2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

jayrebb · May 4, 2019

mkopec said:
Yeah I gotta say I tried to explore in wow but there was just no point. If it wasnt part of the theme park ride, it just was not important. Besides the entire point of mmorpgs at that point was to rush through leveling as fast as possible and RAIIIID. Which is an entirely different discussion but I feel has lead to the downfall of mmorpgs too.

Vanguard was great in that way. The world was back.

I can't believe the source code leaks on other games but VG source was just left to die. Pathetic really.

Wonder how much Daybreak is asking for the VG property? Probably close to a million since they need to recoup losses.

It would need to come up for auction for someone to get it at a reasonable price. Daybreak bankruptcy and liquidation when???

Ukerric · May 4, 2019

Pharone said:
The MMORPGs that came after EverQuest for the most part killed exploration. It all became theme parks where you ~~went~~ were told to go from point A to point B, and then you ~~went~~ were told to go from point B to point C. Rinse and repeat. Gotta chase that questing carrot.

Fixed for you.

Borzak · May 4, 2019

The ? and ! over an NPC's head killed all that off. Could go forever without seeing that shit again.

Neranja · May 4, 2019

Ravishing said:
Ughhhhhhhhhh please add substance to your posts ffs.
What I'm reading is "can't, no, nope, hard, mess, question? question? question?".

Interpersonal politics in MMO games are a byproduct of limited ressources like raid boss spawns and the resulting competition around it. It results in a metagame disconnected from the game rules themselves. This was the case in EQ, and moreso in more competitive games like EVE. This is exactly the defintion of "emergent gameplay".

What you want to do is add game mechanics to funnel said politics metagame into game systems themselves. This will neccessarily lead to a reduced feeling of player agency. Also, players will either try to outsmart the systems, or flat out ignore them to achieve their own goals.

You can't even provide a more detailed explanation or decription of your game systems, so I have concluded that you (like many armchair game developers) have a vague feeling of what you want from your game without thinking deeper about the rules and mechanics. The bad part is you can't even explain with examples from other games, like e.g. Civilization where ruling+politics is an integral part.

Unless you can provide a pitch more in depth than "lol politics and democracy in my MMO" I can't help but guess that you experienced the political metagame in EQ, hated it because you were on the losing side, and now want to solidify rules for it in game systems so you feel you have a chance for victory in your game.

Ravishing · May 4, 2019

Neranja said:
Interpersonal politics in MMO games are a byproduct of limited ressources like raid boss spawns and the resulting competition around it. It results in a metagame disconnected from the game rules themselves. This was the case in EQ, and moreso in more competitive games like EVE. This is exactly the defintion of "emergent gameplay".

What you want to do is add game mechanics to funnel said politics metagame into game systems themselves. This will neccessarily lead to a reduced feeling of player agency. Also, players will either try to outsmart the systems, or flat out ignore them to achieve their own goals.

You can't even provide a more detailed explanation or decription of your game systems, so I have concluded that you (like many armchair game developers) have a vague feeling of what you want from your game without thinking deeper about the rules and mechanics. The bad part is you can't even explain with examples from other games, like e.g. Civilization where ruling+politics is an integral part.

Unless you can provide a pitch more in depth than "lol politics and democracy in my MMO" I can't help but guess that you experienced the political metagame in EQ, hated it because you were on the losing side, and now want to solidify rules for it in game systems so you feel you have a chance for victory in your game.

Lol you're funny. I'm not trying to pitch you anything. That's very presumptuous of you. Why would I pitch to someone with 0 power or vision?

Your 1st paragraph is ALMOST accurate. You finally seem to understand the point but your conclusion that it disconnects from the metagame is incorrect. Competitive aspects BECOME the metagame.

I guess I'm not too far off on my assessment of you and you're trying to do the same back... unfortunately you're so far off base. The political games in EQ are some of my fondest memories, though were few and far between since being top dog means not having to play too many political games unfortunately. Though any EQ politics is NOT the type of political game I'm proposing here.

And like I said before, I have some high level concepts, some that expand upon the political aspect I'm proposing.

Daidraco 's ideas are a little different than my own but not entirely off.

