and there is another whole skill that gets in the way that people don't take.
So why did this happen when players think they know what is the best design so often? They were blinded by how they currently play and not by how they would play with these changes. Because of this they felt light weapons filled a role that it didn't (and which wouldn't really be there after the changes) so they demanded it. Even with developers directly trying to point this out they were sure that they were right and now there is a permanent skill in the game that everyone dislikes and avoids because it always makes more sense to use Heavy or Finesse instead of light.
So there is an issue with opening up your plans early as players will all think they have the best change/solution that should be added. Listen to them and you could end up with stuff people don't like, don't listen to them and people could complain you never listen. It is a no win situation.
I actually think MMOs should remain fully silent until they are hitting beta. No hype, no misinformation, no false expectations, none of it. Just "hey here is our game try it out for what it is".
I've seen far fewer rage/panic posts with Asheron's Call's new approach which is to essentially not hint/hype anything about upcoming big patches until the patch notes come out (traditionally the Thursday/Friday before patch). Because instead of players twisting and distorting what COULD happen, they instead jump right in to see what DID happen and it is never as bad, and often far better, than their mind would have made it out to be.
excellent example, one reason why test servers and an ACTIVE incentive program to get people to use it can be so valuable. And while a lot of a mmo's have test servers, they rarely incentivize and hardly ever focus test
most test servers end up being nothing more the "build/skill testers" for the min/maxers
EDIT
I give Cryptic/PWE a lot of crap for basic design but in this area they do ok or at least better than the average. At least in the area of getting people on the test server.
That could help that particular situation a bit, but wouldn't help the point I was trying to illustrate overall.
The article suggested to be open with information very early (basically we've just started making this game stage). There would be no test server or anything at that point in time. The type of gamers who follow all of that early info, every tweet, every tease, etc. tend to have minds which twist and distort the information put out into what they WANT it to be instead of what it is.
Those are the ones who get all hyped up over every new release only to be either disappointed when all the fine details get released or who get disappointed a week into the game because although the game may be exactly as advertised, it isn't what their brain turned it into.
I don't think there is any way you could give information early to those people that would let this happen so I don't think releasing information even earlier would help. Instead I think being silent until you are ready to open the game up for beta and then doing a "Hey we're making a new MMO, here's all the details and btw sign up for beta below and try it out." Now players don't have time to twist any of the information because it comes out at the same time they can get their hands on it. I think those players who appreciate the game more for what it actually is with that method.
that's why I said earlier "somewhere above" open coms is good if your also diligent on saying these types of play styles we are not supporting this this and this is what we are doing. In todays market they do the opposite COME ONE COME ALL TO THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Most actively target play styles they had no intention of supporting with predictable results.
EDIT: as an example I think just about every major one recently touted it's crafting system as something special or something centric to gameplay(usually with no more info than that) when usually it was a reskin of what was already on the market, what could be thrown together quickly, or a mini game.
Originally posted by Nadia missed one - lacking content!
This. People will rush to max level in 2 or 3 days. These are your most hard-core gamers. If all you have for them is "epic versions" of all the 4/5/6-person instances they've run before, then you're going to lose their interest.
They are also the huge minority of players, and catering to them is foolish. This is only the surface of the problem. Player generated content is what is needed more than anything else. Risk vs reward, social virtual worlds.
What kept games growing over years, something no modern MMO has managed to do, was the community and difficulty of the game encouraging people to band together.
There will always be people to burn through the content, which is why you need more than just content in your games.
Originally posted by Nadia missed one - lacking content!
No. No amount of content can keep people happy forever. The correct observation is, there is no player driven content. That shit keeps people around for ages.
Holy hells, we actually agree on something .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Trying to re-invent the mmo genre when it wasn't broken in the first place. MMO's like EverQuest, WOW, UO, DAOC and FFXI were keeping mmo players happy. Not every mmo was the same and they all provided something different for everyone. When devs and publishers wanted to cater to the casuals and go mainstream that is when the industry started to fail hard. MMOs are not soley just for casuals, they never were.
I kind of disagree with this.
I think lots of things could be done to improve old MMO's. They may have been more difficult but not always in a good way. I think it is obvious that graphical improvements make new games more appealing to look at and help immersion a bit. But the gameplay is still essentially the same, they have just taken a lot of the "work" out of it.
