Originally posted by doug200463 Game designers need to come up with new ideas when it comes to advancing your character, I have got so sick of the normal MMO grind, more and more levels added, quests holding me in zones, when i just want to move on to another zone.. I have went back to Ultima Online.. where you can explore the whole world w/o having to worry about mobs being over level.. NO MORE LEVELS!!!
look into skill based games. Here are the ones I have played and I like them all.
Fallen Earth
Darkfall
Eve Online
Xyson
Wurm Online
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Originally posted by Zapzap If you do not like doing quests or character progression than maybe MMOs are not for you. Many young gamers simply do not have the patience or attention span to play a MMO. Which is likely why they spend so much time on MMO forums trying to tear down and destroy MMOs.
I think you are confused between cause-and-effect.
People who don't care about MMOs are only paying some attention because MMO devs want a bigger market, and cater to the larger gaming population by making MMOs solo co-op lobby games.
If MMO devs don't want my business, i am happy to do something else. There are plenty. But they seem to want to cater to me, so i give them a chance.
I think Eve Online had the right idea - it's just a pity that the most boring activities (using spreadsheets) happen to be the most rewarding in the game.
In theory, player-made content should hold more interest long-term, but devs don't seem to tap this resource.
CCP doesn't want PvE in their game, which is a shame. If CCP released EvE as a PvE game, it probably would've beat WoW, as the crafting system in that game is truly galactic in scope (it's also a very pretty game if you're a astronomer type). All the napkin math the game requires ensures paper will never go extinct, either! lol
Shame PvP ruined the game for the masses, and incursions (PvE raid level fights) came too late to really enjoy the game. If CCP released EvE 2.0 as a PvE space sim...bye WoW, bye, bye, bye!!!
There is a tremendous amount of PvE to be found in EvE Online.
- Mission running (solo, faction, tier 5)
- Following Epic Arc missions that lead to really nice rewards
- COSMOS missions.
- Simple ratting. Recommended to do in systems with negative security status. Yes, negative status does exist!
- Hunting named spawns for their loot.
- Scanning for Anomalies to open up generic spawns.#
- Scanning for sgnatures to open up sites that require hacking/salvaging/mining or hunting
- Running static complexes.
- Wormhole exploration and hunting. Difficult thing.
That's a huge list. The problem is that many players do not know about the possibilities due to 2 things:
1) Some players never make it into 0.0 or simply do not find out about for example cosmos stuff.
2) EvE is big when it comes to risk vs reward and investment and some players are not willing to risk their stuff. Example: When doing exploration in 0.0 I lost several ships including 2 incredibly expensive fit tech3 ships. Still, it was worth it. I made several billions worth of exploration loot.
Bottomline: EVEs success is not limited by the seemingly lack of PvE. It is limited due to its initial steep learning curve and their developers embracing risk versus reward systems that allow the player to loose AND to win everything.
I don't know how but I think questing needs to be somehow re-imagined.
Maybe a game could be made with less questing and more dungeons? Solo dungeons? Mini games? Idk something. But in general questing is boring me to tears these days.
I've had quite enough bear ass collecting, rat ass collecting, and every other thing imaginable ass collecting to last a few lifetimes.
Some wise developer please come up with more interesting things to do in your game.
I think Eve Online had the right idea - it's just a pity that the most boring activities (using spreadsheets) happen to be the most rewarding in the game.
In theory, player-made content should hold more interest long-term, but devs don't seem to tap this resource.
CCP doesn't want PvE in their game, which is a shame. If CCP released EvE as a PvE game, it probably would've beat WoW, as the crafting system in that game is truly galactic in scope (it's also a very pretty game if you're a astronomer type). All the napkin math the game requires ensures paper will never go extinct, either! lol
Shame PvP ruined the game for the masses, and incursions (PvE raid level fights) came too late to really enjoy the game. If CCP released EvE 2.0 as a PvE space sim...bye WoW, bye, bye, bye!!!
