Here on the mmorpg.com message boards we argue about many things, but the one nearly universal common ground is the value of choice.

Choice of character appearance.  Choice of equipment apperance.  Choice of class and race.  Choice of build.  Choice of abilities.  Choice of skills.  And many others.

Generally speaking, the more choice a player has the happier he or she is. 

As more games enter the market, we see even more choices evolving .  In SWTOR, for example, we will be able to choose what direction a quest takes.  There is not merely one way to complete a mission.  We also can orient to a dark or light side through our choices.

In the years to come I look forward to seeing even more types of choices be introduced into mmos.  For example, what if instead of choosing a race I could design my own race?  At the character creation screen I could customize his appearance and select from among many options what attributes that race would have.  And once I create that race, it would go into a database where other players could choose that same race if they liked (a la Spore).

Of course, there is one potentially down side to choice.  Companies sometimes get nervous turning the reins over to the players because they can't foresee where those choices lead.  As in a line from the movie Easy Rider: "Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. "

What other areas are there where you would you like to see  more choice?

Originally posted by Amathe

Generally speaking, the more choice a player has the happier he or she is. 

 

I don't think that's true, even as a general statement. There are many aspects of a game where choice is possible but many players don't care how many other choices are available. If, for example, a player wants to play a class that is the best possible raid healer, it doesn't matter to him whether there are a total of 2 classes to choose from or 200. His decision's already made. In fact, it'd be worse with 200 classes because he could inadvertantly choose the second best raid healer. There's not much that's appealing about being given options you're not going to take. If you want to PvE, the opportunity to participate in PvP has no value. If you don't want to craft, the opportunity to craft has no value. If you want pink hair, the opportunity to have green hair has no value.

So it makes sense for developers to avoid wasting resources creating a huge number of choices just for the sake of having a huge number of choices, especially if they know that there are certain very popular choices that most people are going to lean towards.

Originally posted by Amathe

Of course, there is one potentially down side to choice.  Companies sometimes get nervous turning the reins over to the players because they can't foresee where those choices lead.

You've worded this in a bizarre way, as though implying that it's a bad thing for companies to be worried about unforeseen consequences. That nervousness is the fear that players will quickly become bored with a game once they find that focusing on speed and stealth lets you get through any obstacle without any chance of being detected, or that focusing on fear and dots lets you defeat any enemy without any chance of taking damage. They're afraid (and rightfully so) that an open-ended game would allow players to make choices that result in a game that is not fun for them.

Choice is ironically the exact opposite of where developers have been taking the genre in the past decade.

Just look at UO. A game with countless choices, opportunities, customization... and most new games don't even have a third of the features that UO had a decade ago.

Choice is what makes MMORPGs great... we just need to remind the developers of that.

Originally posted by Amathe

Here on the mmorpg.com message boards we argue about many things, but the one nearly universal common ground is the value of choice.

 

Choice of character appearance.  Choice of equipment apperance.  Choice of class and race.  Choice of build.  Choice of abilities.  Choice of skills.  And many others.

 

Generally speaking, the more choice a player has the happier he or she is. 

 

As more games enter the market, we see even more choices evolving .  In SWTOR, for example, we will be able to choose what direction a quest takes.  There is not merely one way to complete a mission.  We also can orient to a dark or light side through our choices.

 

In the years to come I look forward to seeing even more types of choices be introduced into mmos.  For example, what if instead of choosing a race I could design my own race?  At the character creation screen I could customize his appearance and select from among many options what attributes that race would have.  And once I create that race, it would go into a database where other players could choose that same race if they liked (a la Spore).

 

Of course, there is one potentially down side to choice.  Companies sometimes get nervous turning the reins over to the players because they can't foresee where those choices lead.  As in a line from the movie Easy Rider: "Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. "

 

What other areas are there where you would you like to see  more choice?

 

 

 

I VERY much agree. For me too choice is a very important thing in MMOs.

You mentioned choice of appearances. Both in char generation and gear, looking individual is of great importance for me. More than the number of classes or skills.

What I REALLY missed all those years in MMOs and as it looks SWTOR brings: choices in quests. Alternative endings or ways to do stuff. I really look forward to have that more.

