Originally posted by Cerion

Originally posted by Flummoxed

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Any RP minded table-top GM or DM could create a more "fantastic" and unique world that what's being pushed out today.

 

YES!  ABSOLUTELY.  I agree 100%. 

Local Hobby GMs / DMs are FAR MORE SKILLED in creating immersive scenarios and campaigns than the so-called professionals today. 

With the exception of Bioware and a cuople indies, the phony commercial rpg "designers" today are not worth a DAMN.

The so-called professional game designers today aren't fit to stoop down and untie the sandals of the hobby designers.

That can be true...but because I'm anonymous here I can tell you that my GM has become real lazy with the introduction of 4e D&D.  It's as though he's on autopilot.

But yeah...maybe someday Game developers will hire actual writers and game theorists, and not simply programmers who happened to have gotten a few good grades in English, or who taught themselves game design through MUDS (Nothing wrong with MUDS, mind you).

Which is why none of the 3 GM/DM in our group, me being one, will touch 4th ed D&D. A big part of the reason anyway. A nicely complicated system helps foster the imagination. I got my first bad feeling when to-hit-armour-class-0 (THAC0) went the way of the dodo.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Well, being as close to a project as they are has it's good things, and it's bad, for sure. It seems that the relative same circle of folks are making games for one company, then hopping to another company and making more. It would seem to me it would benefit the genre if "newer" or "fresher" eyes were allowed to come in without being under the restrictive gaming degree programs and infuse some different perspective into MMO creation.

 

What you suggest is more perception than reality. New game developers enter the field constantly, however you're probably not going to ever know their names or even that they exist unless they start doing interviews or doing PR stuff. More than likely the cool new features in your favorite MMO were devised or developed by someone unknown to the gamers. 

Developers, big and small, are always looking for new talent.

 

From your 'gaming degree programs' comment, it seems like you feel that it's unfair they would take someone with a degree over someone who doesn't have a degree. That's not how it works, Khal.  The person with a degree has a piece of paper that says some presumably official institution feels this person has reached reasonable competency or better in field X. If you don't have a piece of paper, you need to have something else that you're bringing to the table. Have you made a game? Written a book? A program... of any kind? Built an art porfolio? The guy without the degree isn't at a disadvantage if he really can do the job he is applying for. What he needs to do is bring something that shows he can do it.

Honestly, if you had the following two people in front of you, which would you contact first to interview as your new level designer?

A) A game developer fresh out of college with a game development degree

B) A guy who built a popular mod using the same engine or tools you are using

It's a tough choice. The first probably has a more rounded knowledge of game development but you have no clue what he can actually do. The second has proven what he can do, but he probably has little or no formal education or training in the field.

There's plenty of opportunity out there, but you have to seize it. No one ever got 'discovered' because of their posts on a message board, and i fear that's the path a few aspiring developers are taking. Screw that. Get out there, show what you can do and your chance of doing the job you want will shoot up dramatically.

 

 

 

I'm really only talking about the Game Designer role in Wachter's article, not really the guy/girls that are in the individual groups working on a given system. As I understand it from what was in that article, the Game Designer has a significant if not final say in how the systems will work together. I was looking at that more than how each of the cogs in those systems are lined up.

As far as the gaming degree comments, "unfair" doesn't play any role as far as what I was talking about. I was referencing the point of those degreed folks being in classroom and learning "by the book" methods of putting an MMOs individual systems together. At least that's what it seems to be looking at the recent offerings.

Oh, as as far a the perception/reality thing, perception is reality for the customer. Customer service 101, lol. Preached that for a few years to my phone/email agents when I was in corporate land.

Anyway, some of the other things others in the thread have brought up with respect to gamers being "biased" toward their own playstyle or class/skill preferences are moot to me. I mean that in that it will be fairly easy to look at what they've written and see it isn't and attempt at balance. In such cases, just don't vote for/ pass their offering. I'm quite positive there are a few people out their who can objectively try their best in efforting a balanced offering. Those are the folks I'm talking about, not the people who believe their preference was screwed over or nerfed in game X so in "their" game that make it with significant advantages.

Heh, that may be why you have the degreed "by the book" people who have been trained to look for "unbalance" be part of the team reviewing the entries for that purpose.

How about you? Are there licensed that you think have really hit the nail on the head in delivering on fan expectations? How do you think the licensed games in development will turn out?

