Originally posted by vajuras

I do have one question- I'm thinking it might suck if you build a huge empire and log on the next day and its all torn to bits cause you got sucker punched while you were sleeping. I'm thinking you gotta have some NPC guards or somehing to protect your assets while you're asleep. im thinking it should be more of a war of attrition whereas you have a lengthy war before you lose all your assets.

Originally posted by paulscott
I have conquered the wall of text and would suggest wurmonline.  city building, terraforming,  player crafted items(except for holiday items), PvP if you want it, and no classes for 95% of the player base(there is a priest system in religion).

Funny, I just finished reading something really cool on TerraNova (a MMO blog with a lot of academics, but also developers like Koster), and then came over here and happened to see this topic. Over on TerraNova they've been talking about whether MMOs need better AI. The whole thread is pretty interesting, but check out this post: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/artificial_inte.html#c69221522

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While I agree with you on the obstacles to establishing a narrative, I have to say that I absolutely believe that better AI/AP addresses at least the first two -- the static nature of the world, and the inability of players to affect that world. I think the element of Artificial Psychology that you're missing here is that it allows NPCs to have both short-term and long-term memory, and emotional associations with the memories and the actors in those memories.

For instance, take the standard MMORPG quest "Free X from the slavers," that was mentioned here on TN a few days ago. In MMOGs as they stand now, the player goes to the slavers' camp, fights the slavers, and frees the captive. The captive thanks the player profusely: "Thank you so much, mighty paladin! You saved my life! Take this as a symbol of my gratitude!" The captive runs off, and the player, now rewarded, goes on with the next pre-scripted quest. If the player were to hang around the slavers' camp, he would see all the slain slavers respawn, and the captive mysteriously reappear inside his cage, ready for the next player to come along and "save" him. If the player were to again kill the slavers and free the captive, the captive would have no memory of having been saved before.

Now, consider a similar scenario utilizing NPCs with AP. Two groups of NPCs -- lets call them the Caps and the Gues -- have been fighting each other for several months, perhaps over a land dispute, or business competition, or an insult. As the conflict escalates, the Gues kidnaps one of the Caps. None of this is scripted by the designer. All of the NPCs involved have long-term memory, so they each remember what started the dispute, and AP allows them choose their own goals, based on their needs and desires.

The Caps and the Gues could continue their feud without any outside assistance, but since this is a MMOG and not a closed AI simulation, let's consider how the actions of one player could affect this situation. The player at hand has an established relationship with the Caps, having done business with them before. The Caps think well of the player, and so when the player stops by the Caps' stronghold to do some business, they tell him about the kidnapping. If the player chooses to help the Caps, they will like him even more, and perhaps help him the business problem he's encountered. (The player is also free to choose not to help the Caps -- this is not a quest in the classic MMORPG sense -- but choosing not to help will also have an affect on the Caps' opinion of the player.)

The player chooses to go to the Gues' stronghold, and through persuasion or force manages to free the kidnapped Cap. The Cap thanks the player, and returns home. If the player were to visit the Caps' stronghold again, he would find the NPC he rescued there. That NPC would have a memory of the kidnapping, and of the player's actions, and would respond to the player based on that relationship. If another player were to go to the Gues' stronghold, he would not find the kidnapped Cap there.

The game world has evolved, and the player has had a direct hand in that evolution. That evolution would not be possible, on the massively multiplayer scale, without AP.

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Originally posted by sitheus

Originally posted by ArcheusCross

Originally posted by Flyte27
No MMO could bring out content fast enough to satisfy everyone and not have an exodus of the old areas. 

Well i know what you mean. But i dont really think that premade content is all that needed, Sure to some extent they would need some. But for the most part just "give players the props and they'll create the play" is what i think the op is saying. It wouldnt need really fast content imho. As for zones, i see zones becoming a major problem recently.

They are all too linear. And mmos are too much level based when it comes to areas. For exaple i'll use wow. E forest outside of stormwind has no use for players over 12, why would they ever come back to that area? To defend? Not really... quests and the level based progression just leads pople to different areas, and really has no point... to be honest this is why after 2 years of playing wow i quit... it didnt have a feel as if a "war" was going on.

Just my two cents.

I remember the zones in WoW and how wasted they were as most were basically devoid of players and the zones served no real utility other than gathering crafting materials and level grinding, otherwise everyone stayed packed away in instances both PvE and PvP. That's another reason why I don't believe in levels because it creates 90% or more wasted space in these games. Zones would be better in a non level based MMO since they would be created with utility in mind instead of populating them with mobs to level grind. 

Originally posted by Xion1985
if you want a game centralized around pvp that has a good story and history behind it try Guild Wars.  The problem is though you simply cannot take out grinding in an mmo, becuase well grinding in this sense of the word is basically repeating the same thing over and over.  Even PvP is that way you become much more concerned with getting the kill and finding ways to get kills cheaply then you care about enjoying the game, becuase in order for games, to keep pulling in your 10-15$ dollars a month they have to keep you busy doing something and it's simply not possible for game designers to give us enough content to match the amount needed in pvp or pve with the way games have addicted people into playing ten hours a day.  The only way for their business to work out is to make us do something over and over for a period of time.  Yes they might give us many different facets of the game we could rework for the next year, but it is still the same thing.  The best case scenario imo is for the grinding to be colored so very pretty that it doesnt seem like work. 