There is a tremendous amount of PvE to be found in EvE Online.
- Mission running (solo, faction, tier 5)
- Following Epic Arc missions that lead to really nice rewards
- COSMOS missions.
- Simple ratting. Recommended to do in systems with negative security status. Yes, negative status does exist!
- Hunting named spawns for their loot.
- Scanning for Anomalies to open up generic spawns.#
- Scanning for sgnatures to open up sites that require hacking/salvaging/mining or hunting
- Running static complexes.
- Wormhole exploration and hunting. Difficult thing.
That's a huge list. The problem is that many players do not know about the possibilities due to 2 things:
1) Some players never make it into 0.0 or simply do not find out about for example cosmos stuff.
2) EvE is big when it comes to risk vs reward and investment and some players are not willing to risk their stuff. Example: When doing exploration in 0.0 I lost several ships including 2 incredibly expensive fit tech3 ships. Still, it was worth it. I made several billions worth of exploration loot.
Bottomline: EVEs success is not limited by the seemingly lack of PvE. It is limited due to its initial steep learning curve and their developers embracing risk versus reward systems that allow the player to loose AND to win everything.
The main thing limiting Eve's success is its stripped gameplay to accommodate large numbers of players in one system and to cope with the high latency that unavoidably comes from the "single server" solution.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
So, don't play MMORPGs or RPGs if you don't like the gameplay.
Asking for MMORPGs and RPGs to be something else is basically saying that you want to play other games.
So, do that.
Okay, so what else is there? where i can explore a virtual world? that has no leveling or questing? and is multiplayer.
I enjoy other aspects of MMOs but the traditional level grind has become unbearable, Im 40 years old, I have played through, Ultima Online, Everquest, Everquest II, World Of Warcraft, Lord Of The RIngs Online, Age Of Conan, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, and a bunch of other misc MMOs here and there, I have done my share of leveling.. and want something fresh and new...
So please, if you know of a good game, thats not an MMO, and doesnt have the traditional, kill 10 rats leveling system.. and is still multiplayer, let me know, I will give it a try (as long as its not sci-fi)
somebody always say, " if you dont like levels you shouldnt play MMOs"
yet the first MMOs didnt have character levels....
What is funny is that some people think skill levels are not levels or that games that use skill levels are "completely different" and classless character development all but cures AIDS.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Quests are tired. RPGs should be about objectives.
If I kill 10 rats, and you kill 10 rats, and 20 rats just respawn so that guy could do it too... why the hell is Mrs. NPC giving each of us a magic sword for helping her? We didn't do anything! She STILL has a rat problem!
The objective should be: fix Mrs. NPCs rat problem. Permanently. Mrs. NPC has 10 gold. She is offering up 5 to clear off the rats. If one person does it... he gets 5. If two people do it, she'll negotiate and split it up. She doesn't have a magic sword. She certainly doesn't have a magic sword for each person who killed rats. And if the rats come back... she's going to want a refund OR for you to do it again... for FREE!
Someone else might want to figure out where the rats came from in the first place and why they only bother Mrs. NPC. That's another objective.
There's technical challenges to overcome to make this sort of system. First thing that comes to mind: Live GMs who can affect the game world and create objectives. They put the NPC in, give her funds, populate the objective area, and have the NPC call for help towards people she trusts. (prior business, good standing/reputation, ie - some other system that tracks how "good" people are).
Speaking of "good", there should be a "bad". Just a few days earlier, another objective might be that Wizard X hates Mrs. NPC. He wants to give her a hard time. He needs a bad guy to collect some rats, sneak into her basement and let them loose.
Plus, why can't players create objectives, too? A player may be a tailor and need thread. So he puts out an ad for it. Some other player sees the add and says "Hey! I got the materials to make thread." So she does. And she crafts it and now wants it delivered to the tailor. For a small fee, another player runs a courier business and will deliver the thread. Money changes hands... objective complete!
Get rid of quests. Create objectives. Make the player's successes and failures actually mean something.
