A large part of the attraction to MMORPGs for the core players is the ability to distinguish themselves from everyone else. By having the biggest level, the baddest weapons, the toughest armor or the most exotic clothing, if you compare two people who've been playing the game for two years next to two months, the person who's been playing for 2 years expects a little something to show for their time and effort.
People absolutely get bored of fighting the same monster over and over again. I think reusing monster models for both high and low level content is an extremely easy way to shoot yourself in the foot. Variety in dungeon settings and monster types helps. And it helps even more when developers go with a theme that makes sense. Everquest had a Frog dungeon in a swamp, a haunted undead house tucked away on a bleak oceanside cliff, and an orc encampment on the border of elven territory. Good examples with good thought put into them. DAoC would have you fighting fire breathing lizards right next to undead barrow wights. Anarchy Online would have you fight a single mob type (heckler) for literally hundreds of hours to advance in level. Very bad examples there.
As far as I can tell, there are two types of ways to distinguish players from one another. Time investment based and skill based. Mix them how you will, but those are your options. Either players are going to be rewarded for playing 2 hours a day more than everyone else as in most MMORPGs, or players are going to be rewarded for being just a little faster and a little more accurate as in most FPS games. Outside of PvP, I can't think of any MMORPGs that require any level of skill. Sure, there are some classes in some games, like the calmer or healer, that require a small bit of brain power, but thats a far cry from minutia of skill making a difference.
So the trick of MMORPGs so far is to make the time sinks interesting. And thats accomplished with variety. Variety in monster, in dungeon, and the method of experience reward. Until we start seeing hybrid systems, where both player skill and character stats matter strongly (simliar to Deus Ex) then this is what we are stuck with.
Though I am looking forward to the day when there is a good MMORPG that uses both stats and player ability, I suspect it's a long ways off.
I've been running Windows for 10+ years. I've had 1 virus in that whole time, and that was my fault because I didnt bother to update my version properly.
I tried NetHack. I wanted to like it. I realy, REALLY wanted to like it. But I kept dying to stuff I had no chance of escaping. Open a door at level 3, find a Pony. It runs me down and kills me. Get to the bottom of the mines, a Mummak (sp) runs me down and kills me. By some miracle live long enough to get down to say, dungeon level 13 and what do I find but a Minotaur, which runs me down and kills me. And thats not counting the multitude of times I was just surrounded and outnumbered or met some other ridiculess and almost inavoidable end. I can only assume that past level 13 which is my high score to date, that massively powerful monsters are still waiting below that I will have no chance in blazes to kill before they take me out in 2 turns. Now I know enough that if I see something I cant kill to try and get away, but even as an Elf that wasnt always possible.
Eventually I gave up in disgust after a month or two of trying to level up a Wizard to the point of getting their artifact. I even tried save scumming. I'm not proud of it, but after a month of trying to live long enough to get past Mines+Sokoban I was willing to try just about anything to find out what I was doing wrong. Even that didnt keep me alive for long.
Now I may suck at NetHack, but I've been playing just about every type of game under the sun for the last 15 years. And I cannot for the life of me understand what the allure of a game with such random, unavoidable deaths is. Especially when you arent allowed to save. So what makes this game so great? Do people really just enjoy being thrust into inescapable death scenarios, and restarting characters till they get lucky enough to get powerful enough to avoid this kind of random demise?
New ideas are born out of necessity. The transistor was invented because vacuum tubes weren't going to cut it at any level with computers. They simply werent fast enough or reliable enough. So the transistor comes along and its one of the best inventions of the 20th century.
However we have been improving on this, and other ideas, for the last half century. Miniturization may not be a new idea or invention, but the continued process of improving an idea is just as important as the first step. Moores Law is starting to run out with computer chips, you can expect the search for quantum computing to become all the more critical when it does.
We haven't had many new ideas lately, maybe just because we are still working on the old ones?
I think the pay for access model will probably take over, but $30 a year is damn expensive for a website. Hell, $30 is on the high end for a newspaper or magazine so why should they charge so much?
