Meandering through MMORPG's...

Author: t0nyd

i think you can in planetside.

Well, you are right about the most mmorpg's, but look Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. That is a mmorpg based on war. You got pvp quests, open world pvp, instanced pvp, keeps to capture in open world PvP, enemy cities to capture, you get loot in pvp and you can lvl from rank 1 to rank 40 only by playing PvP.

Most game companies want the brand-spanking-new player to have an enjoyable experience and not think their game is too hard.

All of what you describe is great, but (except for your bit about equipment) it would make a true newbie to the genre run screaming, never to return.

Sad but true.  I wonder if it would end up being more positive or negative overall for a game to announce that it's NOT FOR BEGINNERS right on the box.  I bet such a game could win a lot of people over from GW in a heartbeat.

check out eve online, space mmo, expansion for it just came out 2 days ago with a full new gfx engine

first point - you train skills at the same rate as everyone else, no need to kill anything to 'level'

2nd point - well there arent quests like in WoW.. you never have to do them if you don't want to they are just there if you like doing them or need money without risk

3rd point - killing other players ships, they drop what they had fitted on their ship, so no need to kill an npc EVER if you don't want to (well maybe in the tutorial :P)

4th point - all pvp is word pvp, there are no instanced dungeons or battleground. objectives would be more like space you capture and use for yourself

5th point - this is usually true for eve, however would not be true in a 1v1 situation but that NEVER happens usually in eve. gang warfare is all about knowing when people are by themselves or when they have another gang waiting to pwn you :)

Aczero-

 I have but one problem with War, its not a sandbox. If it was a sandbox it would sound near perfect to me.

Hexxeity-

  I would think Equipment not mattering so much would attract more noobs. I mean ponder it a bit, the guy your fighting is the same level as you but he spent countless hours raiding, do you think he should simply auto win due to that raiding or would you be happier if you actually had a chance in the fight? Noobs are the guys with the least chance in a game based on gear.

Afroburzing-

 I might give Eve a re-try. I tried it a bit ago and I just couldnt get into the style of combat. Clicking orbit while turning my guns on felt way to hands free for me. I think if you combined tabula rasa's targeting system with Eve, yea, i would probably enjoy that. Actually being able to aim and press a button to fire would be cool. basically what im saying is that Eve doesnt feel interactive enough for me.

also a few problems with your point, is the cheaters. with exp from killing players. it would not be hard at all to have a box and take turns killing yourself to mass power level up.

taking it away from gear would be great but unfortunatly most games are gear centric with no real thought about trying something else. though i was reading about a beta some where can't think of it atm but it had more a skill centric set up, were as after killing said target you could choose to steal a skill, and gear was more of a support for the skills you had.

another nice thing to see would be a balanced system for pvp/ rpg. seems like every game has 1 or 2 classes that are just far more powerfull than everyone else. where pvping or playing as those classes the fight was so one sided it is sad.  but thats just my thoughts

Skeezixs -

 Cheaters are everywhere, but there are way to stop people from PvP farming XP. If there is an an actual loss with death, people wont allow themselves to be farmed or if you kill someone it records the name and each repeated kill with in a certain time frame will give less exp eventually giving you none.

I agree with you about 1 or 2 classes that are more powerful than everyone else. The hardest part of an MMORPG seems to be the balancing of classes.

The problem with PvP-centric MMOs is that when you remove all of the PvE advancement parts, you have a system where the strong get stronger and the weaker get weaker.

I'd never EVER join an MMO of that style if I didn't get started on day 1; no matter how well I played the game, I'd never stand a chance against those who started ahead of me. They would constantly be holding me down.

There was a free PvP MMO released about a year ago called Gunz in which my scenario played out beautifully: you played a standard FPS "round", and you gain experience based on the number of kills you got. Well, those who were level 5 or 6 when I started would always wipe out the new players, and as a result they were leveling FASTER than the level 1's and 2's. They had more experience, better stats and gear. We had no chance at catching them.

VideoJockey-

Well i would still follow the basic rules of most mmo's by having players of higher levels move on to the next areas. If you kill a grey player, you dont get rewarded. To be rewarded you have to kill players with in a specific level range of yours.

1 word:

DARKFALL

Good articel, i especially agree about the gear-race. Its utterly absurd.

Give me some EvE-like skill tree in fantasy and let me specialise or become a Jack-O-T or whatever i want in a sandbox. Here a hardcore duellist would spend lots of time getting those final sword-critical percentages, while others will be maybe 105 behind, but with much less effort - like EvE.

