Originally posted by GPrestige

Basically want I want is an MMO with the quality of DA single player. Why is this impossible in the MMO genre? What the hell, seriously, causes MMOs to be so sub-par when compared to offline games that are very similar to the MMO makeup?

My opinion is that too many people over rate single player games.They are meant to be finished ,MMO are not.MMo's are meant to be an open world where you can roam and do whatever you want,Single player games are extremely linear.

Single player games are usually tight graphically meaning not much going on outside of you and the enemy,with some very low poly backgrounds.So they can afford to make the mobs and the player,effects,weapons look real good,because here will not be 10 players in the same area,only you.

Single player games tend to have approx 40 hour game play,MMORPG's of course surpass that miles.A single player game will have less mechanics like group play mechanics Auction house,Instances for Raiding,you will have limited gear,meaning less work into making the weapons and armor,and of course you will literally have only choice for gear.You would of course have no guild mechanics,no housing,heck in a single player game,you pretty much have nothing,but linear areas that are designed to make you kill a boss to move onto the next level.

OH and there is usually no need for crafting in a single player game either,i guess it pretty much sums up a single player game as nothing more than hack n slash and move onto the next level,next boss.

I would love a Dragon Age MMO, I'm completely in love with the game, but I kind of want a Mass Effect MMO first. I think that an ME MMO would be more epic. I mean it's in space and who doesn't want to play as a bad ass krogan?

Originally posted by heartless

I would love a Dragon Age MMO, I'm completely in love with the game, but I kind of want a Mass Effect MMO first. I think that an ME MMO would be more epic. I mean it's in space and who doesn't want to play as a bad ass krogan?

I am with you on that opinion.

You think the Dragon Age engine could handle and mmo variant?

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Originally posted by heartless

I would love a Dragon Age MMO, I'm completely in love with the game, but I kind of want a Mass Effect MMO first. I think that an ME MMO would be more epic. I mean it's in space and who doesn't want to play as a bad ass krogan?

 

I am with you on that opinion.

You think the Dragon Age engine could handle and mmo variant?

I'm not sure to be honest with you. Graphic wise it's not as demanding as other games so in that sense it may work. As far as everything else, I don't know.

I have a feeling that the closest thing we'll get to an Dragon Age or a Mass Effect MMO will be SWTOR, which I think will be really epic.

You are wrong.  Bandwidth is what limits the number of avatars on screen at one time.  

Originally posted by GPrestige

Basically want I want is an MMO with the quality of DA single player. Why is this impossible in the MMO genre? What the hell, seriously, causes MMOs to be so sub-par when compared to offline games that are very similar to the MMO makeup?

Open world gameplay.

Going from single- to multiplayer gaming hurts the experience a little -- you can no longer be the hero.  Now you're merely a hero.  Additionally, Dragon Age's combat is realtime but it's expected you'll pause a lot, which would be pretty terrible in multiplayer unless the MMO version was just about 1 character, or had a vastly streamlined interface for controlling 4 at once.

Going from multiplayer gaming to open world gaming devastates the gameplay.  Now nobody feels like the hero; everyone who does the quest to get the orcs out of the old mine went in and killed tons of orcs, but they just kept eternally respawning even after the quest turn-in.

Going from open world to instanced/phased directly addresses this disadvantage.  Now when you clear out those orcs, they're permanently gone -- either because the orc cave was an instance tied specifically to your actions or because you switched phases after completing the task.  Either way, being a hero is once again possible.

People would then say its 'too linear'.

There would have to be plenty of forced objectives to fullfill a story as thick as this, and I'm assuming SWTOR won't be as far off the mark. This doesn't bother me personally one bit, as long as the quality remains high and the writing engaging. But lots of people would complain, regardless.

I do agree that the game is fantastic.

Originally posted by Jixx

You are wrong.  Bandwidth is what limits the number of avatars on screen at one time.  

Yes Zorn is wrong. Also server technology is what limits the number.

Case and point: Massive battle in the Eve's test server maybe 100+ participants. My PC runs at max settings 60 frames per second and my mouse runs smoothly through the screen but the game is jutting like hell. This is lag.

Im really enjoying the game but I dont think it would work as an MMO. In order to have individual decissions that you can make in Dragon Age work in an mmo they would need to use phasing and Instancing heavily, thus destroying the immersion in the process. It's also an interesting glimpse as to the story driven approach Bioware are taking with the old republic, any translation of the Dragon Age model in it's current form to an MMO sounds like major fail to me.

What could work however is just having an adventure with your five other party members and enjoying the story together that way. Im thinking like Borderlands, Left4Dead etc etc etc.

