All Posts by rcorvin

Originally posted by PureChaos

Smooth very few.

Bit shakey - good amount such as WOW' s, the game was fine, just server issues.

avalanche- AOC, starts out all fine then someones gets to excited out in lvl 50 and then OMG IT BEGINS TO FALL!

You know what was a real disaster?

Anarchy Online's launch. It was spectacularly laggy, opening doors was impossible, changing zones was impossible, you'd walk through walls and... just, ugh. There hasn't been a worse launch since.

Originally posted by Adamantine

While in a Vampire MMO, as fun as the idea sounds, what can I play ?

Vampire.

Or Vampire.

Or, wait, also Vampire.

One can be lucky if you get also the chance to play a Human or a Werewolf. Hey, maybe they introduce also Sorcerers, Witches, Zombies, Liches, Ghouls etc. But thats often not what is done. Instead, we get the aforementioned choice between Vampire or Vampire. Its just plain boring and while it might be fun for 1-2 hours or maybe also 1-2 month, it soon gets pretty old.

Insofar as White Wolf's games are concerned, there are multiple types of Vampires to pick and fairly extensive ability to customize them. Let us say, for example, that you are playing a Dark Ages-era vampire and you want to emulate one of the classes that you have specified, all of which are traditionally hideously linear and allow you no broad choices concerning specialization.

So. You're a Vampire. Maybe you're one of the Daeva who tend towards being hedonists, or the Ventrue who are most often found in leadership positions of some sort. Perhaps you are a mad Malkavian/Malkovian, or one of the monstrous Nosferatu, or the beastly Gangrel.

All of that is up to you, though quite honestly it doesn't sound like much, and it's not as much as you might like. Customization comes down to the Skills and Merits you choose to pick. Want to play a sniper? Pick up five dots of Marksmanship and maybe a merit for good eyesight.

Want to play a Sorcerer? Pick up that particular power-set and work on it in-game. Want to turn into a bat? There's a power-set for that, and growing claws, and becoming invisible, and all manner of other things. If you want to be a Warrior or Fighter, train yourself in Melee Combat. If you want to be a Brawler, train youself in Unarmed. If you want to be a diplomat, there are skills for that too.

Basically, the point is that there's a whole lot of variety to be had in a game derived from Vampire the Requiem and/or Vampire the Masquerade. (If an MMO were made, though, it would be based off of New Vampire, not Old Vampire.)

Furthermore, it is the WORLD of Darkness. There will likely be alternatives-- the Changelings (victims warped by the fae folk, who are very much the terrors they were in old folk-tales before Disney made them  nice and sparkly.) and Prometheans (Frankenstein-like monsters, reviled for their unnatural creation striving to become human), the Werewolves and the Mages, and the Hunters (last three are obvious).

Though, even with JUST Vampires, your options would be vast compared to nearly any (and possibly ANY) class-based game you can name.

As I have previously expressed, the idea of a 'WoW Killer' is absurd. The top MMOs of the earlier generations are STILL GOING - EverQuest and Ultima Online, that is to say.

It may end up having less players, and it may be nearly a ghost town, but WoW will more than likely be around even longer than EQ1 has.

I'm going to have to chime in my support for City of Heroes/Villains.

Although you're still going to encounter a fair few disagreeable people in it, the fact of the matter is that... in MY experience at least, it has one of the best communities that you could hope for in an MMO. It also has an extremely paranoid swear filter, so most things won't be slipping through the cracks, as it were.

That said, no matter what you do you're taking a gamble letting a 10 year old play an MMO. I started with EverQuest around that age, m'self - and while I'm certainly not one of the obnoxious trolls you find in most MMOs, even when I'm trying to keep my language "kid-friendly" I drop nasty words without thinking about it when I'm playing WoW, particularly if a situation goes sour.

I don't get why people go on and on about how such-and-such game is going to be the WoW killer - or the <insert current-generation super-successful MMORPG here>, or whatever.

EverQuest is still somewhat alive - perhaps not nearly what it was BEFORE, but it's still alive. It's still running. It's still profitable enough to keep it going.

World of Warcraft topped it, but it didn't kill it - and whatever tops World of Warcraft probably won't kill it, either. I expect both World of Warcraft and the original EverQuest will still be floating around making money long after World of Warcraft 2 gets thrown out there by Blizzard.

Now, mind you... I WANT something that just totally blows WoW out of the water. It is the McDonalds of MMORPGs - I like it, but I know we could have better. But even if the best MMO ever is created in the next four years, WoW will almost certainly still be chuggin' along with a decent playerbase.

