Grinding Time - On MMORPG Character Advancement

An anonymous reader alerted us that "Starglade has an editorial about character development systems, where the author discusses the two most common types of character improvement (classes & levelling, and skill based improvement), and makes some suggestions for future systems in MMORPGs."

Comments

Eve?

[MachDelta]

(reminds me of ... well I can't remember the name...little help .. not everquest but ...? )

Eve Online?

FAQ: 2.7 How is skill advancement achieved?

Character advancement is accomplished through the activation of skill training kits. Once a training kit is utilized, a certain period of time must elapse before training is complete and the skill is functional. The activation time required is measured in real time and training continues regardless of whether or not a player is connected to the game. The training time needed for skills may range from less than an hour to several days, depending on the type and complexity of the skill. You may only train one skill at a time, one character at a time per account. Time elapsed during training may be monitored through the character sheet.

?

Offline-advancement?

[EvilIdler]

EVE Online has that. Skill training happens in linear time. It doesn't matter
whether you're online or offline; your character spends ALL its time reading
through technical manuals and such, and you flying around trading/killing doesn't
affect this in any way (unless you get blown to bits and die - send in the clones!).

Re:You Say You Want a Revolution?

[ProfBooty]

try planetside, it is pretty much what you are talking about, it is a fps with rpg elements, there are no bots, its all player versus player.

its entertaining when you have a firefight with 150+ players, with aircraft, ground troops etc

most people didnt like the lack of an economy, but it didnt bother me.

everone has access to allthe skills at once, it is just that when you level up, you get more skill slots, dont like your guy as a stealthy ninja? turn in those slots and pick up skills to let youdrive a tank instead.

id like it more if it had some npc bots or something when there arent too many people on the servers

Re:D&D is killing the computer RPG

[mvdwege]

why can't prowess in long swords be applied to short shords, if not in full then partially?

You know, I was scratching my head as I read the parent, and you rephrasing his point makes me wonder even more.

In D&D, at least in edition 3.0 and 3.5, this is exactly how weapons are portrayed. You need the basic proficiency (in simple, martial or exotic weapons) to handle the weapon. As long as you have proficiency in a weapon class, you can handle all weapons in that class equally well. Since both shortsword and longsword are martial weapons, anyone with the martial weapon proficiency gets to use them at no penalty.

In order to differentiate the weapons, there are the feats. It makes sense to invest in feats such as Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization to increase your skill in the use of your primary weapon, and as a consequence, all other weapons in the class now operate at a relative penalty, thus mirroring the real-life effect (to a degree) of being good at using one weapon means being slightly less good at using a related weapon.

So, in concluding, the D&D system already does what you and parent poster want. You may disagree with the implementation, but that's a disagreement on scale, not priniciple.

Mart