All Posts by nethervoid

I think the more global point is we need more games that are virtual worlds instead of diablo rip-offs.  In a virtual world, crafters create the items worn by the players.  They put them in their shops.  Combat types buy them, use them, break them, and then come back for more...And probably with some much needed rare ingredients they can either use to make something new or just sell to some crafter and buy whatever the hell they want.

Of all the games I've played, I'd have to say SWG got it best as far as virtual world.  1 character per account.  1 set of skills.  Choose those skills wisely.  Player houses and player shops.  Limited mass market (I prefer no market).

If the game is a hack and slash Diabloesque game, the crafting in it is bound to suck.  Along that line of thinking, any game with raiding really can't be a virtual world.  It just doesn't work.

In fact, a bit off topic, I would say the perfect virtual world (and for crafters) would have these features:

• Player housing
• Player created and run shops (no mass market)
• Guild level castles/keeps
• Ability to create kingdom borders/checkpoints/battlements
• Player ran crafting community to keep the troops/kingdom in arms and other things (food, etc)
• Sieges
• Plenty of monster bashing, but no raiding (max is group level monster bashing)
• Most raw materials are created through mining/forestry, etc - Very high level items (Magic items) need some hard to get components from creatures
• Monsters can hoard wealth as treasure to find (but some have nothing really)
• Monsters only have treasure equal to what their species has made for them to use, or stuff they got from dead adventurers
• Everything has a durability rating, and can only be repaired so many times (ala UO)
• Skill based - No levels
• Can't be adventurer and crafter - Mutually exclusive
• One character/account/server - No crafting mules

This would make a kick ass world.

First off, there are a lot of horrible posts in this thread.  It just proves most MMO gamers would make horrible game designers.

I like where you're headed with the whole 'no NPC' thing, but I think there are two distinct pieces to the concept that must be addressed:

1.  NPCs used in an economical system

I think this has been proven to be a set of NPCs you can do without.  You can swap out all NPC stores with PC stores pretty easily if you take the time to develop the system.  Games that have done this successfully:  UO, SWG, EVE.

2.  NPCs used in the adventuring system (Mobs)

I don't think you can get rid of this so easily, at least not in Fantasy MMOs.  This is because fantasy is mainly 'Dungeons and Dragons'.  You must make them NPCs unless you decide you want to have players filling out the actual 'Dragons' part of your game, complete with 'Dragon' eco system and living conditions, etc.  ... Actually that would be pretty sweet, but a HUGE task to code.

Now as far as questing, well in an NPC-less world, there would be no quests.  The dragon players eating too many of your farmer types?  Quest: go kill the dragon lair and pillage his gold and items.  Players would make all the content in that environment.

Also in a player generated quest system, you have to make systems where the 'grandmasters' of anything, whether it be smithing or dragon slaying, don't have time to do the menial tasks and also their grand tasks.  This is where the noob steps in to do these menial tasks...for a fee or some kind of apprenticeship.  PROBLEM!  What happens when the game ages, and there are no more noobs?  Hey dude time is running out, but yeah you'd have to work out how to fix those issues.

An NPC-less game can be made.  With that I mean I could even design the systems that would make it work and work well, but then you've got the problem of:

- You need a ton of cash, devs, and time to code all of those complicated systems (also you need friggin awesome devs who can code anything: correctly the first time and as light on the processor and ram (server side) as possible.

- You need players who actually want to think and work to advance, instead of be spoon fed

Hard to get both of those together.

This game could come around in about twenty to thirty years.  Or maybe when my grandkids are playing games.  Today's gamers are very, very noob still, so this kind of a game will more than likely just be lost on the mainstream.  They won't 'get it'.

Originally posted by dragonace

Originally posted by SirBruce

 

Originally posted by dragonace

 It means that there is a lot of guesswork going on.   There are 3 or 4 MMOs that look like they are reliable (They have an A accuracy rating AND have frequent data points - highlighted above).  Most of the others... well, decide for yourself.  You can download the spreadsheet and analyze the numbers for yourself if you want (that's what I did). 

Actually I'd modify that slightly and say that guesswork is only going on with C-grade MMOs, but it's pretty darn good guesswork.  B-grade MMOs aren't guesses; they're simply inside sources that may or may not be accurate.  Almost always these have turned out to be confirmed by other sources later.  But they aren't guesses.

 

Bruce

 

Heh... the highlighted section above is MY definition of a guess.  I guess you can have your own. 

