I think the problem is exactly quests and the endgame.

Games are being designed so the lvl'ing is _only_ quests until you get to an endgame which is probably boring and repetitive. This makes the gameworlds shallow and empty, they are like stages, going through the motion areas and there really isn't any point or goal to anything you do except to get to the "endgame".

Now if the gameworld itself were a living breathing space with many different activities possible and many small goals to reach on the way then the road itself, the lvl'ing game becomes interesting and fascinating. But it means the developers now have to actually think about their game and not just make a static background scene and then endless similar quests.

Games have slowly moved away from actually being interactive spaces and towards static places without any dept real content apart from quests and that is why once you have tried it enough the thing that actually make MMOs worth playing rather than single player rpgs is gone.

For example the Kotor games and Fallout offers far better gameworld experience than most MMOs these days. MMOs should drive for an interactive enviroment where interacting with other players too is the drive and they seemed to have forgotten that in many development houses.

Fortunately there are still good games being made, you just have to find them yourself.

Game offers an open world to play in and it rewards you for doing stuff, not just doing quests.

For example completing a quest typically give a reward similar to 3 to 5 kill or 2-3 good crafting nodes or 1 medium difficulty completed crafting (a large crafting project like a car will give you XP equaling up to 15 quests).

Compare that to CO where a 5-10 min quest equal 3-400 mobs killed, same numbers in AoC.

You can improve yourself simply by interaction with your enviroment in a fashion you like and that is the kind of freedom that attracts me to this game so much. Also you really have a choice in how you design your character, there are many different ways to make a char so many in fact that even a 1.5 month after release there is no cookie cutter builds appearing at all, not even suggestions.

  Remember that yes you only have 9 skills at start, but that wont last. From S2+ you begin to get access to all the mutation skills and then you never ever have enough APs.

Only thing that bugs me a little is levels themselves, the levels only changes caps on skills and stats so I can't really see why they were necessary, those caps could have been implemented differently.

The game also restrict players, but in a good way. The game create freedom but avoid chaos. There is FFA PvP in the PvP areas but if you don't want to PvP you can just avoid those areas (getting increasingly difficult at higher lvls though). This mean you avoid random ganking and only have PvP when people seek out PvP and that is a VERY VERY wise design decision, FFA PvP generally only attract the worst gamers out there. 

  The same about player looting, thank god its not there. This is a feature wanted by people who want to hurt others in PvP and not just have a good match. Its often the same players who love FFA PvP everywhere so they can annoy and gank people who can't defend themselves and then its an increased bonus for them to loot the people they have cowardly ganked. So no fun for those ****holes in this game and be thankful for that. As an old anti ganker in daoc I have a strong hate for people who like to gank "greys", they are scum and don't deserve to even play MMOs. FE denies them their petty fun and that is a big + for the game.

  Last housing, the world is an empty wasteland with ruined towns spread out. It would totally destroy the mood to have houses build at random points. Instead do like we plan to do in my guild. Select a PvP town and decide "that one is going to be ours permanently!"

All in all FE has found the great middle way. They have created a game with freedom of choice and a living open game world, with serious PvP goals and battle objectives, yet they have avoided the elements that make "pure" themeparks so unpopular like FFA ganking, player looting and to a lesser degree random houses spread over a pristine landscape.

Originally posted by Marcus- 

I feel the same way about PvE   :)

 

MMOs where have to PvE to level, get the best gear, and/or enjoy all end content of the game...bleh. They already start on the wrong foot, not that I won't try them, but...

Sound like APB would be the perfect game for you. All missions, all the gameplay is PvP, there is no pure PvE in the game.

Best PvP is when its both integrated into the overall game and yet kept separate.

First you need to set in a reason to PvP that don't reward random ganking but reward completing PvP goals like taking territory and have your entire side gain from that. That also mean you need to have real sides or factions. Guild vs. guild wont cut it and two sided warfare wont do either, you need at least 3 factions.