Originally posted by xPaladin

Originally posted by vajuras

I do have one question- I'm thinking it might suck if you build a huge empire and log on the next day and its all torn to bits cause you got sucker punched while you were sleeping. I'm thinking you gotta have some NPC guards or somehing to protect your assets while you're asleep. im thinking it should be more of a war of attrition whereas you have a lengthy war before you lose all your assets.

Well there's that and also the nefarious "5 AM raid" scenario that factors in. It's important to realize that these raids happen for two reasons: first, that some folks live internationally and are on a completely different schedule than the server, and second, that some pvpers are high-end max-min'er types. Some raids just aren't possible due to huge player involvement in defense, and when NPCs are brought into the equation they add an additional layer of challenge that the majority find impossible.

Therefore, I'd actually say the problem is with NPCs themselves. While not entirely on topic, here's something of a proto-answer: don't make conversion of assets NPC based a la DAOC, where you kill the keep lord to gain control of the keep. Instead, make asset conversion player based.

Let's take an example of a game I make (hehehe, I wish) in which I declare the emphasis of the game guilds and guild warring. Keep in mind as you read this that what I'm describing below is an incomplete mechanic. It's a very rough, but plausible draft.

Hypothetically speaking, guilds in my game have two modes: neutral and aggressive (pacifists would only create precedent for spies). Aggressive guilds try to kill everything and are always attackable, whereas neutral guilds have to declare war to attack -- and be attacked by -- other neutral guilds. Unlike other games, war declaration is one sided, but alerts the opposing guild and takes a day to go into effect. The objective of said system is to attack and conquer other players home bases, their Guild Halls.

Let's talk about the positives of Guild Halls first. In addition to allowing guild creation, Guild Halls offer solid benefits like stat and gathering bonuses, as well as enable advanced crafting structures. Guild Halls can be upgraded to allow for some number of upgrades, depending on how well the guild does in war(s). More "wins" means more everything for a guild: territorial gains, more advanced crafting, more defenses, and so on.

However, it is not without cost. Guild Halls require maintenance in three forms, which increases rather exponentially the more advanced the guild is: monetary upkeep, resources collected from disputed areas in the game world, and the presence of their Guild Master. The role of the GM is to keep the other two in balance. The more active a GM is within the game, the less the money and resource upkeeps will be until they reach a minimum amount. This minimum amount is raised during "wartime," as the performance of the guild in war(s) directly affects the GM's contribution to the pool.

So, guilds that perform badly face the prospect of weakening their own position without directly being assaulted by the enemy. The cool thing is that it's actually advantageous to hold off on direct assault. Storming a well supplied, well armed keep should be nigh-suicidal, and this offers a way to weaken it through attrition.

When the guild hall is weakened significantly it becomes "vulnerable" to take-over or destruction whenever the GM is logged on. If the GM doesn't log on, the attrition effect continues unchecked and ultimately the Guild goes to waste.

All of this is focused at making Guilds into Serious Business™, and forces players to deal with one another rather than with NPCs.

Originally posted by Ryot

Funny, I just finished reading something really cool on TerraNova (a MMO blog with a lot of academics, but also developers like Koster), and then came over here and happened to see this topic. Over on TerraNova they've been talking about whether MMOs need better AI. The whole thread is pretty interesting, but check out this post: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/artificial_inte.html#c69221522

 

 

Originally posted by bl1nd

I think we will be able to see something like that in the future...

There is too many problems still about PvP centered games

One of the main things is performance we saw what happened in Shadowbane...

Well Shadowbane was made on a super low budget from what I can tell by a really small developer. Imagine if those guys would've had the time and budget Blizzard put into WoW. but yeah shadowbane emcompasses some of the OP's ideas so yeah its worth bringing up

You could try the Multiverse forum boards as well, it's full of upcoming developers (both single man and teams) ours being one of the larger ones. There are some really nice things coming out of the boards, from the firefly mmorpg to the other new sci-fi like ours. Even the fantasy games have new indie dev ideas on ways to do things.

Here's a short list of some of the games on there that are all currently in alpha.

http://www.multiverse.net/games/built.jsp?cid=2&scid=1

Originally posted by Ryot

Funny, I just finished reading something really cool on TerraNova (a MMO blog with a lot of academics, but also developers like Koster), and then came over here and happened to see this topic. Over on TerraNova they've been talking about whether MMOs need better AI. The whole thread is pretty interesting, but check out this post: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/artificial_inte.html#c69221522

 

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For AI to work in a mmorpg it have to be built within a world where they can have goals, otherwise it will be the same scripted (God, I hope that word will never be utterd in the world of games again) do X to get Y gameplay.

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None of this is scripted by the designer. All of the NPCs involved have long-term memory, so they each remember what started the dispute, and AP allows them choose their own goals, based on their needs and desires.

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