There is a tremendous amount of PvE to be found in EvE Online.
- Mission running (solo, faction, tier 5)
- Following Epic Arc missions that lead to really nice rewards
- COSMOS missions.
- Simple ratting. Recommended to do in systems with negative security status. Yes, negative status does exist!
- Hunting named spawns for their loot.
- Scanning for Anomalies to open up generic spawns.#
- Scanning for sgnatures to open up sites that require hacking/salvaging/mining or hunting
- Running static complexes.
- Wormhole exploration and hunting. Difficult thing.
That's a huge list. The problem is that many players do not know about the possibilities due to 2 things:
1) Some players never make it into 0.0 or simply do not find out about for example cosmos stuff.
2) EvE is big when it comes to risk vs reward and investment and some players are not willing to risk their stuff. Example: When doing exploration in 0.0 I lost several ships including 2 incredibly expensive fit tech3 ships. Still, it was worth it. I made several billions worth of exploration loot.
Bottomline: EVEs success is not limited by the seemingly lack of PvE. It is limited due to its initial steep learning curve and their developers embracing risk versus reward systems that allow the player to loose AND to win everything.
Nice try,. but look at it more closely:
- Mission running (solo, faction, tier 5)
Well, it's level 5 missions, not tier. Also, those are always in low-sec, so no CONCORD protection. Since you need a good PvE setup, you're rather vulnerable to pirate, unless you go in with a medium-sized group.
Other than that, yup, that's PvE content, though mostly grinding, once you know the triggers, it's just a slugfest.
- Following Epic Arc missions that lead to really nice rewards
Okay, yup, those are pretty close to actual story-driven questlines, though it's the usual issue - lots of text to read to get the actual background, and that many people just ignore so they can get faster to the rewards. Most of the actual sub-missions there don't differ from the regular missionrunning.
- COSMOS missions.
Grindfest with in some cases lots of waiting for that respawn while hoping that no other player will come in and snatch those rare kills/items up first.
- Simple ratting. Recommended to do in systems with negative security status. Yes, negative status does exist!
Unless you're in a big nullsec-alliance, anything done there will quite likely involve some PvP. So if you just want to do some PvE, nullsec is not an option.
- Hunting named spawns for their loot.
Uhm, where? In missions? That falls under the first point. In low/nullsec? See the point right before this. In exploration sites? Never encountered any in high-sec, so you're back to risking PvP again.
- Scanning for Anomalies to open up generic spawns.
- Scanning for sgnatures to open up sites that require hacking/salvaging/mining or hunting
If only this would actually be worth the time in highsec, you'd have a point. But as it is, you can gain more with even lvl 3 missions, let alone lvl 4
- Running static complexes.
Yeah, not bad, though it mixes some of the advantages and disadvantages of regular missions, exploration and COSMOS missions.
- Wormhole exploration and hunting. Difficult thing.
Right. No PvP element at all here. Especially when you don't know whether there's some group of heavy PvPers setting up a gatecamp at the only known highsec-exit so you'd have to run through several other unknown WH systems and possibly half a dozen or more nullsec ones to get back to relative safety.
I totally get this topic. I'm a huge car fan.. just the other day on cars.com I posted a similar thread saying how sick I was of wheels and motors.. it's like come on.. I hopped on my old horse and it was like wow. It has legs. Than I realized I was an ass hole.
So please, if you know of a good game, thats not an MMO, and doesnt have the traditional, kill 10 rats leveling system.. and is still multiplayer, let me know, I will give it a try (as long as its not sci-fi)
Plenty. Deus Ex Human Revolution. Hitman Absolution. Splinter Cell Blacklist. The list goes on and on ...
Actually, if you look at the old MMOs, aka pre wow mmos, none of them really used "Questing" to gain experience aside from games that had instanced mini-zones like Anarchy online. In my opinion, the turn towards questing to level your character actually has destroyed the MMO genera. Its the one of the main reasons why we see so many garbage games passing over the table every year that end up becoming f2p.