I would look to find a way where more land = more upkeep, taxes pay for upkeep, expand too far or fast and problems arise, keeping expansion in check. Evolve your town into a city or capital. At a certain level these towns become "starting zones " for newbies, to help keep cities growing. Basically trying to create Qeynos/ Freeport from the ground up, and cities can die out or crop up organically.

Taxes go to the coffers that the politicians vote how to spend, nobody can just raid the coffers. What is taxed, and how high, also voted upon. And is a means of attracting new citizens.. or deterring.

Every month or quarter the new round of politicians can change whatever based on how they want the city to progress. But all citizens should feel some amount of duty, pride, and respect for their home, otherwise the city will collapse

Cybsled · May 4, 2019

I just don't see that being fun except for whoever is the politician. There is no "greater good" in a MMO unless you're slaved to a guild that requires all members funnel resources to a central repository. Good luck getting that kind of commitment outside of a top tier guild / one with a really established playerbase that enjoys doing that.

If cities are transient, then the only people who are going to feel duty/pride are those that belong to the ruling elite inner circle/guilds that control said city. Random plebs are only going to care about your city so long as it benefits them. If another city is offering better stuff, there is no duty/pride/etc, they're all going to jump ship and leave you with a ghost town. Beyond that, I can already see a flaw in your loose outline of a system. A) Game comes out B) The guilds serious about cities start to make them. Taxes are high because this early in the game everyone just wants to rush the good shit and this is the fastest way to do it C) Once infrastructure is created and maxed out, taxes are dipped to the lowest possible levels allowable to maintain the infrastructure D) New cities can't arise effectively anymore because the playerbase flocks to the low tax city with all the amenities. This goes for PVE and PVP, although in PVP you also have the big cities shitstomping the new ones (See: Shadowbane).

Archeage already tried some of what you proposed. They implemented a voting system for the 3 main factions (usually it boiled down to popularity and in some cases bribes), then they expanded the keep system so that you could create a virtual city and the GM of the guild who held it could adjust taxes/etc. The problem is that unto itself isn't a catch. No one played Archeage to vote for leaders or (outside of the .01%) manage a city. They played to kill shit and for some, farm stuff/make tradepacks and make money.

Like Neranja stated, things like that usually arose organically in MMOs in response to the limitations of the game and scarcity of resources. If you want to make it a core mechanic, you also have to understand that the system you describe unto itself is not a pull. If your MMO is basically just medieval sim-city, but not everyone can actually make a city, you're not going to attract many people. You need a robust game outside of that people feel invested in first, then you can think about window dressing stuff like that to make you stand out.

Ravishing · May 4, 2019

Cybsled said:
I just don't see that being fun except for whoever is the politician. There is no "greater good" in a MMO unless you're slaved to a guild that requires all members funnel resources to a central repository. Good luck getting that kind of commitment outside of a top tier guild / one with a really established playerbase that enjoys doing that.

If cities are transient, then the only people who are going to feel duty/pride are those that belong to the ruling elite inner circle/guilds that control said city. Random plebs are only going to care about your city so long as it benefits them. If another city is offering better stuff, there is no duty/pride/etc, they're all going to jump ship and leave you with a ghost town. Beyond that, I can already see a flaw in your loose outline of a system. A) Game comes out B) The guilds serious about cities start to make them. Taxes are high because this early in the game everyone just wants to rush the good shit and this is the fastest way to do it C) Once infrastructure is created and maxed out, taxes are dipped to the lowest possible levels allowable to maintain the infrastructure D) New cities can't arise effectively anymore because the playerbase flocks to the low tax city with all the amenities. This goes for PVE and PVP, although in PVP you also have the big cities shitstomping the new ones (See: Shadowbane).

Archeage already tried some of what you proposed. They implemented a voting system for the 3 main factions (usually it boiled down to popularity and in some cases bribes), then they expanded the keep system so that you could create a virtual city and the GM of the guild who held it could adjust taxes/etc. The problem is that unto itself isn't a catch. No one played Archeage to vote for leaders or (outside of the .01%) manage a city. They played to kill shit and for some, farm stuff/make tradepacks and make money.

