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The Secret Life Of MMOG Characters
An article at Gamasutra pines for MMOG characters to have their own lives. Specifically, the author wishes that over a very long period of time xp would accrue for parked characters. From the article: "Here's what I'd like to see: instead of Vanille Ice and all the millions of unused characters sitting on their collective tookuses, why not imagine that each day they venture forth and do some low-level crime fighting (orc slaying, etc.) just to, you know, 'stay in shape'. Now this workout wouldn't actually happen in any way visible to players logged on, but these characters would earn nominal amounts of experience each day. And in three months time, presto, a new level."
It'd be funnier if they *didn't* work out, and grew a bit broader around the midsection as a result.
A tale in the desert lets you perform "Offline tasks", after you've done them sufficiently in game. If you've collected 500 units of grass in your lifetime, you can set your character to collect grass while you're offine. Or, you can accrue "run time", which you can use for instantaneous travel (the idea being that you did that running while offline).
(for those who don't play WoW, leave your char logged off for a few weeks and when you come back you get double experience up until your next level or so)
And besides, the power levelers are going to run circles around "casual" players any day of the week.
(Guess who just got -1 redundant! Oooh! Oooh! I know! I know!)
There are other games that develop these ideas as well, but I don't think it's a serious article. Any article that mentions Progress Quest obviously thinks of MMO's very highly. heh
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Offline skill-based "leveling". The author of this article needs to check out EVE. Your character trains while you're asleep, while you're playing, heck, even if you cancel your account and leave a long skill running it will keep training!
It really makes for great gameplay because no matter how much someone grinds the game, they won't train any faster than me (unless they can get some uber implants which assist slightly in the speed at which you can train skills). But basically in EVE I can start a new character and within about 2 months or so compete and kill players that have been playing for 3 years because you can specialize - take many things to level 4 in a specific subset of skills (there are 5 levels to every skill) intead of that last "level 5" that takes eons to train (like over 23 days for some skills).
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Just what I want to see when I login: When I pop into the zone, I'm in my house... but I'm not alone. There's a level 93 quadruple-classed Ninja/Executioner/Assassin/Brawler named "Chok Norissss" giving me a red-assed beatdown! As I lay there bleeding to death, Chok explains himself... Apparently, while I was logged out for a few days, my toon decided that he would go pork Chok's in-game life partner, repeatedly...
Long Live Sig Vicious.
No, it's closer to "Concerned writer offers suggestions to Game Companies on possible ways to maintain interest in their MMOG titles on the part of casual gamers as a device to improve income."
If the MMOG Companies can figure out how to make it attractive enough for players to maintain their monthly subscriptions even if said players don't have time to log in every week or even every month to play, they've hit a potential goldmine of long-term subscriptions.
For instance, I played Asheron's Call for nearly 6 years. I was part of a good monarchy, had characters in various states of advancement and even had in-game goals I was actively working towards. I started playing before I got married, and even after I got married, I simply got my wife hooked on the game and we played together. So why did I cancel? Well, one-month old newborn twins will severely negatively impact both your wallet and your spare time. AC fell far enough down the priority list that I could not justify paying the subscriptions on the three accounts we own when we didn't have time and energy to log in for more than 5 minutes in a given month. Paying $40/month to Turbine for essentially nothing wasn't a worthwhile proposition.
But if Turbine had set it up so that some sort of advancement was happening on my character even if I didn't log in for 6 months straight but merely kept my subscription active, well, I might still have one or more active accounts.
In the end, it's not about Lamers wanting something for nothing. It's about Game companies maximizing their revenue streams (Duh). If allowing some sort of limited, offline advancement for players who merely maintain an active subscription keeps players like me who would otherwise cancel their subscriptions for lack of time and desire to play then the Game companies have found, in essence, a source of free money.
Wow's idea that you could spend a week (at least at launch) with that toon being offline and end up with 1.5 levels of 2x experience worked. It was incentive to bring your alts out once in a while, and have them gain a level fairly quickly, then put them back in the closet for a week or two.
But you still had to do stuff to gain that experience, and quest rewards weren't doubled. Only actual mob experience doubled. You had to work for it. It was just easier to get somewhere on that less used toon.
But just gain experience while off-line? What's the point in rewarding people for doing nothing? Next you are going to ask that you be given a stipend for not playing that character? The character should get free currency because they weren't played?
No offense, but you play MMOs to accomplish something. I don't want to accomplish something by NOT playing.
Or, as Herm Edwards, former coach of the NY Jets put it, "You PLAY to WIN the GAME".
what if you gave the characters a day job, like some folks do in D&D campaigns. say, you have to make your character go to a business, get hired, and then, when you're not out adventuring, you can be said to be doing the "day job." day jobs probably don't provide much advancement, but certain jobs could be based off of skills. in one campaign, a character got a job as a 'blacksmith'.. and after finishing a particularly long dungeon exploration, we decided that "the next adventure happens two months later, when you're all summoned to the village elder's house....." in that two-month's span, they got a salary (based on their chosen job, and if any of their 'skills' seemed like it would make them better at performing that job), and recieved X amount of money for 2 months of labor. nothing much, granted, but enough to seem reasonable and provide a more interesting level of immersion.
