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Why don't we ever get cities and locations like this in MMOs?
tixylix
Member UncommonPosts: 1,288
Look at all that they've built in Minecraft http://www.westeroscraft.com/
See it is amazing, all fully 3D a big world they're making and it is something MMOs are missing today. I love the sense of exploration, being amazed by a world, feeling like I'm in a real world; the whole reason MMOs exist for me is to live somewhere else online. Like what is the point of making a game out of an MMO like LOTRO, SWTOR, WAR or even TESO did? Like no, I wanted to experience the world of Middle Earth, I didn't want a linear game, I wanted to just see the sights and that is why all these other MMOs failed too. Ironically Morrowind/Oblivion and Skyrim all delivered on worlds and TESO didn't......
WoW was a massive hit because people could experience the World of Azeroth, we could visit all the places in the lore. It was mostly seamless and still has a world that no MMO does today, you just have this sense of location. Now even in TESO, I just get warped off everywhere into unknown locations which don't exist in the world, everything is so segmented and instanced that I feel part of a game.
All people go on about from EQ is locations, their fondest memories were exploring this world for the first time. The same as what WoW offered and everyone has similar memories across both games of remembering locations they saw for the first time. You don't get that sense of awe from MMOs today as they feel so small scale and very gamey, so what if I see a certain place, it doesn't feel real, all so isolated, most of the stuff is in the skybox and there are 100 loading screens as it is so segmented
If they ever do a Game of Thrones MMO, I don't want a linear story experience, I can get that from a SP game. What I want is a world like they're creating and I want to live in it and explore it for myself. I want to feel amazed like I am looking at these pictures of what these people are creating in Minecraft.
To me this proves that I haven't gotten old and bored of games, it shows me that nothing has come along that has been the slightest bit of good in the past 10 years since WoW.
Comments
soon we dont have to have super computers when rendering becomes cloud based, chew on that
http://www.onlive.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gA8MUMQak (totalbiscuit review of the service if interested)
sure we are not there yet where everything is from the cloud because of lag but we could be on the stage
where we potentialy could have a cloud service that assists weak PCs by rendering most of the static content that doesnt show the player the lag, for example the buildings and the ground in the enviroment, how can the player tell that there is lag in the rendering if something doesnt move? or require interaction?. well this is just me rambling dont take it seriously, im no expert
on topic =>
one of my petpeeves is exactly the bad architecture that is in the game cities, one of the examples is the main city of tera its horrible and the other thing is bad scaling, scaling everything big doesnt make the city anymore majestic than the bad buildings and design it contains
ROFL, are you really asking this question or are you joking? I've said it before and I'll say it again until the day I die it seems, a good community MMO where getting groups is no problem, you won't give a damn how the cities looks like since you'll be busy having fun killing stuff. If I'd want nice cities to view at I'll play Sim City, Anno 2070 or my personal favourite Cities XL
This isn't really necessary to have a very large city environment for players to run around in. Minecraft is pretty good at what it does, but it's not rocket science and it doesn't need super computers to run. If it was, there wouldn't be so many mods for the game. It's very approachable in terms of how to make things happen.
I think there are two very clear and distinct factors that prevent something like this from showing up in a commercial MMORPG.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think what people are really after is a return to cities and dungeons being zones rather than theme-park rides, but due to stagnation in MMO game design we haven't had any real break-through in building better environments with good gameplay. Instead we got hundreds of clones with just enough changes to avoid copyright infringement born from Everquest and World of Warcraft.
(Well, that or we get games like Guild Wars 2 that try to take ideas from MMOs that didn't work out that well and see if they can make them work, like Guild Wars 2)
I've seen lots of mmos with big cities like that, and they are laggy. That's why it's not a good idea.
Tera city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyrl2Zo45T0
Black desert city
That's why they typically divide the city into zones: it reduces the load on the system and makes it easier to run. Thankfully, the march of technology is making it so that we can have larger and larger cuts made into zones.
Why would we need it? We have dungeon finders
With how disconnected MMORPGs are with the social aspects these days, I'm surprised we still have physical auction houses. Why not just make it part of your UI
That is stupid. I play pen and paper RPGs and many campaigns happen inside cities.
Sure, there are a lot less random monsters walking around in a town (except maybe in the sewers) but there are a lot more intrigues there than in a forest. Streetgangs, spies, thieves, murderers, political intrigues, secret wars between wizards, buried treasure, cheating gamblers, insane inventors and so much more.