Actually, it would be better to revise this statement, Questing its self isnt the issue, its the move towards Single player RPG style questing, aka advancing a story that is based on the character youre playing vs advancing a story line that is evolving the world you are playing in. Games like SW:Tor and ESO have quests that make everyone in the game the "chosen" one and make them feel like they are supposed to be special, but the reality is that since every single person who plays the game goes through the same experience, there is no diversification which really goes against the idea of playing in a virtual world. The main drawl of the old MMOs was the simple idea of being able to play with thousands of other players in a virtual persistent world, not playing a Single player RPG with thousands of others.
I could write pages about this but really it comes down to a simple idea: would you rather play an TES/Starwars etc game that is online or would you rather play in the TES/Starwars game world? Big example of this disparity is SW:TOR vs SW:G, SW:G wasnt even a great game but it was far better then SW:ToR simply because you played in the starwars universe as a citizen of that universe rather then as some special person, whether or not you were important in the world was decided by the players not the developers. Another problem is the inherent mechanics of quest lines. You quest through the entire world one zone at a time because backtracking is boring and thats just how things are, but in the end after you've beaten the quest-line, there is no reason for you to go back to the other parts of the world effectively reducing the size of the game world. GW2 for example tried to change this by making it so that your level would reduce when you entered these older zones, but why would you want to play as a lower level character after progressing so far into the game? As a consequence of questing, Not only does the game world become smaller but the actual leveling experience falters and becomes this grind of going from one hub to the next as fast as possible.
What really needs to happen in new MMOs is that they need to revert the focus of the games back to the leveling experience. While end-game is fun and all, playing a game like EverQuest or Asheron's Call was not about reaching the level cap as fast as possible because firstly, it took forever to do such a thing, and secondly, you could experience most of the end game while leveling, that is to say, the core game experience didn't change all that much when you hit end game. The main issue is this however, no company will spend money to make a game that has a leveling experience as slow as Everquest or Asheron's Call because it pushes away the casual player base which makes up the majority of the player who play these new MMORPGS. So what they do instead is make a leveling experience that has the quality of a single player RPG game, but the flaw in this is that you cant have the same experience of a single player RPG in an MMO simply due to the technological limitations on MMORPGS. If some one released a single player RPG that used MMO mechanics as its core game play, i dont imagine it would sell all that well.
Actually, it would be better to revise this statement, Questing its self isnt the issue, its the move towards Single player RPG style questing, aka advancing a story that is based on the character youre playing vs advancing a story line that is evolving the world you are playing in. Games like SW:Tor and ESO have quests that make everyone in the game the "chosen" one and make them feel like they are supposed to be special, but the reality is that since every single person who plays the game goes through the same experience, there is no diversification which really goes against the idea of playing in a virtual world. The main drawl of the old MMOs was the simple idea of being able to play with thousands of other players in a virtual persistent world, not playing a Single player RPG with thousands of others.
well, i don't want to play with thousand of others in a virtual persistent world. I prefer good SP content.
So what if everyone goes through the same story content. We do that in SP games that that does not make the good SP games bad. The reality is that everyone who plays Dishonored plays Corvo, and goes through the same story. The story has great gameplay and content .. and since i am not seeing the other guy playing it .. what is the problem?
The same is true for MMO as long as the story is done in an instance, or a phase.
I like the way EVE has handled the content. Although it's PVE content is boring and repetitive, it is optional. I like the idea that on day one you can be in a wormhole, high sec, or in null doing whatever you like so long as you are with other people. I like the idea of their being no "endgame". There is just the game - and it is up to you how you play.
Personally, I would like to see a more sophisticated version of EVE in a D&D universe. In one area you have your usual PVE and raid content but somewhere out in the wilds there is a sandbox where you and your guild can build strongholds or towns, fight over resources or just mess around trolling some guild.