 

Even if you want to debate the "accuracy" of the B rated MMOs.  There simply are not enough data points for them to be all that worth-while.  There are quite a few games there that don't have a data point going back 3 years!   That's not really even worth discussing is it? 

 

I'd question any data point older than 6 months.   In this industry even anything older than 3 months is already getting pretty old.  So yeah, perhaps as an entire genre analysis project (which is what I stated that I liked about it)... the numbers work. 

As a month by month tracking feature... not so much. 

What is 'real' proof?  Have you any proof of half the s*** spouted at you in any books you ever read in school?  Do you have to SEE the Haulocaust to know it really happened?  Damn, man.  I think you just don't want to believe, and are biased for some other reason than just to know the facts.

Lastly, if there is some set of information on this topic you feel is more accurate, please link it.  If you don't have a better source, this is the best we have.  You can't argue that it is untrue, just as Bruce can't reveal his sources.

To argue against these stats with no stats of your own or sources of your own, etc etc, then please just take the data as is.  Sir Bruce has given you all the proof he can, and you have no facts to refute his claims; therefore, all your bitching is mute.

The world is round?  I don't fing believe it.  I mean it just can't be, so it isn't.  I have no evidence to say it is or not, even though you do have evidence.  But still I don't believe you.  Why?  Cause I just don't want to.

LAWL to you sir.

Originally posted by bobfish

I don't care whether you claim the figures are accurate or not, you protect your sources who are people breaking their legally binding employment contracts with their companies by divulging these figures.

Harboring criminals is not in my mind something that you should be proud of.

You are ignorant of how reporting and intelligence work.  Complete naivety at work right here in your post.  C'mon man.  Haven't you ever heard of reporters never reveal their sources?  Nobody would ever talk about the real dirt if they had to do it publicly.

When Paul Revere road forth to tell by which way the English brought war on the 'Law Breakers', I guess that was wrong too?  I mean he swore an oath to the Crown, for God's sake!  BURN ALL OF US ILLEGAL AMERICANS!  GET YOUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES!

Sir Bruce, I've watched your progress over the years, and the constant flaming by those who have no like project.  Just empty flames from haters.  Keep up the good work.

Don't like his numbers?  I want to see YOUR subscriptions research project.  ...  Still waiting.

Lastly, the greatest men in American history were criminals: every man that signed the Declaration of Independence.

Originally posted by toby124

Do you just mean PvE raids, or PvP ones too?  Because some of the best raids I've ever been on were in Shadowbane.  They were, like you said, kind of a fuster cluck, but being part of a giant army and swaying a battle one way or another was definitely a draw.

Totally agree.  My favorite thing to do was get inside the enemy's ball, and kill their healers.  lol  Balls break up pretty fast once the healers start dropping. 

Yes older MMOs were about building virtual worlds; while new MMOs are about console multiplayer basically.

Until you've ran a shop in UO or SWG (in those two games thats almost all I did, and I loved it), you just can't see how powerful and fun a world sim is.  You didn't really have to run all over to get stuff you wanted.  You learned where the good crafters had shops, and you just went there and stocked up.  Yeah you easily got burned when you only bought 1 copy of something.  So buy 5 instead.

Also I had a lot of clients that bought in bulk in regular intervals.  I always had a bag of their stuff ready when I knew they would come calling.  Much better than any AH could ever be.

Man, this thread is full of crappy posts.  lol  Insane amounts of bias floating around in this thread.

Yeah I loved being a weaponsmith.  And the gathering and raw material system they had was just SICK man!  I think it's the only game where the raw materials are never in the same place twice, oh and the different quality levels of the same base raw material was awesome.

Vanguard crafting is all about grinding craft xp, which is boring as hell.

Eve I wouldn't really consider crafting.  You don't actually do anything in that game besides stick minerals in a factory and tell it to pop out x amount of product.  Gathering in that game is boring as hell as well.

But back on topic, I have to agree somewhat with the OP on this one.  While I agree most of the common raw materials should be gatherable by a common man (i.e. no combat skills) the rare stuff probably should come from a combat area.

What's really cool this time around is BioWare is just going to code in the sweeping game changes.  It will be part of the engine.  So like one day you log in, and wookies suck hard, but then the next day you log in weaponsmiths are gods and wookies...suck, but then the next day the whole system has been revamped and there's like vampires and now jedi are human again and wookies won't suck as bad.  So then like sometimes there will be a massive change and everyone will be totally different, almost like it's a different game.

