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What I'd like to see MMOs evolve into is the melding of different games and players. Instead of having an MMO be combat focused or even restricted to your single avatar, I'd like one where an action RPG, RTS and strategy are meshed into one and anyone can play any aspect. For instance, you can play the strategy portion where you only need to deal with city building, trade routes, leveling up tech and expanding your empire. Another player (or you yourself) can also lead an army much like an RTS to attack another kingdom or do quests for armies. Then there's the action RPG portion where you only control a single guy and leveling him up much like any other RPG. So you have a dynamic world where a lot of the stuff going on are all player-instructed. Caravans are sent from city to city because of a strategy player playing a merchant made it so. An action RPG player can try to raid this caravan and fight the NPC guards (if any) to steal its cargo. Then the merchant can hire a player controlling an army of mercenaries to track down these thieves and destroy their secret hideout and possibly return the cargo, or hire them to raid a competitor's town, or hire a bounty hunter/assassin to kill the people responsible and steal their belongings. There will be players who play the game only through stat windows, controlling buildings and trade routes and producing supplies and arms for other players to buy. There will be those who play the game from bird's eye view, controlling dozens of groups of soldiers. They will have the number but not as strong or cunning as players who control the game from 3rd person view, playing the game as an action RPG, possibly against other players controlling an army of NPCs or players who play behind the scenes and plot to build or destroy kingdoms.
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Aug 23, 2011 13:51
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Last Transmission posted:What are your thoughts on an MMO where the devs do nothing but provide a landscape and tools for the players to make their own content? They already made one. It's called Second Life, AKA 'Land of Penises'. I'm not putting down the idea of a Giant Sandbox, but let's face it; if you give a bunch of people the ability to do whatever they want, half will build giant penises, and the other half will punch the first half. edit: clarity. Gynovore fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 03:52
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My ideal MMO is rather simple to articulate, hard to actually implement: - Lateral Progression (You get more options by playing longer, not better options.) - The amount of people in your faction is as important as how you run your faction - Zerg protection by giving smart players ways to kill or avoid lots of stupid players zerging - Terraforming and Building within set faction territories - Farming including growing crops and taming animals - Most precious resources held in PvP-enabled zones for hardcore players to fight over - PvE-enabled zones for players to build and socialize in - Active gathering system (no progress bars) - Open world using a cell system to split up server resources and reduce lag. (Each instance is an open 500x500m cell for instance, and the client controls what is displayed in each cell in terms of terrain, player made content is loaded based on the cell the players is in.) Cell 1 Cell 2 Cell 3 Cell 4 Cell 5 Cell 6 Cell 7 Cell 8 Cell 9 ^ This is what is displayed to the player and loaded by the server, when a player moves down to cell 8, cell 10, 11, and 12 load from the server. Anything the player can view beyond those cells is limited.
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Sep 29, 2011 06:10
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While my thoughts on what would be a better MMO still linger on MMORPGs, I want to see a few things that I honestly haven't seen done before (or at least, done right and done together). -Lateral progression like Raxmus pointed out: I really don't like how leveling in these games ruins the chance for new players to interact with veterans in a meaningful way. -Engaging 3D combat in a game that doesn't have the Nexon-framework. Guild Wars 2 seems to be doing this; but it would be nice if something like Dragon's Nest wasn't based around repeating short, instanced dungeons on increasing difficulties. -A treadmill that isn't a Skinner's Box: How awesome would it be to instead have to repeat content for the chance of something you want, you could actively hunt down an item of choice? Maybe invent a type of treasure hunting system where your item (or skill) of desire will appear in a random area of the game. -A procedurally generated 3D environment. This is something I would kill for. Instanced dungeons that were randomly made each time. Combined with polished 3D hack-and-slash gameplay akin to Dragon's Nest, and this theoretical game would be utter bliss. -Challenge from the get-go. Too many MMOs have this very gentle learning curve; and I would be ecstatic to see a game offer hard content a player could attempt at the very beginning of their play. With lateral progression this is something that makes sense. -Non-class-based character development. I'm thinking something like how Demon's Souls had 'classes' in a loose sense, but you could customize your character in any way you wanted after picking your starting stats, gear and abilities. Boiling it down; I'd think a better MMO would be something like an MMO Demon's Souls with procedurally-generated content and lateral progression.
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Sep 29, 2011 13:41
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Gynovore posted:They already made one. It's called Second Life, AKA 'Land of Penises'. Not really because Second Life is still more of a virtual IRC with pictures on the screen...well, you know what kind  but still. It's not really game-ey, there's nothing to accomplish except for making your character look cool and building. No achievements, nothing to kill or loot, no trading or bad guys. The extent of SL "gaming" is terrible FPS/Medieval sims with laggy HUD-created combat systems and treasure hunting/fishing games that function through text boxes. It's possible, but painful and unfun and expensive with real life money to buy the HUDs and the graphics suck. Unless you really care about gaming as a fox with 8 tits there's literally no reason to play these over a real game.I do think, however, if someone took a SL like idea and allowed similar amounts of freedom with strict policing against anything overtly sexual/gambling related, with more advanced combat and gaming options, it would be a really fun experience and a good example of where a "Next Gen MMO" could go.