Like Neranja stated, things like that usually arose organically in MMOs in response to the limitations of the game and scarcity of resources. If you want to make it a core mechanic, you also have to understand that the system you describe unto itself is not a pull. If your MMO is basically just medieval sim-city, but not everyone can actually make a city, you're not going to attract many people. You need a robust game outside of that people feel invested in first, then you can think about window dressing stuff like that to make you stand out.

I agree 100% with what you're saying. I wouldn't play the game if there weren't other core gameplay elements included. As I said before, politics has been seldom explored and I think there is great potential including it in future MMOs in conjunction with the your normal MMO content.

Kharzette · May 4, 2019

I don't remember Archeage having any voting stuff? SWG had like mayor elections or something? I never looked into what it was or what they did. Seems like there was a whole skill tree for it.

Neranja · May 4, 2019

Cybsled said:
If you want to make it a core mechanic, you also have to understand that the system you describe unto itself is not a pull.

It's worse than that, because you basically force other players to pay taxes in the territory you control. Black Desert Online has a similar taxation mechanic where guild can control nodes and receive taxes from it. The consensus at the scrub level is "why should I pay taxes to make the fat rich bastards richer?"

Neranja · May 4, 2019

Ravishing said:
And like I said before, I have some high level concepts, some that expand upon the political aspect I'm proposing.

This is just flat out admitting that you have no real ideas and/or game mechanics down, only your "vision" as you put it. So we have nothing to discuss as there is nothing tangible except the warm and fuzzy feeling of having an idea like "wouldn't it be cool if you put politics into an MMO". As if no one ever tried something like this.

Cybsled · May 4, 2019

Kharzette said:
I don't remember Archeage having any voting stuff? SWG had like mayor elections or something? I never looked into what it was or what they did. Seems like there was a whole skill tree for it.

It came out in one of the updates. They got some OP cloak and the the ability to summon the entire faction to their location, among other things.

Kharzette · May 4, 2019

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh I remember a throne in the capitol city. It wouldn't let me sit in it

BrotherWu · May 4, 2019

I'd like to see a fresh take on some of the concepts of A Tale in the Desert. Most intriguing in that game was the resource and crafting trees. The market started with mundane resource gathering such as plants, stone, ores and wood and everything, literally everything, was derived from it. Many of the steps in processing required some actual level of skill to perform. For example, making charcoal took time so you'd try to run it a little hot but if you were not skilled at managing it, it could flame up and you'd lose your wood. Making of axes required a skilled blacksmith. It might take half an hour properly hammering on a chunk of metal to form it into a high quality axe, for example. If you could learn to do it well, you could become well-known and make good "money" at it. There was actually an artisan component to it.

All trade was actually through bartering. There may have been a currency developed at some point in the society development- not sure. Anyway, a newbie could go out and gather something mundane that they had access to and trade up to an axe, even if they didn't have a forge. At one point, there was a player-created and run market where you could track prices on stuff and go trade for whatever you needed. Laws, community management, community projects were also a huge part of the progress through a telling.

You had livestock, cooking, farming, horticulture, beekeeping, all kinds of activities in economy that fed into the advancement of the game.

A huge world where you could settle wherever you wanted and each area had its advantages and disadvantages.

Combine some of those aspects with dungeon crawling and I'd be all over it.

Daidraco · May 4, 2019

There are different ways that players can pay Taxes to the ruling state. Money spent within the states control would have a tax on it. Ie. You buy Malachite and you pay a small tax. You repair your equipment, you pay a small tax. But there has to be something there to draw them to your town, anyways. If you raise the taxes really high, but you have no draw to the city - then who cares who the ruling elite is, your town is going to die. If you raise your taxes really high and that town has a draw to it, IE. close to Nagafen for respawn, supplies, repairs, then people will pay the tax on the items sold there. Plopping down a city in the middle of nowhere and expecting people to come there and pay your taxes would just be dumb for those that started the initial push. I never cared for the tax system in a game that took out 8-10 copper on my 1 silver loot. That brought my attention right to the tax and I hated it. If someone killed a group of bandits and took all their stuff, you dont have the taxman sitting right there with his hand out.

