Random Ideas for the NEXT GENERATION
idea by idea blog whenever i think that i have a feature that would enrich mmo experience. i post them here and will brag about them later after someone implemented them, even if they werent original in the 1st place :)

Hello,

its been a while since i tortured you with my ideas how MMOing could evolve but playing WAR for a few weeks made me think: "Do we really need groups in MMORPGs ?"

heres my personal history of groups/ grouping:

in the stone age there was pen&paper(& dice)
you got together with a few friends, there was these guy called game-master who in contrast to modern day mmos told the story in contrast to being a service technician. in 99.9% the guys around your ling room table was "the group". if someone asked you "hey, can i come play on Sunday?" you wouldn't say: "sorry our group only allows 6 people" and only very rarely the gm would have another group in your living room playing with them both. and if he would he wouldn't make 2 different group chats if they were in the same room.

in the bronze age there were single player rpgs
"pool of radiance", "dungeon master", "baldurs gate" adopted the pen&paper rpg to the pc and tried to simulate it. the gm and dies were replaced by program and CPU and since it was a in the pre-internet area you would play the game alone in front of your computer. to have a group feeling you could invite a number of npc to your party and basically play/command them all. since the game would have been to easy if you would rush a dungeon with a group of 50 henchmen the group size was limited to around 4-8 characters.

then came MMORPG
they basically took from single player rpgs and replaced all the npc by player characters.
as of today i cant think of an MMORPG that doesn't allow the grouping of players into some sidebar where you can see little portraits of your group mates along with their health, buffs...

my question is if this group mechanism is really necessary or:
could there be a MMORPG without groups ?

don't get me wrong, this isn't about the question if people should work together at a team. this is fundamental to MMO and the reason why we play the MMs in the first place. my question is directed to wads finding alternatives to a static, limited in number grouping system, the group sidebar.
my question are:
-shouldn't all characters in the same room hear what a character says (if its not a whisper)
-shouldn't all followers of (insert your deity here) get buffed by a prayer if they are close to the priest ?
-shouldn't all people be able to get loot from a slain monster if they were near by (or for the sake of peace helped kill it)
- shouldn't a tank be able to have a watchful eye on a priest even if they are not technically grouped together ?

lets see why we see the group bar as a necessity in on-line games and what mechanism could replace it:
1. group chat:
should be replaced by local chat anyway. guild-chat and whispers are fine but group chat seems a contradiction to realism. just throw it out and make people here whats been said around them regardless of grouping
2. buffing/ healing:
area heals/buffs should be just that: an area effect
area buffs could also be limited to people of a certain believe (deity) or fraction (your guild)
single heals could be spotted visually, i.e. if the base marker of someone goes red he needs heal, or better yet have healers really work for their money spotting people that bleed, limp or have any other kind of visual wounds.
to help healers watch out for a single target (i.e. the tank) maybe allow healers to have their own grouping feature called "healers eyes" where he puts people on watch and gets alerted when they need heal
3. loot/xp distribution
warhammers PQ system seems to work nicely on that regard (at least there doesn't seem to be big drama about it). you get a chance on loot depending how much you contributed. apparently they found a system not only based on damage to the mob but includes healing, buffing, tanking as well. maybe it needs some tweaking but generally it shows it can be done.
in a more harsh environment you could also go with a "grab what you can get" loot system as i often experienced in my pen&paper days where the thieve asked me to make a roll to quickly grab a ring from the treasure without his companions noticing it.
4. other mechanism
whenever a player needs o follow/watch another player he could include that person to his personal watch list. this list would be pretty much similar to the group bar you have ATM (maybe smaller or larger but not limited) to get quick infos about those people.

in short, i didn't find a reason yet why this typical 6-man group sidebar exists from MMO to MMO where i see it as historical ballast from single player rpg games

The topic of pro and contra instanciation has probably been diskussed to death but yet heres another blog about the topic:

After playing warhammer online for around 10days now i fell in love with szenario pvp. i never was into online fps shooters like team fortress or unreal but in warhammer, even tough i find there could be more variety, i really love to play them. for people not familiar with war its usually taking 7-14 people from each realm (side) and let them fight an opponent team the same number.