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Sep 29, 2011 14:52
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I'd like to see MMOs go back to fixed class systems like EQ and AO. Instead of picking a role then putting points into a tree to create the class you are playing you should pick the class from the start. In a fixed class system each class has to be unique and the role that class plays in the game is known right away. Instead of having a warrior be either DPS or tank depending on how he spent his points, have that class serve its role and alternative roles without needing to spend points in different trees. For Example in EQ a druid can be a healer, DPS and in some cases even CC. It can play all those roles without having to choice one or the other. This forces the creator of the MMO to come up with more unique ideas for classes instead of giving each class 3-4 roles they can fill depending on how they spend their points and only creating 5 classes. The one issue with a system like this is that MMO players want a system where the choices they make effect how the class is played. I like the solution EQ used for this, Alternate Advancement points. With this system as the user levels up he can choice to put a % of the XP he is earning into AAs and when he levels up an AA he can then put points into activated or passive skills. A cleric will most likely put points into healing skills since that is their primary role but if he feels his healing is good enough he can then put points into something like run speed or tanking AAs so he can take more damage. With a system like this the class still serves its' primary roles but the player can choose skills that will effect how it fills those roles making their characters more unique. Edit: Forgot to mention why I like systems like this, more classes! In games like EQ and AO you have around 12-16 classes to choice from. Clinton1011 fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 19:35
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Clinton1011 posted:I'd like to see MMOs go back to fixed class systems like EQ and AO. Instead of picking a role then putting points into a tree to create the class you are playing you should pick the class from the start. I don't know about this, personally. The idea is sound but talents or no, you still get roughly the same thing but a little more breathing room through talents. For example, Game A has 3 different types of rogues: Bard (buffbot) Assassin (pure melee dps) and Ranger (range dps, poor melee). Game B has a rogue but with a talent tree system that leads you down 3 trees that offer the same thing - Bard tree, Melee Tree, Ranged Tree. With talent trees it seems to be a bit easier to balance, or if worse comes to worse homogenize, classes to be in line with each other rolewise. In all of those MMOs you cited there was typically at least one class that was useless in endgame compared to the others. To cite the previous example: Bards always get in because buffs, Assassins get in often because of providing melee dps, but rangers will never in a million years get a raid spot because their damage output is destroyed by casters. Or Bards are great in PvE but loving terrible at PvP, something someone rolling a rogue typically does not expect. In a talent tree model you can go *sigh* FINE and respec to something the situation desires. In a many class model, if your class turns out to be nerfed/useless/unusable in the gameplay style you prefer...tough luck, enjoy the reroll! Granted it's still more exciting than the base tank/mage/rogue/cleric staple, and it does force you to actually get to know your class and role rather than bitch endlessly about it...but given the choice in an MMO, I'd take the ability to customize.
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Sep 29, 2011 20:38
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Cuckoo posted:In all of those MMOs you cited there was typically at least one class that was useless in endgame compared to the others. To cite the previous example: Bards always get in because buffs, Assassins get in often because of providing melee dps, but rangers will never in a million years get a raid spot because their damage output is destroyed by casters. This is the major flaw of the fixed class system since there will always be a class that better fits a role for a specific encounter. This becomes a problem in games that have player caps on raids and encounters. If you are limited to 24 people then you won't let that ranger fill a DPS role since the wizard will out DPS him. But then the raid boss drops a ranger only item (or one clearly itemized for that class) that will rot since no ranger was at the raid. This brings me to another change that a lot of recent MMOs have been doing. Capping raids to smaller numbers, it might make it easier to balance the raid difficulty but it causes a lot of guilds to min/max their player base. If Rangers are bad DPS they wont let any Rangers into the guild Or if a player specs his character a certain way because he likes that play style then he wont be joining the raid. I loved the giant raids from the older generation MMOs. Seeing 40 people charge down a hallway to engage a dragon is such a great sight. And to continue using Ranger as the example, in EQ rangers might have been one of the weaker DPS classes but they had some unique skills that were required / made the raid easier. With a ranger in EQ you could pacify mobs in outdoor raid zones better then any other class and it would let you bypass a lot of trash mobs instead of clearing to him. Ranger was also able to use a skill that made them immune to damage for 16 seconds so he was the best class to engage some raid mobs that started the fight with a large amount of melee damage that the healers would not have been able to counter. With a larger number cap on the players who could attend a raid you let the guilds bring every class or with games using talent trees every version of a class. Edit: Another thing I would like to see brought back to MMOs is the ability to just sit at a camp and mindlessly slaughter mobs to get XP. Most of the MMOs I have played recently really force you to do quests since it is a much more effective use of time. Both options should be viable, I can sit here and kill these some 15 mobs over and over again for a few hours or I can run around and gather toad dicks for that guy over there. One solution that was used in Warhammer Online and Rift are the public quest / Rifts. I can sit at one spot doing this public quest over and over or run around doing rifts and it would be mindless killing while completing quests but with less toad dick gathering. Clinton1011 fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Sep 29, 2011 |
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Sep 29, 2011 22:03
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I have an idea to deal with instances. What if the cave (for example) is only open, to however many people can squeeze in, while the end monster (again could be a booby trap sword in the stone thing, not necessary a monster) is alive...or the item is there. The cave would then, even with people inside, seal shortly after the monster was killed, item gotten, whatever. Get out or pay, either in items or money depending on the cave, to get out. Rocks fall to seal the cave, bridge gets destroyed to get inside, something similar to that. To reopen it either you or an npc (who charges a nominal wage) have to rebuild or clear out the way in. Now the items inside aren't necessarily better, but minerals to craft items quicker or something worthwhile even for someone who's been at this a while. As, in my ideal world the items aren't make or break the character, but again it's learning the system and player skill with a slight variant of luck (similar to crit's, but can't be upped just a flat 1% or something like that). This way it can simulate that sometimes a rock can start a chain reaction to take down a person occasionally.