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A large part of the attraction to MMORPGs for the core players is the ability to distinguish themselves from everyone else. By having the biggest level, the baddest weapons, the toughest armor or the most exotic clothing, if you compare two people who've been playing the game for two years next to two months, the person who's been playing for 2 years expects a little something to show for their time and effort.
People absolutely get bored of fighting the same monster over and over again. I think reusing monster models for both high and low level content is an extremely easy way to shoot yourself in the foot. Variety in dungeon settings and monster types helps. And it helps even more when developers go with a theme that makes sense. Everquest had a Frog dungeon in a swamp, a haunted undead house tucked away on a bleak oceanside cliff, and an orc encampment on the border of elven territory. Good examples with good thought put into them. DAoC would have you fighting fire breathing lizards right next to undead barrow wights. Anarchy Online would have you fight a single mob type (heckler) for literally hundreds of hours to advance in level. Very bad examples there.
As far as I can tell, there are two types of ways to distinguish players from one another. Time investment based and skill based. Mix them how you will, but those are your options. Either players are going to be rewarded for playing 2 hours a day more than everyone else as in most MMORPGs, or players are going to be rewarded for being just a little faster and a little more accurate as in most FPS games. Outside of PvP, I can't think of any MMORPGs that require any level of skill. Sure, there are some classes in some games, like the calmer or healer, that require a small bit of brain power, but thats a far cry from minutia of skill making a difference.
So the trick of MMORPGs so far is to make the time sinks interesting. And thats accomplished with variety. Variety in monster, in dungeon, and the method of experience reward. Until we start seeing hybrid systems, where both player skill and character stats matter strongly (simliar to Deus Ex) then this is what we are stuck with.
Though I am looking forward to the day when there is a good MMORPG that uses both stats and player ability, I suspect it's a long ways off.
I've been running Windows for 10+ years. I've had 1 virus in that whole time, and that was my fault because I didnt bother to update my version properly.
I tried NetHack. I wanted to like it. I realy, REALLY wanted to like it. But I kept dying to stuff I had no chance of escaping. Open a door at level 3, find a Pony. It runs me down and kills me. Get to the bottom of the mines, a Mummak (sp) runs me down and kills me. By some miracle live long enough to get down to say, dungeon level 13 and what do I find but a Minotaur, which runs me down and kills me. And thats not counting the multitude of times I was just surrounded and outnumbered or met some other ridiculess and almost inavoidable end. I can only assume that past level 13 which is my high score to date, that massively powerful monsters are still waiting below that I will have no chance in blazes to kill before they take me out in 2 turns. Now I know enough that if I see something I cant kill to try and get away, but even as an Elf that wasnt always possible.
Eventually I gave up in disgust after a month or two of trying to level up a Wizard to the point of getting their artifact. I even tried save scumming. I'm not proud of it, but after a month of trying to live long enough to get past Mines+Sokoban I was willing to try just about anything to find out what I was doing wrong. Even that didnt keep me alive for long.
Now I may suck at NetHack, but I've been playing just about every type of game under the sun for the last 15 years. And I cannot for the life of me understand what the allure of a game with such random, unavoidable deaths is. Especially when you arent allowed to save. So what makes this game so great? Do people really just enjoy being thrust into inescapable death scenarios, and restarting characters till they get lucky enough to get powerful enough to avoid this kind of random demise?
New ideas are born out of necessity. The transistor was invented because vacuum tubes weren't going to cut it at any level with computers. They simply werent fast enough or reliable enough. So the transistor comes along and its one of the best inventions of the 20th century.
However we have been improving on this, and other ideas, for the last half century. Miniturization may not be a new idea or invention, but the continued process of improving an idea is just as important as the first step. Moores Law is starting to run out with computer chips, you can expect the search for quantum computing to become all the more critical when it does.
We haven't had many new ideas lately, maybe just because we are still working on the old ones?
I think the pay for access model will probably take over, but $30 a year is damn expensive for a website. Hell, $30 is on the high end for a newspaper or magazine so why should they charge so much?