I haven't read all the posts, but the list is missing City of Heroes' mentoring - reverse mentoring system. I believe WAR and WoW adapted it into their systems later on, CoH being the first MMO (to my knowledge) that did something like it. You could also add CoH to the Tailored Dungeons feature.

Apart from that, I can't think of anything else right now... perhaps customizable UI? Voice chat? Guild bonuses apart from a different chat channel? Ganking? (j/k) Death penalties in all their different iterations (which are currently disappearing from the newer MMOs or being modified to be almost unnoticeable)? NPC allies in combat?  the PvP flag/safe zones? Auction houses?

Obviously, I have no idea which games did this first, but someone ought to know. :)

My case is the same as that of many people here. I loved Blizzard all those years ago for all the fun and nice stories I experienced in the Warcrafts, Starcraft, and the first Diablo (never got to really play the second one). Now, my position is ambivalent at best. I played WoW and found it boring, but it didn't change my opinion of the company because it was a pure personal matter; I'm not fit to judge a game as wrong just because it didn't cater to my style of play. Starcraft 2, on the other hand, really disappointed me. I expected something new, because back in the day, Starcraft itself was new and innovative in the RTS world dominated by the Warcraft/Dune/Command & Conquer/whatever system. To see it's not even what Age of Empires 2 was to Age of Empires 1 (which is to say, enormously significant and yet subtle in its changes) was quite the letdown, to say the least. I lost interest by the fourth or fifth mission and I ended up uninstalling it a few days ago after it sat in my hard drive for months.

To summarize: I'm no longer gonna go out and buy anything with the name Blizzard on it just because it's them. I think I'll wait and try their games out if the consensus among gamers is positive, and if there's anything cool that reviews mention and so on. 

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Amaranthar

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Amaranthar

And again, what are you talking about? Transparancy of what causes a MOB do do something? Why would a player need that? Unless it's for cheating purposes. What's important is that in both cases the player sees the MOB "juke left". But in fact, in an AI system like this the MOB can in fact juke left or right. Or not at all and do something entirely different, unpredictably.

I just gave you the two examples of exactly what was and wasn't transparent about your idea.  How are you possibly still confused?

I'm not confused. I simply don't understand why it's an important point to you. It's not something players would want unless they want to control the reactions of the MOBs. And that's entirely opposite of  the whole principle of unpredictability.

It's important because I work in the game industry so I see dumping hundreds of hours of dev time into something the players will never notice (or appreciate) as a bad move.

Ok, well, tell me Mr. Almighty Game Maker, what do I, as a game player of MMORPGs, want? What would I notice? And what would I appreciate? I really need to know and I cannot go on without your expert consent.

I shall post no more ideas or desires until I hear from you. It would probably be best to put it in writing and have it notarized, just to be official and all documented up and all.

For the love of God, some of these guys are so full of themselves.

This has nothing to do with pride.  It's straightforward, logical criticism.

"Full of themselves" would be if I automatically rejected logical criticism of my ideas.  One person's doing that here, and it isn't me.

Take it easy, guys. :) The problem here is communication. Axehilt's point is very valid, and is related to efficiency once you get that idea beyond text and into a game scenario. What I think Axehilt is missing is that this genetic AI affects mobs in the long run throughout multiple, possibly infinite situations. Sure, you can have various mob scripts for different types of terrain and so on, but there's a limited (still huge, but limited) number of unique situations that can arise from combat with those mobs in the terrain they belong to. If the AI is learning all the time and trying new things, then the number of unique situations grows exponentially. 

Think of it like this: it's giving the AI a more human-like way of doing things. When you see a person doing something, you unconsciously know that there's a reason for the way in which he or she is doing it, but you don't know it. In current AI and games, if you see a mob doing something, you know it's just a script. If you see an orc wandering around a forest, you know it's not gonna react until you approach it at a certain, very precise distance. In general, they're utterly predictable. With this new type of AI, the possibilities rise, and even if you only see the orc moving left or wandering in the forest, you can't be exactly sure why. Under these circumstances you can't even be sure if it will actually attack you if you approach it a certain distance. Maybe it will run away. Maybe it will talk. Maybe it'll call its friends hidden in the trees and it turns out it's a trap.