I don't think a single one has. As far as the ones in development, I think they'll go the same way as the ones in the past. You may have a significant amount of people show up month one and see that number waste away. Part of this I believe is because the developer just assumes that the player is so intimate with the setting they don't pull out all the stops to recreate the setting. What some folks include in their meaning of "shallow" or "no depth".

Licensed IP's only hope in my opinion is to not try to be a WoW subscription number getter. If they tried to recreate the IPs as Worlds instead of "games", and yes that does mean more sim and less game, then I think they'd attract a fanatical core crowd of people who want to "live" in that world for a long term as opposed to those who are "just playing games" and hopping from new game to new game. It's been my belief that those who care alot about the "lore" of an IP will stick around longer than those who are just looking for the next best version of a mechanic they like, such as crafting or PvP.

Making an IP a world, in my view, will grant "slow but profitable" long term subscription build. I mean, look at how many people go to Star Trek and Star Wars conventions. As any of them if they wanted to live in that universe and I'd bet 9/10 would say yes. When that experienced is cheapend in development, they aren't going to hang around. And "just a game" players aren't either once the next new shiny comes along.

Make the MMO a "world", more sim and less themepark, and you'll have more long term folks than you can shake a stick at, in my not so humble opinion.

I tell you that's probably one of the main reasons I'm fairly burnt out on Fantasy MMOs and most Fantasy RPGs. I am playing Dragon Age, though, and enjoying it. If a company wants my MMO subscription fee for a fantasy MMO they have to get away from the stereotypes of elves, dwarves, orcs and a few other fantasy races.

How about a game where elves were the master crafters and shapers of metal through magic. And Dwarves were a collection of barbaric tribes. And orcs were educated and civilized warrior poets.

Yeah, this ties into my other post about being a Game Designer. Creativity and imagination are frozen in the MMO industry. Any RP minded table-top GM or DM could create a more "fantastic" and unique world that what's being pushed out today.

Originally posted by Jairoe03

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

riginally posted by Tatum

Originally posted by Interesting

And in a certain sense, you can say that PUBLISHERS are taking the place of the actual designers in many opportunities, or limiting their functions.

 

Exactly.  Who is going to fund a risky, "revolutionary" MMORPG?  There's no guaranteed profit there.  They'd rather snag a big IP, churn out a WoW 1.5, and just market it as a "revolutionary" MMORPG.

 

Could you list all the WoW 1.5 games that are wildly successful? 

 

While I agree with all that is quoted above, that's not where I was going with it. Looking at the idea purely from an ignoring the CEO's and investors having champagne wishes and wow dreams as a potential bar, and focus solely on being creative. If I must, let's say Bill Gates approached you and said design an MMO withing the bounds of today's technology. If I like your design document, I'll fund it 100%.

 

Not to burst any bubbles here, but isn't that a little too idealistic? No matter how you go about funding and creating an MMORPG, the idea of money is going to be involved somewhere along those lines whether or not its continuing the project or when investors will get a return on their money (if I was Bill, I'm going to wonder when my money is going to come back). The only way I can see the more creative ideas within MMORPG's is through independent companies with people that are passionate about the industry and their game as a whole. A person with money is going to worry more about keeping their money/making money immediately than the possibility of getting a return over a long period of time (which is where MMORPG's truly pay off, but people in general tend to be shortsighted IMO more often than not).

 

You're not bursting any bubbles here. And I didn't say it wasn't idealistic. But if you allow yourself to continue to be stuck in such mire, how will the genre see any true advancement or greater diversity.

Who knows? If you don't get caught up in the "I can't do it because I have no money" aspect of it and have a large influx of structured submissions one of these companies with the money may pick it up and let you run with it. The idea, really, as I stated initially is to get a coordinated effort of collecting the ideas of folks who have been MMO gaming more than a decade now in an attempt to add more creative ideas to the genre and as a result create a more diverse landscape of MMO gaming concept choices.

Da Vinci didn't stop thinking and creating just because he didn't have a wealthy noble backing his efforts at any given time.

Originally posted by comerb

Heh, I've personally wondered myself.  All to often I've read a interview, listened to a Q&A, or have been at a conference where game designers seem out of touch on certain material (in their own game).  Sometime they don't even understand questions about design conflicts that exist in their game that many of the more devout fans could write a thesis on. 

