How To Lose Your Life To An MMORPG

Part diary, part commentary, part news reviews and editorials covering the world of MMORPGs Among many MMORPG:I feature Runes of Magic and World of Warcraft

Author: giantsquid

The Alganon beta is very laggy at times. This is no doubt exacerbated by my bad wireless connection. Even though I was getting booted, and had to slow down my progression due to lag, It was a good experience. After 8 levels, I was able to get many quests under my belt, study a few skills, if that’s what they are calling it because there are other skills that you get through leveling, and delved into crafting a bit all while seeing a good sized chunk of the extremely large starting zone.

My first 4 levels were filled with acquainting myself with the game and world. Creating a character seems average to any other MMORPG. Not super in-depth, but not shallow either. You can pick hair, face, all that jazz. Unique is the family names you choose from. Each race has 5 families to choose from. These are an attempt to help group players to other like-minded players. Each family is related largely to one field of combat or study. There’s an adventuring family, a crafting family, and so on.

I took a human soldier which starts me in Asheran Forest. It’s a gigantic zone, and has the most pleasantly diverse terrain I’ve ever seen. The layout for all the terrain seems natural, full, varied, and never gives a feeling of repetition(Hey I saw that exact shape and size boulder 2 kilometers back). There are some nice animations with swarms of bugs, tree tops gently swaying in the breeze, and other little incidental novelties that actually felt like it brought the world more to life. This zone is also immense. I could only hazard a guess that it may be like taking the zone Stormwind, from WoW, and quadrupling it in size. It’s a colorful world. It has a cartoon-ish look, but high texture and water details make it look sharper, more focused, and a bit less cartoon-y than WoW.

Quests are standard, nothing new here. fetch, kill, find are the norm. Tutorial based quests will get you accustomed to the controls, and your surroundings. There’s a built in quest tracker, to find where you need to go. Some may think this takes away immersion or is too easy. For a first time player I found it very helpful, as the zone is huge and easy to get lost in.

I clicked my study icon to get started with what I could. It’s a time based skills system that lets you select from about 3 studies after character creation, and as you study, more will open up. I found it fine. I started with bladesmanship, then went to crafting related studies. I was only level 5 when I did the novice craftsmen which completed within one play session. It opened up specific craft related studies such as natural oils, alloy, etc… I chose alloy, and suddenly it’s taking 24 hours to get that study. I felt that it was a huge jump from the first level of studies I took. I am not at all familiar with EVE and its time-based skills, so I will have to have some more…uh, time with this part of Alganon.

My first 5 levels kept me pretty close to the starting area, and then the quests lowly moved me further down a road to the town of Greenvale. At level 6 I found out I could have already been crafting at level 1. So I jumped in, asked developer chat a few questions and got started. There’s honestly not much I can say beyond “If you’ve played WoW, you know everything you need to know about Alganon crafting”. It doesn’t just look the same, you’ll feel like you’re playing WoW at times, if not for the graphical differences, with all the similar movements you’ll be going through.

Crafting is the same system used in WoW. It looks like they ripped it out of WoW, put it in Alganon, and just renamed items, recipes, and ingredients. That’s not saying it’s bad, I think it speaks more volume to say “It’s familiar” and I’ll get to that more in a bit. I found a blacksmith, purchased mining, and blacksmithing. I then went out mining which was a pleasurable experience. This is a one-click gathering system. You get a tracker. In my case I could locate ore, but there was a small extra perceived sense of hunting on my part. Even when you near a node, it can take some looking for. It may be behind a tree or rock, or just hiding down in a depression in the ground. It also could be nicely placed amongst some mobs requiring some skill to reach if you are equal or even above the mobs level. Some clicks landed me copper, limestone, and sometimes a jewel along with the others. The most I ever received from one node was 2 copper, 1 limestone, and 1 jewel.

There’s a vendor in town selling some reagents that you’ll need to go along with the ore when crafting. I also found, with the beginning recipes, you’ll quite often also need to refine the ore and get some drops from mobs to create the item(s).

From level 7-8 I went on more quests which sent me further along the zone. I was done crafting for the time being, after feeling used to it, and I wanted to see more of the great graphics in the zone. There are plenty of hubs with lots of NPC’s. Many of them just stand there, but they all have voiced greetings for you. The houses are nice. I always love many buildings you can go into. Just like the terrain, the buildings are varied in size and shape. Asheran Forest lends itself to log cabins and small wooden houses. There’s a few 2-story houses that I explored. This is where the camera flaws really showed up.

