Well, now what?
- Thread starter kitsune
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The phrase that comes to mind for me is 'Dungeon Master' a la AD&D. I gotta admit that's what's missing from fantasy MMOs, and there isn't really an easy answer until Skynet becomes self aware.
I would just like action based combat. I still prefer RPG's with slower paced combat and a lot of thought and depth to it. But I would like them to be more dynamic with diving around, manually blocking stuff, and jumping over / hiding behind obstacles in the game world. Guild Wars 2 was getting closer but they did a pretty half assed job of it imo. TSW kinda the same. I liked how mobs would do a huge area smash or spell and you saw a circle painted and quickly had to dive out the way of it or run away. Sometimes if the circle was too big to escape, you just had to hide behind a tree or a wall to be out of line of sight of the spell. And sometimes it's a cone shaped attack so you just dive sideways. But they could use more environmental stuff too, diving out the way of spikes and traps and lava starts coming outta the ground or the ground you are standing on starts crumbling down the side of a mountain or whatever. You get stuff like that in raids but it's scripted. I'd like to see stuff like that on normal and named mobs in MMO's, and for it to be AI based rather than scripted.
Games like Rift and GW2 already have the technology for it. Mobs can already do stuff to the ground, but so far it only ever involves diving out the way or something. They just need to be a bit more creative and elaborate on this stuff some more. You could end up with battles that require as much skill as Quake did in the 90's, (or more), yet still as much thought as Magic the Gathering or something.
The big companies wouldn't do this of course, because it would reduce the potential audience. The average casual tard or stay home mom would never cope with something like that. Big games now are just glorified chat rooms for people. It's a way to be less lonely even though you are stuck at home on your fat ass. You might be a fat unlike-able loser, but in WoW you are a leader of a guild with a sexy character a full friends list. But I'm looking forward to MMO's branching out over the next decade and catering to different audiences. The casual animated chatroom games can have half of the audience, and the other half could be split between games like Star Citizen for the sci fi fans, and ArcheAge or something for the fantasy fans, and Neverwinter for the D&D fans etc.
xzi
Mouthbreather
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What do you guys think of currency nowadays?
Not just badges or anything like that, but gold? Do you think an MMO could get away with using only item-item trading instead of gold? Maybe crafting materials could serve as currency instead? I'm genuinely interested. It won't stop goldselling and all that, but I would imagine it would slightly hinder how large the market is? Of course bots will be bots and you're not going to stop it anyways.
Not just badges or anything like that, but gold? Do you think an MMO could get away with using only item-item trading instead of gold? Maybe crafting materials could serve as currency instead? I'm genuinely interested. It won't stop goldselling and all that, but I would imagine it would slightly hinder how large the market is? Of course bots will be bots and you're not going to stop it anyways.
before the forum gold scumbags came, diablo ii had an item trade system. jsp or w/e go to hell
Nirgon
YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE
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Big_w_powah
Trakanon Raider
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Yeah, and it was full of antis and people wearing mostly nodrop gear who bagged everything else as soon as they saw another player.
Aaron
Goonsquad Officer
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I have burned out on MMOs and the only person I blame is myself. I started out on Eve, played EQ2 and a few others and played WoW on and off for 6 years. My god I had some good times back in the day. I played them for hours a day, and all the time during the weekends, just as many of you did with EQ1 and other games. I can't do that any more as I have a full time job and family obligations. Sometimes I reminisce of the old times, if I could go back to playing games all the time. But fuck it, I don't think so any more. I'm not a young person any more. I feel that many of the new games could captivate me if I were 18 or so, but as I'm in my 30s I actually have better things to do with my time. Maybe I'll try a nice casual MMO one day.
Tredge
Vyemm Raider
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I think Path of Exile took an interesting approach toward currency. No gold.
http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Currency
kitsune
Golden Knight of the Realm
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I'm 26 and I kind of see where you are coming from. Wheras I'm not filled with obligations (well, I have my job) there's less time to play. I have simple accepted that I will most likely not be part of the bleeding edge that can put in 10+ hours per day any mroe, which is okay. I'd still like to play in a game like that though, where I can progress at my own pace rather than WoW's new model of dumbing down content. That's kind of what I do in my guild now as well, we raid twice a week and have soon beaten the first raid instance on heroic. Which means we're still 10 bosses behind the great guilds, but we experience it at our own pace and understand that other things come before.