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Sep 30, 2011 02:32
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I like leveling characters in MMOs and generally can't stand endgame raiding or instancing. There was a sequel to Ultima Online called Ultima X Online or something that got cancelled during development. It had what would've been a great system for people who share the same opinion I do. You basically have a main character (they called it your Avatar) and you had to make 8 alts that would be your Avatar's disciples. You leveled them up as alts and each one had to take on one of the Ultima series' 8 virtues, and as they leveled up, your main Avatar got stronger. They promised that each disciple's experience in the game would be different due to each one following a different virtue. I loved this system because it moved the focus towards actually developing your character and away from standing around rolling on gear.
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Sep 30, 2011 23:18
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I'd like an mmo that is both multiplayer and massive, but not massively multiplayer. I'd like to see someone combine and expand on the best parts of the Diablo series, World of Warcraft's phasing technology, and Guild Wars. I'd like for something to exist that resembles something like Diablo or World of Warcraft, but with persistence and player impact on the story. What I envision is a massive world that exists only for you and your friends. When you change something in the game, it stays changed. If you defeat the world threatening terror, he stays defeated. This is similar to Diablo, except the focus in Diablo is on procedurally generated action, and not on story. Diablo is an arcade game, not a virtual world you live in. This would correct many of the current weaknesses of MMOs: a lack of true feeling of progress, a weird mismatch of the story from expansion to expansion (those little guys have been fighting those demons in Hellfire Peninsula nonstop for five years now, even though we the players beat Illidan and Kael'This and the Legion two expansion ago), the way players aren't allowed to change the game because it needs to be consistent for the other 10,000 players on that server, the way the conventions and necessities of being "massively multiplayer" force a game to actively destroy any chance of 'immersion', the actively malicious and passive interference of players you don't know or care about, and the way players are forced to "grind" to keep them subscribed... Class and item balance also is no longer an issue because there is no real competition between players, you don't have to keep things "fair". So how would you make money? Presumably with this kind of instancing you could use peer-to-peer and client-side technology more heavily, ala Guild Wars, and cut down on your server costs, and also like that game, release regular expansions and use those for revenue instead of subscriptions. Imagine a Lord of the Rings game where you and eight other friends literally played the part of the Fellowship, and you could do that because the game was set up so that you, personally, could be special and change the world. Every time you logged in your story would continue. I guess what I want is Neverwinter Nights 3, but fun. Or Neverwinter Nights, but with a standardized, developer-run server/multiplayer system, and more support and commitment to expansions. Imagined fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Dec 10, 2011 |
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Dec 10, 2011 20:34
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I've been playing some Anno 2070 recently, and I was daydreaming about an MMO version of the same city-building naval trading premise. The basic idea would be a persistent metagame of resource gathering and global competition, but the actual world would consist of a number of temporary procedurally generated sectors. Each sector would act as a self enclosed "arena", if you will, that would consist of a number of small islands and slots for up to 4 or 8 players to join. That sector would be playable for an 8 day window, and during that time the players deployed to that sector would build their cities, establish trade networks, cooperate or fight over islands, and maybe conquer their neighbors or be eliminated. At the end of the 8 day window, one or more players is declared the "winner", gaining some permanent career advancement metric, while everyone has the opportunity to haul away some portion of what they had gathered during the playtime of that sector being open. New sectors are always opening up, as older ones come to an end, The benefits of a system such as this are twofold: it encourages meaningful player interaction, either cooperatively or competitively, and it also encourages risk vs reward behavior with consequences. Player interaction could be created by offering asymmetric gameplay modes that mesh and rely on each other. A player who wanted to focus more on city building with some light navy management would pick either the the economically efficient Tycoons, or the ideologically motivated Ecos. Players who want to avoid direct combat but wish to throw their political weight around can play the insular and co-dependent Techs. Players who wish command a navy and attack or defend other players can choose the pirate Baracuda League or the mercenary Westgate Security. Players have their duties to their main faction but retain the ability to cooperate with members of a different faction, or compete with fellows within their own faction. Certain resources and services can only be produced or delivered by one faction or another, encouraging trade, negotiations, or seizure by force. Within a sector, as players conquer territory over the duration of the map's lifespan, they may have squabbles, call for outside intervention, settle into proxy wars, or come to terms through negotiation. Within the grand metagame, the faction with the most consistent and powerful infrastructure and command of resources gains more sway in global senate votes or some other broad privilege. Since each sector plays out over a set amount of time, being attacked and defeated may result in some loss, but it's no permanent setback. Other sectors will open up, and different game modes could be available that caters more to individual player's preferred style.