I found myself constantly zooming in and out, whether in the forest or in town. The trees are so lush with wide tops, and the camera doesn’t snap below them, so any trees in your way will have to be avoided by zooming in. Same goes for inside a building. There seems to be an attempt at camera snapping, as you enter a buildings doorway then turn right or left it snaps to the characters back just fine, and you can easily rotate around to get the interiors layout. But many times, especially in the multi-storied buildings you have to zoom in to avoid staring at the floor above you.

The most unique and exciting feature in the game, to me, is the Library. It’s simply defined as an in-game repository of information on everything in the game. It’s not simple though, as it has everything. If WoW had this, it would be like taking Thottbot, and WoW Armory, smashing them together, and then letting you access that info all without alt+tab’ing out. There’s also a slew of Alganon world lore to look up. It’s a very nice interface.

Apart from crafting being identical to WoW, the difference for Alganon is how they plan to get items into players hands. They’ve said that they plan on balancing the really good weapons and armor between crafting and drops. You’ll be able to get that Uber Green Glowing Demon Sword+1 from a series of challenging crafting tasks, or from a challenging raid. It sounds like they are trying to create a dichotomy of equality. That is to say, it seems they’re trying to create equal feelings of work and time invested for both the crafter and raider after the same item. I’m very curious to see how this plays out. Unfortunately no instances are available in the beta. Any real world testing will have to wait until after the game’s launch.

To sum up, I felt the game was very polished visually. The server snags and lags quite a bit right now, but that’s to be expected in beta this young. It plays very much like WoW in many respects. I felt torn whether I should dislike this or not. You could almost disassociate yourself from the graphics and you could simply believe you found some brand new zones in WoW. I never used the term WoW clone before so I do not use it lightly now. The interfaces from crafting looked ripped directly from WoW, as does a few other interfaces, and also the way you interact within those interfaces. Ultimately it doesn’t make me dislike the game in the least. It’s not a bad thing to be a clone. And it really has it’s own look graphically. At the end of reaching level 8, I find that apart from the knowledge base called the Library, there isn’t much in the way of innovation. I don’t need innovation when a game uses many approved standards of play that agree with me. I find myself wanting to play more to see how beautiful the rest of the world is, if nothing else, and to see how the crafting implementation will affect the player base and my enjoyment level of crafting.
 

I don’t state this to try to add validity to an argument, just to let you know that I respect where the opinions are coming from. I’d very much like to hear what others have to say.

Some of my friends, I used to play WoW with, I’ve known for a long time and have come to really respect their opinions on all sorts of subjects. They are all very well educated, very well-rounded, and are intuitive as all get out. So when we discussed where the best loot should come from in a game, and they agreed with me, it not only fed my lovely ego(which I do love, no matter how small it is), but I really focused my thought on the subject for a long time.

I’m of the belief that the best armor and weapon loot should come solely from crafting. You can still have good crafting that people will partake in, as I would point to any existing crafting system as flawed yet obviously working. But to have anything less than the best armor or weapons come from anywhere else undermines crafting and takes a way the one purely viable reason to have crafting in the first place. Otherwise you don’t really have crafting, you just have the aucton house where people play online “economists”.

In the strictest sense, I would call all current crafting systems economy systems. They solely feed into the economy. That’s their highest and most valid priority. Sure you are crafting “stuff” but what is the number one reason you are crafting it? In WoW, you may find some alternative uses for crafting early on, but once you pass level thirty, the crafting system takes a nose dive off a thousand foot sheer cliff, and turns more into a money maker where most people stop after refining and don’t actually get to the crafting part. They refine material to sell in the auction house.

There’s a place for this, but there’s also no tangible use for the fully crafted goods. We call these crafting systems?

Are we undermining raids and battlegrounds, if we take away their gear drops? I don’t think so. It’s shifting responsiblities back into their proper places, and improving the game dramatically. Can’t there be other uber drops in raids and battlegrounds? I don’t see why not.

If players and/or developers feel that one area of the game ends up having to take priority over the other as far as where the best loot comes from, then I still see the logical conclusion that it should be crafting. I personally don’t see it undermining raids or “end-game” content because there is plenty to achieve in doing raids, and players will still have a source to obtain the best gear to run more raids and gear up for battlegrounds.

