MMORPGs

[PhantomJedi]

I'll concede that I have played very few MMOs due to a slow internet connection, the cost of playing, and an some what average PC. However I find the concept a very interesting one. So the question I purpose is what, and which, MMOs have done well, not so well, and what could and should be added to make them better.

 

Please no flaming.

[Gorth]

I'll concede that I have played very few MMOs due to a slow internet connection, the cost of playing, and an some what average PC. However I find the concept a very interesting one. So the question I purpose is what, and which, MMOs have done well, not so well, and what could and should be added to make them better.

 

Please no flaming.

No flames, just a referral to some oppionions.

 

An old BIS'er once wrote a few words about what he considered good and bad in MMO's and even mention a couple of names:

 

http://www.winterwind-productions.com/modu...=showpage&pid=3

 

Any which way, wish you fun

[jaguars4ever]

I can be a loser killing rats and bunnies in real life, let me be a hero in my virtual life.

I object....killing rats is a time honored RPG tradition!

[Cantousent]

Puuk wrote a nice treatise there. I'm playing Anarchy Online right now. It's not my favorite, but it's free. At any rate, I thought City of Heroes was great. Sure, I tired of it eventually, but it kept me entertained for months on end.

 

It was the perfect assortment of powers, graphics, solo, and cooperative play. I played several different character types and found that the other players were generally a decent bunch. Some of them were incompetant, but I'm sure some of the more experienced players thought I was incompetant when I first started.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Is the world still full of Leets ? Made me laugh the first time I saw those.

[Guest Fishboot]

I honestly think most of the current generation of MMOs get things just about as right as an MMO will ever be - except they're too cheap to turn out content as fast as a medium time-investment player can do it. I think the margin on the next "breakthrough" MMO will be tiny - nearly all of the profits will have to be converted into constant streams of new art, new design and core programming maintenance or people will just drift off. If companies are content with simple blockbuster style MMO development they'll build up that unique animus towards their brand that only MMOs can summon forth - for example, Blizzard has basically burned through its entire stock of community goodwill build up through years of diligent, insightful development in just a few months of running their MMO.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I think the core of it is that there are five things that most current MMORPG's hold as law to presumably be successful; the player must be able to group, kill, loot, craft, and level. These items are held in the forefront of the core game design, with story and player centralism as secondary (or even tertiary) requirements - or so it seems.

 

 

And thats why I hate MMO's, I need to progress through a larger context/story. Hacking, looting and levelling is meaningless if they only exist for their own purpouse.

[Kalfear]

LOL!

 

Ill just give you this link to different thread.

 

Good discussion on MMORPGs (SWG in specific).

 

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=34162

[Brickyard]

I think the biggest problem with every MMORPG that I've played (which is only 3 graphical ones) is a very static world with little content.

 

I did play a text-MMORPG for a few years, and looking back on it now (this was in like 96/97 through 99), I am amazed that they were able to create STORY in it rather often. It was free (via AOL) for a while, then went to the net and was pay. Talking about DragonRealms, if anyone is curious (which is why I think Hero's Journey might actually be good, since it's made by the same company).

 

My other experiences are with Asheron's Call, EverQuest 2, and Final Fantasy XI. From what I've seen, I'd rate AC as the best, FFXI 2nd (and probably 1st, but I've not played it as much as I played AC), and EQ2 a definite dead last in terms of content.

 

As a sidenote to EQ2 - this has taught me two things.

 

1 - NEVER buy an MMORPG the day it comes out. You will experience some of the STUPIDEST bugs for an amazing amount of time (for example, no armorer was able to craft any level 30 or higher recipies until February - the game came out in early Novemember - due to a typo. People started running into this in late Nov, and I hit it in early Dec. It was reported in SEPTEMBER in beta, and not fixed until February). There are lots of other examples of poor testing, poor response time in fixing widely reported bugs in a timely manner, and more. But Day 1 of an MMORPG you will still be playing an early beta.

 

2 - SOE has very poor customer service and relations.

 

Final Fantasy XI, I recently started playing (it's cheap, and a co-worker has been playing it for a while). It's definitely polished (for a console-friendly MMORPG), but that's to be expected since it's been out since 2001 or 2002. But my starting experiences are much better than with EQ2 last fall. I don't know if I'll stick with it long, though, but at least the first month will be fun.

