Reading through the forums there are many great suggestions on how to improve MMO’s. However, are these suggestions just treating the symptoms of a bad MMO or are they fixing the real problem.

Many people have suggested getting rid of level based systems and implement a skill based system. If a skill based system is implemented and I have to use skill “Hack n’ Slash v1” 100 times to gain a more advanced skill. I see no real difference between this and a level based MMO, you’re still having to level something in the end.

- So, what are the real problems with MMO’s?

- Is the gaming community ready for a new innovative MMO?

- Would putting the RPG back in MMO’s help solve the problem?

I'd have to say lack of something that draws you in. Like you said, whether it's skill based or level based, one way or another you're still leveling something.

Besides, leveling is all a part of the MMO hamster wheel, and nothing is going to change that.

Games are too easy now. There is nothing really immersive about them. Part of this is dev's making shallow games, but much of it is directly related to the customer base itself.

The customers want faster game play, they want to log in, rock and roll for two hours, and log off. In order to reach that goal, much of the immersiveness and actual...fun...of the games have been left behind.

D.

What about an actual storyline to follow? SWG had legacy quests which were great IMO. So if a game were to offer an immersive quest/story lines to take you from level 1 to 50 (if that were the max level) would this help at all? For me if I could have a leveling system as follows I would be thrilled

    -    Immersive story line that will take you from level 1 to end game
            o       Slowest way to level but the most enriching
    -    Side quests that are enjoyable
            o       Somewhat faster way to level, still following the story of the game but not limited to everything it has to offer
    -    PvP/PvE grinding for leveling (skills and level base)
            o       Fastest way to level, you wont follow any of the games stories lines
    -    Doing something that matters for everyone
            o       Contributing to the overall world for the greater good

Unfortunately I don’t see the gaming industry breaking away from trying to tailor to the 45 min a day players. However, with an adaptive system being able to tailor to all players shouldn’t be a problem, but in all likelihood, implementation is slim to none.

In my opinion, they should take a look at successful single player RPGs and try to follow that. Look at your game and ask yourself, would this sell as a single player game? If your features just wouldn't cut it single player, then you have some work to do. Single player games are always loads of fun because their goal isn't to force you to play until you grow old so they can absorb the monthly fees.

No role playing personally, and even when you do try to do some role playing on your own, the majority will look at you like "WTF NUB! LOL" Sad really, because I remember role playing a lot in EQ1 and having a lot of fun.

I think by RPG you mean world immersion, and I totally agree.

Most of us play for world immersion, but developers want us to feel like we are in an adventure game.

Why?  Adventure games do not require as much innovation, creativity as world immersion.

There is no "RPG" in todays MMO-world. I would like to see it, but whenever you try some RP you get flamed by random idiots.

I would like to see some oldschool rp-game. D&D Online of some sorts. (In the sense of Pen&Paper online with some graphics and a gamemaster!). Something similar like the good old roleplaying-group on the weekends, playing "Das schwarze Auge" (doubt that one is too popular outside of germany), D&D etc.

But with mmos becoming that popular, many, many idiots came into the rp-world. People who do not understand what roleplaying is about.
Maybe some sort of "NwN1-Online" in a larger, more advanced gameworld would help. But for proper rp-games you need one or more gamemasters..to ban everyone who disrupts immersion immediately and to constantly lead groups of adventurers.

I`ll stick with my local DsA-group for my rp-fix. No MMO can offer me that.

I can see where you're coming from; if it is skill  based or level based its relatively the same. The problem seems to be, kill x number of goons, get xp points to distribute, and repeat. I think developers need to take a page from Entropia; doing certain things increased your proficiency in many skills, where as now shooting something with your bow and arrow only increase your ability to use the bow and arrow more efficiently and nothing else.

Thats the only way I can see the skill based system working, and personally I would like that more than the level based system.

Important to note, the skill-based systems don't really seem to have an end to them, where as with the level-based system you usually have a cap, which will cause people to feel like there really isn't much more to do.

I'm for a skill based system that is done right.