Now, in a current game, the traps might surprise you once or twice. But once you're going through a replay or even just facing the same mobs again, that trap will stop surprising you, it will stop working because you know you have to bring a team, or a certain item, or whatever, because it will always be the same. This is what happens with RTS AI: once you've faced it enough times, you know it doesn't build X or Y, or send X or Y troops to attack, or whatever, and those mistakes are key to defeating it. In a multiplayer match of RTS, you generally don't know what to expect, unless, of course, the system has been figured out in detail enough to let the players use the same tactics every game. Regardless of that. in multiplayer matches you have to actively think about what's going on and what it is you're going to do, all the time. In MMOs this rarely happens, especially when there are no scripts in play as in instances and so on. You set up a 'winning combo' against X or Y mob group, and it's only a matter of rinse and repeat.

So I believe that's why it would be a good idea to implement, because it's not a mechanic that affects only one type of encounter - it's a mechanic that generates several types of encounters. The orc might move left, and that's all you'd see, but you wouldn't know for sure why, or if it will do it again. Games would be a lot more interactive, a lot more thoughtful, and not as reliant on visual cues as you're demonstrating they currently are.

And if we take it a little bit further, it may also be the solution to THE GRIND, haha. Grinding is just a mechanic operation, the rinse and repeat, no thought, no interactivity, just taking in the visual cues and pressing buttons in certain orders. If mobs were deeper than that, if we would actually have to question their motives and imagine the possibilities (is it a trap? is that orc friendly or aggressive?) then I believe the feeling of nothingness and chore that the grind produces would be finally overcome. I'm not a game programmer or anything, though, so I don't know, haha.

Great thread.

All of the discussions in this thread reveal that MMORPG should have cleared up the term 'innovation' and specified its use for the poll and awards in the first place. This shouldn't be "most innovative" in general; it should be a multiple option list including "most innovative revamp", "most innovative gameplay", "most innovative character creator", etc. Otherwise, as everyone's proven by now, this list is pretty shallow and full of possible objections. It's led to a situation such as both camps in the WoW argument being right. If the poll was much more specific then the argument would be directed towards the selection of games, not towards the validity of one of the candidates. Say, having WoW and Darkfall compete for most innovative revamp would be a lot more coherent than what the current list does, which excludes a ton of games that have very good reasons to be included and as much right as the ones that have been included.

MMORPG: please consider redoing this award for better results and to promote an actually fun and useful discussion among players. The current one is pretty useless and the result will have very objectionable bases. If you do a larger, more specific, more inclusive list, then it will truly work out in a more democratic fashion.

Originally posted by Shinami

The difference between Americans/Europeans and those from Asia Prime (excluding Asia-Minor), is really grand.

 

Americans know that gaming is about having fun and feeling that level of fun is rewarding enough. Americans know the difference between high stake games, competitive games and average gaming. 

 

The problem starts with Globalization and Culture. 

 

Majority of Asia-Prime cultures and civilization fall into the idea that in order for something to be worth it, one must undergo hardwork and hardship. This is true on all levels, including the entertainment sustained. Any game should be one that rewards the strong and destroys the weak. 

 

Unfortunately, companies and corporations make games like this under such philosophies and easily get away taking peoples money. Its not about "fun" and all about proving to everyone around you that are doing hard work within your free time and during your career and profession, though you do not really have a voice. The only RIGHT you have is to sit down and shut up as you fulfill your work and obligation. 

 

I like to divide Europeans into Eastern and Western Europeans, as there are vastly different mentalities. The problem in European Culture deals with the Educational Elitist that attempts to silence anyone and everyone. In many European places, only a professional within a career has a real right to speak about anything and if you are proficient and do not have a degree....Tough, you do not have a right. 

 

Apply this to our gaming, and there are a lot of philosophies. 

 

The greatest being that Americans KNOW that gaming is about fun, and nothing pisses of a European or anyone from Asia-Prime (and even Asia-Minor) than telling a non-American the words 

 

"I am not playing because it is simply not fun"

 

It shatters the entire world apart, when opposition occurs. Its amazing the sheer amount of hostility that comes from Europeans who are a little too gaming oriented (Notice I did not say ALL EUROPEANS or ALL Asia-Prime), but many do exist....