 

DragonRealms, looking back, amazes me after playing AC, EQ2 and now FFXI. They were able to change things on the fly (areas changed without requiring a download or purchased expansion). They had mobile monsters (they would sometimes invade the cities, and you would, if someone was in the right area, have advance notice, and occasionally a city would be able to prevent massive spreading of the monsters, at other times they'd get far into the city and might actually destroy a building or three, as well as their targets were always the heavily populated areas where people collected for healing, crafting, teaching, etc - just inside the city gates).

 

I think back on what they were able to do, and, apart from graphics, IMO online games have regressed quite considerably. That was a game were PVP was entirely legal, and definitely possible, but simply rarely happened. People who couldn't handle acting like adults simply got hunted out of existence by EVERYONE. Now gankers own PvP games, and in games were there's no PvP, they simply train mobs to people they don't like, and there's really nothing than can be done about it (there's no penalty for death, or such a minor one that it's not even an incovenience).

 

Recently I checked to see if DR was still around, and it is. Unfortunately the price has gone up considerably (it's like $20 or $25 a month to play now).

[mkreku]

I wish someone would ba able to create a world that's actually interactive some day. If I cut down a tree, I want that tree to be lying on the ground for all to see and not respawn within 5 minutes. Of course, that would mean that new trees would have to slowly grow out of the ground, or else the game would be completely barren after a few months

 

I just hate the feeling that you get when everything you do is in vain because five minutes after you leave, the area goes back to default.

[Reveilled]

I think the core of it is that there are five things that most current MMORPG's hold as law to presumably be successful; the player must be able to group, kill, loot, craft, and level. These items are held in the forefront of the core game design, with story and player centralism as secondary (or even tertiary) requirements - or so it seems.

 

 

And thats why I hate MMO's, I need to progress through a larger context/story. Hacking, looting and levelling is meaningless if they only exist for their own purpouse.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Agreed. I've always wanted to like MMORPGs, but I've never been able to see the appeal of running aorund and killing things for no reason. In fact, the only MMORPG I've ever liked was Real Life. There at least, the other players, music and graphics compensated adequately for the lack of a central storyline.

[Azarkon]

Unfortunately, storylines do not tend to work very well in MMORPGs. They can work up to a certain point - ie WoW and FFXI both *have* storylines that you follow, so to speak - but ultimately the point of playing a MMORPG is not a pre-crafted story. If it were, there'd be no point to have MMORPGs - single player RPGs *will* do better. (and herein is a good reason why single player RPGs will not disappear simply b/c of MMORPGs, as some doomsayers have heralded in the golden age of EQ and WoW)

 

The three overlapping factors that define a MMORPG are, I think, community, interaction (game play), and immersion. A pre-crafted story falls only as a sub-category under immersion, and is only a small aspect of world building. The other categories, community and interaction, are of foremost importance to a successful MMORPG.

 

Without a community, a MMORPG is simply a boring hack 'n slash grind or "quest machine": to the on-looker, such a game will never seem fun and will always seem pointless. It's the community that gives meaning to the activities within a MMORPG, and successful community building requires game design that encourages interaction between people (not necessarily FORCED GROUPING, as is often the solution devs turn to) and the formation of friendships and organizations (guilds). A game that succeeded wildly at community building is Everquest. A game that had all the other elements more or less right (except, possibly, immersion), but failed at community building, is World of Warcraft.

 

Interaction means gameplay in a MMORPG, and the two terms are interchangeable. Interaction is where the game mechanics lie, and it's interaction that, along with immersion, "wows" the beginning MMORPG player. Interaction includes things like combat, diplomacy, trade, exploration, treasure hunting/item gathering, trade skilling, PvP, and, ultimately, affecting the world. Most MMORPGs at the moment sell themselves via interaction, because interaction is the area in which traditional games have typically improved themselves on predecessors (community and immersion are more nebulous in terms of a "feature" list). The problem with a focus on interaction, however, is the tendency to simply add on or fix problems of previous MMORPG game mechanics - for instance, FFXI, WoW, and most current fantasy-based MMORPGs are more or less derivative of Everquest, as Everquest was derivative of MUDs. This doesn't leave much room for a complete overhaul of the system, which certain MMO's have tried (ie A Tale in the Desert), but have failed due to the popularity of the current system.

 

One obvious avenue of expansion in the interaction sub-category is dynamism: the ability for players to change the world dynamically, and to define their own world within the game, so to speak. Some MMORPGs are beginning to attempt a bit of this, though as far as game design goes, it's pioneer territory and thus slow to evolve.

