Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Draegan said:

Short and simple opinion from me is that I prefer designed roles for each player. Not so much that there are only archtypes, Warrior, Priest, Mage, Thief, but allow flexability in each class with in a set boundary.

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agreed. i don"t care if there"s a limit of classes i can choose from, just give me something that i can do in the game to make my particular character feel somewhat unique. give me some flexibility with my character so that i am not warriorclone189.

Quince said:

I am not sure if you have picked out an engine yet Ngruk, but have you seenProject Offset? I think it looks pretty amazing.

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If you look back in the thread, he"s addressed engine usage several times, including comments about the Offset engine.

And as long as we"re talking about classes, I"d love to see a real assassin/rogue for once. Pretty much every game makes rogues a purely melee DPS class with very limited secondary roles. Less DPS and more emphasis on actual roguish behavior would be great.

They keep trying and keep failing. Rogueish behavior can be gimmicky, and rarely does anyone gets absolutely exclusive roles. This makes rogueish behavior something non-rogues do as well, like monks or bards.

Ngruk said:

Skill or classed based is a huge decision. It"s one of the core design tennants and a major direction design heads once it"s decided upon.
The open ended-ness of skill based systems, imo, are incredibly tough to balance and require major development time above and beyond class based systems if PvP is to be part of a game.
I also don"t think you can ever truly "balance" an open ended skill based system, at least not during the early years of a games release.
Given the variables that millions of players introduce upon exposure to your system, and our desire to launch a game that"s as close to flawless as can be, it"s a tough call.

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It really depends on what your goals are in the end for the game. Skill based would be great if you want that single character per account basically. You develop that one character as detailed as possible. Problem is as the game gets older it is harder for new people to catch up.

With class based you basically encourage multiple alts, since people want to try different things. This gives longer life to the game for many.

Biggest problem with every game is the "endgame" regardless of which way you go. Once peopole max it, the inevitable question is "what now?"

Lonin said:

Pretty much every game makes rogues a purely melee DPS class with very limited secondary roles. Less DPS and more emphasis on actual roguish behavior would be great.

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I think LOTRO does this with the Burglar.

Maxxius said:

It really depends on what your goals are in the end for the game. Skill based would be great if you want that single character per account basically. You develop that one character as detailed as possible. Problem is as the game gets older it is harder for new people to catch up.

With class based you basically encourage multiple alts, since people want to try different things. This gives longer life to the game for many.

Biggest problem with every game is the "endgame" regardless of which way you go. Once peopole max it, the inevitable question is "what now?"

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Questions we"ve talked at incredible length on and feel extremely excited about our answers, solutions and ideas. Certainly going to be fun watching it unfold.

Maxxius said:

You develop that one character as detailed as possible. Problem is as the game gets older it is harder for new people to catch up.

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EVE has a good solution to that. The amount of skills required for a given job is finite and relatively bounded. Developping a single character beyond that point opens alternate non-overlapping roles for the same character, making it more flexible, not more powerful.

Or, in other words, an elder character can be many things, while a younger can be as good, but only in one role.

I"m Rich Bitch said:

I think LOTRO does this with the Burglar.

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Fair enough, but what they take out of DPS they put into Conjunctions instead which, while important, I wouldn"t exactly categorize as roguish.

You want more DDO stuff like traps and hidden chests and stuff? Whats more rogueish behavior to you? Pickpocket more meaningful?

Kidnapping and Extortion

Thhin said:

Kidnapping and Extortion

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Things that just aren"t possible in an MMO. Who would you kidnap? A player? That"s not going to go over too well to the kidnappee who is paying a monthly fee to be bound and gagged in a closet. What if no one wants to pay the ransom? Can"t extort a newb with no rich friends in the game.

I guess you could do it to NPCs but that would get pretty lame quickly unless it was worth a lot of money in which case everyone would do it.

I think if they just added some class-specific quests that made all classes "feel" like they were what they are, it would make most people happy.