 

A lot of that attitude does run off people too. You get Americans who have gotten everything in a game who will never admit a game is unfair and say they are having fun since they have everyone and have worked for everything. Its the same attitude as the capitalist elite who kill of many people and hide it as a statistic and talk about "liberty."

 

The majority of people who are gamers in society be them 3D gamers, or 2D gamers, card game players, etc.....Will say "I won't play unless its fun" and many do not fall into the trap of the grind. They know FULL WELL that at the end of the day...

 

Americans tend to leave their games for better games eventually, while most europeans and asia-pacific people will retain playing the same game for 6 - 10 years and telling anyone who doesnt play shouldn't be gaming, and is weak...

 

This isn't a stereotype, the last 12 games I have played that are in the MMO category and shooters have all suffered the same fate....Usually most Americans leave to other games...and Europeans (and Asia-Pacific peoples) stay behind and harass other players. Its amazing how much Europeans and Asia-Pacific people talk about DOMINANCE and HARD WORK when Americans leave, but how they never talk about that when Americans are in the game servers dominating a lot of the action.

 

I am part of the top leagues in MMOs and FPS games, measuring games at their infancy, maturity and old age....

 

The last 10 tournaments in shooters/MMOs I've taken part in during a game reaching its half life, seven of them have gone to American teams in a population of 40 - 60% Americans. At their old age, the last 12 tournaments I have been in had gone 4 to Americans (in a population of 10 - 20% Americans) and right now the player in Runes of Magic who has the strongest equipment in the game is an American who plays in a European server.

 

Point is that the Internet is a Borderless Community in the scope of gaming. Ultimately in the very end the developers of games, specially MMORPGs also are about thrusting culture onto people.  You have to be careful and the idea and mentality and trust your gut...but many do not have the courage, will or ability to trust themselves. 

 

IF a game is a not fun, play another game until you find any game that you love to play. Americans practice this very well, while you get so much resistance in European and Asia-Prime cultures. 

 

This post comes from an American who plays in European Servers any MMORPG that I tend to play and understand several European Languages while I also play in Asia-Prime servers and understand the Japanese language and know parts of Korean and Chinese and I deal with the cultures and mentalities directly. ^_^ 

 

I mean to not offend anyone by my words. This post is meant as observation. ^_^ Perhaps your observations are different. 

Hahahahahahahaha you and the two rednecks saying "I support this post" crack me up. "Americans practice this very well"... do you even READ these forums, man?

Originally posted by radwan666

The screenshots can be modified, arranged, and manipulated to show the game different of actually it is. Otherwise, the screenshots need to be in high resolution so you can see the graphics really as they are. I'm agree with other comments that says that is better to view videos than images if you want to see gameplay action. Screenshots are only for publicity or decoration art, no more.

Guys, please stop being so naive. Devs can do exactly the same things with videos. Fan made videos usually look awful, so they give people HD videos of the best possible looking build they have (have you EVER seen a promo video that features an incomplete zone? an incomplete feature? a true feel of gameplay?). Truth is, you can learn how the game might feel, not how it actually will. If you've seen the trailers for any recent FPS as well as their promo videos you know that's not how things usually look, feel, and work.

As for "home made" videos, they're even worse, because you only see a tiny fraction of whatever it is you can do, wholly determined by the cameraman's intentions, actions, and whatever part of the game he or she is playing. If you want to 'see' gameplay action, there's no better choice than giving the actual game a shot.

Point is: you can't trust videos like they were true, even the fan made ones which bear a lot less artificiality, so to speak. 

Savage 2!

Great thread. Yes, that's all I have to say. At least this forum isn't teeming with crazed prophets and self-righteous gamer-crusaders like most others. Not like they won't start appearing once we get closer to release, but it's good to read some very well structured posts for once. More than ever, I'm convinced this game would benefit a ton from having multiple factions and revolving around a sort of competitive gameplay á la soccer like someone said.