I've honestly come to the conclusion that many of the players understand the game systems better than some of the people who design them.  Perhaps because of their unique perspective, or perhaps because its so much easier to truly dig into the marrow of a hobby as opposed to doing so at a job.

Well, being as close to a project as they are has it's good things, and it's bad, for sure. It seems that the relative same circle of folks are making games for one company, then hopping to another company and making more. It would seem to me it would benefit the genre if "newer" or "fresher" eyes were allowed to come in without being under the restrictive gaming degree programs and infuse some different perspective into MMO creation.

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

See, and I felt the exact opposite. 4th edition read to me (again, I only read the core books, nothing else) to be a giant step away from 2nd or 3rd. Different perspectives, lol. Hey, if you enjoy it, that's cool, I'm happy for you. I'll never buy those books and Wizards lost a measure of respect from me and my group.
 

Ahh, you misread me.  It is a giant step away from 3rd, a smaller step away from 2nd, but it is a lot more like how 1st edition or the like plays than 3rd ever could be (though far more balanced between classes).  Really, one of the biggest advantages though is that it makes the DM's job so much easier (this in fact has zero to do with the content of the PHB in 4th...it's how the DMG and MM are setup).  It's a lot easier to design and plan sessions and modify or make new monsters.  Non-combat stuff is gone over in a better way as well.
 

I thought you were saying that about 1st too but wasn't sure. Again, I'll disagree with that as well. Doesn't mean I'm saying "right or wrong", I just don't believe it does. Course, I had no issue adjusting things as I needed them in 1st through 3rd. I actually think all of those, 2nd in particular, facilitated the non-combat aspects a ton better than 4th.

What can I say? I'm just not a fan of 4th in any way and I've read the books enough to know that I never will be. It promotes too heavily the "roles" mentality or, maybe I should say defines them and I prefer the others that to me give more "wiggle room" so that a "fighter" isn't necessarily always what most people would "assume" them to be, which is a "tank". Or a "cleric" can be made so that it can "tank", "heal" or "dps".

Course, it all depends on the people running and playing the game and while it technically may be possible to do those things in 4th, in my view there isn't the wealth of different ways to do that as there are in the others.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Tatum

Originally posted by Interesting

And in a certain sense, you can say that PUBLISHERS are taking the place of the actual designers in many opportunities, or limiting their functions.

 

Exactly.  Who is going to fund a risky, "revolutionary" MMORPG?  There's no guaranteed profit there.  They'd rather snag a big IP, churn out a WoW 1.5, and just market it as a "revolutionary" MMORPG.

 

Could you list all the WoW 1.5 games that are wildly successful?

 

While I agree with all that is quoted above, that's not where I was going with it. Looking at the idea purely from an ignoring the CEO's and investors having champagne wishes and wow dreams as a potential bar, and focus solely on being creative. If I must, let's say Bill Gates approached you and said design an MMO withing the bounds of today's technology. If I like your design document, I'll fund it 100%.

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by Samkin772

 

Wrong. "Aggro" or "hate" or tanking for that matter was from a time when a mob would attack the first player it would see and never change target. Actually, I was talking about the Holy Trinity itself.  Cleric, Fighters, Wizards, etc.  The players were always trying to accomplish the same things they do in MMO's.  How much the DM allows them to succeed is definitely the difference. 

Players learn to play this metagame and put the toughest character first to take the aggro.When I was a DM, smart mobs attacked whichever suited them. I would never "hold back" since my players would know and it wouldn't be challenging. Hate and aggro come from dumb mobs and is supported by lazy players.  The main challenge for MMO's is to try to duplicate a living, breathing, creative (usually), and adaptive DM with programming.  All games are destined to fail in this to a greater or lesser degree.  IMO the AI controlling mobs is one of the (if not THE) weakest aspect of MMO's when compared to P&P RPG's.  Ironically, EQ and old school DAoC seemed to me to have a pretty decent AI even when compared to later generation MMO's.  Everything from medium sized nukes to healing would draw aggro in those games.  It still didn't come close to the adaptability of a human controller, but it was closer even than everyone's favorite, WoW. 

No sane P&P roleplayer wants to have the fighter tank like in an MMO.  You know what you get if that happens?  A dead fighter.  The enemy will do too much damage too quickly and the cleric can't heal all of that either.  You actually have to have the damage split up to a degree for survival reasons.
 

