Camelot Unchained MMO

FYI they dropped the map limit at the same time as the fucked up culling patch so queues don't really mean jack shit as a population indication. Just like servers showing full / medium / light its all arbitrary bull shit they've had to manually adjust because it doesn't fucking work the way it should. Queues have been fucked up since launch and have never worked correctly.

Lithose_sl said:

Really, developers need to ditch the idea of hard caps...And then, with soft caps, you have tons of avenues opened to you.

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I'd be thrilled if they just did away with levels entirely. Skill systems like Ultima Online used are far better imo. New character can go hang out with someone with max skills without any worries. Never once felt like I was grinding in UO because I never felt like I needed to be 7x GM. I'd like to see this done again. I ended up with some 7x GM characters but it was just a byproduct from playing a lot. Character advancement should be something that happens while you play a game. Not the point of the game itself.

At least for some games. I know plenty of people enjoy leveling.

Kirun_sl said:

You're sitting in a queue on reset day!? Wow, stop the fucking presses! HUGE EVIDENCE OF THE GAME'S SUCCESS THERE!

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Yeah, people stuffing into a game on a Friday night sure sounds like the game is awful.

Grim, you're just bad dude. I mean, you're really bad and your thought process is just fucked up. I mean you're just a strange dude. But you're entertaining so keep on keepin on.

Catacombs was actually a pretty decent "PVE" expansion in DAOC, and part of that is it really made leveling a lot faster/easier. I think they learned from a lot of their mistakes with TOA, and were able to put out a decent expansion with Catacombs. Auto-AE loot was introduced around that time, and it was an awesome feature that I wish other games would use. They also added a lot more XP camps in BG's and the Frontier for some great leveling mixed with RvR. Some of the best times I had in DAOC were at catacombs release on the classic servers they launched. No TOA, just catacombs/SI, and no buffbots. The community was awesome, and for the most part classes were pretty balanced around that time because they gave many of them a total overhaul. Catacombs and the dragons had a few items most people used in templates, but most of the best stuff was still crafted. Housing was given an overhaul at that time too, so the economy was awesome. If any of you DAOC vets missed out on that time, you really missed out on what a lot of people consider the best of DAOC.

I skimmed through the last few pages and thought I was in the EQN thread, complete with the Grim1 "I want to be back in 2001" vs Draegan "change is impossible" argument. Isnt this about a RvR game that's going to be pretty much PvP only? As in leveling through PvP like in Warhammer and (in theory) in GW2? I figured the zones would be like GW2 WvW zones and the mobs are only there to annoy you.

Even forgetting all of the hype and all of the bad decisions, WAR would have failed purely because of the shittiness of the engine. It was so clunky and uncomfortable to play, if the basic gameplay isn't smooth and reactive, it doesn't matter what you do with the rest because people will get frustrated and stop playing.

Though why the fuck they went with 2 factions after basically inventing the 3 faction system is beyond me, especially in a setting which was perfect for multiple factions.

Draegan_sl said:

GW2 doesn't need a large playerbase, they need to sell a lot of boxes. They did. They are incredibly successful. Most successful MMO after WOW. People playing these games don't want to slog through tedious weeks of leveling to max out. They want to max out as soon as possible. But they will spend 6 months gearing up though. That's the crux. Make leveling fast as hell, so devote 15% of your content to it, then make a game that is fun to get gear and other shit with the rest of the 85%. Today's games need to be the polar opposite of your thinking. In the end it's really window dressing though.

You want months of leveling then start the gear grind.

I want hours of leveling (under 20, or the length of a single player game), but then spend the bulk of my hours gearing out my character, doing PVP. Leveling is something people view "they have to do". But someone will have no problem hanging out in game and grind a dungeon or two a night. For some reason doing 20 dungeons for the hell of it is fine to get 200 tokens. But doing 20 dungeons to get 10 levels is boring. At least the gear you're getting at this point sticks around for a while.

See where I'm getting at?

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This is undoubtedly where the industry is going and it's horrible and why we have lobby games not worlds anymore. There was a time when exploration and class progression was a huge part of MMORPGs and yet it seems to me the industry is moving toward diablo and league of legends crap.

I want a world to explore and wish leveling took much longer. I never understood why folks rush to max level only to be infinitely bored as hell. I often turn off Xp in vanguard for this reason.