What I mean is, keep Rogue"s as DPS and such when grouping and raiding, but toss us a bone when it comes to class quests and have us picking the lock of some noble house, stealing an artifact and escaping along the rooftops.

Look at the Thief series of games, and the Assassin quests from Oblivion. It can be done in MMO form as well.

I don"t see how skill systems are any harder to balance than a class system...you think WoW is balanced? hah.

UO was balanced because there was a skill cap...you just couldn"t be pro in everything. Sure you get alot of fotm, but who cares if it is fun? Make enough interesting skill tree"s, balance them with simple math that seems to elude most developers, and I believe you"ll get something far more fun than - hey look at me I"m affliction warlock #53453456346.

As far as rogues, I would say go look at DDO. It may not be what I consider a real MMO due to its MASSIVE instancing, but the action oriented gameplay coupled with pretty cool trap mechanics and platforming elements were really full of win. In fact, gameplay wise DDO was pretty damn fun IMO. Where it fails is using the D&D character system (which works well for P&P and single player games but not MMOs), overuse of instancing, and lack of a good pvp system.

On the topic of pvp, you know why I won"t try VG even though I"m bored of every current MMO? Yah, pvp...its either all or nothing, its not balanced, there are no objectives outside of straight killing, etc. Look, I enjoy interesting PVE encounters, but they are only fun the first time and it always gets old. Pvp is the spice, its basically free content for your subscribers if you set it up correctly the first time.

Please don"t make the mistake of adding on pvp at the last second. If you want to compete with WoW you absolutely need to incorporate pvp from the ground up. Objective oriented and balanced pvp...sure make it optional on some servers like WoW, but make sure its there. Just no retarded honor grinds please!

Daezuel said:

Please don"t make the mistake of adding on pvp at the last second. If you want to compete with WoW you absolutely need to incorporate pvp from the ground up. Objective oriented and balanced pvp...sure make it optional on some servers like WoW, but make sure its there. Just no retarded honor grinds please!

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And IF you"re going to do PVP, plan from the beginning to separate PVP and PVE skills, or some kind of solution.

It"s such bullshit when classes are nerfed because of PVP (which I don"t care about or participate in other than every now and then) and the PVE game suffers because of it. You cannot balance both.

Daezuel said:

UO was balanced

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LOL, was it really? UO was the most unbalanced game ever. There was a reason 90% of people wore plate armor, cast Corp Pors and weilded a halbred.

Twobit Whore said:

LOL, was it really? UO was the most unbalanced game ever. There was a reason 90% of people wore plate armor, cast Corp Pors and weilded a halbred.

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uh, if 90% of the people did the same thing than thats balance by default no?

I didn"t say it was a "good" balance and for the record I never used a melee weapon in UO.

Basically I"ll sum up my previous long post. UO+WOW+DDO = WIN.

There.

Daezuel said:

Basically I"ll sum up my previous long post. UO+WOW+DDO = WIN.

There.

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That is as foolish as saying great game > good game > bad game.

You can take great elements from any MMO out there, even crappy games, combine them and get something decent out of it.

Lourdin said:

That is as foolish as saying great game > good game > bad game.

You can take great elements from any MMO out there, even crappy games, combine them and get something decent out of it.

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Sign me up!

Lourdin said:

That is as foolish as saying great game > good game > bad game.

You can take great elements from any MMO out there, even crappy games, combine them and get something decent out of it.

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Indeed.

Vanguard, which many consider to be complete garbage, actually has some very interesting class mechanics in my opinion. I"ve been messing around on it some since they activated accounts for free, and at level 7 on my Sorcerer I"m already fully capable of kiting mobs, with a short-duration AE mez I can use if things go poorly or I get a bad resist.

The game mechanics are nothing new, but my point is it"s at level 7. Level 7 is boring as shit on WoW; on most MMOs, really. Vanguard gives you your class tools early, and you can actually have some fun with even the most mundane encounters. I feel this is something that should be considered in upcoming MMOs, and ties in with what I have said in this and other threads about making the player feel important and powerful early, instead of only at the end game.