Wow. Take it to the next level. Whenever you're not online, your character has some other personality that actually works towards a _different_ and possibly contrary set of goals--instead of grinding XP, maybe he goes out and harvests fish or shoots puppies or something. Of course, the more time you spend online, the harder your character works against you when you're offline (just to keep it fair for the casual gamer). Man, that'd be hard to balance, but why do games always _require_ that you're in more or less total control of your character? If you're going to give them an "offline" life, why not do something _interesting_ with it? Imagine logging back in only to find that some naked newbie's character is locked in your apartment's bathroom. Total riot.
However, these don't, I think, adequately balance the playing-field; in WoW even with the rested bonus countermeasure, those that grind constantly still have a significant edge in arms and armor, and it is this issue that must be addressed. Perhaps, as 'Time Goes By,' you could tell your character to pursue various tasks; somewhat like the training option in sports simulations that allows your character to focus on a single aspect of the game (shooting, tackling, tactics, etc) or in Homeworld Cataclysm in which the Beast mothership can focus on one aspect of her being to accelerate it (building, researching, firing, defending). Similarly, one could instruct your character towards a course of action on log-out, dependent on your locale and skills.
For example, Yassi the Night Elf hunter could be instructed, upon log-out, to hunt low-level wild beasts, with her skinning skill and also make bags with the leather recieved, so that when I log back onto Yassi, she'd have made a lot of bags, and improved her skinning and leatherworking skills in the process. Or, if Yassi was miles from home in the Barrens, she could be instructed to make her way back to Darnassus; when I log back on, she's got less silver (for hippogryph fare) but she's back in Darnassus. Or she could even grind against low-level monsters and merely collect their drops. In this way, one could automate some of the more mundane parts of the game, and allow greater freedom for offline characters.
Of course, it would be mightily important to ensure that only one character per account could use this ability (otherwise each player would just create tons of mules to harvest stuff) and that the benefits recieved would be much lower than the benefits of doing it one's self; I'd say between ten and twenty percent.
Any thoughts?
games journalism blog
For those who haven't tried it; IMHO it's the first MMORPG that provides all the best excitement of everquest without any of the tedium.
Right, sure. Lets take the MMO out of the MMORPG for a moment. Would you think say a game like Baldur's Gate was as much fun if you first had to grind you way to level 20 before getting on with the game proper? No.
In single player land we want the game to be fun regardless what our level. Levelling up is just a way to give you a few new toys to play with. Just because the level 18 spells are really neat doesn't mean it is excusible that the level 1-17 spells suck donkey balls.
In short I think MMORPG's should be fun to play regardless your level. Removing levels completly is not going to be acceptable but I think they should be far less important. If the casual player who after a year is still a low level can have as much fun as the power grinder (or perhaps even MORE fun) then you got a game that people will not cancel because they find themselves all alone unable to find a party. Current games suffer to much from the fact that a new player is in a world with everyone else at high level being bored.
But frankly I think it is impossible to achieve this. The only way I can think of doing it is to make combat far far more complex. Stop it with the simple D&D crap and get some real strategy and tactics in there. Perhaps where the difference between a low level and a high level isn't just special moves but plain experience. Then adding difficulty would be easy. Just increase the number of attackers. With real AI and real combat you could then easily have mixed level groups. Imagine this scenario. High level fighter keeps the center position, a low level fighter stand by his side attacking only one enemy being protected from being overrun by the high level who can fend off multiple attackers.
Current combat ALWAYS runs like this. EVERYONE attack the biggest threat and then work their way through the mob. This is not 'real'. In real live the heavy would take on the heavy and the low levels would take on lower level enemies. One on One. Just imagine how different fights would look. Rather then a dozen models all meshed together they would be spread out more. Rather like a big fight in the movies.
Yeah yeah, I am rambling. I just think that a game that I am expected to play for years should be more challenging then a single player game I finish in a week. For me the problem with all the MMO's I have played is that I grow fed up with the combat wich is boring and repetetive. Change this. Make it so a cellar filled with rats is fun. Scale the dungeon for total group level. So 1 level 1 player gets 1 rat. 2 level 2 players get 2 rats. But a 2 level 1 and a level 10 get 12 rats. Now they have to work as a team, perhaps with the level 10 just concentrating on keeping the enemies at bay and the low levels picking them off one by one.
Tada! Fun for everyone. Sadly it ain't going to happen, the current move is to arcade like combat with it becoming more about twitchy turning games then cool strategy and hot tactics. MMO the world of lag and everyone is going for combat that requires instant reaction.
DDO is particulary bad, you got to block manually. Oh sure, that is fun. For the first day. But after you played a year and blocked a million times it might get a bit repetitive.
Sadly I am in a minority, I actually prefer it if my avatar is not under direct control but rather takes instructions and carries them out.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It'd be funnier if they *didn't* work out, and grew a bit broader around the midsection as a result.
What's sad is the ammount of players who would frantically try to keep their character in shape, while completely ignoring their real body!
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!