Dev's are not going to shoot their cash cow but the RPG element could be put back into games simply by making true RP servers.  Of course this would cost more money but implementing an active and dedicated staff that is truly dedicated to keeping a server a RP environment would help out somewhat.  For anything more than this to happen tho I think that games would have to be totally reworked in the way that you progress through them.  Speaking from a in world point of view do you really think Merlin, Gandalf Zeddicus Zu'l Zorand or who ever you want to think of became a all mighty Spellcaster, Mage, whatever by running and killing a few things and then telling someone about it? or going to some dungeon where they have everything they need to succeed, or by using the same set of skills to repeatitively kill the same set of baddies?  No, they learned, they tried, they failed, they tried something else, they figured out something that was new and powerfull and beneficial to them, or maybe they didn't maybe they were totally whipped and had to take a step back and start learning new things to complete what ever it maybe they were trying to accomplish. There is no failure in MMO's today and to me failure is a keypart of anything real and why RP if you do not want a sense of realism even if it is realism in what ever fantasy realm you inhabit.

Unfortunately I’ve had some traumatic experiences trying to roll play, that aside, roll playing is something that many people enjoy and with no real creative outlet it’s becoming more difficult in modern MMO’s

Truenorthbg did hit it on the head, gaming companies are forcing the idea that MMO’s are meant to be adventure based. Ujirik also made a good point, if a game company would put the time into R&D for a game, taking and adapting a single player RPG (of their design and not yet published) I think the MMO market would either conform to the new idea or there would be a split in the industry. I for one would like to see a split in the market, having more game companies make games like console RPG’s but online would be just an amazing site to behold.

This came to me last night, how would a more in depth class system fair in the games of today? What I mean is, if there was a world with an enriching and thriving magical element and as you progress through the game you can define your class based off of these magic types. For example (think FF VII)

-    Black = Dark magic – DoT + Draining HoT
-    White = Light magic – Healing + HoT
-    Red = Fire magic – DoT + Burst Damage
-    Green = Forest magic – Root + Damage
-    Blue = Water magic – Root/Slow + Survivability
-    Yellow = Earth magic – Strength and Damage Mitigation

With these different magic classes you can define your class even more. If I were a warrior and I built my class up using Yellow and Red then that would define the skills I would get and would also define my strengths and weaknesses. Naturally classes will have their opposites and magic types will have their opposites as well. The point with having different magic types like this is to allow for continual tweaking of your class. If you want to go with a rainbow magic build so you could be a jack of all trades and master of none, or you could change magic types at any time with some repercussions in the short-term.

What are your thoughts?

Most of these MMO's just don't have that living, breathing, world feel to them.  They really are much closer to a theme park.  Sure, there are some cool areas to explore and some interesting sites to see, but it's all very static and lifeless.  You're not so much a part of the world as you are just a tourist on vacation.  Log in, check out the rides, and don't touch anything you're not supposed to touch.

The class/level vs. skill based thing is another issue.  Theres a HUGE difference betweem the two, game play wise, but it's just personal preferance in the end.  An MMO can be good or bad with either of those systems, but for some of us, it's an important feature, maybe even a deal breaker.

Originally posted by Ujirik

In my opinion, they should take a look at successful single player RPGs and try to follow that. Look at your game and ask yourself, would this sell as a single player game? If your features just wouldn't cut it single player, then you have some work to do. Single player games are always loads of fun because their goal isn't to force you to play until you grow old so they can absorb the monthly fees.

I don't think I want to play monthly for a single player rpg. The mmorpgs are too fast as they are now. If I pay monthly I want it to be slow and be a long adventure. That doesn't mean setting at the finish line, that means things to do at each level and my character still progressing forward but slowly.

Why does everyone want their online game they pay $49.99 for then $15.99 per month for to be finished in two weeks? Are people this retarded? I never seen people ask for other things in their life to be dumbed down. You are basically giving the developers the easy way out. Here is what they hear "Please give me a shallow little fast easy game that I can finish in two weeks, I will pay $49 and $15 a month for".

Why are so many obsessed with the finish of their online game? Setting at the end begging for content or collecting gear through raiding or pvp is the same as leveling. A MMORPG should be designed to have alot of fun stuff to do at every level I repeat. You should be able to capture different towns and gain experience for killing players. You should have dungeons with giant baddies that take 10 or more players to kill at each level and also solo content made for the times when you can't find a group. You should have small dungeon content for smaller groups also at each level.