I accept that not everyone likes PVP and just enjoy questing, raiding, crafting and reading about the lore. But I feel that any good MMO should cater for a broad audience with different playstyles instead of chaining the player to specific path which is usually dungeons and quests till endgame then a gear grind of different types.
I've always hated the concept of level's in an RPG. Always preferred the Ultima style of progression. Quest's? Hell that's always been the bread and butter of RPG's
What the hell would Frodo of done if he didn't have a quest?
I've always hated the concept of level's in an RPG. Always preferred the Ultima style of progression. Quest's? Hell that's always been the bread and butter of RPG's
What? You like clicking on a rock non-stop to level up mining, and keep clicking on a tree to level up chopping (or whatever they call it).
If all games are like that, i would not be playing game now.
If you go back to the root to RPG (AD&D), it always have levels, and not this horrible click-on-stuff-to-level-skill stuff.
I am glad few games are using that horrible UO system anymore.
Originally posted by doug200463 Game designers need to come up with new ideas when it comes to advancing your character, I have got so sick of the normal MMO grind, more and more levels added, quests holding me in zones, when i just want to move on to another zone.. I have went back to Ultima Online.. where you can explore the whole world w/o having to worry about mobs being over level.. NO MORE LEVELS!!!
You're playing the wrong type of game, wow, you basically say you hate everything that MMO's are about. Ever think maybe you should just try another genre?
Ultima online? really? explore? "oh look a tree, wow another tree, freaking awesome!"
I really don't get how aimlessly wandering around a world is gameplay? Seriously, take out the things you say you hate and you'd have the most pointless game ever created. No quests, no levels, can go anywhere you want upon logging in..........Why would anyone even play that?
I've always hated the concept of level's in an RPG. Always preferred the Ultima style of progression. Quest's? Hell that's always been the bread and butter of RPG's
What the hell would Frodo of done if he didn't have a quest?
It's the poorly written ones that suck.
I wouldn't even say it's the quality of the writing that's the issue. I played a lot of RPG's and some of the worse written quests have turned out to be really fun because of the overall game design. Skyrim is full of boring story quests and dodgy combat, but I still did them because exploring the Elder Scrolls world is so compelling. You go into every cave and dungeon because you want to see whats in that dungeon, not because of some quest.
I've always hated the concept of level's in an RPG. Always preferred the Ultima style of progression. Quest's? Hell that's always been the bread and butter of RPG's
What? You like clicking on a rock non-stop to level up mining, and keep clicking on a tree to level up chopping (or whatever they call it).
If all games are like that, i would not be playing game now.
If you go back to the root to RPG (AD&D), it always have levels, and not this horrible click-on-stuff-to-level-skill stuff.
I am glad few games are using that horrible UO system anymore.
hehehe.....
You just had to make me remember the bad crap lol. D&D was different-you weren't grinding, you were real life socializing, having fun with friends.
I just like going out and doing shit. A games the best when your not even thinking about things like levels, your just lost in immersion.
Isn't D3 kinda like Ultima? Instead of clicking on rocks-n-trees, your clicking on heads, it's just cooler looking (all in good fun)
I've always hated the concept of level's in an RPG. Always preferred the Ultima style of progression. Quest's? Hell that's always been the bread and butter of RPG's
What the hell would Frodo of done if he didn't have a quest?
It's the poorly written ones that suck.
I wouldn't even say it's the quality of the writing that's the issue. I played a lot of RPG's and some of the worse written quests have turned out to be really fun because of the overall game design. Skyrim is full of boring story quests and dodgy combat, but I still did them because exploring the Elder Scrolls world is so compelling. You go into every cave and dungeon because you want to see whats in that dungeon, not because of some quest.
Comments
look into skill based games. Here are the ones I have played and I like them all.
Fallen Earth
Darkfall
Eve Online
Xyson
Wurm Online
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I think you are confused between cause-and-effect.
People who don't care about MMOs are only paying some attention because MMO devs want a bigger market, and cater to the larger gaming population by making MMOs solo co-op lobby games.