Originally posted by admiralnlson

I played Vampire: The Masquarade, the pen&paper RPG, years ago.
I remember having a good time.
I didn't play Werewolves, and only watched part of a Mages scenario, though.

Although I'm not a fan of MMOS using IP, I think a MMO set up in the World of Darkness could be very nice.
It will be a technological challenge for CPP though. I'm not sure about werewolves or mages, but vampires in this world can be very powerful (my noob character was only able to lift a bus. He sucked ^^).
But CCP can take a challenge ;)

And, of course, the game should be a sandbox game. But, again, CCP can do that :)

Werewolves mostly focus on physical combat - even the social or mental-based ones will tear people apart in wolfman form.

Vampires are more social, but they have a fairly wide variety of powers and abilities - however, they're a might bit weaker than the werewolves.  I'd say they're more versatile and suitable for social situations, but I really didn't play Werewolf enough to say for sure. (Although... I'm not sure how a noob character could lift a bus, even if they poured all their points into strength and potence. Vampires just generally aren't that physically powerful unless they're elders - even then, a bus is stretching it from what I can recall.)

Mages, however, are the most... bizarre of the bunch. Although I have nothing against them, I think that players of the Mage P&P game will be disappointed in their MMORPG analogues, if they're playable at all. It's not because I don't think something neat can't be made out of it, it's just... well. In the original Mage, a classic anti-vampire move was simply to turn them into an inanimate object (commonly, a lawn chair) - which isn't in the least bit difficult for a Mage, if he's aware of the vampire. It's this kind of weeeird effect that makes it difficult for me to swallow WoD Mage in an MMORPG format.

Originally posted by Horusra

Techinically that is a skills-based game, which is what asheron's call was not a skill-based game.  Unless your character only has one skill I guess.  But that is semantics.  Skills-based games seemed to have failed to class base recently.  No one wants to take the time to do it right.  In the end skills-based game seem to end with one set pattern that everyone follows.  AC's flavor of the month skills build.

That said, although the game itself is not my thing, EVE gives me faith that they'll be able to pull this off reasonably well.

Originally posted by Horusra

Skill and strategy are two different things.  It takes skill to fly a plane through a burning ring of fire...it takes strategy to line the plan up right to attempt the run.  they are two different things.  EVE takes stratagy to know what do to and when to do it, but not skill to avoid being shot.

I don't think you're understanding what you're being told.

The typical MMORPG on the market is a Class-Based system. In most of these games, you're a Warrior, or a Rogue, or a Mage, or a Druid, and the abilities that you are able to learn are limited based on which class you choose.

A Skill-Based system is more akin to Ultima Online, wherein there are no Classes to choose from and, if you want to be a Warrior, you work on the skills that would be best-suited to a Warrior. For example, swordsmanship. This does not mean that you're hopping around and playing the MMORPG like an FPS - it just means that you can heavily customize the way you play the game.

Done right, any World of Darkness MMORPG would be a skill-based system with three separate areas of influence:  Physical, Social, and Mental. In most MMORPGs, you have no choice but to be a combatant - in a World of Darkness MMO, you would ideally have the opportunity to talk your way out of a situation just as surely as you could shoot or kung-fu your way out of it.

Done WELL, a skill-based system would blow a class-based system out of the water, and IMO, if anybody can do it, it's going to be CCP and White Wolf.

Most of the problem with skill-based systems is that you have to balance out the fact that people have no real limitation to their potential - you could be a Warrior-Mage who romps around in plate and blows up towns just as much as you could be a straight-up Warrior. It also requires a lot more work than just setting down a list of classes and saying, 'Here's what you can be, pick one and stick with it or re-roll.'.

As I understand it, CCP already DOES the whole 'skill-based game' thing with EVE, which leaves me with high hopes for World of Darkness Online... though I wish it had come sooner.

Originally posted by swaindaddy

 

Originally posted by Kabaal

Yes the game was a let down, but it's just had a major overhaul and about to go back into beta. Yes.... closed beta. Don't you people think it's a bit early to be making judgements about a game from it's early closed beta especially when the developers are in the middle of changing the things that were wrong with the game?

 

I do think it is early - I want it to be good as I want to play it. However, to argue that the graphics so far are good speaks to the insanity of fanbois. All I am asking for is people to agree that it doesn't look good. I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder - if you really want to like it you may think it is the best looking game ever. lol

To be perfectly honest, Swaindaddy, you sound more like a troll than anything right now - in my mind, at least.