It's going to save lots of coding time.

EA destroyed UO.  Until Blizzard destroys WoW in the same way EA destroyed UO (read: really not a possibility) they can't even be put in the same category.

Originally posted by paulscott

WurmOnline as well.  Skill loss to boot as well, and the winner picking up affinities to mastered skills.   There's also the ability to completely smash down any structure/town, which can get pretty profitable since the safe storage/bank only lets you store 5 items.

But in the end it's not the main focus, and you need to actually be a part of the community to survive comfortably.  So pretty much unsurvivable to the OP.

I was just checking that game out again.  A friend of mine used to play it.  Man I wish they would update the graphics.  I would definitely play it.

As far as I know, Eve is the only game on the market currently with looting.  No other game has it.  ... Although I might be missing something.  The only other game I've ever known that had looting was old UO before trammel and the changes.  (when it was forced open pvp)

This is the classic doubting Thomas story.  See I can say I'm Jesus Christ all I want.  Release some pictures of me in churches and crap.  But unless I can show you the miracles - until I can prove my claim, it's not legit.

IMO, Darkfall will continue to be vapor until they have a beta that thousands of people are playing.

Does anyone remember that hoax MMORPG before Wish?  It had four letters in its name.  Supposedly the environment was dynamic where if you harvested too many trees the trees would disapear from that area or something.  It wasn't LINK but it was something like that.  It turned out to be a hoax.

I've kinda always thought Darkfall was a hoax.  It actually would be a cool scientific experiment to see how long you could run a hoax for an MMO in development.  Monitor the activity on the forums and hype, etc, to observe the fluctuation in fans.  See how long they would stay interested, and what kinds of people would stay interested the longest and the shortest, etc.

The best way to 'level up' when you first start out and don't have the skills yet to kill with medium assault is to get in a squad.  You'll get xp for their kills as well.

Best grunt certs when you first start out IMO is medium assault and rexo suit.

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost

Originally posted by ladyattis

 

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Originally posted by Thralia

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Originally posted by nethervoid

 

I would give one of my left nuts to make this true.

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one of ur left nuts? what ! lol
how many u got^^

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Curious... curious...

I think that'd be funny... he'd be without a left nut and Darkfall would be published by Electronic Arts...

I'm a modern marvel.

I would give one of my left nuts to make this true.

While I will agree most people don't want to sit around in town and chat, I do miss the downtime in EQ groups and just chatting away.  That time is what we need again, IMO.  Sure downtime for solo play is obviously dumb, but in group play it's a lot of fun.

Actually the biggest lesson WoW has taught that has been totally ignored is.  POLISH SELLS GAMES.

I'd have to say none.  Almost every game that has been great has had it's own IP, while most games (MMOs) that had a pre-conceived one from another medium (books, movies, etc) just plain sucked.  That's because usually what works well in a novel or movie does not translate well to thousands of people online at the same time.

Best example?  Jedi.  Rare in the movies...but you can't have a star wars MMO without having a billion jedi.

There's already a plethora of great advice and years talking in this thread, so I'll just add the one thing nobody has said yet.  For every million gamers with an idea outside of the actual working part of the industry, there's one developer with an idea.

So lets just say you have this great idea.  You are asked to pitch your idea to a Sony game development board.  But also pitching an idea is a dev that works in Sony's SOE branch.  He's got an amazing idea for a game or game design aspect too.

You guys both pitch your idea.  His is pretty good, but yours is amazing!  They go with his.  Why?  Cause he works there, and he has experience building these ideas.  So not only does he have experience coding the very ideas he has, which means some knowledge before hand on what is and isn't possible, he also works for the company already.  They've invested in him already and he's still working there because they know he's a stable investment.  You?  They just met you, and you have no game dev experience, especially not with them.  You've got no credentials or track record.

So to make a long story short, the only way you'll get to see your ideas developed is to develop them yourself.  Get your game degree, code up everything under the sun you can think of to get practice, then app to a game dev company.  That's the only way it will work...well unless you get a bank loan and start your own company...which, needless to say, entails FAR more risk.

*edit* On and one thing nobody mentions much because it's so abstract, but it's a huge part of working in any industry: social networking.  As much as possible, you need to meet people that are working in the industry.  Learn their names and faces.  Talk to them.  If you can, buddy up with them and hang out.  Once I read that two thirds of all job prospects came from friends already working in a company.  Get in good with people in the industry who can then get you in the industry.