I’m still a bit skeptical about the inner working of Alganon, that is now in beta. But they mention this very aspect which made me smile knowing that others agreed with me. We all love that. But that’s not the only reason for me to push a subject like this. I think it stands on it’s own two feet when it comes to what role different parts of a MMORPG should play.
 

I have a hunch, a theory.

RoM has so far been pretty good with it’s content updates, and the first big expansion. Up until now I think players are still skeptical and wait to see it to believe it, for the most part.

But if they make good on their next big expansion, said to be out in spring of 2010 in the recent developer chat, we may see an extra large jump in the games popularity.

Not only will we see the game world increase in size by a few more zones, and plenty of new content, with hopefully significantly more fixed bugs than new ones, but I think players minds will be much more at ease to let go of their skepticism.

The game is also starting to garner popularity among some big MMORPG journalist sites with some giving RoM its own dedicated section. A first for many of the sites to do that for a free game, where they previously only gave big triple A subscription based games their own homes.

It’s all contingent on whether Runewaker can successfully handle the business side of things and grow the company larger than an average F2P games company. They already boast being a larger company, but they have to be able to grow even more, and continue to make money at it.

If Runewaker can figure it all out and make it work, could we see the first of its kind in a F2P MMORPG company that gets close to being as large as a subscription based company? Do you think they could end up becoming pioneers in the same aspect that Blizzard did for subscription MMORPGs? or will they find themselves stuck as a smaller company not finding that golden apple to let themselves grow?

Time will tell.

This is a fanfic based on the epic quest line "The Seductive Dark Pearl" in Runes of Magic.

Part 1

The large double handed axe flew in an arc through air heavy with fragrances of Mountain Poplar and Rosemary with the occasional faint sour rotten stench of aged dead things. The midday light punching holes down through lush tall treetops, bursting with multiple hues of green, glinted off the broad razor sharp edge. Its surface was polished to a luster and only recently marred by splotches of dark green that clung to intricately carved patterns like thick wet tree sap. No faded colors, rust or corrosion of any kind revealed the weapon’s true age. The axe flew effortlessly toward the ground, now picking up speed helped by gravity. There was no familiar “thwak” of metal against wood but a wet crunch like a horse chomping a carrot. The small creature’s eight black skinny legs snapped straight from involuntary muscle spasms as its bulbous abdomen split as easily as a watermelon. The spiders life left its small hairy body in a gurgled hiss but not without exacting one last act of revenge by squirting some of its blood and guts across Abernacky Anvilslayer’s chest armor.

Abernacky relaxed his body, exiting his fighting stance to stand casually. His axe hung loosely at his right side as he fixated on his chest. A disgusted half-grunt half-moan came from somewhere beneath his fiery red beard. He removed a glass vial hiding behind his belt, popped the cork stopper, scraped some of the green ooze into the vial while flicking off bits of meat, re corked the vial and returned it to his belt without ever looking away from his pristine armor, taunted by the smears that he almost thought formed the shape of a sarcastic toothless smile with two deformed meaty eyes. After a few heartbeats a reluctant sigh followed the grunt only satisfied by the thought he could at least wipe the smile off that sarcastic face after he returned home. The rhythmic sounds Abernacky’s axe made continued and could be heard echoing throughout the forest.

***

Mobly sauntered into the small town of Logar. It was a small quaint town that nestled in the northern end of the Howling Mountains. Part of the mountain range bordered to the West, and a well worn trail lead East eventually turning into the golden hues of Silversprings where the sprawling city of Varanas lay. Gently rolling hills and glades lay around Logar with some mines and caves that attract would be adventurers. Mobly inhaled air filled with wild flowers while slowing his gate to match the slowed pace of life around him. Life here hadn’t stopped but it was more peaceful as if time didn’t matter so much. As he entered the main route that cut through the middle of town, he took in all the wonderful smells. That particular scent of yeast, flour, and heat from an oven mingled with vegetables, fish,, and meat wafting from a simmering pot made its way past his nose as he passed the merchants. Mobly smiled as his mouth watered. Steam and hot steel rose up to overtake the fresh food as he made his way further along past the tiny blacksmiths corner. Although there was all the amenities and more in Varanas, he loved how crisp and fresh the smells were here in Logar. The town wasn’t walled in and crowded like Varanas which always holds in all smells, even the less enjoyable ones that can only be caused by the proximity of too many people. Here the country air swept those fouler smells away, not giving them time to accumulate while allowing the ovens, smithy, and all the other daily smells to be fresh and new as if it was the first loaf of bread baked, the first pot of stew boiled, or the first bar of glowing red metal plunged into a barrel of cool water.

