Developers Corner

See, if I play ANY game, I usually have a LOT of options regarding the rules.  Some games out there would offer hundred of possible combos of rules as to how you play it.

When it comes to MMOs, you have 1, 2, 3...maybe even 4 servers pre-determined variations of rules.  Eh, up to 4 possible variations of set of rules, and usually the choices/decisions lack.  Other games:  often hundred of choices.

Brad McQuaid, despite all his flaws, always insist on specific servers...however he was mostly thinking about PvP, while he should have think about PvE!

What about trying to have at least 1 rule variation for every 2 server your game host?  I mean, if you have about 10k players per server, is it worth it to propose 1 set variations of rules for 20k players or is it too much?

- Casual (I WIN BUTTON or whatever, peoples would MESS around there and TEST stuff, it would act as a back-up test server, if you realize a bug 1 month earlier there, it mean you will be able to protect many players from experiencing this bug...)

- Gameplay focused.  Each gameplays should have at least 1 server dedicated to itself, if only to bring there the worst peoples you don't want to see on your server.  Everything can be earned in solo on the solo server!  Good for you, I ain't playing there.  As long as you pay the same monthly fees, it help promote the game, I am happy.  I would play on a grouping focused server unless they figure a way to reconciliate basic concerns...

- Death system variations.  Why do you have to put whatever death system on everyone?  It is a game, I can choose which system is funnier for me, and then figure if I can pick such a server.

I am extremely fed up with all these devs which think they have the "unique solution"!  What is soo hard to understand about the fact that players want to choose what is important in their game, and what isn't.  What happen on the casual server?  I can't care less.  On the bla bla server?  Not my problem.  On MY server, now it is of prime importance.

You really do complain a lot. If you have so many complaints about how developers are implementing their ideas, why don't you show them how and not just talk about it. It would be great to have a server for every different possible combination of game play but you simply can't do it. Plain and simple. Its about money and resources. If you are in the the minority of players "which you are" then you will get left holding the bag because its all about the number of subs now and not the quality of the game they produce. But by all means starting thinks of ways to help the cause instead of just complaining cause somebody made you unhappy. And quit using I, cause developers only care about "us".

They don't have this because players IE real people not MMOers fear options.  This is the primary reason we have class based systems, why so many people like character customization(you get options and to decide without consequences), and it's a lot of work both ways for players choosing the right server and developers making so many.

Even I would find sorting through 10 or so servers and their rules a slightly annoying task, especially when you realize you're trapped there for a really really long time.

Originally posted by paulscott

They don't have this because players IE real people not MMOers fear options.  This is the primary reason we have class based systems, why so many people like character customization(you get options and to decide without consequences), and it's a lot of work both ways for players choosing the right server and developers making so many.

Even I would find sorting through 10 or so servers and their rules a slightly annoying task, especially when you realize you're trapped there for a really really long time.

Interesting point.

However, you don't have to sort everything out before you try the game.  You check fast, pick 1 which seem fine, go try the tutorial and first character and when you figure which class you want (and restart a new character), you know much about the different servers by then.

You don't have this problem with games which offer a hundred rules variation, you pick the default setting...you can pick the first server offered to you.  :)

As to the person complaining that I "complain".  I SUGGEST something which would help a lot, if I could, have no doubt, I would create a MMO and release it...and rulez the world 2, but that would be 3 or 4 years after the MMO launch.  But, I am in no position to pay that type of money.  That doesn't mean I have no idea about what are the most basic issues the genre has.

Why would you want to spend your own money on that kind of adventure?  That is risky bad business.  Use other people's money to startup.

Well, if you are going to have many server types, then I think it would be a good idea to let players move from server to server, so you can try all the different kinds out without having to make new characters for every server.

I like your idea and it hits on the problem  I think we have with MMORPGs today. Buy creating solo, casual, group, pvp etc you are basically creating different games. I think it would be hard to do with one game because basically you would have to design the game many times. It wouldn't be as simple as small adjustments.

You did hit on some very good points with what is wrong with MMORPGs today though. MMORPGs today are trying to be the game for everyone instead of targetting a certain audience. I think we need games that are focused on the type of servers you mentioned in your post. Hopefully this will happen soon with how popular this genre has become. We need games that are focused on grouping, solo, casual, pvp, pve .. . BUT NOT ALL AT ONCE! This only gives particular type of gamers a mediocre experience. Give me the PvE group oriented player the game I desire.

Options are good, but how many is too many or too few?

How deep do you want the game to be?

Too deep, and you'll be crushed by the pressure of so many variables and choices. Too shallow and you'll want to go deeper. I suppose it can't be helped until somebody finds that sweet spot of contentment.

Hehe, the basic idea here is...

Once you see where the players are, you can expand your future expansions with that in mind.  Add variations of what they choose.  If 90% of your player base select 1 set of rules, it doesn't mean this is perfect, it means it is the closest to what they want, and that you should diversify this type of server.

Character transfer: Definitely an important design issue here, and it should be possible...however, there would be "limits", from the casual server you cannot move to any other server.  But anyone could move there, it was easy to "earn" stuff there.  I would also like to see a feature which reduce the XP curve on your new characters, so alt-holics players see each character which already earn the next level smoothen their XP requirement by an appropriate amount (raw amount, so a casual server character give a casual help, as he didn't earn much xp at all hehehe).  But if you max level with 1 character, a new character might have a 10% xp smoothed curved...a 3rd a 18% smoothing...24,4% for a 4th and so on (assuming you always play on the same type of server, as I said, it consider raw amount of xp required to level...)

Originally posted by Anofalye

Hehe, the basic idea here is...

 

Once you see where the players are, you can expand your future expansions with that in mind.  Add variations of what they choose.  If 90% of your player base select 1 set of rules, it doesn't mean this is perfect, it means it is the closest to what they want, and that you should diversify this type of server.

Most games today focus on 2 rulesets (used to be 3, but they figured RPing can be done between the other 2) PvE/PvP. Most times with a 3:1 ratio.

If they were to look at server pops to see where the majority of players are, they could cause a ton of headaches for themselves.

They would either:

A) Look at each server pop separate and see "Well, each PvE server has only 1.5k players max, while the PvP servers each have 3k players at all times" and form the conclusion that PvP is the way to go

or

B) add up server totals, where the total # of PvE server players outweighs the PvP servers thinking "Well, all 9 PvE servers have over 13.5k players while the PvP servers only have 9k players, so PvE is the way to go..."

Someone somewhere would get slighted. The same holds true for drastically changing gameplay mechanics. Its just better to stick with the concept or create special ruleset servers, leaving the others alone.