If MMO devs don't want my business, i am happy to do something else. There are plenty. But they seem to want to cater to me, so i give them a chance.
There is a tremendous amount of PvE to be found in EvE Online.
- Mission running (solo, faction, tier 5)
- Following Epic Arc missions that lead to really nice rewards
- COSMOS missions.
- Simple ratting. Recommended to do in systems with negative security status. Yes, negative status does exist!
- Hunting named spawns for their loot.
- Scanning for Anomalies to open up generic spawns.#
- Scanning for sgnatures to open up sites that require hacking/salvaging/mining or hunting
- Running static complexes.
- Wormhole exploration and hunting. Difficult thing.
That's a huge list. The problem is that many players do not know about the possibilities due to 2 things:
1) Some players never make it into 0.0 or simply do not find out about for example cosmos stuff.
2) EvE is big when it comes to risk vs reward and investment and some players are not willing to risk their stuff. Example: When doing exploration in 0.0 I lost several ships including 2 incredibly expensive fit tech3 ships. Still, it was worth it. I made several billions worth of exploration loot.
Bottomline: EVEs success is not limited by the seemingly lack of PvE. It is limited due to its initial steep learning curve and their developers embracing risk versus reward systems that allow the player to loose AND to win everything.
I don't know how but I think questing needs to be somehow re-imagined.
Maybe a game could be made with less questing and more dungeons? Solo dungeons? Mini games? Idk something. But in general questing is boring me to tears these days.
I've had quite enough bear ass collecting, rat ass collecting, and every other thing imaginable ass collecting to last a few lifetimes.
Some wise developer please come up with more interesting things to do in your game.
The main thing limiting Eve's success is its stripped gameplay to accommodate large numbers of players in one system and to cope with the high latency that unavoidably comes from the "single server" solution.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I find it funny that in discussions like this,
somebody always say, " if you dont like levels you shouldnt play MMOs"
yet the first MMOs didnt have character levels....
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Amen!
The thing is most of them are probably 12 years old, and dont know any better.. they think World Of Warcraft was the 1st mmo!
Okay, so what else is there? where i can explore a virtual world? that has no leveling or questing? and is multiplayer.
I enjoy other aspects of MMOs but the traditional level grind has become unbearable, Im 40 years old, I have played through, Ultima Online, Everquest, Everquest II, World Of Warcraft, Lord Of The RIngs Online, Age Of Conan, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, and a bunch of other misc MMOs here and there, I have done my share of leveling.. and want something fresh and new...
So please, if you know of a good game, thats not an MMO, and doesnt have the traditional, kill 10 rats leveling system.. and is still multiplayer, let me know, I will give it a try (as long as its not sci-fi)
What is funny is that some people think skill levels are not levels or that games that use skill levels are "completely different" and classless character development all but cures AIDS.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
they can learn from SP games. There are plenty of interesting things to do in bioshock, deus ex, dishonored ......
Quests are tired. RPGs should be about objectives.
If I kill 10 rats, and you kill 10 rats, and 20 rats just respawn so that guy could do it too... why the hell is Mrs. NPC giving each of us a magic sword for helping her? We didn't do anything! She STILL has a rat problem!
The objective should be: fix Mrs. NPCs rat problem. Permanently. Mrs. NPC has 10 gold. She is offering up 5 to clear off the rats. If one person does it... he gets 5. If two people do it, she'll negotiate and split it up. She doesn't have a magic sword. She certainly doesn't have a magic sword for each person who killed rats. And if the rats come back... she's going to want a refund OR for you to do it again... for FREE!
Someone else might want to figure out where the rats came from in the first place and why they only bother Mrs. NPC. That's another objective.
There's technical challenges to overcome to make this sort of system. First thing that comes to mind: Live GMs who can affect the game world and create objectives. They put the NPC in, give her funds, populate the objective area, and have the NPC call for help towards people she trusts. (prior business, good standing/reputation, ie - some other system that tracks how "good" people are).