The knight knew people here would recognize him to be an out of towner, but here among the cleaner air and waters in the Howling Mountains he felt less embarrassed by the slight streak of vanity that ran in his blood. Mobly didn’t care if people thought he was showing off, He was glad he took a bath and cleaned his armor before making the trip.

As mush as he enjoyed slowing his life down, he hadn’t simply come to Logar for a vacation. After a few minutes of scanning the crowds, and watching people pass him in the street, he walked up to a local merchant who wasn’t currently busy catering to any costumers. The merchant politely obliged his question by pointing up the road that led north out of town and into a small forest glen.

Mobly stood, arms crossed, smirk across his face as he watched the scene in front of him play out. Most people would probably find humor in watching a small boy with a large chestnut beard trying to wield an axe bigger than his torso. One would also hope to be smart enough to look just a little closer and realize with what precision and shear strength and agility this figure wielded the weapon. If any one was still curious, which most were, they would take a few steps closer to see the hard lines of age around his eyes, dark skinned muscles sweating under the strain of age. If anyone after that was still overcome with curiosity, possibly slightly blinded by greed to rob a preoccupied figure, wearing what looked like valuable armor and who knows what else in his bag, they’d be in for a big surprise.

“What brings ya here Mobly? Ain’t the end of the month yet.” Abernacky growled in a low monotonous tone just before his axe split another spider in two.

“No ‘Hello, good to see you old friend?” Mobly said with a wry smirk on his face.

“Yer old, I’ll give ya that, but as for bein’ my friend, I don’t mix up business ventures with friendship, and fer good to see ya, that’s yet ta be true.” Abernacky took one last swing before turning his attention to the knight.

The green ooze covering Abernacky leapt out to at least two of Mobly’s senses. He immediately traded a smirk for a grimace, made a show of taking half a step backwards and crinkling his face up “What are you doing? I thought you hated letting your armor get dirty?” waving a hand in front of his nose.

“Don’t be so crass, this is just todays work. Ye can be sure it’ll get cleaned up before the days done. Besides, yer one ta talk. When’s the last time ya dirtied that new outfit yer wearin’?”

“So glad you noticed. Actually this is all on loan from a good friend of mine.”

“And here I thought yer friend remark was a silent plea. So you have friends afterall?” Abernacky asked not really caring.

“Who, Redorick? Actually he’s a pretty good friend. I used to do a bit of dungeon running with him back in the day” turning his head and poking his nose into the air haughtily, “but I admit it’s been quite awhile since I heard from him. What are you doing out here anyway, there’s got to be some…cleaner ways to make a living?”

“Not much real work is clean, outsid’a just buying an’ sellin’ at auction, and that’d take too much time away from my work.”

“Ahh yes, speaking of new armor, I haven’t seen you in that finery last month. I believe that is in part due to my ‘real’ work in getting you the resources you need from the Windmill Basement.” Mobly sarcastically punctuated, throwing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Logar Windmill sitting behind him.

“Yes, but ya’d get more work if ya honed yer skills a bit more and that could make you more gold than ya get now. Not many ’round these parts no ya do good work…of the work ya can do.” Abernacky shot back, taking a nibble at the bait Mobly was dangling in front of him. “And I told ya, I can pay ya at the end of the months. I aint got any gold to pay ya or loan ya, if that’s what yer after.”

Mobly was amused by their banter, although he’d be lying if it didn’t twinge a little “Firstly I am doing just fine thank you. I may not be the best knight in the business…”
“Best knight? Try for slightly above mediocre.” Abernacky chortled

Eyes narrowing a bit and rasing his tone, Mobly repeated “I may not be the best knight but I get by just fine, and secondly” He inhaled sharply before finishing “I’ve been working a lot more on my priest studies.”

Abernacky gave him a sideways glare, one eyebrow raised with a cloud of approval in his eyes “So then why are ya here, an’ why now? I know you didn’t just stroll in for a visit to say ‘Hello good to see ya ole friend’?”