Its the work aspect that a lot of people rembember as good gameplay. The work of getting your corpse. The work of camping a boss. The work of grinding weeks for a level. To me that was not or is good gameplay. Sure, you might have gotten a mild sense of accomplishment because it took you so damn long to do anything. I like dying in a game, don't get me wrong. But dying and then being severely punished for it, is not what I want. What I want is having to rethink my strategy as to why I failed and then respond in a new way. Not just increase my level or my gear and come back and do it again.
Lots of room for improvement with old games I think.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
It used to be done, that's how mob AI used to work. It is how it works in Darkfall.
The reason it isn't done is because that would be hard, and AAA MMOs aren't allowed to be hard. They need to be instanced and scaled so no one ever loses or gets frustrated. It needs to be identical to WoW to even get funding.
I think you hit the nail on the head here Bill ... and if you need proof of that ...
THE LUST FOR WHAT ONCE WAS
There's a tendency, as written about here and across the MMO industry, for players to latch onto their favorite past games with a sense of erstwhile pride and more than a little bit of "rose-tinted" glory. We forget the reasons we left some old MMO flame, and isntead long fondly for the time in our MMO life when that game was the game. But the fact is, if we left a game and haven't been able to get back into it since those golden years, chances are its time in our gameplay life is over. That's not a bad thing, but we're only limiting our future enjoyment of new titles by clinging stubbornly to "the old days".
is what you said .. now go back over all the comments and how many said something about a game ... that is simply no more.
On another note
In the simple sense, if you remember back to a time when you were between 6 and 10 when there was that one thing you just HAD to have for Christams ... it was going the be the coolest thing ever ... but come the end of January .. I bet you hardly even looked at it ... that is what MMO's have saddly become ... it is not that they are not good or that the developers have worked hard to make somethign special .. it is that they advertise it to be the best thing since sliced bread ... and we buy into it.. even if it is .. Just sliced bread. We as players are just as much to balme for the failure of a game in our minds as buying into the hype of the advertisers. The game may not be a failure but we see it as one as it failed to live up to what we wanted and expected.
Trying to re-invent the mmo genre when it wasn't broken in the first place. MMO's like EverQuest, WOW, UO, DAOC and FFXI were keeping mmo players happy. Not every mmo was the same and they all provided something different for everyone. When devs and publishers wanted to cater to the casuals and go mainstream that is when the industry started to fail hard. MMOs are not soley just for casuals, they never were.
I kind of disagree with this.
I think lots of things could be done to improve old MMO's. They may have been more difficult but not always in a good way. I think it is obvious that graphical improvements make new games more appealing to look at and help immersion a bit. But the gameplay is still essentially the same, they have just taken a lot of the "work" out of it.
Its the work aspect that a lot of people rembember as good gameplay. The work of getting your corpse. The work of camping a boss. The work of grinding weeks for a level. To me that was not or is good gameplay. Sure, you might have gotten a mild sense of accomplishment because it took you so damn long to do anything. I like dying in a game, don't get me wrong. But dying and then being severely punished for it, is not what I want. What I want is having to rethink my strategy as to why I failed and then respond in a new way. Not just increase my level or my gear and come back and do it again.
Lots of room for improvement with old games I think.
Lots of room for improvement but devs push it too far which makes it seems they are trying to re-invent the genre.
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
If you are designing your game for only one type of predictable play style then yes you can do it. but currently someone who prefers easier content want ai to act a certain way. Hard cores want it different. Rprs something else. groupers...you guessed it. Eventually all your clock cycles are solely devoted to controlling the infinite number of ai responses and the game stops.
Well then what you are saying is that we are limited by the technology.
But that doesn't seem an insurmountable obstacle to me. You mention the different player types. Why not be given a choice when you start the game? Hardcore: casual: group: or RP? This would alter the way the NPC's are programmed to respond to you. Surely this would add something to the gameplay. And it might mean that a player who is casual might want to give the hardcore setting a try in order to get a different experience, thus extending interest in the game.
If we are stuck in the scripted and stationary mob type of game because of technology then all the people who are disappointed in todays MMO's might as well pack their bags and go home, we obviously have no future here.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
If you are designing your game for only one type of predictable play style then yes you can do it. but currently someone who prefers easier content want ai to act a certain way. Hard cores want it different. Rprs something else. groupers...you guessed it. Eventually all your clock cycles are solely devoted to controlling the infinite number of ai responses and the game stops.