You're confusing what I said. Time to level has nothing to do with a lobby game at all. You can have an open world with zero instancing, no fast travel and the harshest death penalties in the world and my theory would fit in.

The premise is that players these days, myself included, what my character's full potential for abilities quickly. If you want to make a quest for a uber weapon take months to get, that's fine with me, but just level me do it without having to grind experience.

People don't want to spend their time filling up bars. They want to play a game, get a reward and call it a day. What would you rather do, spend 10 hours of play time and fill up a half a bar of a level; or spend 10 hours in the game and get a cool upgrade that will last you a month or so?

This game theory can be placed within a world that is all instance and all lobby, or your perfect version of hardcore oldschool games. It's all about different ways to grow your character and changing/challenging the paradigm.

Your character at any level is the sum of your level, your items and your abilites. I think designers need to look at how those three aspects interact with each other instead of blindly copying what came before.

The whole leveling process can be cut. All its doing can be done with items. Leave leveling out of the game and roll the stats you would get from levels into the item appropriate to that level. Voila, item progression made more relevant and leveling drudgery gone in one swoop. Either give the characters every ability at creation or introduce to them slowly on the game's "newbie island". You dont need 50 levels to teach a player 20ish abilites, and you dont need to fill your game with pointless duplicate abilities. Alternatively make a system where you never stop leveling and the gains are just naturally diminished because it is a linear addition to a growing stat. That way you dont have to bait and switch the players once they reach the fabled endgame.

Look at EVE for people approaching an MMO entirely different. And while the clueless do whine about skill points gain most players grasp that they indeed do not need to have every skill and learn to place priorities. I really wish developers had enough smarts to better blend good and more importantly different designs into what their suit money demands from the game according to their focus testing groups.

Isn't that what diablo is for? That type of playstyle? Maybe MMOs aren't for people that like those types of games.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Your character at any level is the sum of your level, your items and your abilites. I think designers need to look at how those three aspects interact with each other instead of blindly copying what came before.

The whole leveling process can be cut. All its doing can be done with items. Leave leveling out of the game and roll the stats you would get from levels into the item appropriate to that level. Voila, item progression made more relevant and leveling drudgery gone in one swoop. Either give the characters every ability at creation or introduce to them slowly on the game's "newbie island". You dont need 50 levels to teach a player 20ish abilites, and you dont need to fill your game with pointless duplicate abilities. Alternatively make a system where you never stop leveling and the gains are just naturally diminished because it is a linear addition to a growing stat. That way you dont have to bait and switch the players once they reach the fabled endgame.

Look at EVE for people approaching an MMO entirely different. And while the clueless do whine about skill points gain most players grasp that they indeed do not need to have every skill and learn to place priorities. I really wish developers had enough smarts to better blend good and more importantly different designs into what their suit money demands from the game according to their focus testing groups.

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This is a great post, and I agree 100%.

mkopec_sl said:

I dont like long travel times...

I dont like leveling...

I dont like competing for content...

I hate trash, and respawns....

I hate death penalties...

I like to play for 20 min and get a doggy bone...

And what are you left with? Instanced dungeon lobby game for +5 items....

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Please don't go full retard, it hurts the forums. I never made any opinion at all at what I like in that post. What I said was that game design, world interaction, content type and development, can be independent of how your character develops for the most part. I'm going to make this stupid proof to you because your reading comprehension is bad.

You can have a game with long travel times, or short. You can have a game with long leveling or short. You can have a game that competes for content or not. You can have a game with 6 hours of trash or 0.

You can have a game with no death penalties or a million.

You can have a game with everything instanced or nothing.

None of these design choices has anything to do with how you build a character.

Here's a game that I would consider playing:
No fast travel.
Interesting and risky death penalties.
Open World, no instances.
However I want to hit max level in 10 hours so I get all my talent points and skills or whatever. Then I want to spend the next 500 hours coming to full power by doing things in game. Whether that is questing for a new sword, questing for a piece of armor that makes my main attack stronger. Spend 20 hours in three days trying to find a single NPC that appears rarely to get an item that leads to unlocking a special dungeon.

I do not want to spend a bulk of my gaming time just wasting time getting to max level just to begin enjoying the game. You might be different, and that's ok. You might enjoy spending 50 hours leveling a character just so you can cast fireball. Me? That's dull and boring. I want to cast my fireball soon. I want to spend the next 30 hours making it better by fighting through badguys to get an enchantment, not filling up a bar of experience so I can ding a level.