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Dec 14, 2011 23:23
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I've always wanted an MMO-RPG where I could choose to be an artisan, adventurer, shop-keeper, or traveling bard. Basically, an online world that actually requires a community. Instead of you walking into Orgrimmar and pumping 100g into an NPC for drinks, you could go to Insensate's Tavern and buy my Ale via some stupid crafting system that I would totally love to loving play with. You could still have the traditional PvP, PvE elements, but allow for nut jobs like me who love building as much as boar slaying, the opportunity to truly shape the community. Perhaps you run through the barrens, and find a lemonade stand set up by me! I know it sounds silly, but I would love to have more of an impact in the game than just "I killed Lord Darkballs the Lootworthy. Sure, raiding is neat, but eventually it gets old. At that point, perhaps my hero would retire and open an engineering shop, or something similar. You could then "hire" NPC's to run the shop while you're offline, and so long as you kept it stocked, you would still make a profit and be of use to your server. And imagine too, that as a retired hero, you could progress your craft and that would replace the traditional loot grind. Perhaps players would start bringing you materials and requesting that you make certain items...each more powerful than the last, as you gain skill/renown, etc. I don't know, I guess what I would really like is a more in-depth crafting system, that rewards folks that can spend hours searching for and practicing their trade-skill in-game, rather than having the worlds most badass warrior also happen to be the best blacksmith ever too. It seems more logical that someone not out plundering dungeons would be better at using his hammer and anvil than the one who was.
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Dec 15, 2011 02:15
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My ideas, I guess: 1) Levelless progression. I always thought leveling was the most obnoxious aspect of basically every MMO. From the getgo, being limited on what you can and can't do, where you can and can't go, is really frustrating to me as I'm notoriously slow at leveling in MMOs. Make grinding meaningful, like questlines, or maybe farming for loot to get better equipment. If some brand new player wants to hop in with his buddies and slay dragons, he should be able to do that. Just toss him some handmedown equipment and have him go nuts. 2) Solo/group content balance should be a nonissue, as everyone should be able to solo, and everyone should be able to group. Make the playstyles and end goals different for both, so if someone likes soloing, they can go mind their own business while the group players have fun grouping together. 3) More basic combat classes. I think classes should focus more on being unique and fitting a certain niche then having ten zillion skills and can do absolutely everything. This doesn't mean combat itself has to be basic or that the classes are boring, but it always seems strange to me where there are games with like ten different classes that all basically do the same thing (looking at you, FFXI). I like strictly defined roles because they add an element of strategy to teamplanning. All sorts of compositions should be viable, but you should have to accommodate your strategy based on who you have, not just throw more DOTs at something. 4) I guess more skill based combat? This goes hand in hand with the last, but I would gladly sacrifice options in return for more focused gameplay. Imagine and MMO compared to a MOBA, I guess. You might not have nearly as many skills in LoL as you do in WoW, but using the skills correctly and comboing and working with teammates is much more important. This post is kinda  , but I'm really tired. If anyone wants to talk about any of those points, I'll be more than happy to elaborate or discuss when it's not the middle of the night.
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Dec 15, 2011 09:17
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I often wonder if it is possible to make an interesting, successful mmo ( not a 'WoW-Killer' just successful) that is NOT fantasy themed. The shadowrun nerd in me would love to see a cyberpunk MMO centered around Hypertech and hacking, but I am not sure there is a market for anything BUT fantasy.
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Feb 6, 2012 21:25
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syntaxrigger posted:The shadowrun nerd in me would love to see a cyberpunk MMO centered around Hypertech and hacking, but I am not sure there is a market for anything BUT fantasy. Agreed Sir... Now back on track. Wow, I’ve been waiting on someone to ask “How Would You Do An MMO?” for a long time now. Me? I would use the same skill based system that EVE online uses. I think the fact that EVE doesn’t trap you in a specific role is what makes EVE so appealing. However I would try and fix what EVE lacks, and that’s a since of true ownership. Not just for players but for corporations / guilds. IE, just because you give a player control over a Corporate / Guild owned property doesn’t mean they can simply dismantle and sell it. This would cut down of some of the cutthroat associated with sandbox style games. I would have multiple races, each with unique benefits and drawbacks, which actually ADD to the game, not just to give the façade of a choice. The skill based progression would replace the need for classes as players could choose their own means to an end. The world would be a mix of science and magic, full of places to explore and lore to gather. Again, like EVE, one server for everyone, maybe two for RP purposes. The setting would consist of multiple worlds / inter stellar / planer / dimensional, not sure what would be cooler. Maybe like in the old Pladium RPG, Rifts. That way expansion could be as simple as “A new rift to a new plane formed.” Story elements would be rich and as original as possible, and since progress is not level based, players would have the option to chose what adventure paths and or story paths they wanted. That’s a good compression of my idea of my perfect MMO. If anyone would like to discuss let me know.
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Feb 7, 2012 18:27
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MiracleMouse posted:Agreed Sir... Now back on track. I've always thought EVE had something amazing I just can't identify with flying a spaceship. If it was the same game but I controlled a humanoid figure on some sort of planet/dimension/plane I probably would play nothing else but EVE
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Feb 7, 2012 19:42
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My perfect MMO would be no different than current MMOs except for the level of variety and overall scope. WoW has great solo, group PVE, and group PVP content, but lackluster social/political, and crafting systems. EVE on the other hand has amazing crafting and social/political systems, but lackluster PVE. It's as if there is the 'Casual' mold, the 'Sandbox' mold, and the 'Asian Grindfest' mold, with little hybridization. I understand some of the systems can't easily coexist. But I hate having to deal with a mostly lovely game just to enjoy one aspect that it got completely right. Aion broke the mold a little by having a standard WoW framework but with an interesting crafting and itemization system like some Asian born games. Unfortunately the game also brought over the terrible pace and broken PVP systems as well.