Still, I'd love to be the mid-level scrub looking at a guy in mega shiny armor and say "yuppers, he worked hard to get that. Cool, hat's off to him." I used to be that bloke, but I don't mind seeing the virtual torch passed on, you know? Sorry for rambling, your post just sparked a thought
Nirgon
YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE
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I pked quite a bit of velium / platinum resist jewelry, haste items, Djarn Amnethyst ring, various droppable dragonhide pieces, Crystal Chitin Bracers/Gloves.. during the big war in Velious people lost fungis, singing steel legs, cloak of crystalline waters to name a few..
Even in Luclin people were getting manaburned for Lodi shields and fungis and shit.
I can say I'm an expert in this department. LDON really killed the shit out of item loot by making droppable items become no drop when no drop augs were added.
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Aaron
Goonsquad Officer
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Yeah, my main point, that I see I didn't quite manage to get through, is that many people blame the Devs, dumbing down and other things for the evolution of MMOs. I did so too, at first, until I realised that as awesome as an "EQ1 with updated graphics" or whatever would seem, I just couldn't play and keep up as I could have done 10 years ago or so. And so, if something like that ever does come around, it would be out of my league.I'm 26 and I kind of see where you are coming from. Wheras I'm not filled with obligations (well, I have my job) there's less time to play. I have simple accepted that I will most likely not be part of the bleeding edge that can put in 10+ hours per day any mroe, which is okay. I'd still like to play in a game like that though, where I can progress at my own pace rather than WoW's new model of dumbing down content. That's kind of what I do in my guild now as well, we raid twice a week and have soon beaten the first raid instance on heroic. Which means we're still 10 bosses behind the great guilds, but we experience it at our own pace and understand that other things come before.
Still, I'd love to be the mid-level scrub looking at a guy in mega shiny armor and say "yuppers, he worked hard to get that. Cool, hat's off to him." I used to be that bloke, but I don't mind seeing the virtual torch passed on, you know? Sorry for rambling, your post just sparked a thought
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
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Yeah, but so? You wouldn't be able to compete with the kids who can devote 8 hours a day, but the fact that they can, and have better shit than you, makes the game actually feel like a persistent world and not Modern Warcraft 3 with hop-in/hop-out battles.
I certainly don't have the time either, but I'd kill to play another game like that with a modern engine. I find them much more engaging and interesting.
I certainly don't have the time either, but I'd kill to play another game like that with a modern engine. I find them much more engaging and interesting.
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Yeah I know with our origins being FoH and everything we're all in all a pretty hardcore demographic, but I played EQ extremely casual at first (sort of...more like a ton of time dedication without any actual results). Anyway, it was just a really long time before I got into any real raiding and even then I was only ever on the cutting edge for a pretty small amount of time. Still played the game non stop though. There were things to do at all levels in that game. Shit...farming bone chips at lvl 12 had an impact on the world.
The "next big thing" or whatever will be a game that doesn't follow this formula:
Step 1: Start at level 1
Step 2: Do Quests like WOW etc.
Step 3: Supplement Step 2 with "Dynamic Events" which is just a silly term for randomly generated or locally scripted short term repeated events (See Rift and GW2).
Step 4: Supplement Step 2 and 3 with shitty hallway, trash-boss-trash-boss dungeons.
Step 5: Reach Max Level
Step 6: Do Heroic aka "hard mode" versions of Step 4. This allows you to access Step 7.
Step 7: Raid 10, 20, 25 Man Dungeons.
Now you can add all sorts of flavor to this formula, but it will never make the game stick. Type of flavor are:
Now PVP can make a game stick if you build a way to promote it. This is what GW2 failed to do. There are no ladders, points, leaderboards or any other way to show off. In a game with mostly horizontal gear treadmills, you need to a way to show off your epeen to others, and the look of your gear is not really the way, because most of the time people only notice it when you're idle.
That's how you fix Battleground, or instanced, pvp and probably WvW too to some degree.
W3 can be fixed by inputting a more permanent aspect to it, even if it's erased one a week. Instead of running around the same map every single week fighting people in the same strats, you really need to add wall and base building like an RTS.
