I remember back in the day, when my daily dosage of roleplaying came in the form of text based muds. I remember dreaming of the potential of a graphics based version of my favorite mud. Now with mmorpgs being pretty common, id like to ponder the differences between graphical mmorpgs and text based and what both bring to the table.
Small Community
- MUD
Most muds had small tight nit communities. In a community such as this, the players are usually the developers. Also the common players and the devs mingle together to form the community. Player ideas are heard and discussed.
With a few hundred players, its a lot easier to become known for your accomplishments. A player can actually become famous/infamous. Your actions feel like they can affect the world and the players with in. I have yet to see a mud that has multiple servers running, where you do not come into contact with every player on.
- Graphical MMO
With the immense size of most graphical MMO's, it is very difficult to stand out. The players and devs do not mix. Most players feel as if their ideas or suggestions are ignored.
With a few million players, its nearly impossible to become famous/infamous. Most graphical MMO's do not even give options for players to be known. Your actions feel as if they do not affect the world or players with in it. Most Graphical MMO's run several servers, where you do not have the options of encountering even 1/10 of the games population. Massive Multiplayer seems to be defined by how many people you can fit on one server, that being 100, 1000, or what ever the server limits maybe.
Theme vs Balance
- MUD
When designing a guild/class/profession, all that went through my head was, what theme will I use. After developing a theme I would put together ideas/abilities that fit with the theme of the class. Balance rarely crossed my mind. When designing a class, the idea of balance was based upon the theme I chose.
I remember creating a race of symbiotic creatures simply know as the symbiotes (symbs). The idea behind the class was that a symbiotic creature combined with the host (your character). This creature was rather selfish and this help to influence what abilities your character had. Pets for example, the symbiote itself didnt work well with others, therefore you were not allowed to have pets or group with other players until you learned to control the impulses of the symbiote. The symbiote itself was treated as its own sentient entity, so when speaking there were no " i, me, my " it would be translated as "we, us, ours".
The symbiote was an internal entity and it focused on manipulating the character internally. We gave it abilities such as enhanced strength, regenerative functions, toxin filtering, etc. Healing spells that of a cleric actually hurt a symb, due to the symb not being a natural part of the players physiology, it was attacked by most healing functions. Symbs did not wear armor due to the symb itself being able to surface to the skin.
This is just one example of a guild created. We tried to create something unique. We tried to be creative. We tried to weave a players advantages and his weaknesses together in such a way that followed logic. WE tried to follow a theme. The theme of the guild was very important. We didnt just add abilities to balance power that did not fit with the theme of the the guild.
- Graphical MMO
It seems that when designing class/guild/prof 's, most games go as generic as possible. They try to stick with the generic warrior/priest/mage/rogue concepts, rather than trying to be creative. They seem to entirely focus on the idea of balance and ignore the concept of a theme all together.
I believe WoW rogues will be the easiest tool to show the concept of theme vs balance and the lack of theme when creating this generic class. Rogues are a stealth class that can wield various weapons and wear light armor. Stealthing in WoW follows no logical concepts of the idea of stealthing (someone can be staring at you while simply vanish). Stealth isnt much of a crutch for a rogue. What I mean by this is, if you removed stealth from the class, they would still function well due to a myriad of other abilities. They add abilities such as cloak of shadows to balance out the class for PvE, not realizing how absurd this ability is in PvP. When I try to think logically, why does a rogue have an ability to remove all magical affects from themself and become near immune for 5 seconds. Rogues are not magical by any means, so why give them anti-magical abilities. A mage can remove curses from himself. A mage is magical, so he should have some understanding on how to remove negative magical effects. A rogue has no magical abilities what so ever, so how do they understand how to remove them?
When I ponder a rogue class, I think poisons, daggers, stealthing, stealing, and squishy. Obviously, I do not believe that every attempt at creating a rogue class should follow the path of my ideas. Although I do believe every creation of every class should stick to a theme. So lets see how Blizzard gives rogues weaknesses then counters their own attempt...
Light Armor -- Evasion 50% dodge melee + missles
Snare -- Sprint/CloS run 70% faster and breaks snare
Daggers -- Expose armor weapons that do light damage vs high armor
Traps -- Disarm trap
Range -- Crippling poison, deadly throw, sprint, stealth
Magic -- Cloak of Shadows
Rogues have options to fight every single class in the game as well as plenty of options to escape every single class in the game. If your about to ambush a caster, you have a poison specifically for that (lengthens casting times), you will get the opener, you have kick to counter him casting as well as various stuns, when he finally does cast you have CloS to counter that. The only ability that can keep a rogue visible are bleeds and with consumables they can be removed (or if yer a dwarf), pretty much guaranteeing a rogues escape.