My wishes for choice comes down to one simple phrase: "These are not the droids you are looking for".

That kind of conflict resolution just isn't an option today in MMOs. Too often, the only choice you've got in today's MMOs is do you fight it or not? Nothing else is possible.

To say that this is a problem with immersion is a serious understatement.

In the real world, the only constant is change. In MMOs the inability to cause permanent change is an almost universal constant.

We will know we are at the next big jump in MMOs when we as players can change the story for everyone by what we do, and when we can't just look up everything we need to know about a game online.

Edit: double post error, apologies.

i hope you are right. however, the games that have offered alot of choice have typically been the ones to not succeed.

Originally posted by Amathe

Generally speaking, the more choice a player has the happier he or she is. 

This is the worst kind of MMORPG.com thinking. Seriously makes me detest this site sometimes.

The less choice there is, the better the game is. Because choice=variable, and the more variables you have, the harder it is for a game designer to create and balance proper gameplay scenarios and control the environment.

Now, MMORPG's are not all about the "game" because the whole concept of MMORPG limits the game design. So sacrificing any and every "choice" for a better game is not optimal.

In a nutshell, no extreme is ever optimal. You can have more choice than you currently have- and as far as my preferences go, that would be a good thing- but you can't change direction altogether without basically ruining the game in the process. You can only steer left or right slightly.

It's not something the people on this site will ever realize, because very few developers are foolish enough to attempt to create something that will inevitably fail (because they understand, that the product they'd attempt to create is not a game at all. It is a mishmash with no direction). Only in the never-land that is the imagination of a normal MMORPG.com poster, it works out.

Originally posted by Amathe

Here on the mmorpg.com message boards we argue about many things, but the one nearly universal common ground is the value of choice.

 

Choice of character appearance.  Choice of equipment apperance.  Choice of class and race.  Choice of build.  Choice of abilities.  Choice of skills.  And many others.

 

Generally speaking, the more choice a player has the happier he or she is. 

 

As more games enter the market, we see even more choices evolving .  In SWTOR, for example, we will be able to choose what direction a quest takes.  There is not merely one way to complete a mission.  We also can orient to a dark or light side through our choices.

 

In the years to come I look forward to seeing even more types of choices be introduced into mmos.  For example, what if instead of choosing a race I could design my own race?  At the character creation screen I could customize his appearance and select from among many options what attributes that race would have.  And once I create that race, it would go into a database where other players could choose that same race if they liked (a la Spore).

 

Of course, there is one potentially down side to choice.  Companies sometimes get nervous turning the reins over to the players because they can't foresee where those choices lead.  As in a line from the movie Easy Rider: "Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. "

 

What other areas are there where you would you like to see  more choice? 

more armchair developers' input...le sigh

this inmediatly popped in my mind, learn a bit how the software industry works...

Originally posted by Ceridith

Choice is ironically the exact opposite of where developers have been taking the genre in the past decade.

Just look at UO. A game with countless choices, opportunities, customization... and most new games don't even have a third of the features that UO had a decade ago.

Choice is what makes MMORPGs great... we just need to remind the developers of that.

The issue is "we" make up 0.5% of the populace vs. them's 99.5%.

I don't think I'd lump myself in with that "we" group, since I care more about whether a game's core interactions are high quality -- and in games with spammed featuresets the experiences tend to be fragmented and low quality.

It's not like I automatically hate feature-spammy games, but they have a much worse track record for me than games which do fewer things at higher quality.

Choice in the right place is what matters,  and most importantly choice designed well is the most important.

A ton of choices for character classes and skills?  Too daunting for a large playerbase.. nobody wants to be gimped because there are too many choices and people end up making (bad) choices.

A ton of choices for character creations, costume options, etc.  Awesome.  Everyone loves these choices.. and for those that don't.. they have a random button.

Expand that.... now we have choices on questing in games like SWTOR,  and its only a good thing.  Are the choices limited?  Yes,  but there is more choice here then we've seen anywhere else.

Choice in ways of leveling... pretty good too, however,  too many choices on leveling can get confusing when you don't know where to go next, or what to do so you aren't left behind by others,  or you aren't discouraged because your way of leveling isn't... "right".

Choice is good,  when done properly... there isn't a catch all that just sticking more choice into everything will make it better.

Originally posted by maskedweasel

Choice in the right place is what matters,  and most importantly choice designed well is the most important.

 No disagreement here.

A ton of choices for character classes and skills?  Too daunting for a large playerbase.. nobody wants to be gimped because there are too many choices and people end up making (bad) choices.

 Granted that my number of games actually played does not come even close to covering the whole MMO market, but every game that I have played that actually did give you choices on skill selection (DaoC, WoW, Rift) did not lock you into those choices permanently. When you can change your mind effortlessly, less choice = bad choice. 

A ton of choices for character creations, costume options, etc.  Awesome.  Everyone loves these choices.. and for those that don't.. they have a random button.

 No disagreement here.

Expand that.... now we have choices on questing in games like SWTOR,  and its only a good thing.  Are the choices limited?  Yes,  but there is more choice here then we've seen anywhere else.

 Have not had any chance to see anything with this game but the hype, so no comment.

Choice in ways of leveling... pretty good too, however,  too many choices on leveling can get confusing when you don't know where to go next, or what to do so you aren't left behind by others,  or you aren't discouraged because your way of leveling isn't... "right".

 I disagree on this one strongly. More choices here = greater replayability, so you are not doing the exact same thing all over again each time. This is a lesson developers learned from single player games long before MMOs came along.

Choice is good,  when done properly... there isn't a catch all that just sticking more choice into everything will make it better.

I would word that last point differently. A set of choices that a particular player doesn't care about are going to be meaningless to that player. The converse does not hold true; a lack of choices when those choices matter to a player will be very irritating indeed.  

Also, please keep in mind that what is not important to one person may be critical to another.

IMO the only decision about choice by the developer should be: How much can we fit in and make work in the development time and budget available?

Originally posted by Ceridith

Choice is ironically the exact opposite of where developers have been taking the genre in the past decade.

Just look at UO. A game with countless choices, opportunities, customization... and most new games don't even have a third of the features that UO had a decade ago.

Choice is what makes MMORPGs great... we just need to remind the developers of that.

That's the funny thing.  "Old School MMORPGs" had given alot of choice as a product for striving to achieve the Virtual World.  The goal was to let the player character do as many things as they possibly can do in the game world.

But MMORPGs have drifted away from it.  Less worthwhile game activities to do outside of combat.  Limited character building & development choices.  Hell, even limited character appearances (choice 1 out of 4 faces, 1 out of 5 hairstyles, and not even adjust physical builds at all).  Less player impact on the game world to the point it doesn't exist at all anymore.

Can this genre show more diversity like old MMORPGs used to?  I don't think so, anymore.  If anything, only a badly underfunded, understaffed indie group can.  But the major developers are still chasing WoW's tail, even afraid of straying from that, to include even big names like BioWare

OP, the future is choice, but the probability for that is miniscule.  Until then, we will see the genre happily stay in WoW's shadow with the only innovations being what different ways devs can fleece a customer.

Just look at apple's growing popularity... people hate choice.

As always, it depends on what you define as choice.

Now a days, all these people hollering about choice are actualy hollering that THEIR choice be the best and able to do it as well as any other type character can do it.

That turns out to be no choice at all ..for anyone.

Originally posted by Korby

Just look at apple's growing popularity... people hate choice.

Would you care to expand on your statement a bit? Apple is involved in quite a few areas and has not had success across the board.

Originally posted by Vercinorix

Originally posted by Korby

Just look at apple's growing popularity... people hate choice.

Would you care to expand on your statement a bit? Apple is involved in quite a few areas and has not had success across the board.

I had just come out of an iphone vs android argument, so that's where I'm coming from. Getting an iPhone is a very "safe" decision. They only have one model, it is a stable, polished device. There is no wrong choice when purchasing an iPhone. There are several wrong choices when purchasing an Android device.

MMORPGs are the same way. People are afraid of too many choices for the fear of making the wrong one.

A small community (myself included) enjoy the act of failure and learning from it... but not nearly enough to fund a modern game.