I'm not sure you get what I'm saying. Make a game like EQ. Copy it exactly, but make it fun to play. Make it so 90% of the areas in the game give you armor. Make it so you have to do zone a first before you do zone b because zone a's armor allows you to do zone b better. Don't make the world 90% leveling content. Fuck leveling.

I want to play a game where I have eveyrthing my character can do inside a week. I want to spend the next 8 months adventuring for armor and weapons that make me better. I don't want to spend 8 months leveling first.

Now I'm way off track and this is a shit post because its full of ramble.

Draegan_sl said:

Please don't go full retard, it hurts the forums. I never made any opinion at all at what I like in that post. What I said was that game design, world interaction, content type and development, can be independent of how your character develops for the most part. I'm going to make this stupid proof to you because your reading comprehension is bad.

You can have a game with long travel times, or short. You can have a game with long leveling or short. You can have a game that competes for content or not. You can have a game with 6 hours of trash or 0.

You can have a game with no death penalties or a million.

You can have a game with everything instanced or nothing.

None of these design choices has anything to do with how you build a character.

Here's a game that I would consider playing:
No fast travel.
Interesting and risky death penalties.
Open World, no instances.
However I want to hit max level in 10 hours so I get all my talent points and skills or whatever. Then I want to spend the next 500 hours coming to full power by doing things in game. Whether that is questing for a new sword, questing for a piece of armor that makes my main attack stronger. Spend 20 hours in three days trying to find a single NPC that appears rarely to get an item that leads to unlocking a special dungeon.

I do not want to spend a bulk of my gaming time just wasting time getting to max level just to begin enjoying the game. You might be different, and that's ok. You might enjoy spending 50 hours leveling a character just so you can cast fireball. Me? That's dull and boring. I want to cast my fireball soon. I want to spend the next 30 hours making it better by fighting through badguys to get an enchantment, not filling up a bar of experience so I can ding a level.

I'm not sure you get what I'm saying. Make a game like EQ. Copy it exactly, but make it fun to play. Make it so 90% of the areas in the game give you armor. Make it so you have to do zone a first before you do zone b because zone a's armor allows you to do zone b better. Don't make the world 90% leveling content. Fuck leveling.

I want to play a game where I have eveyrthing my character can do inside a week. I want to spend the next 8 months adventuring for armor and weapons that make me better. I don't want to spend 8 months leveling first.

Now I'm way off track and this is a shit post because its full of ramble.

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That sounds reasonable. Now we just need devs with the skill and balls to actually do something like that.

That'll happen when people stop being nostalgic for EQ1 and focus on making new games. There are a lot of devs out there that grew up on EQ1 and their design and imagination end there. It's a shame.

Draegan_sl said:

Please don't go full retard, it hurts the forums. I never made any opinion at all at what I like in that post. What I said was that game design, world interaction, content type and development, can be independent of how your character develops for the most part. I'm going to make this stupid proof to you because your reading comprehension is bad.

You can have a game with long travel times, or short. You can have a game with long leveling or short. You can have a game that competes for content or not. You can have a game with 6 hours of trash or 0.

You can have a game with no death penalties or a million.

You can have a game with everything instanced or nothing.

None of these design choices has anything to do with how you build a character.

Here's a game that I would consider playing:
No fast travel.
Interesting and risky death penalties.
Open World, no instances.
However I want to hit max level in 10 hours so I get all my talent points and skills or whatever. Then I want to spend the next 500 hours coming to full power by doing things in game. Whether that is questing for a new sword, questing for a piece of armor that makes my main attack stronger. Spend 20 hours in three days trying to find a single NPC that appears rarely to get an item that leads to unlocking a special dungeon.

I do not want to spend a bulk of my gaming time just wasting time getting to max level just to begin enjoying the game. You might be different, and that's ok. You might enjoy spending 50 hours leveling a character just so you can cast fireball. Me? That's dull and boring. I want to cast my fireball soon. I want to spend the next 30 hours making it better by fighting through badguys to get an enchantment, not filling up a bar of experience so I can ding a level.

