AnimeWill MMO Reviews and Opinions

Whether you care what I think or not. Here is my view on the world of MMORPG's.

Author: gom276

I think you fail to grasp what the Blizzard philosophy was.  WoW didn't ruin anything, its the suits who still can't figure out why it was successful that do.  I'll break it down.

"take something that works, and make it awesome"

Thats it in a nutshell.  No one has taken the sandbox world, or the full on virtual world concept and made it awesome.  No one spends the time refining the elements of those games as Blizzard has the elements of the classic rollercoaster MMO.  We cannot fault WoW for this, we must fault the teams who still don't "get" it.

Unfortunately that's a long way off.

GL finding a development staff to take that one on hahahha...... But I must agree, That is what we all set out for and look in a true experience, the endless vastness of something enormous... But that is way off, it would take too much bandwidth, too much space, too much time, and what if the title isnt a big hit? what if the advertising doesnt go well? I can see a game that is this large and amazing with only like 40k subscribing... that is maybe 4k active players, and maybe 600-700 on at a time.... So you want to see your friend on the other side of the planet? NP He is only 74 hours running distance, The closest human is within 6 hours from here!.

What you need is an AI that can develop, on its own, a real time world. Right now most AI cant even walk around a tree without getting stuck, or will stand by and let you kill their kin 50 feet away. BUT , it will only take one very gifted person to write that AI code and make MMO's come to life. (and prolly take over the world, but oh well. LONG LIVE THE AI!)

Do you work for a development company? Do you know how long, how expensive, and how unpractical your dream would be? With technology and A.I. limitations, it's just not coming. Maybe in the future. When we have virtual reality and we won't have "real" life because it'll be a Medieval Matrix.

Learning AI already exists in games. Try playing Black & White 1 and you will see what I'm talking about.

As for that perfect MMO, I'm sorry but dreams don't come true...EVER ;)

Well I feel exactly as you do gom276 and many other does as well. Until they make a MMORPG game worthy of being played  I won't be playing or spending money on kiddie games.  The last game I actually stuck with for a long time was Asherons Call 1. The world was huge and the rules were loose. You could even solo a boss mob if you were powerful enough. These poeple "understood" This game is too dated now though. Even the 1st Everquest was not bad but it lacked certain freedoms. Maybe someday someone with some money and know how will take the magic combo and make the game of all games. Most of the stuff I have seen in the past few years is a total waste of time and money. Sad Really. The devs have no idea how to make a good, lasting game.

thats why we need more game engineers and designers, we new more teams and companies willing to take risks to make something better and something that is wanted by the gamers, this is one reason im working on going to school for it and start working to make these sort of ideas a "vertual reality" we do need to think outside the comfort zone and take chances.

We will start to see MMOS like this once we can make 'intelligent' game engines.

Systems that can create entire worlds, monsters and environments that are unique and with little effort from developers.

The task of creating an MMO at the moment is becoming too complex and too time consuming to really advance the genre in many of the ways that we wish for.

The only answer will be new technology and software that can create these time consuming environements in a much more creative way than is possible by engines today - after this we will see an explosion of MMOs really living up to the the original dreams of the genre as the devs can concentrate on content and features while the game engine takes care of the rest.

It may be a while before we see the exact game that you're describing.  However, I think its realistic to expect to see MMOs along those lines in the near future.  Just stop and think about how fast gaming technology moves.

To get back to your description, I think a big part of it is where developers put their focus.  How much time and resources does it take them to churn out all of the static content that the typical MMO has?  What if, instead, that time and those resources were spent towards just creating and expanding the game world? 

I see so many posts like these. Where people want a grand sized game. I just posted one such as this on the WoW forum. I also wish for a huge game that we can truely be creative with crafting and explore like we used to. We used to be adventurous. now all they want are ad ons that give all secrets away... its like waiting for your favorite book or movie to come along and all you si is read the end chapter... you find this game give me a tell..

the game your asking is out there , its a new game any of them mmo or other wise.For example Age of conan , it will be new places to see new tribes no one has seen and new monsters to slay and loot to find, but after a time like all games you will make it your slave and death will be a distant dream..... then i guess its time for the new game warhammer maybe? after that stargate..... then who knows. For me i love to explore a world know its ins and outs only now after playing WoW from day 1 do i find im bored with it and hunger for some thing new.

See every area in Everquest, then get back to us.... should be sometime around Christmas.

Some of you guys are confusing AI with 'game AI', which is two seperate things.  AI is like a human brain, it can logic and create on it's own.  Game AI is just a whole bunch of 'if, then' statements.  True AI is a long way off, maybe 10 years, and to use it for games, probably 15  years.