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Feb 7, 2012 20:12
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Baldbeard posted:My perfect MMO would be no different than current MMOs except for the level of variety and overall scope. WoW has great solo, group PVE, and group PVP content, but lackluster social/political, and crafting systems. EVE on the other hand has amazing crafting and social/political systems, but lackluster PVE. Aion didn't have standard WoW framework at all. The bulk of the content in Aion was entirely in the open world and based on grinding mobs/killing people who were grinding mobs with the occassional fortress attack. Really, Asian MMORPG devs seem to be the only ones willing to try something that isn't just World of Warcraft that looks different, and the EU/NA devs who go for something else have all failed miserably (IE: Warhammer, Darkfall.) I mean yeah, the games that have failed havn't been perfect, but I think it's no coincidence that the 3 that will still be going strong in 2 or 3 years (Rift, SW:TOR, WoW) are about as WoW clone as you can get.
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Feb 7, 2012 20:16
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THE PWNER posted:Aion didn't have standard WoW framework at all. The bulk of the content in Aion was entirely in the open world and based on grinding mobs/killing people who were grinding mobs with the occassional fortress attack. The open up a new area, pick up a ton of quests, complete quests cycle in Aion was just like WoW and other western MMORPGS. I felt like they put a lot of effort into the open world PVP and fortress attacks but the actual bulk of the content was the same old leveling game. The thing that really chapped my hide was how the abyss has no level segregation, so 9/10 times you went in there you would be 1-shot by someone way higher level.
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Feb 7, 2012 20:36
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Baldbeard posted:The open up a new area, pick up a ton of quests, complete quests cycle in Aion was just like WoW and other western MMORPGS. If the reasons you just listed are what made Aion a WoW clone, then WoW is an EQ clone for the same reasons. EQ is a Mud Clone for the same reasons and so on and so on. I think we should be past the point of calling an MMO a WoW clone, for the very same reasons we don't call Call Of Duty a Doom clone. After all CoD is a first person shooter like Doom. CoD simply employed a successful “standard” that helped to ensure that it would be a successful FPS. Same things with MMO’s. Just because SWTOR uses a questing system, and crafting and other features similar to WoW, doesn’t make it a clone, it means a standard has formed. Just because WoW set the standard, doesn’t make every predecessor a clone. I know it’s a bit off topic, and I apologize for this, but I’m tired of every game being called a drat WoW clone. Let it go already because WoW got its roots from games like Gemstone, Dragon Realms and other such MMO’s so I suppose would that make WoW a clone too. ED: Corrected a few typos. MiracleMouse fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Feb 8, 2012 |
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Feb 8, 2012 00:00
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syntaxrigger posted:I've always thought EVE had something amazing I just can't identify with flying a spaceship. If it was the same game but I controlled a humanoid figure on some sort of planet/dimension/plane I probably would play nothing else but EVE Yeah, putting a game in space causes a lot of problems in that regard. There's no sense of exploration because every system is just another big empty box with a few things scattered around in it, and you can never really 'meet' other players aside from bouncing off their ship when you undock. It would be really interesting to see a game with EVE's structure (shared community in a single un-sharded world, skill-based character development, open PvP) in a terrestrial environment, covering the surface of an entire planet.
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Feb 8, 2012 00:48
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MiracleMouse posted:If the reasons you just listed are what made Aion a WoW clone, then WoW is an EQ clone for the same reasons. EQ is a Mud Clone for the same reasons and so on and so on. Which is why I grouped it into "WoW and other western MMOs". Also did I actually say clone? Maybe I did. I don't think so. I said it had the same framework, and it basically does. My point is each genre of MMORPG is mostly independent and hybridization usually stops with just one system or gimmick to be used as a 'we are breaking the mold' hook, because each region of gamers have certain standards that they look for in a game. Why don't we see a game that is like WoW( forgive me, DAoC) but with hardcore item upgrading, or emphasis on grinding mobs for rares, or an impossible journey to max level. I'll tell you why; because those aren't traits that cater to the western market. WoW, LotRo, Aion, SWTOR, and a dozen other MMOs are basically the same goddamn game with just some minor unique tweaks. You just don't realize it until you spend time playing a game that actually IS a different type of MMORPG like EVE, UO, Ragnarok Online, Atlantica, FFX1/FFXIV, A Tale In The Desert, etc. Baldbeard fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Feb 8, 2012 |
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Feb 8, 2012 01:05
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I've always thought it'd be good if MMO's gave players more options for stuff. Like, if I want to get gear in WoW, my only option is dungeons, or (usually near the end of an expansion), dailes. Off the top of my head some alternatives to dungeon farming; - Mob farming (boring, but different and a solo activity.) - "epic" questlines that would take 2-3 players a couple of hours to complete and could be done multiple times. Like a dungeon except less players, more flexible (no healers/tanks required!) and out in the open world instead of in an instance. - Professions. And I mean, full tier sets made using professions, not just one or two pieces. - World PvP. You should get enough of a reward to make killing guys in the world as efficient (or slightly more) than doing instanced PvP. - World bosses. All of these things would give the player a closer relationship to the game world and it's inhabitants, instead of the current MMO model which is designed to keep the player as far removed from it in the name of useability.