all this happens in a closed area, an instance

heres the benefits of instanciation:
- fair matches can be guaranteed by letting the server pick
- even more complex matching mechanism could be implemented to even out not only numbers but also classes and levels
- hardly any lag issues due to limiting the numbers of participants and having a confined game space
- no afk/ waiting for class. players only wait for the instance/match to happen then jump into it. they can just go their normal mmo life (pve/questing/world pvp..) while waiting for the match to start
 

this is a good use of instancing but only a start imho

id like to see even more instanciation in war(hammer) like games

heres the improvements id like to see implemented:

- recruit people from all servers for the instance
- instanciate open world pvp/ sieges
- make more complex matching algorithms to ensure more even fights
- maybe even instanciate the public quests

now the usual argument against instanciation is that it breaks the immersion/ the feeling of a seemless world.

but it never is a world in the first place:
if you can run from one end to the other on foot thrue the whole country in one day, how can it be a world ?
in the world of warhammer their should be 100th of border keeps along a vast border. the realm should have population in the millions not in the 1000th.

now a server probably cant handle 1milion players so i suggest that the servers are like patched up parts of the realms where the player lives in and spends his/her every day live of keeping their village save and training for war.

yet when they hear the call of war i doubt it breaks immersion that they could go to their local recruiting officer to be shipped of to war on a distant battlefield (the instance) to return later to their local life

Age of Conan by Funcom

Ok from the start

There have been a lot of Conan Games over the years from Consol Games to XBox to PC and back.
Most of them were Jump and Smash in the earlier years and now theres a Action Adventure and a MMORPG Named "Age of Conan". Beeing a fan of the Conan Novels and Comics and having played a lot of these earlier games i want to state that

The best Conan Game is Age of Conan

Now why would i state something like that when these blogs are full of people criticizing AOC left and right ?

The Answer is simple: Most people were looking for the Messiah or the Anti-WoW to lead us into MMORPG Heaven rather then a game filled with fun and lore in the Conan Universe. Yes, as most people tend to ignore this is about CONAN in the first place. It is not about how easy/hard i can max-grind my char, how well the player-economy works or how many points i earn pvping someone.

If a game is about Conan i want stories that involves me in the Conan universe (similar to matrix, swg, lotr..). AOC is doing this job a lot better then those Jump & Runs ive seen bevore giving us awesome graphics, lively citie(s) and some cool quests.

Why do I think this shouldnt be overlooked ?

I think its important to bring fresh people into this Massively-Multiplayer Online Experience if the industry wants to continue to grow. I think its far more important to bring in a guy/ or girl that is a fan of the  Conan books/comics/movies that sais "wow, what a cool new form of entertainment" then to steal 5% marketshare from WoW of the MMO hardcore players.

People should play SW-Galaxies, LotR, Conan not primary because of some MMORPG Features like FFA PVP, a new Looting System or a Guild Tab. They should play these IP-Titles because they want to experience great stories in a setting they adore and these games should be measured not solemnly on their MMO features but also on their chance to bring these IP to live. So far ive seen Funcom do a good job on that.

but posting here im probably preaching to the wrong crowd anyway ;)

for the mmo-marketing guys id suggest stop hyping up the mmorpg-communities and advertise to the book/comic/film people to draw them in and expand the market on your ip rather then overhyping features that may be bugged at release.

hmm i feel im getting old :(

for 4 years i played lineage 2 and my goal was to reach the max level (wich is kind of hard in an open pvp world that needs like 100h of grind on endgame levels). leveling was basicly waiting for a mob to spawn and killing it. i know how addictive it was to level up or get better gear. hell i grinded 5h/day for weeks just to have a 2minute rush to see what my new skills would do...

now im playing conan and i discovered quests.
while people in my grp/ guild still want to kill me when i stop to read a quest dialog i still enjoy every moment of it, especially the voice overed quests in the beginning. my gamestile basicly went from killing/questing to level up to leveling up in the background while i enjoyed the quest. in conan i even turned off my xp bar in the hub.

so i was thinking:

is there any hope that mmos will become more then leveling competitions for 80% of its customers ?

what would be if you knew a quest in your mmo was written by Stephen King or directed by Quentin Tarrntino ?
- would you have more respect for these quests ?
- would you see more in them then means to move your xp bar a bit further up ?