And I'm saying this as someone who has bigger expectations of the MMO market than WAR could possibly provide - than anything could possibly provide before 2012, I think. I look at WAR, and I say, "Okay, this looks pretty good.". It's not super-awesome or awe-inspiring, but it's not BAD, and I'm not really sure where you get off saying it is.

You're not even providing any good reasons as to WHY it's bad - your points aren't even valid as far as I can see. "Blocky hands"? I don't see what you're seeing. That's why I think you look kind of like a troll - however, I'm not really sure you are one.

What games have I been playing? Well, most recently, World of Warcraft - so far as MMOs go. Others include Hellgate London, and VtM: Bloodlines.

Exactly what are you complaining about?

I've seen plenty of WAR stuff, but it doesn't seem to be all that bad - pretty good, actually, IMO.

I look forward to seeing that Blizzard has in store for us. There are many, many paths this could travel down, you know.

See...

World of Warcraft is massively successful. Blizzard's reputation is enormous - gargantuan, even.

The point is: As far as the MMO market goes, Blizzard can literally do whatever it wants right now, as long as they produce a REASONABLY ENTERTAINING GAME. They have market domination at the moment - they can be creditted, alongside a number of other game companies, with pulling MMOs into the mainstream market.

What's so important with them, though, is that they can presently afford to take risks. They don't have to carbon copy their own game while using another theme (Starcraft, or Diablo) to get by. If they really want to, if they want to take a leap of faith, they... can probably make it work.

Unfortunately, I doubt that we'll get anything terribly new from them. I'm sure it'll be fun to see one way or the next.

Originally posted by MuffinManXIV

I would rather see fully lootable corpses over losing a level.  What is a player to gain from killing someone else and forcing them to lose a level?

 

Of course fully lootable corpses wouldn't really work in the current state of most MMO's where the gear grind is longer and more harsh than the level grind.

This could work - but ultimately, when it boils right down to it...

IF you HAVE to put a death penalty in, you need to refrain from killing progress made by characters. If gear is going to be dropped when you die, gear shouldn't be difficult to acquire or all THAT big a reward for killing someone.

Basically, if your game is one where players kill the Lich King and he drops Frostmourne, they shouldn't be dropping their stuff if they die. If your game is like Ultima Online, where every single bit of your equipment is easily replaced, then sure, have everything drop.

Bottom line is, don't screw the players. The current generation of MMOs is not terribly forgiving of harsh death penalties of any kind.

The current generation of MMORPGs has set a mold in place - it is most likely not going to be profitable to continue to make MMOs with terribly harsh death penalties. Oh, I'm sure there'll always be a hand-full of them floating around out there, fulfilling a small niche in the market.

But at this point in time, harsh death penalties are obsolete - even in a limited capacity such as this one.

Personally, I wouldn't play a game that nixed my progress if I died, unless that game was absolutely amazing in every other way. That includes, yes, losing a level after reaching max level. I don't want to have to worry about regaining that last level repeatedly, particularly if it can be lost by means of "some dick killing me and camping my corpse", of which there would be plenty if such activities were permitted.

Some people may enjoy this. Perhaps it should be an option - which is to say, you can voluntarily set yourself up to take "harsh" penalties like this.

Personally, though, I wouldn't do it.

Many people have already put it perfectly before me, but...

Basically, World of Warcraft is more or less the vanilla ice cream of the MMORPG world. It introduces nothing new - but it does bring all of the older features of MMORPGs into a fresh light. It does everything it does very well.

But the community sucks, and the game isn't anything new - furthermore, it solidified the mold of the current generation of MMORPGs. Although most games called "WoW Clones" are not, in fact, WoW Clones, they did follow in it's footsteps and use a very basic template done well enough without any new innovations to get by.

Nothing is going to break World of Warcraft. It'll peter out into semi-obscurity in the fashion of EverQuest, ultimately. Blizzard will also most likely not be able to outdo themselves, much like SoE didn't precisely reproduce the "genre-defining" success that was EverQuest.

But I think we can look forward to new and innovative stuff in the near future. Warhammer Online is trying new, promising things - I'm not sure I should say it's breaking the mold, but at the moment it's the closest thing we've got to anything even pretending to do so. (Plus the RvR should be fun.)

At least the guy we slaughtered bears to get to will acknowledge that we've ALREADY slaughtered the bears he wanted to dead on the way to him.