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Feb 8, 2012 02:11
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Imagined posted:I'd like an mmo that is both multiplayer and massive, but not massively multiplayer. I'd like to see someone combine and expand on the best parts of the Diablo series, World of Warcraft's phasing technology, and Guild Wars. I'm kind of the exact opposite. If I feel like all your MMO is offering me is a glorified online co-op experience and an impersonal auction house, I find it a lot harder to get engaged. If I want to have to co-ordinate playdates with my friends to have a multiplayer experience, there are plenty of purely co-op games I could play with them. I feel like modern MMOs (and perhaps MMOs through history) don't do enough to leverage the unique possibilities of a "massive" concurrent playerbase. Games like these should be built on player interactions of all types: co-operative, competitive, trading, altruism, lies and deceit...hell, I'll take getting straight-up trolled over the feeling that I'm having no meaningful interactions with the players swarming around me. EDIT: insensate posted:I've always wanted an MMO-RPG where I could choose to be an artisan, adventurer, shop-keeper, or traveling bard. Basically, an online world that actually requires a community. Instead of you walking into Orgrimmar and pumping 100g into an NPC for drinks, you could go to Insensate's Tavern and buy my Ale via some stupid crafting system that I would totally love to loving play with. This is more or less what I mean. While player-owned taverns are a bit of a stretch (it's the kind of thing that turns Puzzle Pirates into a bit of a clusterfuck at times), I think the more of your gameplay flows organically from player interaction and not from everyone standing in a circle around an NPC, the better. Rocketlex fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Feb 8, 2012 |
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Feb 8, 2012 07:16
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How I would build a better MMO is by removing or simplifying things that don't add to the experience. Somethings cheapen or lessen the experience. Things to remove Classes that revolve around weapons or spells Weapon, armor, and spells that are functionally the same Carrying huge inventories Fixation on managing gear, everything dropping gear, and not have commodities or valuable resources. "Holy trinity" gameplay based on managing numbers, not solving problems. "Stat growth", which defeats the purpose of stats or only provides bigger numbers. Like a mage with more health than a warrior because he is higher leveled. Gear that changes stats, thus defeating the purpose of stats and creates an extra-leveling system. Artificial rewards, i.e. stat growth, better gear, more powerful abilities which don't reward the player, only makes them deal bigger numbers. Specific ideas No leveling, just one level. Actually, have maybe nine levels that are the tutorial and take an hour to complete. Then the one level. If you can't make the game interesting now, it won't be interesting after grinding 100 levels. It would easier to tune content and force better designed encounters later. And really, if you can walk around and one shot enemies, you wouldn't bother with those enemies. Why not keep all enemies threatening? Tools for navigating the environment. Have "on the fly" crafting like making ropes or bombs or rafts or fires or ways to lock doors. There are so many ways to increase engagement if people had to use their surroundings to accomplish things. Reward players without artificial gains. Levels are artificial. The characters don't really grow, they are just doing bigger numbers to bigger things which leads to a treadmill. Better gear just means better stats, that still is artificially rewarding players. Wealth should mean something and reward players with that. Reputation should means something. Access. Transportation. Housing. Customization. These things are more rewarding than just numbers. I could type out my ideal game but it would be long. It would basically be Eve but with people instead of ships.
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Feb 8, 2012 07:17
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Vanguard Warden posted:Yeah, putting a game in space causes a lot of problems in that regard. There's no sense of exploration because every system is just another big empty box with a few things scattered around in it, and you can never really 'meet' other players aside from bouncing off their ship when you undock. I am glad I am not the only one that recognizes the insane potential of EVE and how the setting ruins it.
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Feb 8, 2012 17:50
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I'm not really familiar with MMORPGs as a whole enough to really lay out how *I* would design a game. But something that I get tired of just by reading about MMORPGs is how combat centric everything has to be. I always felt the most interesting thing about a MMORPG would be... interacting with other players. And by that I don't mean "hey, let's group together and raid and get awesome items" or whatever. I mean where the game really supports the social side of it, politicking, economics, alliances, dicking each other over. I understand EVE has some of this? If the World of Darkness MMO ever comes out, it seems like it will also focus a bit more on the social aspects. Many years ago I tried out an "adult" MMORPG called Sociolotron. Now, it's pretty loving terrible, has a strong focus on sex and I would never recommend this game to anyone (really, it's terrible). But, there were a few interesting ideas in it. The concepts of crime and punishment for example. People could commit crimes to other people, these crimes could get reported and then investigated. These positions were also occupied by players. Some crimes were extremely serious, like murder and (yes, of course) rape. Others less so (streaking in reputable areas, gently caress yeah!). Now, I never played long enough to actually see what this was like in practice. But I remember that I felt it pretty cool to have that feeling that these things were things that could be instigated by other players. Again, not sure how it actually worked out in practice but it's an interesting idea to me where so much of the game is player-driven. But really, I would just like more games that are not basically just dungeon-crawlers/fetch-questers but with other people. I want something where you could dig into the whole social aspect in more meaningful ways. Probably wouldn't be a mainstream game but there you go.