I'm not sure you get what I'm saying. Make a game like EQ. Copy it exactly, but make it fun to play. Make it so 90% of the areas in the game give you armor. Make it so you have to do zone a first before you do zone b because zone a's armor allows you to do zone b better. Don't make the world 90% leveling content. Fuck leveling.

I want to play a game where I have eveyrthing my character can do inside a week. I want to spend the next 8 months adventuring for armor and weapons that make me better. I don't want to spend 8 months leveling first.

Now I'm way off track and this is a shit post because its full of ramble.

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what you don't seem to comprehend is that EQ was able to accomplish exactly what you're talking about, along with having levels. you leveled in EQ, but you also dungeon crawled for better gear and weapons, increased your skills and abilities, and explored the game while you leveled up. the reason why EQ worked was because leveling was as much fun (or even more fun) as attaining max level. because it took longer to level up, you actually stayed in certain areas/dungeons for several weeks at a time, accumulating loot, meeting new people, exploring new areas and having *FUN*! the fun part of EQ was the entire leveling experience. there's nothing wrong with having levels, as long as you make the game so that people can actually have fun while they're leveling up. the problem with games nowadays is the game is so fucking boring, fast, uninspiring, and pretty much a solo experience that everyone just wants to race to max level because for some stupid reason the devs make the rest of the game horrible. EQ didn't do that. EQ was the exact opposite. put more emphasis on the lower to mid level range of a game again, and make leveling take longer (and i mean a lot longer), and you can still have levels and still have fun.

Draegan I dont quite get if you are hating on leveling or on not having every skill your class can have available to you at all times. Maybe answer me this for clarity: if the game had 1000 levels and you receive all skills within levels 1-10 (5 hours of play) but it takes 500 hours to reach level 1000, is that ok for you? (the extra levels would be for a player type that likes leveling, not for you).

Flipmode_sl said:

Isn't that what diablo is for? That type of playstyle? Maybe MMOs aren't for people that like those types of games.

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You are right, but who are you to tell people what kind of games are suited for them??! They'll play the MMOs and demand changes to their style of playing instead of picking the game that was made for their style of playing. If you liked the MMO the way it was before, too bad for you.

I mean some people like leveling for hours and taking 500 hours to hit cap. Obviously my idea is not for them. However I'm willing to bet my game would be more popular.

Mr Creed: In your scenario why do you have levels? You want players to fill up a bar for the sake of filling up a bar for no reason? I don't get it.

etchazz: Where in my above scenario is what you said not likely to happen? I just eliminated levels as a gating mechanism for character abilities. You can create a game that has all that you want. Let's use WOW as an example. Let's say you hit max level just as you completed Deadmines. You have all your talent points and skills. You then turn every zone from Deadmines to MoP into areas where players "quest" for gear. These aren't typical quest but various levels of "epic" like quests.

Now in this game, gear helps you augment skills. Similar to how Path of Exiles does things. The better the gear the better slots and gems you can get. What you have to design for is that different zones have a certain threshold to them that requires the gear from the previous zone(s). Instead of levels gating you from future content you put in a soft gate of gear. This is also assuming you're using the same boring hotbar/tab target type of combat.

This gear progression system can take 1 week for a player or it can take 1 year. Doesn't matter. You eliminate levels. Players "race to max" because that's where the real game starts for most people. You will never eliminate that type of thinking. Players want to get their full spectrum of abilities and then work on "other things". Because of that, why not flip the paradigm? Instead of designing content where 80% of it is for leveling and 20% is just raids and dungeons; design it so 80% is open world, dungeons, and raids etc. When you take a look at WOW, the vast majority (99+%) is all about max level game. The community is centered around the end game. Why not attempt to make your game all about that?

Instead of sitting in a small area grinding mobs for levels, you're sitting in a small area adventuring for a set of armor or a sword or whatever that gives you enough strength (ilvl) to fight in the next kind of how D3 did with Inferno (but less stupid). Maybe a group of people are grinding an area because there is a gem that drops somewhere that you can put in your armor that makes your fireball travel faster or you cast two of them each time, or it forks on impact, or it explodes on impact. Shit like that.


You can slow the pace or increase it to chew through content. Doesn't matter, you can do it whatever speed you want.

Edit:
Of course you will need to design dungeons and open world content with a new vision in mind. You will have to create a living world that's more than static spawning mobs and dungeons.