Well then what you are saying is that we are limited by the technology.
But that doesn't seem an insurmountable obstacle to me. You mention the different player types. Why not be given a choice when you start the game? Hardcore: casual: group: or RP? This would alter the way the NPC's are programmed to respond to you. Surely this would add something to the gameplay. And it might mean that a player who is casual might want to give the hardcore setting a try in order to get a different experience, thus extending interest in the game.
If we are stuck in the scripted and stationary mob type of game because of technology then all the people who are disappointed in todays MMO's might as well pack their bags and go home, we obviously have no future here.
no you are limited by the demographics you choose; you choose "everybody" as a default your ai has to be the lowest common denominator. unavoidable
EDIT
There were and are games that do exactly what you profess you want, however they are always in the "too hard" category
I also find it entertaining that those posting comments disagreeing with you are the exact same type of people you addressed in the article. Haha...
I was thinking the same thing, and I got a laugh out of it as well. The genre is young and has some growing pains to sort out. Eventually I think there will be games made for every style.
Comments
The reasons why I have quit every MMO since I quit WoW right after Cata:
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
uhm wow clone = universal crowd
by niche you mean EVE?
Yes it is a pity and it puts us in the same situation as all the OW FFA PvP crowd. But their model for an MMO was never going to work anyway.
I think a change will come, but when I don't know. I am not sure if it will be the programming that drives it or the hardware. IMO, what lacking to make a "virtual world" is the intelligence of the NPCS's . I think that is where the PvP guys have it wrong. Yes, humans are more intelligent and adaptive to situations and therefore provide more challenge to gameplay. The problem that comes with that is the complete and utter asshattery that those intelligent humans bring to the gameplay. And it is uncontrollable.
However if you can create NPC's that behave intelligently, but behave according to some kind moral guildelines, then you might have the ideal game. Something like Aasimov's rules of robotics. Rule number 4 , "though shalt not behave like a complete asshat against a human player" I think we all want to go "Wow I did not expect that character to do that!! " when we play a game, and not " Oh there is another mob, lets wade in and wipe them out" kind of thing.
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
great article Bill. I often disagree with how you review games but tend to agree with the final judgment about them.
I don't think the cure is all one sided and it's just the devs that need to change. Most vet players are negative people. Negativity is a disease that infects people and only gets worse over time.
So many people here think they just have high standards or think they're doing some public service by always being the one to point out a games flaws but you can't see the good in things when you're only looking for the bad in everything.
Being negative is like any other chemical addiction. The ones who have it the worst will fight the hardest to avoid seeing the problem. To them how they see the world is the right way to view it. It's hard to look at yourself and see you're part of the problem.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
EDIT
people do stupid S*** ai can't balance that
I can add something to Mr Bill's list...
Trying to re-invent the mmo genre when it wasn't broken in the first place. MMO's like EverQuest, WOW, UO, DAOC and FFXI were keeping mmo players happy. Not every mmo was the same and they all provided something different for everyone. When devs and publishers wanted to cater to the casuals and go mainstream that is when the industry started to fail hard. MMOs are not soley just for casuals, they never were.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
That could help that particular situation a bit, but wouldn't help the point I was trying to illustrate overall.
The article suggested to be open with information very early (basically we've just started making this game stage). There would be no test server or anything at that point in time. The type of gamers who follow all of that early info, every tweet, every tease, etc. tend to have minds which twist and distort the information put out into what they WANT it to be instead of what it is.
Those are the ones who get all hyped up over every new release only to be either disappointed when all the fine details get released or who get disappointed a week into the game because although the game may be exactly as advertised, it isn't what their brain turned it into.
I don't think there is any way you could give information early to those people that would let this happen so I don't think releasing information even earlier would help. Instead I think being silent until you are ready to open the game up for beta and then doing a "Hey we're making a new MMO, here's all the details and btw sign up for beta below and try it out." Now players don't have time to twist any of the information because it comes out at the same time they can get their hands on it. I think those players who appreciate the game more for what it actually is with that method.
If you are designing your game for only one type of predictable play style then yes you can do it. but currently someone who prefers easier content want ai to act a certain way. Hard cores want it different. Rprs something else. groupers...you guessed it. Eventually all your clock cycles are solely devoted to controlling the infinite number of ai responses and the game stops.
that's why I said earlier "somewhere above" open coms is good if your also diligent on saying these types of play styles we are not supporting this this and this is what we are doing. In todays market they do the opposite COME ONE COME ALL TO THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Most actively target play styles they had no intention of supporting with predictable results.