Speaking of "good", there should be a "bad". Just a few days earlier, another objective might be that Wizard X hates Mrs. NPC. He wants to give her a hard time. He needs a bad guy to collect some rats, sneak into her basement and let them loose.
Plus, why can't players create objectives, too? A player may be a tailor and need thread. So he puts out an ad for it. Some other player sees the add and says "Hey! I got the materials to make thread." So she does. And she crafts it and now wants it delivered to the tailor. For a small fee, another player runs a courier business and will deliver the thread. Money changes hands... objective complete!
Get rid of quests. Create objectives. Make the player's successes and failures actually mean something.
Nice try,. but look at it more closely:
- Mission running (solo, faction, tier 5)
Well, it's level 5 missions, not tier. Also, those are always in low-sec, so no CONCORD protection. Since you need a good PvE setup, you're rather vulnerable to pirate, unless you go in with a medium-sized group.
Other than that, yup, that's PvE content, though mostly grinding, once you know the triggers, it's just a slugfest.
- Following Epic Arc missions that lead to really nice rewards
Okay, yup, those are pretty close to actual story-driven questlines, though it's the usual issue - lots of text to read to get the actual background, and that many people just ignore so they can get faster to the rewards. Most of the actual sub-missions there don't differ from the regular missionrunning.
- COSMOS missions.
Grindfest with in some cases lots of waiting for that respawn while hoping that no other player will come in and snatch those rare kills/items up first.
- Simple ratting. Recommended to do in systems with negative security status. Yes, negative status does exist!
Unless you're in a big nullsec-alliance, anything done there will quite likely involve some PvP. So if you just want to do some PvE, nullsec is not an option.
- Hunting named spawns for their loot.
Uhm, where? In missions? That falls under the first point. In low/nullsec? See the point right before this. In exploration sites? Never encountered any in high-sec, so you're back to risking PvP again.
- Scanning for Anomalies to open up generic spawns.
- Scanning for sgnatures to open up sites that require hacking/salvaging/mining or hunting
If only this would actually be worth the time in highsec, you'd have a point. But as it is, you can gain more with even lvl 3 missions, let alone lvl 4
- Running static complexes.
Yeah, not bad, though it mixes some of the advantages and disadvantages of regular missions, exploration and COSMOS missions.
- Wormhole exploration and hunting. Difficult thing.
Right. No PvP element at all here. Especially when you don't know whether there's some group of heavy PvPers setting up a gatecamp at the only known highsec-exit so you'd have to run through several other unknown WH systems and possibly half a dozen or more nullsec ones to get back to relative safety.
Plenty. Deus Ex Human Revolution. Hitman Absolution. Splinter Cell Blacklist. The list goes on and on ...
Actually, if you look at the old MMOs, aka pre wow mmos, none of them really used "Questing" to gain experience aside from games that had instanced mini-zones like Anarchy online. In my opinion, the turn towards questing to level your character actually has destroyed the MMO genera. Its the one of the main reasons why we see so many garbage games passing over the table every year that end up becoming f2p.
Actually, it would be better to revise this statement, Questing its self isnt the issue, its the move towards Single player RPG style questing, aka advancing a story that is based on the character youre playing vs advancing a story line that is evolving the world you are playing in. Games like SW:Tor and ESO have quests that make everyone in the game the "chosen" one and make them feel like they are supposed to be special, but the reality is that since every single person who plays the game goes through the same experience, there is no diversification which really goes against the idea of playing in a virtual world. The main drawl of the old MMOs was the simple idea of being able to play with thousands of other players in a virtual persistent world, not playing a Single player RPG with thousands of others.