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Feb 8, 2012 18:19
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Rocketlex posted:I'm kind of the exact opposite. If I feel like all your MMO is offering me is a glorified online co-op experience and an impersonal auction house, I find it a lot harder to get engaged. If I want to have to co-ordinate playdates with my friends to have a multiplayer experience, there are plenty of purely co-op games I could play with them. There is an issue with that, though. Co-op games tend to be finite. You go play it, you beat it, you move on. MMOs have a bit more permanence or at least more longevity. Personally I think the glorified online co-op experience and impersonal auction house model fits exactly my wants too. I don't want to be forced to wade through a pool of retards and assholes because it is the only way to get poo poo done in the game. I want to play with a handful of people I enjoy playing with in a persistent environment that will keep growing, that offers exploration and PvP or interact with other groups when we fancy it and not because we are forced to do so. I think I am pretty much in the same boat of whoever said they just needed a new Neverwinter that didn't suck. Preferably not fantasy. Dragons and wizards are really just overdone to the point of making me nauseous.
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Feb 8, 2012 18:25
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syntaxrigger posted:I am glad I am not the only one that recognizes the insane potential of EVE and how the setting ruins it. Unfortunately it is also its setting that completely enables the way the game works. Until some truly amazing innovations come about in procedural generation, you simply cannot have an EVE style game in a terrestrial type setting. This is based on the premise that a massive amount of ingame space is required for the game to work. (You know, for the emergence of local economies and territory holding.)
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Feb 8, 2012 19:25
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MiracleMouse posted:Agreed Sir... Now back on track. Big thing though is that I'd set it up so that the economy could easily be based off of the ability to construct mechs. Have the world be limited to the area around Terra, but the Great Houses each have a constant supply of mechs at certain rates. BUT the cheapest Mechs would be those produced out of factories in the Chaos March that would be sold by guilds and such. This would provide controls for the devs if they thought the Economy was screaming out of control, As they could just have one of the houses release a glut of mechs onto the market. And yes, this would mean that Guilds/Companies/whatever could take and hold planets and the manufacturing facilites attached. Ideally this would include the facilities held by the Great Houses if a Company managed to become strong enough. Although if they took it, they'd have to deal with the forces/npc's sent to retake the planet (which means only the strongest could take on the Houses on ONE planet). But you could easily give a more... pve focused game by having content built up for the Great Houses (participation within combat operations to take planets etc.)
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Feb 8, 2012 19:48
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So much good stuff here, but I'll just reiterate an idea that others have made here: crafting should be as involved as combat. In fact, framing it as something somewhat similar to MMO combat might not be a bad idea: have personal resources (an "energy" or "focus" sort of meter would make sense), various abilities that are used in real time with cooldowns and whatnot, XP from doing it properly, and have it be tied to your class level. The better you do, the better the weapon is, the faster it gets done, and the less raw materials you use. You should always be able to "reforge" if you get it wrong, too. Upgrading weapons should be common. In fact, I think it should be tied to your class. I don't think there should necessarily be "crafting" classes. What I do think is that it would make sense to have certain crafting abilities that are part-and-parcel with a player's class. Casters enchant stuff and create caster-specific magical weapons and armor. Melee classes make armor and weapons. Archers make bows and fletch arrows. Rogues brew poisons and drugs. "Tech" classes (engineers or whatnot) make guns. Oh, and if you have the crafting ability, you can gather its materials. No exceptions. Separate gathering abilities are ridiculous economy-breaking nonsense. I'm not necessarily preaching utter self-sufficiency. People who want to craft should be able to sell to those who don't, and crafting materials should be available to combat-focused players. In fact, a lot of drops could be turned into rare raw materials, so that combat-focused players are required to interact with the crafting system in some way in order to get many of their hot new purpz. You can't just grab a weapon out of a cache and start using it, necessarily; you need to remake it so that you CAN use it. Just one idea, but it's one that pops up all the time that I do endorse. I think it should be part-and-parcel with adding enough common, repeatable, interesting XP-generators that don't involve combat that you can level up as much as you like without having to club things over the head. But it's a pretty obvious one that would help increase players' attachment to the things they're using, and create the opportunity for players to hang onto stuff that they really like, instead of trading it in for new crap all the time.
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Feb 8, 2012 19:50
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I want someone to remake Shadowbane, but I want them to do it on a good engine with WASD controls. That's all; it was pretty much a perfect MMORPG except for the tons and tons of bugs that made it unplayable.
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Feb 8, 2012 19:54
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Nomenklatura posted:So much good stuff here, but I'll just reiterate an idea that others have made here: crafting should be as involved as combat. In fact, framing it as something somewhat similar to MMO combat might not be a bad idea: have personal resources (an "energy" or "focus" sort of meter would make sense), various abilities that are used in real time with cooldowns and whatnot, XP from doing it properly, and have it be tied to your class level. The better you do, the better the weapon is, the faster it gets done, and the less raw materials you use. You should always be able to "reforge" if you get it wrong, too. Upgrading weapons should be common. I will always believe that SWG had crafting right. I loved the fact that I could make poo poo that was simply better than everyone else's, even if it's the same item (e.g., my pet stims heal for 4000 while everyone else's top out at 3700). I remember traveling far and wide to reach certain shops that I KNEW had the best (fill in item here). It was just fun.
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Feb 8, 2012 20:11
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ReadingZucchini posted:Unfortunately it is also its setting that completely enables the way the game works. Until some truly amazing innovations come about in procedural generation, you simply cannot have an EVE style game in a terrestrial type setting. This is based on the premise that a massive amount of ingame space is required for the game to work. (You know, for the emergence of local economies and territory holding.) I disagree. I believe you can totally generate enough space to have this type of economy without having to wait for any sort of innovations.