I honestly wouldnt care who the monarchy is, as long as they are putting money towards buildings and vendors that I want or need. If in the beginning, the only Auction Houses in the world are in the Capital Cities - then I would surely hope that someone puts one up close to the dungeon Im currently at so I dont have to run 30 minutes to sell my shiny loot. You alleviate the aspect of PVP with the previous recent posts I have by bolstering the opposing forces to the ruling faction. A faction governor and those that helped them get to that spot would be KOS to any opposing faction that would be willing to overthrow them. Yes, I know it can be manipulated by a large guild - but those members on the outside of the faction cant even enter the town when they are supporting the opposing faction. There is give and take to every system. Much less after testing, I'm sure the system would be taken a step further and the Raid Boss would be random. Instead of the NPC ruler being a High Elf Mage, it would be a Wood Elf Ranger. So again, keeping loot static, but random.

All of this being laid over top of a game that is what we have come to expect from MMORPG's. I like my faction idea, because it inherently causes people to pick sides and cause strife within the player base. Bosses arent "owned" by one guild, and it makes people more transient.

You know, just arm chairing being a developer. We've all got the basics down of how an MMO should work and operate. Writing on a forum/napkin ideas is what we're doing after all. I've seen games and often asked myself what the hell the developer was thinking.

Ravishing · May 4, 2019

Neranja said:
This is just flat out admitting that you have no real ideas and/or game mechanics down, only your "vision" as you put it. So we have nothing to discuss as there is nothing tangible except the warm and fuzzy feeling of having an idea like "wouldn't it be cool if you put politics into an MMO". As if no one ever tried something like this.

Hah, what the fuck? Of course there's nothing tangible, this is a gaming forum. Where did you think you were? Which is why all your drivel about design docs and funding has been so absurd. Welcome to a discussion forum, not Arm Chair Games Inc.

Ukerric · May 4, 2019

Borzak said:
The ? and ! over an NPC's head killed all that off. Could go forever without seeing that shit again.

That one's not the problem.

The problem is that the quest has become the required path to advance.

1) The quests reward you a disproportionate amount of XP at every step
2) The game is balanced so that you have a minimum amount of gear at each level, and the main source of gear is quest rewards

(I'll include the WQ in that batch, even though they don't have a "!"/"?" system)

What you need for a quest is

1) To be long
2) To be flavorfull
3) To have no intrinsic rewards beyond doing it, at least until the very last step

You don't gain XP by doing a quest. You gain XP by killing the mobs you need to kill, or the mobs that are guarding wherever you need to go, etc.
You don't gain gear by doing a quest. You get gear drop from the named you're supposed to kill at one point (which you could kill at any time for its gear, even without the quest)

That opens up multiple avenues of play. The "level in Island expedition" mechanic that you could use in BFA was good, because it bypassed the entire #1 above. Alas, you need to get gear at one point, and unless you were doing quests, you did not get any. Which meant it was ok only if you did not need gear at all (because you wore Heirlooms, or because you're a class that can perform reasonably without needing gear).

Cybsled · May 4, 2019

No, I'd prefer XP from quests. Removing that and rewards doesn't open up avenues of play, it just creates guided mob grinds and for the specific example you gave, there is actually 0 reason to do the quest since nothing (including mob spawns) seems to be tied to the quest itself, at which point the devs would ask what the hell is the point in investing resources into something people aren't going to use. That is what killed BDO for me, because beyond the stupid Korean MMO "lol ur gear can blow up unless you buy charms at our cash shop" mechanic, it turned into another shitty "kill 1000000 mobs to level" bullshit fest because quests didn't give XP and your only actual avenue of advancement was just chain killing shit.

I mean, I know there is a segment of people who get off on that sort of thing, but we've seen over 2 decades of evidence to show what method the broader playerbase prefers.

Randin · May 4, 2019

When it comes to quests, I'd say the problem is less about exp and loot, and more about the ... I guess we can say the narrative aspects of them. Quests nowadays are just busy work that exist to give a little more context to growing your numbers than a simple grindfest does. And that was a nice change of pace back when WoW and EQ2 were coming out. But now, developers need to grow MMO quest design beyond that.

First though, the push, exemplified by SWTOR, for having a single-player-style main story, was entirely the wrong way to try taking quest design; that shit needs to go. Not only is it not playing to the genre's strengths--and actively working against them by segregating players while they're doing their story shit--but it can't even do the story as well as an actual single-player game. And, of course, there is the stupidity of having every character in the game be the Chosen One of the story.