Originally posted by Ettirxa

Im really enjoying the game but I dont think it would work as an MMO. In order to have individual decissions that you can make in Dragon Age work in an mmo they would need to use phasing and Instancing heavily, thus destroying the immersion in the process. It's also an interesting glimpse as to the story driven approach Bioware are taking with the old republic, any translation of the Dragon Age model in it's current form to an MMO sounds like major fail to me.

What could work however is just having an adventure with your five other party members and enjoying the story together that way. Im thinking like Borderlands, Left4Dead etc etc etc.

Would it though? What's more immersion breaking?

Having a phased/instance approach that leads to your actions having lasting consequences.

Having an "open world" where your actions are 100% erased at the next respawn.

I quite like the idea of a phased approach where I'll be wandering around at max level and end up revisiting a prospering village that I saved from a rampaging monster attack years previously when I was just starting out in the game as a freshly baked nubcake.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Ettirxa

Im really enjoying the game but I dont think it would work as an MMO. In order to have individual decissions that you can make in Dragon Age work in an mmo they would need to use phasing and Instancing heavily, thus destroying the immersion in the process. It's also an interesting glimpse as to the story driven approach Bioware are taking with the old republic, any translation of the Dragon Age model in it's current form to an MMO sounds like major fail to me.

What could work however is just having an adventure with your five other party members and enjoying the story together that way. Im thinking like Borderlands, Left4Dead etc etc etc.

Would it though? What's more immersion breaking?

Having a phased/instance approach that leads to your actions having lasting consequences.

Having an "open world" where your actions are 100% erased at the next respawn.

I quite like the idea of a phased approach where I'll be wandering around at max level and end up revisiting a prospering village that I saved from a rampaging monster attack years previously when I was just starting out in the game as a freshly baked nubcake.

There really isn't anything much more immersion breaking than you and I see different versions of the world.

For a massive multiplayer I'd rather have the open world with respawns, than instances and phasing. Phasing turns a massive multiplayer into a single player experience, kind of defeating the reason I like to play multiplayer games.

I LOVE the idea that the game world changes, but only if it really changes, not just for me, but for every player in the game. Yes, this means you can't put in the exact same kinds of quests you do for a single player game, but I don't want a single player online game.

Fallout 3 was great! I don't want to do the quest to blow up the city with a nuclear bomb though, and it's only blown up for me, not for you, or it's blown up for you, not for me. Where's the persistence in that?

If you look at the detail and effort that has been put in by Bioware for the background I would say they are heading in the direction of taking this world to an MMO. They already have two full novels and the CE Game Guide has 50 pages of world lore. I mean detailed excellent read stuff.

The world has some serious potential and I think it could be translated into a solid MMO. However the game system would not survive. I can however see this as a skill based system instead of level based and see some serious potential for an amazing game.

In truth Blizzard should be scared of Bioware etnering this world into the MMO market. Bioware is the king of RPG and that translate into a game that would smack WoW around in depth and quality like a red headed step child.

The real issue in the translation however is the MMO vs RPG issue. MOST MMO players have forgotten the RPG aspect of the game. As such more and more MMO games negelect the RPG aspect. The strength of Bioware is the care they put into the RPG. With this in mind dispite it being a great game it might get lost in the translation to the masses.

Bioware has done right with Dragon Age. The solo play first release is designed to get gamers interested in the game world, to pull us in. The DLC system is not different than the MMO approach in the end, you pay for more game, the same happens with MMOs over time. This in effect introduces the solo RPGer to the concepts. With a full load of RPGers excited and drawn into the game world and used to paying regularly for add-ons you now have a primed and ready MMO market.

I would say give it two to three years and we will see a DA MMO. This gives Bioware enough time for more DLC and maybe a sequel, more books to come out and time to record the tons of voice acting they will need for the MMO. I look for them to use their work in the Star Wars MMO as the springboard.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by GPrestige

Basically want I want is an MMO with the quality of DA single player. Why is this impossible in the MMO genre? What the hell, seriously, causes MMOs to be so sub-par when compared to offline games that are very similar to the MMO makeup?

 

Open world gameplay.

Going from single- to multiplayer gaming hurts the experience a little -- you can no longer be the hero.  Now you're merely a hero.  Additionally, Dragon Age's combat is realtime but it's expected you'll pause a lot, which would be pretty terrible in multiplayer unless the MMO version was just about 1 character, or had a vastly streamlined interface for controlling 4 at once.

Going from multiplayer gaming to open world gaming devastates the gameplay.  Now nobody feels like the hero; everyone who does the quest to get the orcs out of the old mine went in and killed tons of orcs, but they just kept eternally respawning even after the quest turn-in.