The trap was sprung, with bait gone, Mobly pulled a shiny object from a pocket with a smile, handing it to Abernacky in hushed excitement “Because of this.”

It was small and shiny with carvings on it. Mobly handed it to Abernacky. It was a badge

I’ve been in and out of my share of guilds and have learned a lot. I’m sure I have a lot more to learn, but I look forward to it. One thing I’ve learned is the advantage of keeping up morale in guild. But in mixed guilds and even raid heavy guilds it can be hard. I think it’s important to have someone dedicated to public relations.

Even in a raid guild, people take on different roles. People will adapt naturally or fall out and make room for new players. Eventually, if the guild stays together long enough, a fairly cohesive unit will form. Apart from stictly guild related roles- leader, healer, tank, etc- you’ll have a settling of personalities.

I took a communication class over a year ago where we discussed natural group roles that people tend to naturally fall into in business and other social settings. I wanted to look into this further when dealing with guilds.

Benne and Sheats’, at Mindtools, has some lists of these personalities, in relation to job or social function.

Task Roles:

These have to do with getting the job done

* Initiator/Contributor – Proposes original ideas or different ways of approaching group problems or goals. This role initiates discussions and move groups into new areas of exploration.
* Information Seeker – Requests clarification of comments in terms of their factual adequacy. Seeks expert information or facts relevant to the problem. Determines what information is missing and needs to be found before moving forward.
* Information Giver – Provides factual information to the group. Is seen as an authority on the subject and relates own experience when relevant.
* Opinion Seeker – Asks for clarification of the values, attitudes, and opinions of group members. Checks to make sure different perspectives are spoken.
* Opinion Giver – Expresses his or her own opinions and beliefs about the subject being discussed. Often states opinions in terms of what the group “should” do.
* Elaborator – Takes other people’s initial ideas and builds on them with examples, relevant facts and data. Also looks at the consequences of proposed ideas and actions.
* Co-ordinator – Identifies and explains the relationships between ideas. May pull together a few different ideas and make them cohesive.
* Orienter – Reviews and clarifies the group’s position. Provides a summary of what has been accomplished, notes where the group has veered off course, and suggests how to get back on target.
* Evaluator/Critic – Evaluates the proposals against a predetermined or objective standard. Assesses the reasonableness of a proposal and looks at whether it is fact-based and manageable as a solution.
* Energizer – Concentrates the group’s energy on forward movement. Challenges and stimulates the group to further action.
* Procedural Technician – Facilitates group discussion by taking care of logistical concerns like where meetings are to take place and what supplies are needed for each meeting.
* Recorder – Acts as the Secretary or Minute-Keeper. Records ideas and keeps track of what goes on at each meeting.

Personal and/or Social Roles:

These have to do with positive functioning of a group

* Encourager – Affirms, supports and praises the efforts of fellow group members. Demonstrates warmth and provides a positive attitude in meetings.
* Harmonizer – Conciliates differences between individuals. Seeks ways to reduce tension and diffuse a situation by providing further explanations or using humor.
* Compromiser – Offers to change his or her position for the good of the group. Willing to yield position or meet others half way.
* Gatekeeper/Expediter – Regulates flow of communication. Makes sure all members have a chance to express themselves by encouraging the shy and quiet members to contribute their ideas. Limits those who dominate the conversation and may suggest group rules or standards that ensure everyone gets a chance to speak up.
* Observer/Commentator – Provides feedback to the group about how it is functioning. Often seen when a group wants to set, evaluate, or change its standards and processes.
* Follower – Accepts what others say and decide even though he or she has not contributed to the decision or expressed own thoughts. Seen as a listener not a contributor.

In my own terms I also overlap PR Officer to include, from the lists above:

Guild PR Officer:

* Harmonizer
* Expediter
* Initiator/Contributor
* Information Giver
* Procedural Technician

In some guilds these roles may not be easily defined or needed. You may think you function just find. At the end of the day, you may get the job done, but smoothing out little wrinkles from time to time goes a long, long way.

When I was an officer in Battalion, in Runes of Magic, I started gravitating towards just lending a helping hand to the point I was doing it the majority of my time. It was easy for me, I like helping people. I’d answer many questions about how the game worked, or helped get material for players, or if some members needed a particular instance or dungeon, I’d help them out. I later started making up quizzes in guild chat and gave away little incidental stuff like pet eggs or potions to the winners. I mainly was keen to when people were getting frustrated and tried to help diffuse it. I also had a knack for unraveling any arguments or miscommunications.