Yep. When I GM/DM, if the party tries to march a Fighter out front I'll either have an add or 2 show up from the sides or behind. In the case of using a dragon, I'd never have him act in the "rage" manner talked about above. Any dragon I place against the group would fight intelligently. He'd use his own magic to counter mind effecting spells and the like.

Course, I'm speaking from 3rd edition D&D and before. I have no idea what kind of crap Wizards has done with monsters in 4th. I having seen the core books before they went retail I knew better than to buy 4th ed. IMO Wizards was making a system to translate to a modern day themepark MMO, not a true followup to the table-top RPG gaming system that got them their initial fortunes.

4th largely plays a lot better than it looks.  That said, some people can't get over the looks.  I did make a few house rules to spice things up.  4th REALLY fails in making the players feel like their creativity is a limiting factor, instead it makes players think the rules are a limiting factor (even though the game has a system so the DM can let the players be very creative without it getting unbalanced).  I tried telling everyone they could make up one thematically appropriate power once per encounter, and that helped to an extent.  Still, that's the main problem with 4th.
 

Anyhow, even if a Defender could get all the enemies to just focus on him, he wouldn't want to do that.  4th has a lot more bad guys at once in almost all encounters (and solo monsters are super-nasty), and while players have more HP at low levels, the monsters do enough damage they if they could all gang up on one person then it won't end well.  A good bit of the tactics of the game is making sure they can't do that (though to an extent that handles itself).  We had two defenders (Swordmage and Paladin), a controller (wizard), a "leader" (cleric), and a striker (rogue).  Yeah, the striker dealt a bit more damage, but it wasn't that noticeable most of the time (and against groups the Swordmage and Wizard did the most damage).  Anyhow, even with two "tanks" (and I use the term extremely loosely) they still ran into a health issues during battles, and even with two defenders you still can't make all the enemies just attack them (even if you let the "taunts" force monsters to attack the guy who used them), and again, NOR WOULD YOU WANT TO.  Pretty good example of a combat system that isn't the Holy Trinity but has roles for everyone and plays quite well.

Anyhow, I think 4th is more true to the roots of D&D than 2nd or 3rd was, but it does have that artificial creativity problem (artificial because it exists only in the minds of the players).  Well, and rituals cost too much, but that's easily fixed.

See, and I felt the exact opposite. 4th edition read to me (again, I only read the core books, nothing else) to be a giant step away from 2nd or 3rd. Different perspectives, lol. Hey, if you enjoy it, that's cool, I'm happy for you. I'll never buy those books and Wizards lost a measure of respect from me and my group.

@Loke

Yep, times change, but as long as I still have my old edition books D&D won't for me. Now, I'm not against buying a "newer" edition, but the complete rules rework that Wizards did in my view made 4th edition totally unappealing to me.

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by Samkin772

 

Wrong. "Aggro" or "hate" or tanking for that matter was from a time when a mob would attack the first player it would see and never change target. Actually, I was talking about the Holy Trinity itself.  Cleric, Fighters, Wizards, etc.  The players were always trying to accomplish the same things they do in MMO's.  How much the DM allows them to succeed is definitely the difference. 

Players learn to play this metagame and put the toughest character first to take the aggro.When I was a DM, smart mobs attacked whichever suited them. I would never "hold back" since my players would know and it wouldn't be challenging. Hate and aggro come from dumb mobs and is supported by lazy players.  The main challenge for MMO's is to try to duplicate a living, breathing, creative (usually), and adaptive DM with programming.  All games are destined to fail in this to a greater or lesser degree.  IMO the AI controlling mobs is one of the (if not THE) weakest aspect of MMO's when compared to P&P RPG's.  Ironically, EQ and old school DAoC seemed to me to have a pretty decent AI even when compared to later generation MMO's.  Everything from medium sized nukes to healing would draw aggro in those games.  It still didn't come close to the adaptability of a human controller, but it was closer even than everyone's favorite, WoW. 

No sane P&P roleplayer wants to have the fighter tank like in an MMO.  You know what you get if that happens?  A dead fighter.  The enemy will do too much damage too quickly and the cleric can't heal all of that either.  You actually have to have the damage split up to a degree for survival reasons.
 