Going from open world to instanced/phased directly addresses this disadvantage.  Now when you clear out those orcs, they're permanently gone -- either because the orc cave was an instance tied specifically to your actions or because you switched phases after completing the task.  Either way, being a hero is once again possible.

I would rather play in a dynamic world with other players than be the hero.

I know what you mean, and I do enjoy being the Hero in a single player game. But in an online game, I don't want to be the Hero. I'd much, much rather give up being the Hero so you and I can both exist in a dynamic online world at the same time, in the same space.

The only changes i want to occur in the gameworld are changes that affect every player on the server. Like in DAoC, if you won enough Keeps, your realm got access to Darkness Falls.

That was a real change in the game world, and it affected everyone. It wasn't just a mirage to make the game more like a single player game, and give you the illusion you were a Hero, when you really didn't change anything in the game for any other player.

But if you worked together with your Realm, you could change the entire game world! That's cool. Yea, you weren't the "Hero", but you were part of a team that made a real change. Add more stuff like that, instead of trying to fool the player into feeling like the Hero.

I slew the dragon! Now when I go to the instanced dragon cave, I see Dragon Bones, the dragon is dead forever! But only for me, the next person goes in and sees a different instance, and kills the exact same dragon.

That's no different, IMO, than I kill the dragon, and it respawns. The affect on the game world is the same (none), except you' ve given me a pretty picture to look at so my epeen will feel bigger.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp 

There really isn't anything much more immersion breaking than you and I see different versions of the world.

For a massive multiplayer I'd rather have the open world with respawns, than instances and phasing. Phasing turns a massive multiplayer into a single player experience, kind of defeating the reason I like to play multiplayer games.

I LOVE the idea that the game world changes, but only if it really changes, not just for me, but for every player in the game. Yes, this means you can't put in the exact same kinds of quests you do for a single player game, but I don't want a single player online game.

Fallout 3 was great! I don't want to do the quest to blow up the city with a nuclear bomb though, and it's only blown up for me, not for you, or it's blown up for you, not for me. Where's the persistence in that?

We'd all prefer that the things we do every day affected the entire world, but that's just a pipe-dream imo. The nature of the MMO genre is that we just can't all be "the hero" without instancing.

It would work for communal achievements; three factions vying for control of a city whom the players could "support" through a variety of means with the "most supported" faction eventually winning, but that's a long-term thing. You couldn't have the city changing hands every few hours without it becoming a virtual non-event like Halaa or Wintergrasp in WoW.

World-affecting changes in the shorter term just wouldn't work in an open world. If there's a goblin infested mine and I clear it then, in an open world, it has to respawn goblins for the next guy to kill. Phasing/Instancing solves that.

Resolving the group problem of having different people on different phased "stages" wouldn't be too difficult .. it could simply default to the least progressed phased stage.

That's no different than having a group member on an earlier stage of a chain-quest in any average MMO; you'd still have to redo content that you've already done in order to get the straggler up to speed.

Originally posted by GPrestige

So I've been playing Dragon Age for a little while now. The game is absolutely amazing. I can't even describe how awesome it is. It is perfect as a single player game, too... but if they (one day) made an MMO exactly like this, it would be unstoppable.

For any of you who love MMOs, and haven't played this yet, try it out and I'm sure you'd agree. It has every aspect of the perfect MMO. It'd take too long for me to describe anything, but I'd like to hear from others who have tried it. What do you think? Do you think if they made an MMO like this (obviously they'd have to tweak it a little), but I mean even if the quest system was like it is in Dragon Age, it'd be awesome.

 

Anyone else agree?

 

First off, is this gameplay new to you, because you're all hyped up like it is. Remember they had the same gameplay in KoToR 1 & 2, Mass Effect, and NWN 1 & 2.

I think a MMO would ruin Dragon Age. Static NPC's in a MMO versus lively ones in game. Craptastic quests in the MMO to give the hardcore "content", versus quests with choices in the current game. Classes that are dumbed down and watered down in the name of "balance," rather than what we have now. A game world that doesn't change as the story unfolds, whereas it does now. If Bioware was to pull off any of that, it'd practically be a single player game, played online, just like their SWTOR is sounding like it's going to be. I have no problem with this, but the vocal MMORPG fans do.

You're special in Dragon Age, whereas everyone will be "special" in a MMORPG. Therefore, anyone with a brain will always having that nagging in the back of their head while playing a game that's trying very unsuccessfuly to covince them that they are special and the only hope for the world.

I'd rather keep Dragon Age as a single player game. I don't want it ruined by the MMO market.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp  

Fallout 3 was great! I don't want to do the quest to blow up the city with a nuclear bomb though, and it's only blown up for me, not for you, or it's blown up for you, not for me. Where's the persistence in that?