A city is as good setting as any wood, ruin, swamp or whatever and better than places like deserts. It is just sad that so few MMOs uses the towns for anything more then a questhub with an auctionhouse and crafting stations. EQ2 did a good try though with Q and Freep but the severely use of instancing too away a lot of the fun there.
There are a few great cities in MMOs though, my favorite is Divinitys reach in GW2 but none of them are used they way they should.
The reason that system exists is because the current majority MMO model is a themepark one. All the dungeons are just rides, so having a system set up where people just ticket up and fly away to the dungeon works out really well. A game with dungeons as actual zones would have to operate differently, but even then we typically have something like a waypoint system.
Given how large cities actually are compared to MMOPRG worlds, it seems like you could set an entire game within the boundaries of a single, urban landscape. The example in the OP is about the size of Los Angeles. You could easily set a game within those boundaries.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
@OP
Minecraft uses exactly 1 model and maybe 5 textures to represent entire worlds. Even then...with that many instances of the same thing being rendered simultaneously. A given server is lucky to have capacity/ability left over to handle 70 people on at once. The point being...you can't even do it with minecraft. That city is pretty cardboard cut out...but that is all it is. And even if they were to fully flesh that out. It could only be more then it is for a few people at a time.
Questionable develpoer approaches aside...the answer to the question is that on the whole. MMORPG worlds are as expansive and content rich as is currently possible without major issues.
I'm going to try and not be rude...But....
Not everyone is American, and not many countries have awesome highspeed internet. Canada (my home)? A lot of people still use dial-up or just don't have internet cause Canada is so vast and sparsely populated. And a lot of the gamers live in rural areas where the only fun things are sex, gaming, drugs, and guns. I know Australia also has shit internet, lots of African countries, etc etc, other countries even some in Eastern Europe. And there are players in those countries.
So cloud gaming is a thing for Americans, and if they just want an American audience then that's cool...I guess...I guess that spells the end of worldwide MMOS or ones that aren't just NA?
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hmm, EQNext will have the potential for such cities, as long as there are free areas where players can build.
imho given the content of most MMOs nowadays, a developer cannot afford to make such grandiose settings due to time and cost investment (partially) and gameplay (mainly), i.e. imagine running around searching for the quest-givers in such a large city. it would defeat the purpose of the game, which is to guide you through the various areas on your goal to attain maximum level.
but as i said, EQN is our best bet to see such areas.
FFXI had great looking cities for it's era and FFXIV has them now.FFXI also had great grouping and great fun playing the classes inside of combat.
You NEED cities because it is suppose to be a RP'ing game,you should have cities,a place to live,eat and drink,places to shop ect ect.
It is one of the reasons i was extremely turned off by Wow when that game came out.I was dropped into the middle of nowhere,no reason just vee-line for a yellow marker and begin cheesy questing,so not MY game but Blizzard's laid out path for me to follow.
No game is perfect,some did do it better,keeping the game more like a MMO and more like a RP'ing game,others are what i hear people calling themeparks,they are not MMORPG's.A better phrase would be game on rails,everyone hops on the exact same train,never playing YOUR own game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Most games cities don't even have enough space or houses to support the people that are standing around realistically. Elder Scrolls offline games generally seems to try to have beds for each of it inhabitants.
But its mostly a designers choice because it's likely easier to have small villiages and lots of environmental areas than designing big cities and towns. I think the Super Hero branch of the genre did a good job with cities and having quest built around them. Would be pretty cool if they did have more city based quest in MMORPG's
This is why the sandbox is not complete without open pvp and asset destruction. Im sure theres ppl that enjoy more the building aspect of the game, but when its finished.. what then?? Just look at it? Now imagine having to defend that city you just created against a massive siege, or being able to siege another player city, expanding your territory because it has resources that you want. NOW this would be epic...
It's coming, just wait for the "real Multiplayer MMORPG" era to begin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G6EXTBrwUY
Because it is too costly to fill up a big city with interesting content, and most players don't want to play in a big empty city.
You can build one in minecraft and it looks good ... but you can't fill it with interesting stuff within a reasonable budget.
And GoT is best for its stories and characters .. so it would be much suitable for a point-n-click adventure, then a MMO.
Why don't we ever get cities and locations like this in MMOs?
cause ten minutes of loading time on good computers
In my opinion, content for adventuring is far more important than esthetics and playable space in home bases or cities. Give me a dynamic dungeon over a city block any day.
In games, I much prefer elaborate natural terrains anyways. There is something awe inspiring about finding a precipice somewhere which overlooks a vast terrain of gorgeous flora and fauna.
Having said that, I do concede that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But we play to "play", not to just hang out.