It had its ups and downs. I took some well-deserved flak from the other officers for not keeping up or being able to contribute in instances. I wasn’t leveling much, or upgrading, or any kind of vertical climb in-game.

But it’s a vital role that, I’m sure, got us through many fun nights. Sure the guild would still have gotten through. We had very intelligent and competent officers. But players tend to argue a lot more than they realize, when preoccupied with their own agendas.

Whether your a successful guild or not, a PR Officer could do a lot to increase the fun you derive from the game. Not many personalities like to take this role. It’s understandable they’d rather be leveling or raiding. However, if you can find a person to fit this role, you will add a significant amount to your guild.

So while you are concerned with looking for a dedicated player who can fit the role and who has the gear you want, maybe spend a few chat sessions looking for a good PR Officer.

Last night I started thinking about RMT and how many people seem to dislike it. After doing no research I came up with a theory.

The anti-RMT(real money transaction) movement seems to be made up predominantly of younger players. These teens and tweens, on the surface, argue a lot of false logic to try and draw lines in the MMORPG sand to denote what’s fair and what’s not- with RMT usually on the unfair side.

What’s fair in an MMORPG?

I would think if you can do it, it’s fair- in regards to how the game was built. Any hacking, cracking or general code tomfoolery would be a no-no of epic-fail proportions.

for some fair examples off the top of my noggin’

* Playing 12 hours a day.
* having a guild at level cap power level you to level cap in a week and give you 10,000 gold and the best gear in the game.
* Finding a player much lower in PvP skill than you and camping them to generate oodles of reputation points.

Get the idea?

It’s very hard to find a focal point for determining fairness in large persistent virtual worlds. Everyone has different amounts of time, skill, friends, and so forth. There’s practically thousands of reasons that could effect outcomes.

* Player A may be able to do the first 5 quests in five minutes
* Player B may take 5 hours to do those same quests
* Player C may do the first 2 quests then go PvP then fishing, or crafting, before going back to questing
* Player D may spend 3 hours just chatting with friends

There’s surely not enough letters in the alphabet to cover all the different scenarios that could occur, and it’s foolish and illogical to try to quantify the near infinite amount of possible outcomes.

A common argument for anti-RMT’ers is time. They try to make it sound almost as though the non-payer is some nobel person who chooses the hard route to some MMORPG enlightenment, but we know that isn’t true per the reasons I’ve already listed.

In a nutshell:

These anti-RMT’ers are achievement junkies and although they cry the unfairness route of payers, they are jealous. They care about it because they feel payers are achieving something they are not, and they are trying desparately to concoct scenarios to remove these achievements(that only they are jealous of).

Closing:

I’ve only ever payed once in my F2P career. I paid $50 on Shaiya last Christmas to give Cash Shop items to my fellow guild officers and some of the more regular guild players, and kept a few for myself. I’ve been playing Runes of Magic for 3 months and never spent anything…yet:)

Recently I read Tobold’s post on “Mainstream and Niche Games“, and saw some Twitters from crafters wanting better crafting and it really started me thinking about crafting oriented games.

PvP really is a niche market. Any simple look at a few game’s server lists will show that there are more PvE players than PvP. I’m not really a PvP player but I always pick PvP servers, if given the choice. I view PvP from a sandbox point of view. If it’s available, I want it, because to me it’s another addition that adds more fun to a game. I mostly play Runes of Magic right now, and chose the international Smacht(PvP) server even though I hardly PvP. I want to have the option, even if I hardly participate.

There are some great PvP niche games, and many are free. Shaiya is perhaps my favorite of the PvP niche. Great graphics, smooth server uptime, and a fun massive PvP system pitting up to hundreds against hundreds. Although it is a very serious grind oriented system of leveling, it is still fun.

So why not a crafting oriented niche MMORPG? This has me feeling very left out as a crafter. I can only assume that a crafting niche would be even smaller than a PvP niche. So small in fact, that no one has found it economically viable to produce such an MMO.

However, just like Shaiya and it’s very PvP centric gameplay, it’s not the only thing to do in the game. Shaiya has loads of solo grinding, dungeons, party, and raid content. In fact the PvP zones are separated so one need not ever participate in PvP while playing Shaiya.