Yep. When I GM/DM, if the party tries to march a Fighter out front I'll either have an add or 2 show up from the sides or behind. In the case of using a dragon, I'd never have him act in the "rage" manner talked about above. Any dragon I place against the group would fight intelligently. He'd use his own magic to counter mind effecting spells and the like.

Course, I'm speaking from 3rd edition D&D and before. I have no idea what kind of crap Wizards has done with monsters in 4th. I having seen the core books before they went retail I knew better than to buy 4th ed. IMO Wizards was making a system to translate to a modern day themepark MMO, not a true followup to the table-top RPG gaming system that got them their initial fortunes.

I prefer group. My definition of group is 2-6 people.

Originally posted by paulscott

In the time reading the entries.   You could have written a few of your own designs, and actually gotten the whole team to read the entire document.

True. Where I'm concerned is that these guys/girls coming up with "ideas" and concepts for a game and how they envision a) the types of systems/mechanics in games and b) how those systems work together is lacking for the most part at current. As I hinted at above, I don't think it's on the coding end of the spectrum. I'm not even suggesting things out side of the means of our current technology like virtual reality. The next item I'd look at is that, staying within the means of our current technology, of the creativity and the ability to come up with game systems and then in turn link them together in a deep and logical way. That is where I think the ball is being dropped currently (of course there are other areas, sure, but this is the one I'm focusing on now).

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

My point?

I think it’d be cool to see this happen in the MMO world backed by well to do company. Heck, it doesn’t have to be any of the established MMO companies and could be Colgate or Nike or some other well off company. The reason I’d like to see this is that it seems like there is a deficit of creativity out there. These “Gaming Development Schools” seem to be putting out students with the knowledge of how to make games, but the schools can’t imbibe them with a spark of creativity and cohesion. Or, in worst case, does imbed in them that there is a formula to make X type of game.

What do you think? Would you like to see a contest or two like this? Maybe even having two winners elected, and having the games made and a sort of competition on which sells the most box games in the first month of release or something to that effect.
 

 

The problem there is that ideas are a dime a dozen. It's actually making them work that is worth something. A programmer with solid knowledge of programming is worth a million dipshits with 'design documents.'

 

There's enough tools out there for free or cheap that a person can use to make a game and prove he's a competent game designer. If a person's excuse is that they need a staff of 30 and 2 million dollars in order to prove it, then he falls into the 'dipshit with a design document' category.

 

 

 

 

Most things that mankind have thought up they have done. I don't consider game programming an exception to this. With that in mind it looks to me that there is only a rehashing of a narrow set of ideas with respect to MMO concepts. I guess that is the demon I'm trying to combat.

Originally posted by Eleazaros
...

----------

So how would you request submissions and what criteria would you use to determine which is a better or worse idea?

That would determine how decent your "contest" would be more so than anything else.  A "neat idea" can be pretty worthless unless it's fleshed out enough but too much and who's going to read through the 200+ pages of "proposed ideas" and decide which is worth a second glance or not?

That's a very good question. I guess I'd suggest involving 3 or 4 of the more established MMO gaming sites such as this one have a call for entry submissions. The important part is that at this stage the hundreds of pages document isn't needed. Maybe something along the lines of a 10 to 20 page overview of what the individual had in mind. I'm thinking that a minimum of 10 pages would help pare down or weed out many of the non-serious attempts. The sites could then pick their top 10 and put them up for voting in a manner they felt would be accurate. If there are 4 sites, then the first round "winners" would move onto the next round where all twenty of them would be expected to expand upon their ideas.

I think it would be helpful in creating a format as well as for what is wanted in an entry as far as ideas for mechanics and game world lore and the like. Brief overviews in the first round, expand more in the second and after a like vote which would reduce the entries to 10, that's where the company sponsoring the challenge would step in ad take over reading the entries. It's also in this third round where the participants would be expected to submit around a 400 to 500 page mini-design document outlining their ideas in even greater depth.

I'm confident a company of the size I'm wanting to take up this challenge would have 10 interns or entry level guys that they could have read an entry each, or better yet have them read them all, and then have a pow-wow with the big chief about what they read and make a decision on the final 2.

Originally posted by tro44_1

Originally posted by Drachasor

Originally posted by tro44_1

I agree that Tanking does have role playing logic, but not for the reason you suggest.

What many people seem to confuse, and not realize, is that Tanks create HATE.

