Slashdot Mirror
Where's the Massive in MMOGs?
Grimwell writes "Like MMOG's? Concerned about their future? You should read Darniaq's article questioning the general approach to these games. From the article: 'I expect invention from Blizzard as I much as I would from the local Top 40 radio station. I'd hate to think that the entire breadth of MMOs is measured by the playing of a few of the hot selling titles. It's great what WoW has done for the genre, but man I hope people don't give up on the genre just because they hit 60 and realized they didn't want to spend 3 hours a night in Molten Core.'"
So basically the author of TFA has never played Guild Wars where PVP only players can start at a level equal to other PVP players, or opt for the RPG adventure _with_ PVP mixed in.
Not a fanboi of RPG's but ArenaNet does seem to attempt innovation, albeit slowly.
The problem is development. You think creating a console game is anything like creating a world for millions of interactive users?
Besides, most of what you see in MMORPG's these days are rehashes of rules and attributes that go all the way back from tabletop D&D, to Rogue, to Diablo, and so on to the present day. You have to have a well-established base before you can branch out.
It seems to me that the author of this article is less knowledgeable of the subject at hand than one should be before climbing to the top of the mountain and shouting your opinion to the unwashed masses below.
Game evolution comes incrimentally. Not only that, it is shaped by the interest of the public.
What the author seems to want is a many thousand player MOO or MUSH. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to him, but most people just have no interest in such an open-ended environment. MOOs and MUSHes were always more niche and less popular than their MUD brethren (though there were big ones out there, don't get me wrong.) But whereas anyone is capable of typing in a few lines of text and thus creating an object in a MOO, a modern game requires the ability to create 3D Models. And not only that to animate them. And not only that to do so well enough that it warrants repetitious viewing.
The bottom line being, what we got is what we got, and it's going to evolve from there. If he is really dedicated to his "revolutionary" idea (which is as much a rehash of the past as anything on the market today), then he should put his time and effort into creating it.
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
I have played AO, SWG, COH, and WoW. None of these games had end game content or even lifetime content (SWG) and no MMOs ever will. The MMO design has been flawed since the evolution of it and that leads to the flaw of CRPGs vs PnP.
As with CRPGS and MMOs they are limited by code and time. People want open ended end game content. How? How do developers develop everything and nothing for an ending. How many people would it take to constantly add an countinous ending to a story? How many GMs would it take to run events for people to participate in with consideration to timezones. What? What is considered good end game content vs bad.
Now I bet a lot of you have answers to all of those quests. Now take every person who answered that question and try to compile and code all those request. Thats the life of an MMO hear how to do end game content from hundreds of thousands of people and trying to pick the good from the bad. Then making a desicion to actually put into use the good. Then getting approval to do the development. Then going back and getting some of the bugs cleared. Then finishing it with QA. Then pushing the changes to Live. Then getting feedback that this isn't what some of the customer wanted.
There are limits to how much a team can create vs a DM doing a campaign on the fly. MMOs are a waste of time cause you never get the game you wanted to play, you are getting a game that some stranger want to play.
http://www.eve-online.com/>
Over 26000 in the same universe (single server, well, cluster of servers) last weekend. Player interaction makes up the end game. That is, pvp actually has a point beyond "points" and revolves around territory/resource conflict. Politics are far beyond anything else available too.
Lineage 1 I believe had no level cap. I remember one player (he was Korean) was like level 75 or so (with the next highest around 65), and was still going. Leveling at this point was insane. It would take multiple months of game play to advanced a single level. His goal was to solo one of the in game dragons. That game is still being developed, and has had a ton of new content added since I last played (4 years ago). I like that idea. If I want to keep grinding, and working it out, let me enhance my character (if it is only a few str or int point increase each level past 60 for WoW). Lineage 1 had a lot of cool things you could do that added to the game content. For example n-zels and ndais used to increase weapon/armor stats...and the fun of attempting to overzel/overdai an item, praying it wouldn't blow :) Plus you could sell a +9 b-kat for a shit load, and it wasn't soulbound to your character.
If Lineage 2 would have been based more closely to Lineage 1, I would have kept playing it. But Lineage 2 strayed way to far from what Lineage 1 was.
EQ2 has plenty of fun inside. Provided you allow yourselve to have fun. There is an option to switch of XP gaining. Since certain quests can't be completed when you reach beyond a certain level this allows you to remain stuck until you complete it.
And stuck you will be because it is very hard to find players willing to do quests that do not "pay out" enough.
Just ask yourselve. Have you ever done a quest that didn't pay out just for fun? Took on an enemy because it seemed right even if it was going to cost you by dying and lost xp/equipment?
No? Then your a grind monkey. Welcome to the rat race.
As for PvP being the answer. No it isn't. First off, cheating will be rife. just look at the halo story below.
Then there is the problem of balance. REAL PvP is about unbalance. You never want a fair war. Ask Captain Blackadder.
As for more orginized PvP well you would have to go to a system like the romans used for gladiators. But these people were very strictly regulated so that fights were as fair as possible.
The only real way is to just make two different games. WoW for the grinders and something else for people who want more. This is impossible. Just check how many people want to turn Linux into Windows. The idea that you would have WIndows for Windows people and Linux for Linux people is unaccetable to a lot of people. Everything must appeal to the largest possible group Elitism of the masses.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.