 

The final aspect of a MMORPG is immersion. Immersion is, simply put, the ability of the game world to suck you in. Here, the idea is little different than traditional single player RPGs, and is thus a point of commonality between the two genres. Everything from character creation and graphics to world design and lore fall into this category, and suffice to say a good community and set of game mechanics are endemic to a immersive world. There is certainly alot of room for expansion in this category, as neither MMORPGs nor CRPGs in general have attained the kind of immersion we imagine fitting of virtual worlds.

 

Where is the future of MMORPGs? In my current outlook, two genres will emerge. One will be the virtual world simulation, which will stress realism in immersion (not necessarily realism as in the real world, but realism as in full-body presence), interaction, and community to the point of becoming virtual worlds ala the Matrix, minus the evil robots using humans as energy batteries part (instead, we'll have corporations using customers as money batteries, but I digress). The other will be the massive multiplayer online GAME, and will stress the interaction aspect of MMO games, placing gameplay on a pedestal and designing for the sake of "fun and games." Either way, the thing to understand about MMORPGs and MMOGs in general is that they differ from traditional games in only one significant technological way, and that is the ability to place MASSIVE amounts of people in the same interactive world. Successful MMOGs, ie games that will define the genre and determine its future direction, are games that can take advantage of the tens of thousands of players in the same world idea, especially the inevitable relationships that form between human beings congregated together. Utilize any other method, and I would think that you'd be defeating the very essence of a MMORPG, and might as well have been working in another genre.

[Kalfear]

LOL, to understand the problems of todays MMORPGs, you need to first understand the problems with todays gamers.

 

Gamers demands have created much of the issues and if you speak out against bad ideas expect to be flamed badly.

 

One of the biggest mistakes MMORPGs made in more recent time was giving in to the concept that ALL content should be available to ALL players. At first glance you think this is fair and great but the effect it has is anything but.

 

In traditional MMORPGs, players earned reputations (good and bad) by how they handled obsticles and challenges. Games made many challenges from the easy to do to next to impossible to do. So when a gamer dedicated enough time and energy, and then used his/her earned knowledge to successfully defeat a next to impossible challenge, players heard about it and reputations were born.

 

Be it PvE, Role Playing, PvP, heck even Trivia, those that sacraficed the time and energy to learn about something or become skillfull in something rised above others. Much like a skilled warrior in ancient times to studied harder then his neighbor.

 

Traditional MMORPGs understood that not all players are equal, everyone is given the same starting setting and goods and then those that worked towards their goals rose above others who approached the game more casually or sparatically. As long as there was content available for all players, everyone was happy.

 

Today thats not the case, today people think EVERYONE should be able to experience ALL content regardless of effort or skill in MMORPGs. This very basic principle is what has really hurt recently released games. All gamers are not equal, there is no other way to put it. To design a game thinking they should be means to design a game for the lowest common denominator. Thats not a insult btw, but if you design a game so a person who plays 5 hours a week can keep up to a player who plays 100 hours, the 100 hour player will grow bored and disenchanted with the game. Also there will be no special acheivements because everyone can do it. Something is only special if everyone cant do it. The less that do succeed, the more special it becomes. Todays games lack this very basic and easy principle.

 

But this is what the players want so to speak. Yes they also want things to feel special and to seperate each other from each other, but they also want it with minimal effort or dedication. You cant have it both ways though.

 

So to answer your question, what wrong with MMORPGs today, simply put, is its players.

 

This downward spiral will only stop when a developer finally figures out to ignore the masses and create a quality product NOT based on the masses demands. Make a quality product and it will sell, yes even to those impatient people screaming its up to designers to give them everything rather then earn anything.

 

Sure there is many many many more issues to go along with this topic, but none of those mean anything until develeopers stop pandering to the uneducated and focas on product over flash and sizzle. Dont truely expect that to happen until lowgrade products like WoW run their cycle and fall outta favor. Until then, flash and sizzle rather then concept and design will be the name of the game (baring some rich billionaire making something as a pet project sorta thing).

[metadigital]

The MMORPG is thriving in South Korea. They have a cultural attitude that is markedly different to the rest of the world: they go to a PC Arcade (quixotically called a "Bang") on dates! (Read PCZone 156 this month, July, pp14-5, in the UK for details.)

 

Also, most attempts by occidental conglomerates to bring games to their market have failed. Lineage had woeful graphics (Lineage II is a bit better), but that was totally beside the point for the gamers. (Maybe they're onto something ...)

[213374U]

Gamers demands have created much of the issues and if you speak out against bad ideas expect to be flamed badly. [...]

 

So to answer your question, what wrong with MMORPGs today, simply put, is its players.