Why can’t we have something like Vanguard with its crafting, only the crafting is bulked up, more involved and the rest of the game takes second stage to it? Even if it were to be produced in the free to play market, which would make it a lot smaller than Vanguard?

I would love to try a game that had a craft system like Vanguard or EQ2 that was the center of the game. An MMORPG like that could be quite fun and still contain other elements like questing, leveling, and all that jazz.

Wow, imagine a game that took crafting to an extreme. With hundreds of more recipes and items to be made, enhanced, and sold on a beefed up auction house.

As I currently have limited knowledge on Vanguard and EQ2’s craft systems, I will start with a basic form of WoW’s or RoM’s.

I would first come up with more resources to be gathered.

Perhaps:

* Wood
* Food plants
* Flowers
* Ore
* Stone
* Minerals

Even more types, if I thought about it longer. Then I’d add a system of grades of each, so you could have:

* Brass: Poor
* Brass: Okay
* Brass: Good
* Brass: Better
* Brass: Best

That grade system wood go for every kind of ore, herb, wood, etc…

I wouldn’t forget Skinning to get leathers from mobs either, along with types and grades for each type as well.

That covers a lot for gathering resources. For refining, I’d use a system like EQ2 or Vanguard that I only read a bit about. So during the crafting system enhancements of different types could be added based on a craft skill point system. Enhancements could be added with another large set of ingredients like:

* Salts
* Oils
* gems

Don’t forget yet another set of grades for the enhancement ingredients.

Maybe even a system where currency(in-game gold) could play a part.

Different sets of tools that apply skill increases to help you get better quality resources when gathering too, and maybe even different quality workstations that helped increase your chances of better quality crafted items.

Of course we’d have to have an in-game housing system so we could build the houses. Maybe start with a base one-room house and you can “build” extensions, floors, additional rooms. Thousands of pieces of furniture, maybe you could find or earn better recipes to build the better tools to increase a % chance of getting better grades of resources and refining better items.

Group Crafting or: "Craft Party"

I’ve been talking a lot about crafting(well, why not? I love it). I wrote a post on making a crafting-centric MMORPG, and even followed it up with another small post to flesh out some ideas a bit more.

This post is more of the same, but concentrating on an idea that came while I was drifting off to dreamland.

I thought of trying to integrate(or replace) current gaming elements with a crafting based element. I started by thinking of how a player party works.

If you could have a special group(or party) recipes that would be complete with level requirements and profession requirements but also require 2-5 players being in a party to craft.

* 2-5 players formed into a party
* each player in party requires a copy of special party recipe, and the required craft skill(s)

Let’s start with a basic 5-man party and run down some ideas I came up with

So you have your party and your all gathered around the correct station and you all have a copy of the recipe and meet the skill level requiremen(s).

* Anyone in the party can start the process by opening up your profession/tradeskill window. Simply clicking on the recipe will run a check to see if you are actually in a party and everyone meets the requirements. Where a new Craft Party window will open for everyone in the party.

I think it’d be neat to have a craft skill point system like in EQ2 or Vanguard, so let’s say that’s already in this imaginary MMORPG.

* With the Craft Party window open you will need to check with all party members to coordinate your efforts. Once everyone is ready, you can hit a button that says “start”, on the window.
* One the process is started a bar appears that slowly fills up depending on the difficulty and/or level of the item being crafted.
* Let’s say, for this example, you are working on a mid-level chest armor, that would result in a blue piece, thus the timer for this would be one minute.
* The timer starts to tick across as the party is now “crafting” the item. As the timer progresses, there will be a percentage change of difficulty which will open up a new smaller window randomly for one or more of the players.
* This new window would represent complications, and will only give you, one of the other players, or even multiple players at the same time, a few seconds to click a button to overcome the complication
* The complication will require a certain amount of extra “craft skill points” from each member that is required to overcome it. If they do not have enough points, then the complication stays and the item will have flaws(it could still be a good item). In addition to extra craft points, some of the complications may require additional numbers of one of the indgredients(so make sure to stock up)
* There will be an opportunity, toward the end of crafting to add any enhancements based off of players professions(if 1 or more players have a profession that allows gem making or alchemy, this part of the progress bar will give you a small window of opportunity to click to get enhancements added)
* Enhancements will be treated the same way, with random complications throughout that need all players attention.