Summary
Where are the new an unique classes/guilds/profs. Why are we stuck with the same concepts over and over, warrior(tank), mage(nuker), rogue(stealther).
Every class should be defined by his advantages as well as weaknesses. Every class should stick with a THEME and not venture out into other classes themes just for the sake of so called " balance ". A class should not have a counter to every ability in the game.
Players want to feel as if they can have an effect on their environment. Players want the option to become well known among the games community. Players want to feel as if their voices are being heard.
Sadly, I believe a MUD accomplishes more of what I want than todays graphical MMORPG's.
This article points out why I enjoy the skill based system vs level based systems. UO and EVE allows players to become unique builds, whereas EQ and the horde of copy-cat MMOs that followed in the level based system.
I understand that it is easier to create level targeted content, but honestly game company create content has a shelf life. When communities of players create their own story lines and quests, that lasts much longer and feels more intimate then missions anyone can do.
Give the players the tools to create their own content; customizable clothing, housing, pets, own set of skills, but stick to a THEME as you stated.
Sun Dec 23 2007 3:16PM-Rogee14
Thanks for the reply. I disagree with a small part of what you have said. I agree that most level based systems that exist now are bland and are basically copies of each other. I do believe that skill based systems are a valid option. Where I disagree is that either can be anything, level based nor skill based is the problem. Both methods have unlimited options, its just that the creators have put limits on themselves.
Guild wars seems to blurr the class/skill based lines a bit. Your class choices define your characters overall theme. Your skill choices define your characters actual abilities in combat. The question is, is this a class, skill based game, or some hybrid.
Personally, all I want are options. Whether it be a class or skill based game, i want lots of options to separate my character from the millions of others out there.
The problem with most level based games, at this moment they define you without giving you options to make a unique character. There is way to much planned out for you, instead of allow the player to plan his character out himself.
The problem with most skill based systems, you can pick up any and every skill, thus having little to no weaknesses. Also balancing becomes a huge issue or everyone will have the exact same skill layouts.
Sun Dec 23 2007 3:56PMi will agree with you on the smaller the comunity, for example, i know you mean muds, but i find if you play an older MMO they tend to have a smaller community that seems to be real tight nit. For example asheron's call today is like that or even to a point daoc.
Mon Dec 24 2007 12:41AMAfter spending over 5 years with Gemstone III and over 6 with Dragonrealms, not to mention all the time played/adminned/building on free muds, I am still amazed at all the gameplay nuances that exist in them and not in graphical games.
One other major difference I have seen between the two online game types is level of maturity. Granted, many people under the age of 30-35 have little to no mud experience and typically grew up with arcade/console games that were competitively oriented as opposed to cooperative, but after having played dozens of muds and 90% of the mmos, it is noticable to me.
As an example, Dragonrealms usually has a couple thousand to, perhaps, five thousand players on at any particular time and players can freely attack eachother at any time while in game. The only encoded limitation, if one could call it that, is an npc law system that exists in town areas (and, if one is careful, this can be avoided).
In the space of the 6+ years I played there, oftentimes breaking my own records of 12+ hour sessions, I was only ever involved with a pvp situation twice. Contrarily, I have not seen this same type of behavior in any mmo with FFA PVP, ever.
I always find this funny since, in real life, we could feasibly attack one another in a fashion similar to a FFA PVP game, yet, we don't. Criminal ramifications, sure, but, we don't. Characters in fiction and fantasy could feasibly attack others at will without reason, but, they don't.
Some might say, "Well, you have all these KIDS playing mmos...", but since I played muds with 12 year olds many times (heck, some implementors were 14), that doesn't wash with me.
My only problem now is that muds are very difficult for me to play after going to graphical games. I can only hope that Simutronics brings some of the more mud-centric elements to the table with Hero's Journey.
Mon Dec 24 2007 2:53AMWell said T0nyd I enjoyed reading your thread, very intressting.