the many ads in the web for guids that "let you level up to max in under 10 days" makes me feel that most people want to rush to some kind of mysterious endgame only to find out later that endgame = end of story in most games

in my previous blogs i asked for weekly content and got laughed at but i wonder if mmos couldnt attracked more people if they had more food for the "kotor" or "mass effect" gamers instead of trying to dangle a virtual carrot in front of the xp junkies

in this issue i want to compare the mmo industry with the comic-book industry to see wether we gamers should have the right to get new content each week.

prefaces:

the mmo engine must be so easy in use that it allows for a dynamic addition of content.
just like a comic book artist uses a lighboard, pen and paper the additional content i speak of should not require a seasoned computer scientist to make it work

to much content means leveling the character needs to be pushed out of the fokus. the goal of the game should be to enjoy the content not to level a charakter to max level the fastest. if you are watching a movie you wouldnt use fast forward as well just to be the first to see the end..

the mmo needs to have a good subscriber base financing the creation of content

some of the figures below are a bit speculation but i try to be close to the truth

now lets look at some numbers:

a comic book in the us sales chart sells around 100.000 copies each month at a price of 3$
i would say after paying printing costs, shipment and distributors that would leave around 1$ for the publisher. so for around 100.000$ (probably less in most cases) they produce 24 pages of artwork and story.

now lets look at a mmo

lets say aoc has 1mio subscribers in a few month paying 14$ each. lets say 90% of it goes to advertising, support, server cost... (in fact i would looooooooove to see some real figures here on how the income from wow/aoc subscription is reinvested) is should be no problem to cut of 2$ for content.
this equals 2mio $/month or the production value of 20 comic books

noone can tell me that with 2mio a month you cant produce a ton of weekly content !

i think the next generation of mmo should not be defined by technical issues like shaders or direct x version but on how good it tells a story. same as you cant await the next comic book issue or the next episode of heroes/ lost you should constantly be looking forward on what challenges await your character in the next few weeks.

if the industry wants to develope it has to offer the customer more then beeing able to raid the same boss for 20days in a row to have a chance of a purple colored gauntlet drop. it has to move away from seeing itselve as a finished game at launch with updates every 6month or so. 
it should capture its audience with a constant stream of high quality content.

hmm

i played lineage2 for 4 years and said i never would quit.
i loved the community, i said id never quit the game, ever

then came age of conan..
i found myselve playing less l2 but i wanted to keep in touch with the community so i stayed in the clan board but at the same time made new contacts in aoc

actually now my view has changed and i totally feel ok playing more then 1 mmo

on the horizont there is spellborne, aion and war and i like ddo as well
somehow it seems to put me in a position where i dont know what to play anymore and i feel less attached to the community of a certain game.

with that much content rich mmos out at the same time it feels like going to a comic book store seeing all these cool comics with only 4 bucks in your pocket knowing you could never follow the adventures of all these characters.

in terms of mmo i feel that the market is great giving us that big varyity of games but on the other hand for me it destroyes the community feeling i had in the early days.

ok,

over the last weeks i read a ton of ppl complaining about aoc beeing not quite finished yet others (like me) defending the game as playable and fun.

so heres my sollution:

Developers go to your marketing departement and ask them to come up with a cool name for a "almost readdy" game

i mean hey, if the guys from war would tell me to give them 30euro to play their game now even if its buggy and balanced/polished only in 3 month id get out my credit card and pay them.

maybe we should look at it like discovering your new favourite band.
you like the sound but on stage they sound rough and not every song on their album pleases your ears. still you buy it cause you want  to be the guy that sais "oh yeah i knew they rocked when they were just starting" when you go to their comercialized concert 2 years later....

from a commercial point of view the company will still get a good deal of money that helps them to bring in more content/support and sees what the players think beyond the rather positive vibes of a closed beta programm. if they are just honest about it (that the game isnt yet finished) they wont loose the hyped up people that expect perfect perfomance...

well if you play a mmorpg nowadays you probably are either a die hard lone wolf or you joined a guild or clan. often mmorpg makers even encourage the forming of guilds, give them ingame means like clan housing, clanchannels and so forth but...

from a rpg point of view i think guilds/ clans make no sense at all !