Really, if they want quests feeling quest-y (and, I'd say, if you want them to feel satisfying), then they need to have results beyond the personal. Exp and loot is all well and good, but if you get the quest to "save our village by [killing orcs]," then you need to be able to actually save the village, not just have an excuse to kill ten orcs. GW2 was a baby step towards this kinda thing, but for it to really work, there needs to be a certain feeling of permanence to the results of your actions. Knowing that the 'save the village' event is going to reset fifteen minutes after completing it robs it of a lot of its feeling of accomplishment. It's why I keep hoping we'll see someone revisit the whole StoryBricks-style AI someday, and actually pull off what they were pitching. Having things simply happening in the world without being tied to a specific personal narrative, and players being able to effect those things, is the future of the genre, I think. The Node System that Ashes of Creation is pitching isn't quite on that level, but it'll at least in the neighborhood, if they can pull it off.

Cybsled · May 4, 2019

For me, one of the strong suits of FFXIV is the main story quest. Heck, even for SWTOR it was a selling point.

When telling a story in a RPG, the best way to get player buy in is to make them part of the story. WoW started this long ago, but SWTOR and then FFXIV really took it to the next level by introducing recurring characters that had relationships with your character. WoW did this to a lesser degree, but it never had the same pull, especially when Blizzard started to get lazy about it. I remember back in WOTLK you ran into Bolivar and if you had done the Onyxia storyline, he was all buddy-buddy with you and thanking you. Specific callbacks like that. One thing FFXIV devs do right is as you progress through the story, they even go back and adjust the dialogue that NPCs you probably havent dealt with in months to address the changes in old zones.

What you're suggesting is cool, but the problem is you are basically creating limited content. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but to do it worth a damn takes ALOT of investment for something that basically becomes a one off. There's a reason it is so rare in MMOs. Stuff like the Sleeper, or the AQ opening, or even in FFXIV with the one-off events or building up Idlyshire/Mordhona (current players just walk into a fully completed city without realizing that when the cities first came out, they were just ruins and random tents and players in past expansions are actually the ones who helped build up the city that people enjoy today). They make for memorable events and it is cool for players around at the time, but they're content that doesn't get reused again. If you're a business, it becomes harder to justify "disposable" content when you can make more permanent content.

Randin · May 4, 2019

Cybsled said:
What you're suggesting is cool, but the problem is you are basically creating limited content. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but to do it worth a damn takes ALOT of investment for something that basically becomes a one off. There's a reason it is so rare in MMOs. Stuff like the Sleeper, or the AQ opening, or even in FFXIV with the one-off events or building up Idlyshire/Mordhona (current players just walk into a fully completed city without realizing that when the cities first came out, they were just ruins and random tents and players in past expansions are actually the ones who helped build up the city that people enjoy today). They make for memorable events and it is cool for players around at the time, but they're content that doesn't get reused again. If you're a business, it becomes harder to justify "disposable" content when you can make more permanent content.

Well, when I say that quests need a degree of permanence, I don't mean that they need to be one-offs, just that the results need to stick for a reasonable amount of time. To go with the old EQN/Storybricks example, if you save the village from the orcs, the orcs don't just depop; they pull back into the wilderness, lick their wounds a bit, and then migrate to greener pastures: a less well-defended village, or a stretch of road that sees more merchants than guards that they can go bandit on, or whatever. Hell, events could even conspire to eventually send them back to that original village; it just needs to happen over a long enough timescale that saving the village doesn't feel like a waste of time.

Or to go with what Ashes is Creation has been talking about, you make it so that not only do you have events to build up cities, you also have the ability to swing in and raze a city to the ground. You don't want to make it too quick or easy to do either, but you want the potential for it to happen to always be there.

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2 years later... the almost sad state of MMOs in the new era

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Ukerric

Bearded Ape

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm

Neranja

Ravishing

Uninspiring Title

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Ravishing

Uninspiring Title

Kharzette

Watcher of Overs

Neranja

Neranja

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Kharzette

Watcher of Overs

BrotherWu

MAGA

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer

Ravishing

Uninspiring Title

Ukerric

Bearded Ape

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Randin

Trakanon Raider

Cybsled

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider

Randin

Trakanon Raider