Now this was a basic thought I had. I know it’s not that original or complex, or maybe not even as fun as it could be, but I like the idea that I’m shooting for and just need to flesh it out a bit more.

Also, I know what you’re thinking. Who gets the item? or does each member get the item. Well, I thought about it, and so far my idea for fun, risk, gambling, and so forth was that only 1 item gets made, unless all party members have enough of the required resources, and craft points.

So here is where I’d backtrack and say as soon as the craft party window opens, and before you click start, each player will have a small box to input a “bid” taken from their pool of craft points.

This leaves a fun gambling aspect. You need to guess how much you can bid to win, and still have enough points to actually get through the process and any unforeseen complications.

What about if you only have 2 people, or 3 people in the party, instead of 5?

I was thinking there could be a grade scale to determine the outcome. Say you have 5 grades. So the item will only be grade 2, if 2 people craft, etc….

Sure it would drive people to only want to do it with 5 people, but I don’t think it would stop smaller parties from crafting. You just need to make all items worthwhile.

I mean, as it is, there are better drops than others, but not everyone goes for them? Player psychology, time restraints? I’m not too sure but if craft party recipes are special to begin with, a lower grade one will still be better than a lot of solo crafted ones.

Oh, how I can dream…

    -Jeremy Stratton

How To Lose Your Life To An MMORPG

I’m working on a larger editorial about what players want or expect from an MMORPG.

In a nutshell people want a one-player game with many options.

A majority of the F2P MMORPGs that I’ve played try, in some fashion or another, to force you into group play. This method has resulted in a niche market. Most people don’t want this, which seems to be slightly ironic or at least contradictory to the old argument about people wanting to go solo in a mult-player game.

A guild mate of mine once told me:

“In the end, MMORPGs are very selfish games.”

I have constantly pondered this line, from time to time. I have come to agree with this statement. People want to do what they want to do, when they want to do it. You can’t have group play with everyone sharing that mentality, at least not in the strictest sense.

People don’t raid because they have fun in group play. Take out any prizes or high level gear drops and replace it with a chest that, when opened, says:

“Congratulations, you’ve learned how to enjoy the experience of playing with others, have fun with that good feeling, bye.”

That doesn’t mean that everyone shares this mentality either, but do you think there’d be enough people to warrant the amount of different group raids currently in most big MMORPGs?

Most people want a single-player game that provides options to jump in and out of different elements. In fact, most people don’t like to feel limited in any way. The more options the better(assuming they’re all well designed options).

    -Jeremy Stratton

How To Lose Your Life To An MMORPG
 

Well, I guess it’s official. Emergent Gameplay is the term for unintended uses of items or mechanics in MMORPGs.

Player Made Books In Everquest 2:

I found the term on Tradeskill Perspectives, a blog by “Domino” who in her (?) own words:

Currently, I manage all aspects of the tradeskill systems within EverQuest II, as well as assisting with general content design. Opinions expressed in this blog in no way reflect those of SOE, and are strictly my own, etc. etc.

She (?) stated one example of emergent gameplay in EQ2 was that players were using the new player made books as building blocks to build structures.

Runes of Magic:

I remember when guild castles were implemented. Being like a house instance that you could decorate with furniture, but having an outdoor courtyard, some guilds were building giant staircases reaching up into the sky using the bookshelf item. It was quite fun.

I’m also currently trying to herald a petition to get player made books into Runes of Magic(without much luck).

What other emergent gameplay have you noticed?

I’ve never run across anything in WoW to speak of, but I did come up with my own semi-alternate use for books in Everquest 2.

Sony Online Entertainment could possibly build a marketing campaign from something along these lines.

If they used the player made books to cross over between people who read the printed real life books and people who play Everquest 2.

Take an upcoming print book and “print” a sample chapter pre-release only in-game using the player made books to attract fans of the books to play the game and attract people who play the game to read the books.

Depending how successful the marketing of this is, SOE could make it a campaign like “Kids Need To Read” which could get parental support or cooperation.

There’s also always a possibility to have a partnership with publishers to publish pre-release sample chapters of other author’s fantasy work.

Closing:

I love emergent gameplay. It’s a challenge reminiscent of game testers who look for bugs in games. After forming this post, I definitely want to jump into WoW and RoM to specifically look for more emergent gameplay.

    -Jeremy Stratton

How To Lose Your Life To An MMORPG