[PhantomJedi]

The MMORPG is thriving in South Korea. They have a cultural attitude that is markedly different to the rest of the world: they go to a PC Arcade (quixotically called a "Bang") on dates! (Read PCZone 156 this month, July, pp14-5, in the UK for details.)

 

Also, most attempts by occidental conglomerates to bring games to their market have failed. Lineage had woeful graphics (Lineage II is a bit better), but that was totally beside the point for the gamers. (Maybe they're onto something ...)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You bring up Lineage 2 and I have a question to any Lineage 2 player: How effective is the castle seige system at increasing the games longevity and also how fun is it.

[metadigital]

Personally I've never played it: that's a question for the Far East to answer, I think: that's where the majority of the millions of regular subscribers are. (I hate MMORPGs, too many kids and too much level grind. That said, I might give Guild Wars a go as there is no subscription!)

[Darth Jebus]

Today thats not the case, today people think EVERYONE should be able to experience ALL content regardless of effort or skill in MMORPGs. This very basic principle is what has really hurt recently released games. All gamers are not equal, there is no other way to put it. To design a game thinking they should be means to design a game for the lowest common denominator. Thats not a insult btw, but if you design a game so a person who plays 5 hours a week can keep up to a player who plays 100 hours, the 100 hour player will grow bored and disenchanted with the game. Also there will be no special acheivements because everyone can do it. Something is only special if everyone cant do it. The less that do succeed, the more special it becomes. Todays games lack this very basic and easy principle.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I've heard this was one of the main problems with Star Wars Galaxies. A low level player that has just started playing could actually kill a very high level player with hundreds of hours of gameplay experience because the newbie could equip the exact same blaster or whatever, as a high level player. This turned off alot of people from what I understand.

 

As for the rest of your post, I thought you really hit the nail on the head. What's going on with games today is indicative of what's going on in our culture as a whole. Like any other mass market product, video game developers are just reflecting the times. And its unfortunate.

 

You can see it on television, at the movies, on the newstands. Its all about style over substance today. And a direct casualty of this is content.

 

I've been playing WoW for about a month now. I'm having alot of fun but only because I knew what to expect. I wasn't expecting storyline. I was expecting...well hell, I don't know what I was expecting now that I think of it. I just knew not to expect story or any of the other things that I love about a single player RPG.

 

But one thing that makes WoW and now Guild Wars (which I also just purchased) fun is the community. And thats what another poster on here was saying. Communities are what make or break an MMORPG. Thats what seperates it from a traditional rpg. If there's a good community then the game can actually be saved. Or at the very least, the gamer can overlook alot of the faults. Take Matrix Online for example. I went into my local EB Games yesterday and the store clerk told me that he hated Matrix Online but one thing that was cool about it was the strong community involved in it. And the community was almost strong to a fault. It's so strong its almost unhealthy.

 

But anyway. I just think it's a sign of the times. And it's kinda sad.

[Gabrielle]

I may give Guild Wars a try. It's free to play online and I refuse to pay to play. I miss the days of playing online against/with others.

[EnderAndrew]

The people I've talked to that have played Lineage say it is uber-competitive and focuses very heavily on PvP. It can be intimidating for new players, especially non-Korean new players.

[metadigital]

The people I've talked to that have played Lineage say it is uber-competitive and focuses very heavily on PvP.  It can be intimidating for new players, especially non-Korean new players.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well (while we're making sweeping generalisations that are unlikely to be defended by anyone reading) it sounds like Lineage is very similar to South Korean post "police-action" culture in general, then. "

[EnderAndrew]

I've met and trained with Marines from South Korea. ROK Marines they are called.

 

My buddy was shopping MMOs for a while, and his interest in Lineage and Lineage 2 was the intense PvP action. I tend to follow NC Soft titles more because I like them as a company. Personally, I'm interested in Tabula Rasa if and when it launches.

[metadigital]

I might be able to sustain a co-op mode of play, but I'm not interested in either beating or being beaten by a bunch of online FPS/MMORPG zealots. <_<

[Kalfear]

I beta tested Lineage 1 many years ago (had to run a script that allowed us to speak english in the game, all items and everything though was in Korean).

 

While Im sure they have made many changes to the game from when I beta tested it, back then all there really was to do was PvP. Much of that granted was language barrier (I dont speak or read Korean so figureing out items was a real challenge and forget doing quests).

 

It was a very PvP styled game even back then though. Most folks regardless of level were attacking others pretty much from the get go.

 

Never tried Lineage 2 because Lineage 1 was just such a turn off with its FFA PVP.

[EnderAndrew]

See, I'm not racist. That's just what the game is like.