In most Tanking MMOs, Hate is also called Threat, because it is basically using the same Mechanic.

Just take a look at it.

They dont call them TAUNTS<------- for nothing right? If I call you a bad name, you will most likely get mad. If you a evil dragon, and in comes a group of humans into your layer, but one of the humans walk up to you, and smacks you with a Shield, and calls you a Pussy, Iam sure you would be pissed, and ready you pwn that human's ars.

Thats call Hate. And iam sure you have also heard that Term before.

DPS and HEALER ----> causes Threat.

TANKS----> Cause Hate.

Also some classes that tank, have lore abilities that also explain why they can cause so much hate.

For example in WoW (since I like WoW's Alliance [excluding Draenie] Paladin lore) the Paladins have Mental Powers. Which allows them to magically effect enemies' emotional hatred towards the Holy Warrior. Now if something extremely hated ya, Iam sure it would lash out at you.

And that still requires the enemy to be an emotional moron to work.  Might make sense with mooks and guys that are dumb in Lore, but anyone who is remotely intelligent is going to ignore the pithy crap the tank is doing to try to get hate.  It's a poor warrior that lets emotions cloud his judgment.  And "lore" reasons for abilities that can never be resisted or avoid is pretty weak justification for magically manipulating someone into attacking you to the point that it dies because that's just how bad a tactic focusing on you is.
 

Really, any attempt to try to justify HT beyond a kludge primitive games that couldn't have collision detection use is pretty doomed to fail, imho.

This is to you and the Guy/Lady with the K name above.
 

In WoW they have a Mechanic called Rage. Why is it called Rage? Isnt Rage a emotion?

See where Iam going with this yet?

The Dragon would have Emotions. Some Monsters are less Emotional then others yes, but thats when mechanics like mobs being Un-Tauntable, comes into the picture.

And some mobs can randomly Target players, which repesents the idea of tactical targeting, but again, the Emotional side is still in play.

Its not Dumb, as you both seem to be putting it.

If a group of mobs come into your mob's space, and starts dishing it out between one another, iam sure both mobs will be targeting the leaders.

In our tanking situations, the leaders are always they Tanks. (Lore wise I mean. Look up the word Paladin for example. In wows Lore, Armored Warriors have always lead the Allience and Horde in battle) These leaders are a tactical target, and a emotional hated target.

You seem to only be able to talk about WoW and to not have any experience with gaming (table-top or MMO) outside of that. For you, WoW seems to be the only way but of course if that's all you know, well, it makes sense. The only thing I can tell you is that there are many other ways of doing it, many that were in existence long before the tank/healer/DPS trinity.

Speaking for myself, I'm not saying anything is "dumb". I'm also not talking about "rage" and other artifiical mechanics, either. The debate above was a philosophical one about sentience. At least that's where I was speaking from. You, it appears, are talking about wow's game mechanics at face value. So I'll bow out of this back and forth as we aren't talking about the same thing.

Cheers.

Originally posted by tro44_1

Originally posted by disownation

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

Obviously, it's completely devoid of logic. No dragon is going to whomp repeatedly on a heavily armoured dude whose every wound is instantly healed by another dude stood 10ft away. Especially when the second dude is wearing "armour" that offers comparable protection to a paper bag. A thin one. A wet thin one. A wet thin one of inferior quality construction.

 

 

 

Its not completely illogical as you may think. As the "Tank" you are in essence the most "Threatening" in appearence. In an RPG sense, you taunt, boast, and shout to get the dragon's attention and force it to focus on you. Now, from a third person perspective (meaning You - who is watching this from an outside stand point), yes it could seem not so logical. But you forget that you have outside knowlege of the game and its mechanics. Of course you would go for the healers first and ignore the Guy who does the "least amount of damage and can soak an amazing amount of health). The "Dragon" you are fighting does not. He is merely "acting" within the games mechanics.

 

If you were to think of this in an RL perspective.
Lets say you and I were to come accross a Grizzley Bear in the Wild. Now, I'm a big guy (6'2 / 280lbs / Muscles Galore). And you're a little skinny guy (but with a spear). I'm fairly certain I could taunt and shout and keep that Bear's attention on me while you sneak up behind him and stab him. If he turns to you and goes to strike you, I could again grab his attention (maybe even physically grabbing his head and pulling it back to face me) and make him "believe" I am more threatening...because I am bigger, louder, more intimidating and my stance is imposing (my arms are out stretched and I'm raoring up like he is). His focus is going to naturally be on me - because I am the most threatinging being of the two of us. His natural reaction is going to assume that I am who he should focus on for his survival...and not the little guy who has a sharp object that can sever his artery and kill him.