You shouldn't be forced fed millions of quest to level up. That is more boring than just going out and making your own adventures. The way it works now you HAVE to quest in these stupid new MMORPGs to gain the experience to level, this is stupid and linear. Maybe I would rather go explore a dungeon with some friends and hang out in there during my playtime? I think quest xp should equal the aprox. xp you would get just killing monsters while exploring. For the quest that say kill X number of monsters, the actually quest should produce alot less xp sense you are killing monsters. It is about choice, and right now games like LOTRO leave you no choice but to follow their boring shallow  linear quest line like lemmings.

Originally posted by qombi

 

Originally posted by Ujirik

In my opinion, they should take a look at successful single player RPGs and try to follow that. Look at your game and ask yourself, would this sell as a single player game? If your features just wouldn't cut it single player, then you have some work to do. Single player games are always loads of fun because their goal isn't to force you to play until you grow old so they can absorb the monthly fees.

 

I don't think I want to play monthly for a single player rpg. The mmorpgs are too fast as they are now. If I pay monthly I want it to be slow and be a long adventure. That doesn't mean setting at the finish line, that means things to do at each level and my character still progressing forward but slowly.

 

Why does everyone want their online game they pay $49.99 for then $15.99 per month for to be finished in two weeks? Are people this retarded? I never seen people ask for other things in their life to be dumbed down. You are basically giving the developers the easy way out. Here is what they hear "Please give me a shallow little fast easy game that I can finish in two weeks, I will pay $49 and $15 a month for".

 

Why are so many obsessed with the finish of their online game? Setting at the end begging for content or collecting gear through raiding or pvp is the same as leveling. A MMORPG should be designed to have alot of fun stuff to do at every level I repeat. You should be able to capture different towns and gain experience for killing players. You should have dungeons with giant baddies that take 10 or more players to kill at each level and also solo content made for the times when you can't find a group. You should have small dungeon content for smaller groups also at each level.

 

You shouldn't be forced fed millions of quest to level up. That is more boring than just going out and making your own adventures. The way it works now you HAVE to quest in these stupid new MMORPGs to gain the experience to level, this is stupid and linear. Maybe I would rather go explore a dungeon with some friends and hang out in there during my playtime? I think quest xp should equal the aprox. xp you would get just killing monsters while exploring. For the quest that say kill X number of monsters, the actually quest should produce alot less xp sense you are killing monsters. It is about choice, and right now games like LOTRO leave you no choice but to follow their boring shallow  linear quest line like lemmings.

You are way off, completely missed what I was trying to say. I'm not talking about the length of the game, obviously. Single player games have real, true, content. You don't play a single player game for hundreds of hours because you want to hit the max level. Just sit back and enjoy the ride, who cares if it takes days to level up, I am not here to grind. See, what I was trying to say is that all MMORPGs completely lack any sort of content that you expect from a single player game. Now, if you bought a single player rpg and all you had to do was kill 10 chickens and grind, would you enjoy that game? Try to imagine your favorite single player game as an mmorpg(with all the features that made it great) then compare it to a real mmorpg.

My personal feeling is that the dev teams have become so narrowly focused because too many people with, wildly differing ideas of what an MMORPG is supposed to be, all wander into the same place and scream loudly that the product they are playing misses every single one of the play styles by trying to be every single one of the play styles.

By trying to run down the middle of the gaming road they hope to snare a few people from each of the different camps as they run through.  What ends up happening is that the road is bland, boring and misses every single adventure that could take place if they only allowed you to step into the forrest.

Shooters have over run MMORPGS.  Period that is the biggest problem facing game depth today.  They don't know what depth is, they don't want it and they are the vast majority of people that play with these toys.

The nearly insignificant, but rediculously vocal, PvP crowd has driven any prayer of diversity completely out of MMORPGs.  You can never have creative, different, exciting, open ended character classes so long as they all have to be crippled by the little kidiots, player killer, Fairness Doctrine.  The easiest way to insure the craptastic balance to please these morons that want to gank each other is to make every character the same.  And the gaming industry has risen to a level of genius in their ability to make everyone's character exactly the same.

So long as they seek to please shooters and player killers in the same game as those seeking depth and freedom from forced skill trees... MMORPGs as we knew them in the past are finished.