Originally posted by UsualSuspect

I suppose if some players are into that sort of thing then fine, but for me, I'd rather be running through a dungeon battling a horde of enemies then defeating a huge dragon, than worry about taxes, whether I have the right shops in my city or if the citizens are happy. That's too much micro-management to be fun, for me at least. I'm sure other people would enjoy it, people enjoy games like Total War and Civilization, but they're not really fun to me either.

That's where classes or job division comes into play: while someone plays King/Duke/Baron or whatever, you can play as one of his/her knights, or as one of his/her peasants or craftsmen doing other, non-combat work.

That would be the most awesome setup for fans of the lore (1 faction per race).  What they could do is adopt the hierarchic system present in Planetside, where there's a few select people per side functioning as "Generals" and making plans for the rest of the faction, plans that you, as a foot soldier, can decide to follow, ignore, or improve upon in the field via real-time tactical decisions of your own. A political system could be in place that would allow those generals to form some kind of council in which they can vote for or against alliances with other factions when the possibility arises. Of course, certain factions just can't ally by design, and while others can, the voting system could prevent them from doing so all the time. I don't know, something like that would be pretty cool and would make the game feel more like a war and a coordinated effort by an army than a big FFA, which is what usually happens when PvP starts to involve more than a few dozen people.

May 4, 1998.

Tie Fighter/X-wing >>> Starfox.

Originally posted by depain

Originally posted by jpnole

Originally posted by depain

What happened to "You buy the game, you pay the monthy fee, you have access to everything, you enjoy the game?"

Bioware, do not delve into this practice.

 

 

Bioware! I'm asking you to set a new moral precedent. Is it not better to have happy paying customers than angry paying customers? Attitudes reflect upon the community in and outside of the game.

It's not about morals...  it's about money. My advice is you either adapt or uninstall/refuse to buy.

 Your advice, I'm sorry to say, is terrible.

When things happen that many people CLEARLY don't like, they aren't just going to sit and suck on it. If that was the case, the US would still be under British control. Things happen that people don't like; people state that they don't like it, group together, and actually make things happen.

I'm sorry that I don't want to just sit around and suck on it. Something as lame as this forum post goes a lot further than you think. People notice and things get done.

Your attitude, as well as many others on this thread, is pretty lazy. I bet people walk all over you.

So the other REAL option is to organize ourselves and collectively "suck on it". Unless, of course, you want to storm the Bioware HQ and enforce a new law banning item shops.

My god, after reading parts of this thread I feel like I'm in the 19th century. Between stupid females assuming their roles and even more stupid males inherently going on the defensive after reading stuff like this (like the asshole practically saying "the industry needs manly men who can withstand the stress of corporative battle, a job definitely not best left to the weaker sex") it's like half or more of the twentieth century never fucking happened. It's disgusting.

To the article writer: keep up the good work, and for diversity's sake, I hope you do more stuff like this in the future. Some people really need the education. 

CHAOS REIGNS

Originally posted by ArmaniDemon

I think it quite humorous that a complete stranger would care how another would live his life. 

There are rather intelligent folks out there who just plainly do not want to conform to today's social standards. For your average man trapped in the cage that is modern Western society, virtual reality (internet, television, gaming) provides the fix that real life cannot, in many cases. Living happily as a castrated dog does not appeal to me, personally. In my case, I balance bodybuilding with work and gaming. Such leaves me with little room for interaction with family, and no more than the occasional lay with women I don't care to bond with.

Should I be finding bliss in being a corporate pawn, or a money driven workaholic? Should I really be enthralled by the prospect of being bound to a family in an age where values are non existent? Some people just want to be left alone to do what they please. So long as they're no burden on anyone else, they should be allowed to do so without judgment. 

What society dictates is more often than not  total fallacy.  Those who pull the strings have no will to truly see us happy or healthy beyond keeping us in the work force until we drop dead.

Thread's over, ladies and gentlemen.

Originally posted by Aercus

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

You're a guy,  playing a female toon, so that means you're gay....

As in a lesbian?

 

Gay  would be playing a male toon, and hitting on other male toons, so you could see some male on male action.

Unless you play a female toon, and you hit on other female toons. Then that would be "gay". As in two of the same sex having sex.

 Absolutely brilliant post. :)

And yes, I usually play female toons. If I'm going to spend countless hours on a character, I prefer a female butt on my screen...