 

See? So its not so illogical after all is it? Hehe.

 

I agree that Tanking does have role playing logic, but not for the reason you suggest.

What many people seem to confuse, and not realize, is that Tanks create HATE.

In most Tanking MMOs, Hate is also called Threat, because it is basically using the same Mechanic.

Just take a look at it.

They dont call them TAUNTS<------- for nothing right? If I call you a bad name, you will most likely get mad. If you a evil dragon, and in comes a group of humans into your layer, but one of the humans walk up to you, and smacks you with a Shield, and calls you a Pussy, Iam sure you would be pissed, and ready you pwn that human's ars.

Thats call Hate. And iam sure you have also heard that Term before.

DPS and HEALER ----> causes Threat.

TANKS----> Cause Hate.

Also some classes that tank, have lore abilities that also explain why they can cause so much hate.

For example in WoW (since I like WoW's Alliance [excluding Draenie] Paladin lore) the Paladins have Mental Powers. Which allows them to magically effect enemies' emotional hatred towards the Holy Warrior. Now if something extremely hated ya, Iam sure it would lash out at you.

And if the dragon was intelligent enough to:

1) understand the language being spoken to him

2) understand the concept of insults and take that into consideration

Then he would most assuredly be well instructed on mages, priests and warriors as well as battlefield tactics and know that the typical role of a priest is to heal others so if I eliminate him, the others won't last long. He would also know that the abilities of a mage can be much more potent than a warrior waving steel around so I need to finish him next.

I guess it depends on your definition of a Dragon. I certainly don't ever portray them as the mindless beasts that some on this thread make them out to be. Having grown up mainly playing against the Dragons in D&D, they aren't mindless automatons. They wield magic, they shapeshift and interact with all other races (especially in the Dragonlance setting). Your argument may better be served by swapping "Dragon" for "mindless beast".

I’m sitting here, another late Sunday night around midnight my time, dreading having to go to bed and wake up tomorrow to go to classes. Sure, I know I only have 2, maybe 3 more semesters and I’m done, but I think it’s just the “idea” of school that bores me to tears. Anyway, I digress.

So I was reading, or I should say re-reading, a few of the recent articles written by the newer guest writers on the site (Wachter, Skelton and Jennings) and I got to Wachter’s “No Programming Required” piece. (By the way, it’d be nice if Wachter and Skelton dropped into the pits with us more to discuss the articles they’ve written more often. I don’t expect them to live on the forums like we do, maintaining that “human touch” with your reader base probably keeps them more interested in what you have to say.)

The part of the article that grabbed my attention the most was the description of the”Game Designer”. Reading it I thought:

1) Rules Lawyer meets Seasoned GM…

And

2) Hey, I could do that, I’ve been doing it for years!

Ok, and just to clarify by Rules Lawyer I mean creating and improvising rules to fit whatever gaming I was involved with at the time. I don’t mean the guy that has committed to memory every rules system of a given table-top RPG and proceeds to tell everyone, even the GM, that they are doing this or that wrong. Other players hate that guy and GMs tend to pass out random heart attacks to the twit.

The more I sat here and thought about it, the more I came to believe that yes, I could indeed do that job. Well, writing the Design Documentation, mapping out the various systems and how they would interact. I may have to assassinate a CEO or two as well as a whole host of nosy investors, but them’s the perks, right?

Then I got to thinking about Eberron. I’m not sure if many of you followed Wizards at that time but Eberron was the result of a contest that Wizards had in which the community was charged with coming up with a campaign setting to submit to Wizards and the winner would be made into an official D&D setting. I thought that was a pretty neat idea.

My point?

I think it’d be cool to see this happen in the MMO world backed by well to do company. Heck, it doesn’t have to be any of the established MMO companies and could be Colgate or Nike or some other well off company. The reason I’d like to see this is that it seems like there is a deficit of creativity out there. These “Gaming Development Schools” seem to be putting out students with the knowledge of how to make games, but the schools can’t imbibe them with a spark of creativity and cohesion. Or, in worst case, does imbed in them that there is a formula to make X type of game.