Mon Dec 24 2007 11:36AMI appreciate the replies guys..:)
Mon Dec 24 2007 12:33PMAnarchy Online is a perfect example of how skill based can make a game complex and deeply original.. Not only can any class use any type of weapon, they can effectively pull of any role they want to pull off (if not as good as a class suited for it) but it IS possible.. I had an engineer that used shotguns and a weak pet just for backup .
More games need to use this style of skill base, and give people more freedom. But the problem is, people HATE having to make choices.. Too many times have I played an MMO and get the same ol question "whats the best way to make my char?" "How should I spend my points?" "Which armor is the best?" "What skills am I supposed to use?"
People like that leash for some odd reason, and individuality is not "fun" to these people anymore, they would rather have an IWIN button laid out and easy to press..
Mon Dec 24 2007 4:28PMSkill based systems are the same as class based systems in MMO's. Template of the Month anyone? Everyone picks the 'best' path for what they want to do, and that ends up being a 'class'.
As far as THEME vs BALANCE, I was a player and developer in MUD's (Nightmare, 3K) and balance was of extreme importance even back then. One class couldn't be out of whack from the others. Otherwise, people would play that class... they had to be balanced as most MUD's in the early days only let you have 1 character, period. When different 'wizards' (the devs) would get into conflict over balance, it'd sometimes create 'wiz wars'. Some wiz's would code specific monsters or areas to annihilate specific classes as 'punishment' for being out of balance, or whatever.
That's why "THEME"'s still had to be balanced overall (was my job for a while on Nightmare).
Mon Dec 24 2007 4:47PM-eric_w66
My point was theme should direct you toward balance. If the theme of the class is a ninja. Then by following the theme, light armor, small fast weapons, speed, stealth, you should come up with advantages and weaknesses that offset each other. Most games tend to not go with any sort of theme at all, so balancing becomes difficult since every class can do everything.
Mon Dec 24 2007 4:58PMWell, themes are great, but if your game has a setting in which ninja's are not appropriate... Nightmare didn't have a wide selection of classes, because the game's lore dictated that. 3K with its realms of science, chaos and fantasy could have everything under the sun (I helped develop the cybercorps in a game with necromancers and mutants...). In the end, the ninja would have to be 'as cool' to play at any level. The games had 2 levels, one a class level, one a character level, the class level was dependant on the class, some had 400 levels, some had only 20, so you couldn't balance directly off that number, but they looked at average gain of xp per hour, etc, and had to balance the classes on similar scales, regardless of the number of levels. So a level 400 necro would be close to what a level 20 cyber would be.
Having a focused setting makes it easier for MMO developers to come up with cohesive story lines and more importantly, art. Art was the big thing that MUD's didn't have to do, and it let you get away with having necros with terminators and rangers (and monks, and ninjas, and etc etc). I can't imagine trying to develop a game where you had so many varieties of 'art'.
Mon Dec 24 2007 5:06PMOne thing about the: "since every class can do everything". That's not really an accurate statement. A rogue in WoW cannot stand in the back and lob fireballs at something, nor can he absorb a boss's melee for any length of time. He can't heal others. He can't nuke, he can't tank... and while they are flexible, they have to be.
And in MUD's and MMO's *soloing* is an important factor. No one wants to sit around and wait for a group to form, with various classes to offset each others weaknesses. I know I mostly solo'd in MUD's too. In MUD's, we even had 'wimpy' and stuff like that. And equipment? Heh, you had to go 'farm' it every time you logged in (unless your class gave you class specific piece of equipment, which usually weren't that great, aka cyber's spurs). So my cyber could do complete heals (based on class level, up to 4 times an hour if I purchased the most expensive healing ability), he could tank, he could even nuke with flamethrowers, etc...
That's why even in MUD's the classes could always fight (and usually heal themselves to some degree out of combat).
Mon Dec 24 2007 5:12PM-eric_w66
On yer WoW comments.
"a rogue cant nuke"
A rogue is a melee nuker. He has the highest melee (and overall dps) damage in the game.
"a rogue cant stand in the back and lob fireballs"
yet he has more ability to remove magical effects than a mage, this is what I mean by follow a theme. Also rogues do have ranged attacks such as deadly throw.
" he cant tank "
With CloS, Evasion, and Preperation, you would be amazed at how long a rogue can tank, especially in PvP.