The world you seek is right now, computationally impossible. Figure the world of gamers who would pay for such a game is at 20 million gamers, that means if it were to be popular, but still have that I am the one exploring, I am the one who discovered this feeling and be true to it, you would have to develop 20 million completely different instances of individuality, maintained in real time. Then find a way to bring them together in such a way as to create a MMORPG. Seeing the lag in a standard sandbox super server game like EVE online, which can host  (where are they at? 48000? )a bunch of  people at the same time? I am NOT saying it is impossible, just impossible now, with limited bandwidth, computer processing ability, and just plain old how long it takes a bit to get from data to screen... 20 years, if 'puters keep increasing their speed and ability in accordance with the precedent they have already set. Top it off with the fact that we want more realism and beauty in out graphics and more natural feel to our settings. 20 years may even be to close for that kind of interaction with a game.

I can see the earliest form of what you dream of in Secondlife, and if you have ever been there and learned about it a bit, the lag is well... something no other gamer likes or will put up with for the most part, and its done in 512 meter squared sections, not really whole worlds of exploring yet. And tho folks put it down, I sense in it the ghost of the future of games, the expressive persistent world of exploration we want. Tell you this is a truth... if SecondLife had the response time and low lag of say,,,, WoW or Everquest II, with all of its options and physics running... in other words no or low lag, People would go fraggin nuts to do stuff and hang out and play there. Its already a place of fun crazy worlds, take a look at the goreans,the furries, the Star Wars crews... the PvP RPG's, the vampire, the dark city, the live music scene, the club scene... it is what we would like to have, but the lag, the difficulty in learning, the extraordinary costs associated with owning land and build your dream worlds... we a long way from the cheap processing and code power it would take. Its not can it be done, its how much will this cost.

Thats also my dream. And this dream keep me alive. I know that this dream will become true some day. Its the day when MMO society grow up enough...

So after you discover that lost tribe and slay that unique beast, the half a million players that haven't are cool with it, or..? Are there enough villages and unique beasts to go around?

So when this massive world comes out that's to-scale to earth, and there's a population of 250,000 players, how are they spread out? Do they force everyone to log on to X continent and open up the others as the population rises, or do we have cities filled with NPC's and the occasional thinking player?

There are more than just technical problems here.

Battlepoet: "Are there enough villages and unique beasts to go around?"

That's the usual flaw in Grandiose Player Visions; they usually involve what amounts to a standard single player RPG experience - with witnesses.  It doesn't scale very well.

The idea of unique beasts makes me think back to EverQuest and their named NPCs.  If an NPC had a name with initial caps (Emperor Crushbone) then it had special drops.  Combined with static spawn locations, the life expectancy of such an NPC was about 20 seconds as 10 player characters beat on it.  I shudder to think what players would do if there were 'rare' creatures.

The concept is a world so large that if I set off exploring it, I "could" find all those things... unless some one else beat me to it.  But it took humans hundreds of years to find all that earth had and still some places are unexplored. 

I am talking about a world that big.  With players dropping into civilizations on opposite sides of the world.  With civilizations at say bronze age.  As players explore and find an develop new land so goes the society.  Soon there would be ships for sailing, exploring would be profitable.  But a world so large that this could take months just to sail accross the ocean, stopping on islands to restock your supplies, and if you die from starvation or lack of water, you have to start all over again.  LOL!!  that is what would make it fun.  The reward for finding new lands must also balance the risk.  You may have 1000 ships trying to explore, but some will be lost, and choose not to waste money on it again.  You could end up with pirates trying to survive by plundering others.

The joy and excitement that comes from something we in this day and age can no longer do.  Except in a virtual world.  Until one day the world has been completely explored and then we set off into space.  You could even have other worlds populated by players where you could find a planet less populated with a player base thats not yet on your level, and help them or slaughter them.  And take the planet for your own forcing them to obey you.  Until they revolt.  lol...  this would just be so much fun.

it is a good concept, but as of right now, it is a way over the top wish.

Ok, here is one small flaw.  It would make no money.  today's gamer  are all ADD kids. they want instant gratification.  Example:  In the world you descibe Do you really want to sail the ocean for months of game time just to get to the next "unknown area" just to discover someone else beat you to it.  Or you find those lost ruins after months of searching hope to get the next uber artifact and wait someone else looted it.

That game would last all of a week on peoples harddrive.

JB47394, thats a good point.  But, couldnt you solve that problem by just not having static spawns?  Same for rare drops.  Dont give them a percent chance to drop off of a specific mob, make it more random or more complex.  We all know that players will eventually figure it out, then camp the hell out of that mob, if things are too static.

With uniques, it seems like it could work...maybe.  However, theres no way it would be the type of system that allows everyone to kill a unique.  Hunting a unique would have to be a challenging task, possibly requiring a specific class/build for tracking them down.

Oops, sorry about the bold.  And, no edit button apparently...nice...