EDIT: as an example I think just about every major one recently touted it's crafting system as something special or something centric to gameplay(usually with no more info than that) when usually it was a reskin of what was already on the market, what could be thrown together quickly, or a mini game.
They are also the huge minority of players, and catering to them is foolish. This is only the surface of the problem. Player generated content is what is needed more than anything else. Risk vs reward, social virtual worlds.
What kept games growing over years, something no modern MMO has managed to do, was the community and difficulty of the game encouraging people to band together.
There will always be people to burn through the content, which is why you need more than just content in your games.
Holy hells, we actually agree on something
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For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I kind of disagree with this.
I think lots of things could be done to improve old MMO's. They may have been more difficult but not always in a good way. I think it is obvious that graphical improvements make new games more appealing to look at and help immersion a bit. But the gameplay is still essentially the same, they have just taken a lot of the "work" out of it.
Its the work aspect that a lot of people rembember as good gameplay. The work of getting your corpse. The work of camping a boss. The work of grinding weeks for a level. To me that was not or is good gameplay. Sure, you might have gotten a mild sense of accomplishment because it took you so damn long to do anything. I like dying in a game, don't get me wrong. But dying and then being severely punished for it, is not what I want. What I want is having to rethink my strategy as to why I failed and then respond in a new way. Not just increase my level or my gear and come back and do it again.
Lots of room for improvement with old games I think.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
It used to be done, that's how mob AI used to work. It is how it works in Darkfall.
The reason it isn't done is because that would be hard, and AAA MMOs aren't allowed to be hard. They need to be instanced and scaled so no one ever loses or gets frustrated. It needs to be identical to WoW to even get funding.
Stop making the same game with different skins.
Stop with the beta NDAs. At this point beta NDAs feel like a cheap trick. What do you have to hide so late in the process?
I think you hit the nail on the head here Bill ... and if you need proof of that ...
THE LUST FOR WHAT ONCE WAS
There's a tendency, as written about here and across the MMO industry, for players to latch onto their favorite past games with a sense of erstwhile pride and more than a little bit of "rose-tinted" glory. We forget the reasons we left some old MMO flame, and isntead long fondly for the time in our MMO life when that game was the game. But the fact is, if we left a game and haven't been able to get back into it since those golden years, chances are its time in our gameplay life is over. That's not a bad thing, but we're only limiting our future enjoyment of new titles by clinging stubbornly to "the old days".
is what you said .. now go back over all the comments and how many said something about a game ... that is simply no more.
On another note
In the simple sense, if you remember back to a time when you were between 6 and 10 when there was that one thing you just HAD to have for Christams ... it was going the be the coolest thing ever ... but come the end of January .. I bet you hardly even looked at it ... that is what MMO's have saddly become ... it is not that they are not good or that the developers have worked hard to make somethign special .. it is that they advertise it to be the best thing since sliced bread ... and we buy into it.. even if it is .. Just sliced bread. We as players are just as much to balme for the failure of a game in our minds as buying into the hype of the advertisers. The game may not be a failure but we see it as one as it failed to live up to what we wanted and expected.
Lots of room for improvement but devs push it too far which makes it seems they are trying to re-invent the genre.
1 word pre-orders
well a hyphenated one
Well then what you are saying is that we are limited by the technology.
But that doesn't seem an insurmountable obstacle to me. You mention the different player types. Why not be given a choice when you start the game? Hardcore: casual: group: or RP? This would alter the way the NPC's are programmed to respond to you. Surely this would add something to the gameplay. And it might mean that a player who is casual might want to give the hardcore setting a try in order to get a different experience, thus extending interest in the game.
If we are stuck in the scripted and stationary mob type of game because of technology then all the people who are disappointed in todays MMO's might as well pack their bags and go home, we obviously have no future here.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Excellent article Bill.
I also find it entertaining that those posting comments disagreeing with you are the exact same type of people you addressed in the article. Haha...
no you are limited by the demographics you choose; you choose "everybody" as a default your ai has to be the lowest common denominator. unavoidable
EDIT
There were and are games that do exactly what you profess you want, however they are always in the "too hard" category
I still hope