I could write pages about this but really it comes down to a simple idea: would you rather play an TES/Starwars etc game that is online or would you rather play in the TES/Starwars game world? Big example of this disparity is SW:TOR vs SW:G, SW:G wasnt even a great game but it was far better then SW:ToR simply because you played in the starwars universe as a citizen of that universe rather then as some special person, whether or not you were important in the world was decided by the players not the developers. Another problem is the inherent mechanics of quest lines. You quest through the entire world one zone at a time because backtracking is boring and thats just how things are, but in the end after you've beaten the quest-line, there is no reason for you to go back to the other parts of the world effectively reducing the size of the game world. GW2 for example tried to change this by making it so that your level would reduce when you entered these older zones, but why would you want to play as a lower level character after progressing so far into the game? As a consequence of questing, Not only does the game world become smaller but the actual leveling experience falters and becomes this grind of going from one hub to the next as fast as possible.
What really needs to happen in new MMOs is that they need to revert the focus of the games back to the leveling experience. While end-game is fun and all, playing a game like EverQuest or Asheron's Call was not about reaching the level cap as fast as possible because firstly, it took forever to do such a thing, and secondly, you could experience most of the end game while leveling, that is to say, the core game experience didn't change all that much when you hit end game. The main issue is this however, no company will spend money to make a game that has a leveling experience as slow as Everquest or Asheron's Call because it pushes away the casual player base which makes up the majority of the player who play these new MMORPGS. So what they do instead is make a leveling experience that has the quality of a single player RPG game, but the flaw in this is that you cant have the same experience of a single player RPG in an MMO simply due to the technological limitations on MMORPGS. If some one released a single player RPG that used MMO mechanics as its core game play, i dont imagine it would sell all that well.
well, i don't want to play with thousand of others in a virtual persistent world. I prefer good SP content.
So what if everyone goes through the same story content. We do that in SP games that that does not make the good SP games bad. The reality is that everyone who plays Dishonored plays Corvo, and goes through the same story. The story has great gameplay and content .. and since i am not seeing the other guy playing it .. what is the problem?
The same is true for MMO as long as the story is done in an instance, or a phase.
I like the way EVE has handled the content. Although it's PVE content is boring and repetitive, it is optional. I like the idea that on day one you can be in a wormhole, high sec, or in null doing whatever you like so long as you are with other people. I like the idea of their being no "endgame". There is just the game - and it is up to you how you play.
Personally, I would like to see a more sophisticated version of EVE in a D&D universe. In one area you have your usual PVE and raid content but somewhere out in the wilds there is a sandbox where you and your guild can build strongholds or towns, fight over resources or just mess around trolling some guild.
I accept that not everyone likes PVP and just enjoy questing, raiding, crafting and reading about the lore. But I feel that any good MMO should cater for a broad audience with different playstyles instead of chaining the player to specific path which is usually dungeons and quests till endgame then a gear grind of different types.
I've always hated the concept of level's in an RPG. Always preferred the Ultima style of progression. Quest's? Hell that's always been the bread and butter of RPG's
What the hell would Frodo of done if he didn't have a quest?
It's the poorly written ones that suck.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
What? You like clicking on a rock non-stop to level up mining, and keep clicking on a tree to level up chopping (or whatever they call it).
If all games are like that, i would not be playing game now.
If you go back to the root to RPG (AD&D), it always have levels, and not this horrible click-on-stuff-to-level-skill stuff.
I am glad few games are using that horrible UO system anymore.
spoken like a true wow generation member
I wouldn't even say it's the quality of the writing that's the issue. I played a lot of RPG's and some of the worse written quests have turned out to be really fun because of the overall game design. Skyrim is full of boring story quests and dodgy combat, but I still did them because exploring the Elder Scrolls world is so compelling. You go into every cave and dungeon because you want to see whats in that dungeon, not because of some quest.
hehehe.....
You just had to make me remember the bad crap lol. D&D was different-you weren't grinding, you were real life socializing, having fun with friends.
I just like going out and doing shit. A games the best when your not even thinking about things like levels, your just lost in immersion.
Isn't D3 kinda like Ultima? Instead of clicking on rocks-n-trees, your clicking on heads, it's just cooler looking (all in good fun)
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I sure as hell couldn't argue with that
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee