Originally posted by Shohadaku

My comment is in regard to The mention of "focus". Should a MMO be "more focused" on pvp/pve?

A sandbox persistant world YOU focus on what YOU choose.

Either that or what the random ganker chooses for you.

The only recipe of failure in an MMO is designing a game that doesn't make money. A good example would be Auto Assault. That is a recipe of failure.

A recipe of success would be an MMORPG that makes money. The obvious example is WoW.

WoW is an easy game. Simple as that. Having come from Everquest to playing WoW I could not beleive how fast it was to level. Not having to group to level either fun. Instead of sitting in PoK spamming LFM I could go grind out a level while waiting for an instance group.

The pvp side of WoW is to play whatever class they love that patch cycle. The pvp scenarios are pathetic and frankly make you want to stab yourself in the eye because after working hard to win a battle the guy next to you brags about afk'ing for 2 days and now has all of his gladiator set.

Originally posted by pencilrick

The Recipe of Failure:

1.  Heavy PVP focus.  The message boards clamor for it, players gripe about there not being enough PVP, but when they get what they ask for....  Empty servers are the result.  Strong PVP focus fritters away community and group cooperation, and players leave in droves after the short-lived thrill of PVP wears off and the annoyance of being ganked sets in.

2.  Linear-style gameplay.  This is like watching a movie... over and over and over and over again.  Worse, it restricts the feeling of player freedom and makes the gaming experience feel contrived.

3.  In-game tutorial newbie zones.   Limits the feeling of player freedom and is a hit upon immersion; just doesn't feel real, even in a fantasy environment.

4.  Complex interface.  The only challenge players should face should be related to strategy, never to how to interact with the game mechancis.  Like checkers and chess, games should be simple, but strategies should be deep.

5.  Heavily instanced.  Too much instancing separates the players from their in-game community, and community is really half the fun in playing an MMO.  Instancing should be looked upon as a necessary evil and never a "feature" in MMO design.

6.  Overpowered graphics.  If an average computer cannot run a game on near-full graphics, players will be miffed.  Much better is to update graphics over the years to fit the computers that are out, rather than to create memory-intensive graphics that players may never see.

7.  Slow combat, clunky movement.  Animations must be fast and smooth in order to give the player a feeling of control, at least over his or her own character.  Clunky movement or uber-slow combat display a lack of refinement in the game's execution and raise questions about other aspects of the game.

8.  Painless failure.  Lack of a death penalty, while taking away the sting of death the 1% of the time a player dies, always waters down the thrill of victory the other 99% of the time.  Levels and items become bland, even a given.  Dungeons are not feared and the overall game world is not respected.  There must be some degree of "sting" to dying, perhaps not overcapicitating, but enough to cause a player to curse or slap his or her keyboard.  The ire and angst of dying will soon subside after a few moments when the player returns to the exicting gameplay for the rush one gets with taking risks.

Think about it; playing an MMO without a death penalty that stings is like riding a bicycle with training wheels on it.  You might never fall down, but you'll never know the feeling of riding upright on your own.

9.  Perma-death.  A rare mechanic in an MMO, but why have it? Why?  Why?

10.  Themepark world.  Designing world around players instead of NPC's.  In order to feel real and immersive, the game world must make sense, and in order to makes sense it must be desigend around NPC (Non-player character) civilizations or communities.  The Barbarians are still Barbarians because they live in forsaken wastes or frozen lands.  The Human port city thrives because it has a deep sea harbor and sits next to a river that is a major thoroughfare for trade.  The Elves are whispered as legends because they live far off in a remote woodland that adventurers hardly dare enter.  Stuff like that.

Give players a world and they will want to escape into it, explore it, become part of it.  EVERY TIME players log into an MMO, they should feel like they are escaping into a beloved world such as Middle Earth (or similar) and not logging into an arena or theme park.

11.  No bastions of safety.  Players should view the game world as perilous and challenging, and should breath a sigh of relief when arriving at a remote village or a city.  Bastions of safety are places to train, sell, group up, log into or out of.  The countryside should be too dangerous to do those things and therefore respected by the players. 

This will give more meaning to places as islands of civilization in a vast wild and cruel land.

I could list other stuff, but this is enough, and this comprises my checklist to identify things to avoid before buying another MMO.

 

 

 

Hey awesome stuff man. Hmm all is well in this god like post that the dev god's must look upon and god damn fix there stuff. But I have some opinions on some points. 7.  WoW has extremley non linear combat in my opinion dude. Its very smooth and fast. 3. Yeah thats true, sooner or later somone will have to implement a better way of teaching the player how to play the game without making it feel less real. This has already happened in console game's today and you dont have to read a manual. For example when you start a game the opening scenario implements basic combat and movment and such while reaching the destenation of the next bit of the game.

Originally posted by Biohazard931

Hey awesome stuff man. Hmm all is well in this god like post that the dev god's must look upon and god damn fix there stuff. But I have some opinions on some points. 7.  WoW has extremley non linear combat in my opinion dude. Its very smooth and fast. 3. Yeah thats true, sooner or later somone will have to implement a better way of teaching the player how to play the game without making it feel less real. This has already happened in console game's today and you dont have to read a manual. For example when you start a game the opening scenario implements basic combat and movment and such while reaching the destenation of the next bit of the game.

Wow, like what guild Wars has been doing since Factions? 

The Recipe of Failure:

1. Heavy PVP focus. The message boards clamor for it, players gripe about there not being enough PVP, but when they get what they ask for.... Empty servers are the result. Strong PVP focus fritters away community and group cooperation, and players leave in droves after the short-lived thrill of PVP wears off and the annoyance of being ganked sets in. 

Heavy PvP focus isn't a terrible thing if it is designed and balanced well.  Which today's MMO doesn't seem to do good at.

2. Linear-style gameplay. This is like watching a movie... over and over and over and over again. Worse, it restricts the feeling of player freedom and makes the gaming experience feel contrived.

All MMORPG will be linear to some degree since non-linear gameplay will easily create unfariness in various areas (Example: Real Life).  I don't mind linear, as long as it stays interesting and fun.  This is like a novel, all novels are basically linear, but there are interesting novels and boring novels.  It is how the game developer convey the linear gameplay and allow player to immerse in it matters.  Other wise, sandbox is just as boring as linear if its uninteresting.

3. In-game tutorial newbie zones. Limits the feeling of player freedom and is a hit upon immersion; just doesn't feel real, even in a fantasy environment.

I don't quite get what you are saying here.  Newbie zone is bad? Or do you mean you don't like how you magically appear when you start the game?  Confused here.

4. Complex interface. The only challenge players should face should be related to strategy, never to how to interact with the game mechancis. Like checkers and chess, games should be simple, but strategies should be deep.

The interface on all MMO I seen so far are actually very simple, or I might just be very smart.  Do you mean mouse and keyboard are too challenging?  Until neural interface is developed, I don't think it can really get much easier than this.  I do agree most of the MMO today don't have much strategies to it, but there are some that do.  If you are saying there aren't enough reaction time, then train hand-eye coordination, or just go play checker and chess.

5. Heavily instanced. Too much instancing separates the players from their in-game community, and community is really half the fun in playing an MMO. Instancing should be looked upon as a necessary evil and never a "feature" in MMO design.

This is true to a degree.  Instanced usually should only be used where necessary.  I guess the necessity depend on the game developer though.

6. Overpowered graphics. If an average computer cannot run a game on near-full graphics, players will be miffed. Much better is to update graphics over the years to fit the computers that are out, rather than to create memory-intensive graphics that players may never see.

Hmm, I don't find the newer games to be that over powered.  Unless you are the type that like to turn every thing all the way up.  Then there is nothing I can say.

7. Slow combat, clunky movement. Animations must be fast and smooth in order to give the player a feeling of control, at least over his or her own character. Clunky movement or uber-slow combat display a lack of refinement in the game's execution and raise questions about other aspects of the game.

Clunky movement is bad, but slow combat might be a game design.  I played games with slow combat before, and some of those are the best and most challenging MMO I ever played.  As for animation, that really depend on the game and your machine, most games have enough frame rate that is more than the human eye's limit, unless you have like cyber eye..  Control is always an issue, but its hard to define how much control is needed and how much is too much in a MMO.  (Plus i am not certain which type of control you are referring to exactly)

8. Painless failure. Lack of a death penalty, while taking away the sting of death the 1% of the time a player dies, always waters down the thrill of victory the other 99% of the time. Levels and items become bland, even a given. Dungeons are not feared and the overall game world is not respected. There must be some degree of "sting" to dying, perhaps not overcapicitating, but enough to cause a player to curse or slap his or her keyboard. The ire and angst of dying will soon subside after a few moments when the player returns to the exicting gameplay for the rush one gets with taking risks.

This is really more like a preference between players.  I don't care either way, if i play skillfully, less death.

Think about it; playing an MMO without a death penalty that stings is like riding a bicycle with training wheels on it. You might never fall down, but you'll never know the feeling of riding upright on your own.

You do know that people can still learn to ride the bicycle with training wheels right? They are TRAINiNG wheels, you move them up slightly each time till you can ride without them touching the ground.  Analogy needs some work.  (not trying to be mean, just logical)

P.S. When I learned to ride bicycle training wheels weren't even invented yet, I could have had alot less scarring on my leg and also 10 points higher IQ should training wheel existed back then.

9. Perma-death. A rare mechanic in an MMO, but why have it? Why? Why?

Well, this I kind of have to agree.

10. Themepark world. Designing world around players instead of NPC's. In order to feel real and immersive, the game world must make sense, and in order to makes sense it must be desigend around NPC (Non-player character) civilizations or communities. The Barbarians are still Barbarians because they live in forsaken wastes or frozen lands. The Human port city thrives because it has a deep sea harbor and sits next to a river that is a major thoroughfare for trade. The Elves are whispered as legends because they live far off in a remote woodland that adventurers hardly dare enter. Stuff like that.

Well this is both true and false.  Yes it need to be designed around NPC for the environment setting, it needs to be designed around the player for the game progression, and designed around both NPC and player for the interaction.  Over all, both are equally important, but each section have its own focus.

Give players a world and they will want to escape into it, explore it, become part of it. EVERY TIME players log into an MMO, they should feel like they are escaping into a beloved world such as Middle Earth (or similar) and not logging into an arena or theme park.

I don't use a game as an escape really, so I don't quite get it.  If you are talking immersion then yeah, it is nice to be able to get immersed in an virtual environment.  Again, can't wait for virutal reality, wonder I'll even live that long.

11. No bastions of safety. Players should view the game world as perilous and challenging, and should breath a sigh of relief when arriving at a remote village or a city. Bastions of safety are places to train, sell, group up, log into or out of. The countryside should be too dangerous to do those things and therefore respected by the players.

This will give more meaning to places as islands of civilization in a vast wild and cruel land.

I'd hire you as a environment idea man (or even as a lore writer), but you as a environment designer, I'd fire you for various reasons.

I could list other stuff, but this is enough, and this comprises my checklist to identify things to avoid before buying another MMO.

Overall your comments are very idealistic and will look pretty on the designing board.  However, it is a bit lacking in practicality.  These are generally your fraustrations with current MMORPGs, but some of these points are entirely based on your own perspective.  In the end, few constructive comments, and the rest or really opinions.

I realize I might come across as being a knit picker or just being a douchebag, but these are my honest opinions.  (Rather objective might I add)

The is no real recipe for failure, there might be a recipe for succes, doing everything everybody wants. But people will grow tired of that too. I can imagine people saying that sandboxes are too pointless etc. 

Well I gotta say that EVE contradicts all of point #1 in the OP and after that I figured the rest of the post was probably just as ignorant and quit reading.

EVE has open PvP outside of high-sec space and it's the second largest P2P MMO in the western world behind only WoW.

So... you be wrong OP, you be wrong.

Originally posted by lkavadas

Well I gotta say that EVE contradicts all of point #1 in the OP and after that I figured the rest of the post was probably just as ignorant and quit reading.

EVE has open PvP outside of high-sec space and it's the second largest P2P MMO in the western world behind only WoW.

So... you be wrong OP, you be wrong.

Well, you missed out on some good reading.  What's the population of EVE?  Because just being second doesn't necessarily mean much if it's way behind #1.

1. I would much prefer PvP to PvE, but to have fun PvP players need to be more statistically balanced, too much hierarchy and it makes the game aweful to play, I would rather see progression more like CoD4, I am not saying make it a shooter but make it where you get perks for leveling that help but new players are still able to compete and don't auto lose to higher level players, this mean reigning in the growth of stats.

2. You mean like having quests? Some quests can be fun if they are well thought out, but too many and you get into just doing busy work.

3. Tutorials can be really useful to new players, I would like to see tutorials more dressed up though, like Morrowind, rather than just dropping the player into the world.

4. I agree, but PC games do this alot, just add more buttons for more actions which I think is sloppy and lazy, if they used more streamlined controls and multiple functions per button then I think it would help.

5. Some is fine where it makes sense, but too much does annoy me.

6.  Agree, and I would say style is more important than power.

7. Strongly agree, I would say removing auto attack would help too, and make many abilities instant cast, or if there is a cast timer make it a hold down to charge deal, so I feel like I am actually doing something.

8.  I can't understand the concept of excitement from risks or the resulting value of rewards.  I am not really reward driven, but excitement to me comes from the circumstances of what I am doing.  Fun combat is a large boon, atmosphere is too, and if you give me a reason to be doing what I am doing then even better. death penalties, especially ones like corpse runs and being looted I see as just a massive waste of time and out dated like the lives system in single player games, I see it as punishment that doesn't add anything positive to the game and functions as negative reinforcement to teach you not to die.

9. Wouldn't like this either, I like the concept of being able to play my character as much as I want to, and it is not a question of if I lose my character but when, kind of defeats the point and keeps me from caring about my character.

10. I have always thought the the game need not wait for the probing for players to do something but the NPCs should act on their own, attacking and defending things even without players.

11. I am not really a fan of filling the landscape with monsters and such, they could be there but you have to go look for them and they should travel, I especially dislike the field of mobs, especially when they are all the same, some games use just to prevent quick travel through that area.  Nor do I think everything should want to kill you, maybe if you ran into it or moved too fast or went on its territory but usually animals do not want to fight.

Aside of the points your make (which I will comment in a bit), there is one single all-encompassing surefire way to failure: Releasing a game before it is done. We've seen it so many times it stops being funny. Yes, developing MMO takes years (literally) and sinks millions (more than literally), and no MMO is really "done" when it is released (or maybe ever), but there is such a thing as releasing it before its time and it has been done, is done and will be done again and again. The first 6 months of a game are critical. You can create hype around it, you can have a good IP to base the game on, you can release previews and heat up the desire of gamers with videos, but when you release it and people start paying monthly fees, they expect to be able to play the game. It needn't be perfect, but some key elements must work. The classes and their skills/spells/abilities must (mostly) work. The quests, especially the story quests, must work. The game must be stable. And no later than a month after release you must have enough endgame content to keep people busy. You can iron out the wrinkles, people are willing to live with the odd graphical glitch and placeholder names and icon graphics, but this has to be eliminated soon, too.

If the game isn't finished and players run into bumps every other step (here a quest that fails and needs a GM response, there a quest reward that you don't get, some NPC that doesn't spawn...), they will not only drop your MMO instantly, they certainly won't recommend it to their friends. They MAY return once in a while, but the damage is done and you won't push your game past mediocracy, even if it should be the most innovative, most interesting game that did everything else right. More likely, your game will fail within 2 years and you will NEVER reach your ROI.

This aside, a few comments to the points you suggest:
PvP is, if anything, very convenient for the game makers, that's why it is so popular with MMOs. Maybe not popular with the players, but devs love it. It's easy to pull off. Drop an arena or something onto your players and let them have at it. No need to create story, no need for NPCs, no need for any scripting or AI. Very, very convenient.

And PvP can actually be great for a game, but to make it great you, as a dev, have to go to insane lengths. PvE vs. PvP Balance is one of the most nontrivial things you can have at your hands. It is terribly hard to make a class equally balanced for both. It's near impossible to do it for PvP with all classes. You can of course try the venue of making classes that stink in PvP and shine in PvE (and vice versa), but then you almost have to make PvP absolutely optional (while at the same time offering the PvP classes a way to actually level through PvP). It can (and has been) done, to varying extent and success.

As for your other points, I am surprised to see that WoW, arguably the most successful MMO in history (like it or not, it is), violates quite a few of those points. It's linear, it has those newbie zones, it is heavily instanced, combat is rather slow, death penalty is a weak joke and so on. Yet I agree with you in most cases, all the things you mention actually annoy me as well. Well, I don't play WoW, mostly for the reasons you mention, but it seems the two of us don't represent the majority of people who would subscribe to and play a MMO. Maybe we're the kind of people who played a lot of MMOs and got already sick of those "features", but we don't represent the majority of MMO players.

Maybe we're the kind of people who played a lot of MMOs and got already sick of those "features", but we don't represent the majority of MMO players.

I think there are probably a bunch of people who play MMOs who are sick of 'those features'. I believe it's just a case in which players must decide which is the lesser of the evils. i.e. Gamers don't want to quit playing altogether, so choose the one that comes closest to satisfying their play style.