I want a little bit of both.

I want a skill-based progression system, not a generic class/level-based system.

I want to be able to choose between combat emphasis, or social emphasis - Do I deal with enemies by beating them to death with sticks and rocks, or do I talk them down somehow?

However, I also want experience to mostly be rewarded via the completion of quests/tasks - these need not be linear, following a certain progression. You find someone who needs something done, and you do it - who knows, you might end up changing the face of the game world because you just happened across the right person and handled a situation in just the right way.

These tasks shouldn't be hard to come by, though. Most everyone should have something they need done and don't want to do by themselves - whether player or NPC.

That doesn't look like Dragon Ball Online to me. It isn't stylized enough.

Originally posted by Mylon

I like the idea of open ended quests.  That would be awesome.  Another neat thing would be quests coming to you.  Yes, sometimes it's inconvenient when the mob wants to pay back a "favor" you paid them while you're just trying to buy something at the auction hall, but that's part of what makes the immersion of a game.

As for GM events... it's simply uneconomical to do so.  You might as well pay an additional guy to code quests so there's always new quests that all 200k (or 2 million, if you're WoW) of your players can do.  Is what you would be better doing is making a system in which players interact with one another in this manner!  Consider, say, a PC governer of a city that has noticed some people thugging up the merchant district and disrupting trade (and threatening his title).  He might have 10 such events happening all at once, so he tasks some players to go take care of the problem.

I might hop back into Eve, and if I do, I plan on running a corporation that mines minerals and manufactures goods.  I don't plan on doing any of the mining myself, but rather tasking that out to other players.

You're right - to an extent.

A little-known fact concerning the EverQuest Events, however, is that they were not typically run by proper hired GMs. They were run by Volunteer Guides - players who decided to help out and signed up to be in-game customer support. One of the things they got to do as a result, was run "GM" events. These Volunteer Guides were not paid - the most they got/get is a free account.

The only thing that actually had dedicated GMs floating around was the EverQuest Legends server, which went belly-up. I like your idea, though - it puts more into player hands.

As for EverQuest 2... wellll... I am personally not an advocate of making even MMORPGs so group-centric that you either have to group, or not play. I like doing stuff on my own, and actually getting stuff done, y'know?

Originally posted by r0hn

 

Originally posted by Naryysys

Not to flame the OP, but this has been a thorn pricking at my side for the past week.  It's gotten too annoying to ignore.

What, exactly, has copied WoW thus far?  Barring everything released in '04/'05 (Since that's only up to a year after WoW was released, and there's no way you can hope to even develope a copycat game in that amount of time) and actually very timidly barring '06, since that's really stretching it in terms of incoroporating entirely new systems into a game, there's only a few games worth noting, and not many even come close to being a "WoW-clone."

Not to flame, but where in the OPs original message did he mention WoW.  osc8r said that WoW is a clone of EQ.  I think WoW is a clone of DAOC.  Who is right?  The OP makes some good points and I agree with some of them. 

 

Top of my message, before my list.

I also, incidentally, have a couple things I think are appropriate to add to that list:

* A good crafting system:

PLAYERS should be making the best equipment out there. NPC-based vendors should sell passable equipment, but it should never overshadow what the players can make.

As a matter of fact, I believe that crafting should have a unique twist to it: While the "basics" should be the same, the advanced crafting levels should get into personal inventions that are unique to the person making them. They MAKE their own recipe. They should all have their own unique benefits and drawbacks, within the realm of reason and possibility.

* Equipment-Optional:

Well, sort of, anyway. If you're going to be fighting you're probably going to want a weapon and at least some light armor - a guy in riot gear with an MP-5 should have a hefty advantage over a guy with a knife and reinforced clothes - but the character's own skills and statistics should MUCH more meaningful than the weapons and armor they're toting around.

* No Phat Lewtz:

Well, maybe not exactly "no", but the NPCs should generally not be dropping the best gear you can get - although it would be acceptable to be able to pick up a nice rifle or sword or knife from that guy you just killed, you shouldn't be picking up The One Ring To Rule Them All.

No, you have to get that from Sauron, the level 40 Jewelcrafter/Level 90 Enchanter.

Honestly, WoW isn't really... being "copied".

When WoW came about, the MMO market swung heavily towards doing the things it did - not copying it directly. But raiding emphasis shot up, death penalties became much less severe, and overall MMOs tended towards being "nicer" to their players, and more solo-friendly.