That's a pretty shaky argument, to claim that a phased game where you nuke a town and it no longer exists has less persistence to your actions than a game where you obliterate the orc cave and they prompty respawn behind you.

Originally posted by coffee

Im enjoying DragonAge also, take me back to bauldergate only without the constant CD swapping.

two issues I have..

1. IT BLOODY HARD! sadly I did not take Morgain down the healer path and only just have and even with just 1 heal spell its becoming more managable. Allistair is next to usless to.

2. Auto saves.. or lack of them, manay a times ive played for 30mins only to die and go all the way back to some other point, it shouls autosave when you "camp" IMHO.

Other than thats its a great story.. looks like I got an assasin on my ass =D

 

Adjust the difficult setting, buy more health poulstices. F5 is autosave.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Originally posted by Ihmotepp 

There really isn't anything much more immersion breaking than you and I see different versions of the world.

For a massive multiplayer I'd rather have the open world with respawns, than instances and phasing. Phasing turns a massive multiplayer into a single player experience, kind of defeating the reason I like to play multiplayer games.

I LOVE the idea that the game world changes, but only if it really changes, not just for me, but for every player in the game. Yes, this means you can't put in the exact same kinds of quests you do for a single player game, but I don't want a single player online game.

Fallout 3 was great! I don't want to do the quest to blow up the city with a nuclear bomb though, and it's only blown up for me, not for you, or it's blown up for you, not for me. Where's the persistence in that?

We'd all prefer that the things we do every day affected the entire world, but that's just a pipe-dream imo. The nature of the MMO genre is that we just can't all be "the hero" without instancing.

It would work for communal achievements; three factions vying for control of a city whom the players could "support" through a variety of means with the "most supported" faction eventually winning, but that's a long-term thing. You couldn't have the city changing hands every few hours without it becoming a virtual non-event like Halaa or Wintergrasp in WoW.

World-affecting changes in the shorter term just wouldn't work in an open world. If there's a goblin infested mine and I clear it then, in an open world, it has to respawn goblins for the next guy to kill. Phasing/Instancing solves that.

Resolving the group problem of having different people on different phased "stages" wouldn't be too difficult .. it could simply default to the least progressed phased stage.

That's no different than having a group member on an earlier stage of a chain-quest in any average MMO; you'd still have to redo content that you've already done in order to get the straggler up to speed.

That's my point. It's the same, so it seems pointless. If we're in different stages, stages I've already seen, then whats the difference in that, and simply having an open world where the Dragon or whatever respawns? IMO, pretty much none except I'm in a less persistent world, since I'm now cut off from other players in an instance.

I think instances are good for Boss Mob fights, so you don't have to wait in line, but that's pretty much it.

I don't think MMORPGs are good vehicles for making you feel like "the hero".

I'm fine doing that in a single player game, and not in a multiplayer game.

You're simply NOT the hero of the world, because in this world, unlike a single player game, you're not the only human being surrounded by computer NPCs. I'm completely fine with that.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Ihmotepp  

Fallout 3 was great! I don't want to do the quest to blow up the city with a nuclear bomb though, and it's only blown up for me, not for you, or it's blown up for you, not for me. Where's the persistence in that?

 

That's a pretty shaky argument, to claim that a phased game where you nuke a town and it no longer exists has less persistence to your actions than a game where you obliterate the orc cave and they prompty respawn behind you.

But with phasing, it does promptly respawn behind you.

Another player comes right behind you and dos the exact same "obliterate the orc cave" quest.

With phasing, I obliterate the orc cave. Then I walk up to another player and go, look I obliterated the orc cave! And he goes, uh no you didn't, I just got a quest to obliterate the orc cave.

To me, both of the players perceiving the same world, is much more persistent, than we're looking at differnt things.

Imagine that in real life. "Hey Axehilt, do you see that destroyed cave over there?"

And you say "Uh, no, I see a cave with some guards at the entrance".

I'ts like we're not even on the same planet.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by coffee

Im enjoying DragonAge also, take me back to bauldergate only without the constant CD swapping.

two issues I have..

1. IT BLOODY HARD! sadly I did not take Morgain down the healer path and only just have and even with just 1 heal spell its becoming more managable. Allistair is next to usless to.

2. Auto saves.. or lack of them, manay a times ive played for 30mins only to die and go all the way back to some other point, it shouls autosave when you "camp" IMHO.

Other than thats its a great story.. looks like I got an assasin on my ass =D

 

Adjust the difficult setting, buy more health poulstices. F5 is autosave.

Also, there's a v1.1 patch now available. It tweaks some of the difficulty settings as well as fixing a few bugettes. Oh, and I set Al up as a shield tank with high Dexterity. He's quite handy for that.