What do you think? Would you like to see a contest or two like this? Maybe even having two winners elected, and having the games made and a sort of competition on which sells the most box games in the first month of release or something to that effect.
 

Originally posted by Quirhid

I don't see the removal of healer as a solution to this. A game without a healer could still be made with aggro/hate which in essence causes tanking. There would still be tank and dd. Why the hell there is tanking? AI->no lame aggro systems->no tanks->no trinity. All this talk that even modern armies have "tanks" is bullcrap. Sure they have tanks as in heavily armored vehicles with weapon systems mounted on them, but do soldiers shoot them with little to no effect rather than the squishy infantry beside them? -No. Those who do won't live to spread their seed. Evolution makes sure they die of their stupidity.

Yeah, we do. 1 or 2 soldiers will engage them with shoulder fired AT4s while the rest of the team engages the "squishy infantry".

I agree that the talk of modern armies really doesn't have a place in this argument as, well, the majority here have no flipping idea of what they are talking about. What most of them here "learned" by playing Call of Duty and Battlefield has no accurate bearing on what happens in the real world.

Originally posted by Kyleran

They haven't made a decent new virtual "world" in many years, all we get these days are rehashed "games" of what we're all done a dozen times before.   Last game to provide me a sense of wonder was EVE, because it was so radically different from other games so I've really enjoyed it.

The feeling can be recaptured, but it will take some revolutionary game design to pull it off.

Don't get your hopes us though, right now most developers are chasing Blizzard and the pursuit of the casual gamer who generally isn't interested in putting time in a virtual world.  

 

Hit the proverbial nail on the head with a 100 kilo-ton nuclear ICBM.

Originally posted by Demz2

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Ruyn

I have seen someone else use this analogy:

Sandbox is like you are in a movie, themepark is like you are watching a movie.  Both have entertainment value.

 

Such a terrible analogy though.

Even in Call of Duty you're not watching a movie - the outcome is directly impacted by how you play the game.  The most Themepark MMORPG is so much more choice-driven than any COD game that the idea that themeparks are like movies is preposterous.

That's why I describe a line, of all the possible amounts of player choice in an activity, from none (watching movies) to total freedom (creating art.)  Even the most themepark of MMORPGs fall near the center of the line; more towards freedom actually when you consider how many different choices you actually end up making.  Sure, sandbox games are even further down the line towards total freedom, but themepark are hardly devoid of choices...

 

Themeparks are content to let you craft a metal or wood cup and make no further effort at details beyond "yes you can". Sandboxes let you do that, but give you 10 different types of wood and 10 different types metal and allow for making all wood, all metal or combination of both in it's production and each type of wood or metal grants a different beneficial property to the finished cup. Themeparks would only let you drink water out of a cup because, well, what else is a cup for, right? A sandbox would let you drink water with it, or bash someone over the head with it, or scoop water out of your leaky boat with it, or a host of other things.

 

Last time I checkd im sure my mining pick axe wasnt only for mining ore, im sure  i cna equip it to kills mobs or go kill other players with it.   Even though it may not be effctive i still can chose to do i.  ure metal and wood analogy is interesting as well, because all that cmes down to if u use different materials to make the cup with different properties it just amounts to a cup with different stats, its like me saying I can make this saronite chest armour in wow, but to get beneficial from this saronite armour i will combine it with titanium bars to make a chest with different stats under a different name.

Yep, and that's the point. Different stats that may be beneficial in different situations. Using the different materials also produces a different aesthetic, too, as a player may not want the cup for functional use but for decoration in their house. Can you hang the mining pick on the wall of your house for decoration (it doesn't matter whether you in particular want to, my point is is it available to others who do want to and would enjoy it)?

I haven't played wow in ages but I'd venture to say that in making your saronite armor there is specific materials that you have to use (and that can't be changed) and there aren't 10+ different types of metals that you can get bars from to give stats like you mention with the titanium bar (are there copper, brass, steel, iron, aluminum, other other metals with names unique to the wow universe?). If there are, then good on wow. But I doubt you have a metal list like this with the associated stats granted for armor made out of a given metal and for weapons made from it as well.

Mind you, I'm not knocking wow. I'm just illustrating the level of choice it gives as in my view a predominantly themepark game versus what I would enjoy in a predominantly sandbox game.