Even EverQuest 2, which at the start was rather nasty to solo players past a certain point, changed in this respect.

It's not really direct clones, I suppose, so much as a basic template that became especially popularized close to the release of World of Warcraft.

That said, there isn't really anything especially NEW in the MMO market, and this is because new stuff isn't really needed to be successful - you just have to follow that basic template and not be a totally horrible game. Put out an OK expansion now and then, and mostly, people'll be happy.

Does that make sense to you folks?

Most of the "carbon copy" games aren't WoW-Style so much as they're "generic asian games".

Tabula Rasa, Hellgate London, and so on and so forth, all introduced pretty new and nice things. But they still chiefly focus on a simple and old-ish formula as to how to do stuff.

I suppose what I'm saying is, moreso than being critical of "WoW Clones", do you think we're going to get anything more than HackNSlash or Shootemup Online, or will we perpetually be stuck in that rut? What would you like to see APART from Shootemup and Hacknslash online?

I am aware, however, that there are a few... oddball niche MMOs. Golf games, for example.

Recently I've been pondering exactly where MMORPGs are going to go in the near future. In 2008 we'll be getting the proper "next generation" batch of MMOs (WAR, AOC, etc.) which will obviously have some shiny new features and so on and so forth.

So far we've seen that WAR is at least trying some new stuff - although how different it will ultimately be from what we have now, I don't know.

At present time, most of what we have pretty much boils down to "Generic Asian Crap", and "WoW clones", with a few exceptions. Now, to be honest I have little problem with this - although I think that the gigantic flood of generic asian crap is detrimental to the genre as a whole, because it introduces nothing new to the mix and it manages to do so in an outstanding mediocre fashion without so much as a pretense of providing a more entertaining experience than "grind grind grind grind grind grind grind".

WoW Clones are also not terrible, but they're bland - the same game with a different face, so to speak. We don't need more of that.

What do you want to see in the next generation or two of MMORPGs? What do you EXPECT to see?

For my part, I would like to see:

* More skill-based systems, less class/level-based systems.

* Death Penalties to continue to be light and friendly, if not nonexistant - perhaps with multiple difficulty levels wherein you can decide precisely what level of "punishment" you wish to receive as a result of dying, ranging from permadeath to equipment/skill loss.

* More depth to character models. I'd like to be able to make them do a lot more than swing a sword - it'd be nice to actually have support built-in for microphones, and for the characters to talk when we talk. Actually, having a purely microphone-based chat system would be neat, albeit impractical.

* Character Customization: I want to look like what I want to look like. I don't want to look like every other guy out there - I want the typical MMO to be like CoH/CoV, where very few people look alike at all.

* Equipment Customization: In the event that the game in question has equipment, I want to be able to tailor it's look quickly and easily. Once more, I don't want to look like the fifty other guys wearing this same model of armor.

* Elimination of Raiding: Raiding should not be a requirement to reach the upper echelons of the game. As a matter of fact...

* Elimination of Combat Emphasis:

As a tabletop gamer, this is something I'd really, really love to see. We may get this eventually with World of Darkness Online - but I don't know. Basically, I don't want to make combat inviable or worthless in any MMORPG - however, I do not want it to be super-emphasized. Eventually, yes, one will have to fight - but one should also have other options.

In this regard I propose that combat itself not give you experience - instead, in the future MMO, accomplishing tasks/quests is what should give you the actual experience, and the manner in which you do it should determine your reward in experience, and in other matters.

So let's say you're assigned to remove a problem of some sort. You COULD go and kill the individual/organization you are being asked to remove. You could also intimidate them into leaving, destroy their business (if applicable) through politicking, terrorize their clients (if applicable), or warn them that if they don't get out of town or go into hiding in some manner, they're going to be sleeping with the sharks.

How you go about this quest depends on the end result and your reward. If you single-handedly kill off a mob organization, you would of course get experience... and most likely make enemies, and become somewhat famous.

This would result in other mob organizations hiring you, or wanting to get rid of you. Maybe you intimidated the mob organization into leaving - but maybe they only went underground while plotting a way to get rid of you and the person you're working for.

Perhaps you bribed them - or warned them, even! Well, then. You know who to go in order to get favors, information, or they might even be indebted to you - something that could come in handy later.

All these options provide experience and would be successful completions of the task, but how you go about it should determine what side-benefits you get - if any. And hey, you might make enemies along the way.

* Game-Wide Changes:

The players are the kings of the game - if the game is based off of Vampire: The Masquerade, a pl