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Feb 8, 2012 20:41
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commish posted:I will always believe that SWG had crafting right. I loved the fact that I could make poo poo that was simply better than everyone else's, even if it's the same item (e.g., my pet stims heal for 4000 while everyone else's top out at 3700). I remember traveling far and wide to reach certain shops that I KNEW had the best (fill in item here). It was just fun. In my "if I ever win an insanely huge lottery prize" moments, when I think of funding my own MMO I'm sure it'd sink like a lead balloon but at least I'd have fun playing it. 
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Feb 8, 2012 21:27
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Well I for one would like an mmo in the style of Fallout and Eve with a bit of mix of minecraft. Now give me a second with this before you blast away. I see fallout 1 and 2 style missions for an npc side and the first person/third view of fallout 3. The eve mix would be the way the skills work and the clones and such. Also, I like the idea of serious losses and the free sandbox style where anything goes. Imagine a world where corps and gangs rule. Perhaps a few safe (heavy guards guns and all) cities or small outposts (like eve and the concord safe space that you can still die in). Now comes in the minecraft idea to add to the mix. Not literally minecraft but he idea of destroying and building. Physics that allow you to build structures and destroy them. Say bombs hit the city walls and they crumble. Your gang rushes the city taking losses but steal alot of loot. You run away and slowly the people (npcs) rebuild the wall. Also PCs can build their own outposts (must be a certain distance away from other structures) to host gangs and such. Looking for supplies to build of hire npcs. All build in reltime. So while building a rival gang can attack and destroy the building. Create turrets that are automatted while offline. Like eve has POS that can be killed when noone is there. I could go intoalot more detail but this gives you and idea of the direction I am looking to.
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Feb 15, 2012 04:22
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syntaxrigger posted:I am glad I am not the only one that recognizes the insane potential of EVE and how the setting ruins it. It's not, "Oh man EVE has such potential, if only they had taken their ideas and applied it to terrestrial environments," it's "If we tried to apply these ideas to terrestrial environments, we'd literally need thousands of content creators just to make the geography." The space setting is what enables the idea in the first place. I actually agree that "EVE on land" would be cool, but it'd also require an absurdly huge dev team or some groundbreaking new tech. edit: In retrospect I should've finished reading the thread before responding as Zucchini beat me to it. syntaxrigger posted:I disagree. I believe you can totally generate enough space to have this type of economy without having to wait for any sort of innovations. Cicero fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Feb 15, 2012 |
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Feb 15, 2012 05:08
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Cicero posted:The thing is, is that doing something EVE-like but not set in space would be vastly more challenging. Creating enough content to have an open world that players can screw with in meaningful ways would be incredibly hard to do on land (in fact, don't nearly all open-world MMOs have a horrible track record?). Tack onto that the extra complexity of simply simulating combat in that environment. EVE takes a lot of liberties with "space physics" that avoids a lot of the bullshit you'd need to take into account with more traditional MMO combat; line of sight, ground collision, direct user input->character movement to name but a few. That's fed straight into the sheer scale of fights that EVE is reknowned for; take away the scale of that even a little, and I don't think the game would be where it is today. That said, when I first heard about Dust and the potential for that kind of game interaction, I started to imagine a new direction for potential MMO development and depth. Rather than trying to offer a game that is all things to every person from day one, building a story and an initial environment that makes one style of game make sense; fleshing it out into a huge sprawling mess of complexity; and then tying new mechanics you add to that existing world to interactions with other games. The Dust<->Eve links that CCP could pull off are the first proper steps I've heard of any developer trying this... though granted, this is CCP we're talking about, and the interlinking of the two games seems to get pushed further and further into the background with every new showing of Dust. Wasn't there some MMO recently that let you do some kind of crafting with a mobile app that basically amounted to a bejewled-like minigame? That kind of thing is where I think things need to head in future; rather than trying to design a core game and tack on a few iffy minigames or half-thought out mechanics because nobody could work out a better way to squeeze crafting into there, spinning off entirely seperate games built in a way that make sense for the role that game plays in the setting of that games universe, and having the outcome spill over. Imagine a few years down the line from Dust + Eve. Throw in a Wipeout-style racer, where you can upgrade your vehicle and weapons with parts manufactured from EVE players, EVE players can bet on you, form Alliance-based racing teams and leagues. Pull out of that a little more, and throw on some kind of point-to-point sprint mode rather than the typical circuit style track, and you can have your races make sense from a story perspective to the spawn/resources available in Dust warfare...
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Feb 15, 2012 06:54
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Cicero posted:The thing is, is that doing something EVE-like but not set in space would be vastly more challenging. Creating enough content to have an open world that players can screw with in meaningful ways would be incredibly hard to do on land (in fact, don't nearly all open-world MMOs have a horrible track record?). I agree that there can be difficult things to program but that is the nature of programming. Programming can get difficult. You are making it sound, and maybe this is just my interpretation, like it is an impossible herculean feat. If that is the case, I remain unconvinced of this. Could you give me an tangible example of something that EVE does that would be "vastly more challenging" as to not even attempt to try it in a terrestrial EVE-like mmo?
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Feb 15, 2012 16:47
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