The rest on the list above are just extras that add to the game but never really make it successful. They make great additions though.
TLDR: Get rid of levels, get rid of dungeon grinds.
If I were making a game today this is what I'll do:
Make a PVP focused game, full loot.
Three sides (maybe two).
Max 100-200 people online per side. The smaller the community, the more you're able to become notorious to feed the peen.
Server wide top 20 leaderboards. One for PVE and one for PVP. PVE is 90% gearscore and 10% PVP achieves. PVP is all about kills or "Honor totals" or whatever scores. Build the network so once a week the top 5 players of each server can enter in an automated tournament for bragging rights and more leaderboards.
Figure out some solutions for dying servers or overbalanced servers.
No instances.
Gear is dropped at as a % of a kill. Uber rare weapon has a 1% load chance on a 20% pop mob. Has a chance to load every time a zone "resets", which could be ever 10 minutes or every day. Whatever. Common items have a 90% chance to drop. This is a combo of Diablo style loot and typical loot rules. If it could be done, NPCs would drop what they wear so you can "see" the loot on an NPC before you attack it. So if all your orcs are wearing greyish plate they drop greyish plate, but 5% of the time one will load with a reddish plate that's awesomer. You will see this.
Those are the basics. I've elaborated on the more detailed design elements before.
Step 1: Start at level 1
Step 2: Do Quests like WOW etc.
Step 3: Supplement Step 2 with "Dynamic Events" which is just a silly term for randomly generated or locally scripted short term repeated events (See Rift and GW2).
Step 4: Supplement Step 2 and 3 with shitty hallway, trash-boss-trash-boss dungeons.
Step 5: Reach Max Level
Step 6: Do Heroic aka "hard mode" versions of Step 4. This allows you to access Step 7.
Step 7: Raid 10, 20, 25 Man Dungeons.
Now you can add all sorts of flavor to this formula, but it will never make the game stick. Type of flavor are:
- Battleground PVP
- WvW PVP
- Crafting
- Pet Battles
- Achievements etc.
Now PVP can make a game stick if you build a way to promote it. This is what GW2 failed to do. There are no ladders, points, leaderboards or any other way to show off. In a game with mostly horizontal gear treadmills, you need to a way to show off your epeen to others, and the look of your gear is not really the way, because most of the time people only notice it when you're idle.
That's how you fix Battleground, or instanced, pvp and probably WvW too to some degree.
W3 can be fixed by inputting a more permanent aspect to it, even if it's erased one a week. Instead of running around the same map every single week fighting people in the same strats, you really need to add wall and base building like an RTS.
The rest on the list above are just extras that add to the game but never really make it successful. They make great additions though.
TLDR: Get rid of levels, get rid of dungeon grinds.
If I were making a game today this is what I'll do:
Make a PVP focused game, full loot.
Three sides (maybe two).
Max 100-200 people online per side. The smaller the community, the more you're able to become notorious to feed the peen.
Server wide top 20 leaderboards. One for PVE and one for PVP. PVE is 90% gearscore and 10% PVP achieves. PVP is all about kills or "Honor totals" or whatever scores. Build the network so once a week the top 5 players of each server can enter in an automated tournament for bragging rights and more leaderboards.
Figure out some solutions for dying servers or overbalanced servers.
No instances.
Gear is dropped at as a % of a kill. Uber rare weapon has a 1% load chance on a 20% pop mob. Has a chance to load every time a zone "resets", which could be ever 10 minutes or every day. Whatever. Common items have a 90% chance to drop. This is a combo of Diablo style loot and typical loot rules. If it could be done, NPCs would drop what they wear so you can "see" the loot on an NPC before you attack it. So if all your orcs are wearing greyish plate they drop greyish plate, but 5% of the time one will load with a reddish plate that's awesomer. You will see this.
Those are the basics. I've elaborated on the more detailed design elements before.
Nirgon
YOU HAVE NO POWER HERE
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Ball got dropped too many times on dynamic events. The original Rift model I read was much better on paper than as implemented. No offense, I really liked vanilla Rift, its just that the town take overs and increasing elemental invasions and all that really didn't have any flavor to it. They were close, but really needed to beef that system up and turn it into something that really mattered.