I would say the lack of quests and a storyline that draws a player in. Many mmo's these days are grind, grind, grind. This has to end and in th place of it nicely done quests because grinding isent roleplaying. Being involved in a story and questing and building up your character along the way is roleplaying.

A good article was written a few years ago discussing the debate that MMORPG's really arn't rpg's at all but instead are simply combat/leveling simulators with the final reward being nothing more than standing around a newbie town at endgame hoping to impress new players with your avatar..was a good read.  You can probably still find it.

In my opinion Ultima Online is still the only mmorpg that I would say is a actual rpg.  Then again UO was a fantasy living world and not one of these modern day "arcade games" that mmorpgs have become.

One of the posts in this thread mentions the "45" minute a day player.  I'm one of those.  See I treat games for what they are, games.  I'm not so depressed in RL that I want to sit behind a computer 8 hours a day seven days a week leveling a silly character.  Casual playing isn't what brought this genre to what it is today.  In fact, in UO I could log in and play for 30 minutes and actually accomplish (or lose) a lot.  I could go weeks in UO and never even pay attention to my skills or my characters progression power wise.  I was having too much fun just enjoying a real world that had so much more to do than just go ...kill 15 of this mob to get this reward and then go and do 578 more quest just like this one so you can reach our highest level !  No thanks.

Here's my opinion of what happened....older gamers like myself (32) grew up with RPGs that were challenging.  Just because you bought a game didn't mean you would ever actually beat the thing.  We had instruction manuals for our games that were larger than most current school systems require their students to even read for passing grades.  The birth of this genre was for my generation.  Hence why the original RPGs such as games like UO, EQ, AC were friggin tortue devices compared to modern day games like say Tabula Rasa. 

We've entered into what I call now the "Primaguide" generation.  You know the types...the people that have to buy a 300 page strategy guide the same day they pick up their favorite new rpg.  They want the game to be easy and simple with no real risks or challenge involved that could possibly hurt someones feelings in real life.  Games are now tailored  to this market because apparently developers all think  after seeing WoWs success  that this model must be what we all want.  WoWs a good polished product no doubt but it's easy and one thing that was always true of old role playing games is that they were in no way easy.  Modern studios seem to forget half of WoW's success is simply due to their already monstrous fanbase that was established before they ever thought of making a MMO.  Word of mouth rocks.  WoW could have been a game that focused around stabbing yourself in the eyeball every 10 minutes with a fork and the army of Blizzard fans would have still eaten the thing up and brought all their friends along with them. 

(btw I have no issues with Wow, I simply use it as the best example of what modern games try to clone and then wonder why their game is merging servers 3 months after release)

I don't think we'll ever see anyone ever really try to remake another title like UO again.  AKA: "a real rpg".  Games like that which involve high risk to a persons progress or can possibly punish a person for not being the most intelligent of gamers are a thing of the past.  they don't make the big bucks like the games that hold your hand.  There are a couple games on the horizon that look to be attempting it but for the most part it's still just more of the same crap like Warhammer coming along with mechanics we've already played to death but on new better looking game engines.

For the record though I also have to give credit to Asherons Call 1 and the original SWG for being true RPGs and not just combat simulators.  Beside those 3 games though I really can't think of any others...maybe Shadowbane?  It's just too bad the man that gave us what are imo the two only living breathing mmo worlds (UO and SWG) is now just working on what may as well be the new cyber porn rage...just kidding Raph.

I think you make a very good point WiccanCircle that the devs are tailoring the games to a more fast paced FPS based audience. However, if you look at Fury which was supposed to be this fast passed fantasy FPS central fighting system, from what I’ve noticed they aren’t doing that great.

Hypothetically speaking, if a game were to come out with a three tiered leveling system as in

1)    Follow an in depth story line
        >    Slowest way to level but overall enriching
2)    Complete side quests that are associated with the story but play no effect on the overall story
        >    Faster way to level, still getting the feel of the story
3)    PvE and PvP grind
        >    Fastest way to level with no real in depth feel of the game

This would tailor to all crowds. Perhaps even break these things into servers. It would give the FPS people their need for a quick fix and still accomplish something, it would give the casual players time to feel involved with the story and know what’s going on, and it would give the RP players the immersion needed to feel full field. I’m sure I’ve missed some things, but it’s a start.