" and while they are flexible "
Rogues are not just flexible. Rogues have the best escape measures bar none. Rogues have the best stealth. Rogues have the best dps in the game. Rogues have the most and easiest to use stuns. Rogues have some of the best interupts. Rogues can lengthen casting times, a version of mortal strike, dots, speed enchancment, snare removal, all negative magical effect removal with near immunity while being able to achieve maximum dps unlike paladins, close range and long range snares, moderate range disorient(blind), bleeds(which are the only thing that can keep a rogue visible), evasion to avoid melee and ranged attacks, shit I could go on all day, and whats the balancing factor here, low armor class, laff...
" and equipment "
Most muds I played you could gather your gear in 30 mins. A lot of the muds I played had equipment storage. Also dont compare MUD equipment to WoW equipment. In WoW over 3/4 of your hit points comes from gear, with every MUD that I played, your hitpoints came from your attributes.
Mon Dec 24 2007 6:19PMMany of you all have valid points, between soloing and the purpose of develper keeping the user's interested in the game, but we all must keep in mind that there is no limitation any game possiblity as long as players put the work in making the change. Tight communities can be built through guilds and clans with strong presence in specified location. My goal in the MMO I'm playing is to build and strong community based off of my own views of where I want the game to go. I belive, if you play a game based off of war with others than you need to play in that matter. You can't try and play a game with PVP intention when your suppose to be killing NPC. You can't try and make your name known in a game that operates on a shop, kill, rest gameplay unless you make the players stop and interact with you, one thing that makes MUDs stand out is they forced interaction with players and regularly record events from players in the game, graphic MMO's has no data base history of any players accounts nor have anyone constructed any event that would give an opportunity to create such, a strong website would remedy that. Guild and clan wars are good, but it would be benifical if players could add a high level of risk, say the guild account funds, special crafted weapons, contract of service, the skies the limit when you add signiture events to your MMO, but you have to keep in in mind with what your playing and you have to have a strong community base support. It dosen't have to be large, 10 loyal players can make a huge difference in game play given the position of responsibility each player has and for the super rogue in WoW they may be the best thing in a one on one battle, but they would be washed away like the sands on the beach, in a battlefield of 20
Tue Dec 25 2007 12:57AMi played it for a short time
anyway merry christmas
Tue Dec 25 2007 4:00AMMUDs are not dead yet, not by a long shot. The question is: will MUD developers take the reigns of future game development from the MMO firms and actually show what a multiplayer game ought to be like? Time will tell...
Wed Dec 26 2007 12:47AMthis is why skill based beats level based. And I do agree with you. An MMO should come out with the ability to make yourselft known, that was my favorite part of your post.
Sun Dec 30 2007 9:54PMi see a lot of rogue hate here
you say they can fight every other class
you say they can survive very long
so what?
since blizz decided to appeal to the pvp crowd
every class can do this kind of stuff
some might be equipwhores regarding this
but they can do it still
and dont forget the new stuff - trinkets against stun / blind
mages get their ice barriere without skilling deep frost
stealth is also something every class can counter by now
warrior with their shouts (still ridicilous imo)
priest scream
paladin / mage aoe also mages can use frost barrier to get out of
anything the rouge has
warlock fel hound (and he got a LOT life so opener doenst hurt him so much)
druids especially ferals own rogues couse of their talents anyway
(fairy fire 40sec no stealth usable hot in bear form etc...)
Thu Jan 03 2008 6:10AMAison -
CloS removes faerie fire
CloS makes a rogue immune to priest AoE fear
CloS makes a rgoue immune to consecrate
Sneak up on a hunter and notice a trap, CloS will make you immune to that trap as well as serpent sting which would keep you visible
The only thing that keeps a rogue visible are bleeds, which do have consumable counters as well as the dwarf racial...
Sat Jan 05 2008 12:13AMWow... been a long time since I've played a MUD and when I did I was probably 12-14 years old. Good memories and some good times there. As stated small community made it easier to gain renown in the game. One thing I think MM (Materia Magica) did right that no graphical MMO I have seen yet was PvP.
Clan Wars and PvP Zones. Green - die respawn no penalty just fun. Yellow - Die respawn with some stat penalty. Red - Die and lose all or some of your gear. Clans had a tax to pay and you needed to get crystals from a red zone to pay for it and for certain class abilities. Being in there alone was one of the most on the edge of my seat moments that I can remember while playing a game.
Tue Mar 04 2008 2:24AMMMORPG.com writes:
Login or Register to post a comment