• why would a rogue and a paladin join a common guild ?
• why would a darkelve and an elf be in 1 clan (and how do their parents look like) ?

what you should have is fellowships, companions that gather for a common cause, grow custom to adventure together and form some kind of friendship. but that would rather reflect groups and not huge organisations of 50 or more players.

keep the so called guilds/clans but call them taverns if you like and bring in gm controlled guilds/fractions for political power struggle and story developement

the guilds we have in most mmorpgs are 80% means of player organisation (guildboard for raids, sieges, a birthday calender for players, a chat where you talk about how your work day was and what movies rock atm). agreed there are a few rpg guilds out there but very few truly represent a classical guild as you would see in a historical setting or pen&paper rpg. most guilds resemble  more a tavern where various people meet, some regular customers, some travelers to tell stories, socialize and sometimes have a common event.

a guild in the typical sense should have a firm storydriven place in the political struggle of your mmo world. look at the "league of assasins", "the order of the rose" or the "thieves guild of karatshi".
it makes a lot more sense if your character belongs to a guild because of his class or to a clan because of his race. the political struggle between the guilds or clans could be far more interesting and in synch with the overall game setting if a gm would be guildmaster then just a guy that grabs a ton of hardcore gamers to pwn the server. true there is a place in a games storyline where a charackter would gather a handfull of outcast to overthrow the king but atm it is just a shortcut for developers not to include/further content and let players run free on the server.

a team of gms on the other hand could realy orchestrate plot developement and intrigues in guild vs guild strugle that would deepen the rpg feeling in the mmo. i know that theres prolly not enough cash to pay real gms as actors but thats a topic for another blog to come...

ok you might be scared reading the headline assuming id suggested perma death or something like that...

nah, i really love my char and i dont want to have him permanently erased on some kind of stupid disconect or bad luck.

what i would like to suggest tough for a second generation mmorpg is to let charakters age and eventually grow weaker and die as opposed to me leaving the game bored after 3 years playing the same char.

so : Down with Charakter Immortality, bring in a generational concept

with the grind and level orientated mmorpgs on todays market there are a few problems that could be avoided by letting the charakters age and die:

• old players get bored with the charakter but cant give him up because they have spend sooo much time investing grind into that char
• new players sometimes shy away from a game thats on the market for a few years knowing they would never be able to compete with chars that have a 3year headstart (i.e. in end game pvp)
• companies have to fokus on developing more and more endgame content, uber skills, god quests to keep the endlevel players happy

so why not give a charakter a livespan of lets say 2 realtime-years. he will grow in power for around 16 month till his late 40s then weaken over the next 6 month to die naturaly.
During this time he could spawn a heir to continue his legacy. Maybe this heir can inherit some key characteristics, some special skills and part of his fortune but he should be his own man/woman trying to live up to the legacy of his/ her father.

ok im guilty of using them myselve.

after i played a game or mmo a while im looking for fansites and religiously scrap them for any info i can find on my class, my quests and everything.
to almost every detail and every part of your mmo world you will find a site, a wiki or a forum explaing to you whats to be done with your online time. even for not yet released mmos you find charakter trees and skills sometimes. and the older the mmo gets the more you loose in terms of exploration and experimentation

so for the next generation mmo i suggest:
Burn the Fansites bring in Dynamic Content

• what i do not want is the typical stupid npc that carries a funny ! above his head telling me to talk to him to get a quest
• what i do not want is fansites loaded with databases of items/ quests and skills
• what i do not want is to walk into the local skill trainers office to get a long list of what skills i can aquire for my class

• what i want is a arrow riddled merchant that falls bleeding to my feet while im hunting somewhere telling me with his last breath that his daughter was robbed and kidnapped to an old ruin whos location he reveals on his dying breath.
• what i want is to gather fellow adventurers to go into these ruins to fight the cult of the evil monkey there and rescue the merchants daughter
• what i want is to be contacted by the womens uncle to tell me he once was a great fighter, one of the few that ever mastered the "burning tiger claw strike" and that hes willing to teach me

imagine if in pvp or pve someone from your group invokes the "burning tiger claw strike" for the first time leaving you puzzled how to counter it and marveled at seeing something new

in terms of game mechanics i want something like opening a "Magic the Gathering" booster pack and finding a ultra rare card once in a while bending my brains on how to use it best and evaluating if i should reveal it openly or wait for the last moment in a fight with a pvp arch-nemesis. 
this means i rather have a constant flow of weekly tiny updates with secret content rather then a once a year patchlist with 200 open tweaks of the game. i want rare quests that only happen once in a while, rare skills that only few posess and maybe a system that rather encourages to collect all these rare and odd skills over grinding up in lvl and getting some uberskills just based on your lvl.