Finally, why this concern about noobs - as in "new player" all the time? Sure, there will be a steady stream of these, but after WoW, there are and will be miillions of potential veteran players looking for something new at some point. Something different from WoW. Why not make a Game for experienced players first and new ones second?

Thanks for all the input..:)

Try my recent forum post on for size.  I think you might like the idea.  If the link doesn't work, here's the URL:

http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/1744591#1744591

Are you some kind of mentally challenged retard?

PvP is about competitive play, what's so competitive about being able to chose fights or always be able to run away if you know you are going to lose? or either have the odds against you? It's plain simple;

- Remove lvl's (they are more a big tutorial anyways, ow yeah? do they design content for end game or lvling mostly? I guess I'm right after all)

- Open pvp, players can be attacked anywhere at anytime

- Implement risk & Reward

- No instances

With no lvl's you have no problem with balancing the classes (why not remove classes and let us make our own classes of lets say, 600 diffrent skills with diffrent skillpoints to put them in?)

Open pvp you can never be safe, but so can not your oponent. If always being able to chose your fight will it ever become interesting? Stop bullshitting me, you make it sound like an emo sitting "no, I might lose this and then all my friends will hate me". With no lvl's, and the same set of skills as your oponent you can't come crying to momy and say you never had a chanse to fight back, because you had!

With Risk & Reward you can either lose something or gain something. Here we are not talking items you spendt hours upon hours obtaining, imo, gear is too stat focused now adays anyways, try something diffrent, like the GW aproach of gear, every armor has it's value in the beholder. Commonly for todays mmos you have nothing but reward and no risk, what's the fun of that? Without the risk this is nothing but a grind.

No Instances, exterminates the ability to have a safe enviroment to carebear in. You afraid of having your totally unchallenged or changed rate of income disturbed by someone killing you when you are grinding? They are doing you a favour. With no diffrence, with no challenge, these games are nothing like a job, or a clock for that matter.

That's my two cents.

xLudox-

Mentally challenged retard? Im not the one that cant figure out what sarcasm is and when to use it. The instances comment above and pretty much everything your mocking is called sarcasm. Notice the (great concept, err no) at the end. I was mocking WoW. Get some reading comprehension skills before coming in here and calling people mentally challenged.

t0ny -- I did say EXCEPT for the bit about equipment.  ;-)  That means everything else would make a n00b run screaming, but the equipment would not.

Hexxeity-

I just brought up the equipment thing to point out that a lot of player lose simply due to equipment imbalance. The most frustrating thing is to lose to someone, even when you out fight them, just because they have 3000 more hps and +400 more spell damage. Heh. Man I hate WoW..:)

I think frustrations is simply summed up by Pavlov's  Theory. Children lose and get frustrated because they are taught. If you take the edge off of losing then all thats left is the competition. I have done my share of rage quiting back in the day. Now Im more relaxed and simply learn from each loss. Each loss drives me forward. Most kids today, they simply lose and quit. Its pretty sad.

So UO and SB had the open pvp that people speak of and yet they didn't appeal to the mass market. So as a designer if I wanted to make a game that appeal to this niche I would use a fps system and try to slap on a rpg element instead of the other way around. You  guys don't want classes, you don't want to be dependent on gear but you want it to be a mmo. You know instead of ranting why don't you use this blog and design the game you want in daily does with reader input? Or are you a do nothing type that just wants to cry and whine like most forum posters.

good blog/article was really feeling you on the "World PVP with Objectives". Yeah taking over Southshore would have kept me kinda happy with WoW espcially if I could earn lotsa honor for holding it. The BGs really ruined the semblance of good world pvp

you know what's sad? back then i was so dumb I eagerly looked forward to Battlegrounds coming out man i was such a noob lol. I cant lie I was clueless. but I learned, I learned......

Vajuras -

 I feel ya man. I was excited about Battlegrounds at first. Then I realized the impact it was having on world pvp.

Try guild wars. There you can make a PVP-only character. It's automatically max level and you can pick any equipment for free.

Of course you'll need to unlock skills, but even that's not necessary as you can get 'combat points' (balthazar) to unlock them, by killing other players.

just reread this blog. You really found your "soul" here man. This article right here, right here, put you on one of my most favorite blogs. I dont know how, but man I really hope you can pick back up on this vibe!

btw, what I meant was keep tapping into this subject matter I think you are one of the few that understands PVP

_vajuras

  Thanks for the compliments man. They are appreciated..:)