Yeah, because you spend most of your time looking at the character's butt. Which is still made of light out of pixels, so it's not exactly a good kind of butt to look at.

I don't buy that "argument" because it's still defensive in the "Oh man, people are gonna judge me" kind of line. You know, saying "I like playing female characters" is sufficient on its own. It doesn't go into stupid statements of looking at a character's sexual features all the time while you play, because it's pretty obvious people don't do that unless they're perverts. So either don't be afraid of saying things or come up with a truly valid reason.

Originally posted by Torluk

I like the OPs suggestion but I'd prefer it if they just kept all the races/factions separate.  I'd be happy enough with just 4 of the original factions at launch, something like the following:

1. Space Marines

2. Chaos Marines

3. Eldar

4. Orks

- all fighting it out in a big free-for-all with other races being added in future expansions. 

There is more than enough variety in the 4 factions above for this to work with several sub classes each and it leaves a lot of scope for future content, I don't think it's necessary to offer several race options within a faction to make the game a success.  Keeping the factions separate from each other would also allow players to create their own ad hoc alliances and agreements which we need more of in MMOs.  

Having more than just 2 factions competing for resources is the way to go though, couldn't agree more with you about having at least 3+ factions.

This would be just fine. They could adapt some of the good ideas badly implemented in WAR for the control zone mechanics, like interconnected PvE and PvP for zone control points, with missions and battlefields (not battlegrounds) that cross over with other factions. The game wouldn't even need to be huge either: a planet could have a small permanent drop zone from each faction and then change the mission-giving NPCs and the scenery depending on who's controlling what. It could even be done in a kind of fade-in-fade-out manner, I guess. 

Or even better yet, there could be an HQ battleship or something for each faction, outside the planets so that the devs could leave them completely under the player's hands, like in Planetside. I don't know, I bet there's a lot of good ideas around here.

Good article there.

Originally posted by crockopoopoo

Forgot to mention that the mentality of the game journalist is basically "omg I'm getting paid to write about (and therefore play) video games!!!!"  There is very little motivation to rock that boat by asking tough questions or finding out things the game companies don't want you to know.

It's a very lazy profession, which is why it attracts so many non-professionals and pays so little.  I'm not saying all game journalists are lazy, but many are, elsewise we would have more real information and less re-written press releases.

Quoted for the goddamn truth. :P Crockopoopoo summed everything up pretty well with his last two posts. I'd just like to add one thing: a journalist questions. It's about creatively engaging information just as much as it is about information itself. Otherwise, "journalists" are easily replaced by Twitter. That this is actually the current trend reveals how bad most newspapers are, not how evil and misleading the internet is. And they're bad because the journalists they employ have their imaginations stunted by thinking they're just 'reportin' the news' and that being close to information is good enough to justify their pay. A good journalist with good reporting skills and good ability to comment on his/her information will never be replaced by Twitter. 

Why do videogame sites and magazines never publish papers, real, thinking, investigative papers on piracy, the used-game market, the idiotic censorship mentioned by Stradden, the relationship between the media and the game industry, and so and so on? There's a ton of topics available to be exploited and expanded upon, but no people to take them up. The only real piece of games journalism I've ever read was in that Insomnia site that's become bloated with silly articles attempting to be intelligent; it was a long, critical piece on why piracy is so widespread, and how is it that the game industry is leading to its own collapse just like the music industry started to all those years ago. The author pulled up a myriad of sources and statistics that were checkable. It was excellent simply because there was nothing like it, and after all this time there's still nothing like it. 

Anyone out there analyzing the general over-the-top, orgiastic discourse of the E3? Of course not, they're busy nitpicking how similar Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is to its predecessor, thank you very much.

Any mainstream site out there writing about how closing up the used game market is the worst idea Electronic Arts has had? Of course not, they're weakly, fearfully saying how it's actually "fair" because "devs get paid that way". 

The videogame journalism thing needs to grow up. It can do so fast, like, lightning fast, if only the people involved would be more bold, more willing, and less intimidated by the industry. It doesn't need any time. It's ready. It's just a matter of you 'journalists' pulling your pants up.