You physically separate PvP areas and PvE areas, people who enter into a PvP area knows the risk and know it was their own choice to do so. But the PvP goals should affect everyone in a side so you promote faction spirit, all in the boat together and all benefit or lose depending on your sides success. But DO NOT have PvE results affect PvP that will kill anything you have to do promote a faction warfare.

Then you need to make sure that you never lose anything seriously by loosing PvP, big pvp fights are too random to make player looting fair. You do implement a PvP reward system though and it should NOT be items! Special abilities is the key here.

Then you need to make sure that the melee and ranged mechanics don't favor one over the other. For example melee should always be instant  with cooldowns in order to make it viable against moving targets and ranged should always be build up time to effect to make up for the advantage range gives. This is for target lock on systems like WoW, daoc, Aion. In FPS systems you no longer need this because the direct aiming makes ranged much more challenging (still need instant melee though).

Avoid invisibility type stealth like the plague, it promotes a very bad way of playing. Do like they do in FE where your "stealth" skill only make it harder to spot you on the game radar but you still have to really hide from other players.

To the OP: What do you like in a MMO and what genres interest you? Once we know that we can maybe give you some qualified answers. :)

The PKs may need the carebears, but the carebears don't need the PKs.

The article is mostly about a PK'er who is understanding that there wont be easy bullying in mortals online because the carebears will never go there since there are like 200 other games they can go to. And the author don't like that thought.

The problem with PK'ers is that most of them don't really want to look for an exiting fight. They want to hurt other people who can't defend themselves. They are in fact just bullies, cowards that don't deserve any satisfaction.

And that is where the author is quite wrong. The anti PK'ers are not looking to bully someone else, they are looking for a real fight! That's what makes them better people than the reds.

Seriously I love the idea that "red" players will be bored to hell even in mortal online because there will be no easy targets to kill. They don't deserve that fun seriously. They deserve to sit down and be whupped by people who really know how to PvP.

I think you should take a look at two titles that have arrived this year, Darkfall and Fallen Earth. Both are games heavy into the sandbox way of playing.

The games that you apparantly seem to like are still being made, they are just a lot more "quiet" than the big themepark games but they are generally doing well. You just have to open your eyes and take a look at what is being made today instead of looking back to the past only.

Haven't tried Aion, mostly because I couldn't stand watching the animation and stances of the toons you saw in the demonstration vids and the more I read about the game I realize its not a game for me.

Played CO for 2 weeks, then ran into the content gap and realized how shallow the game is.

Currently playing FE and is blown away by the sheer size of the gameworld, the depts of the gameworld and the freedom of character customization (in terms of what you can do, not appearance). Also really impressed with how well thought out everything is. The people behind it has been determined to create something more than simply a playground for random quests and dungeons and it shows. Currently in a guild that plans to take and hold a city and make it ours . . . permanently!

Yes get the free ATV, a horse is much cheaper in upkeep but its also very easy to gain in game, while an ATV of the quality of the free one is very very very hard to get.

Originally posted by Morv 

What is FE? I'm curious about it now ;)

Fallen Earth, a post acopalyptic game made by Icarus a small Indy company. Its not anti thempark, it has like 5500 quests in it at launch, the point is just that they have made a gameworld where quests are nice and fun but its not _the_ game and just something you can do to create variation. To take an example in FE a typical quest reward equals maybe the same as killing 3 mobs or find a car to salvage, compare that to AoC or CO where a quest typically equals 3-400 mobs in reward. 

Game is a gem, a rough uncut gem (it has performance problems) but still a gem.

Just be prepared for things taking time . . . . a LOT of time. For example it takes 135 hours of research to learn to make your first Dune Buggy. Now I plan to learn to make diesel engines and learn to make bio diesel because its easier to find plants to make into bio diesel than it is to find petrochemical leftovers from before the fall.

There are still good games being made. I play FE atm and that game has showed me a lot what is wrong with the wow-inspired themepark games in relation to having the games have a social function:

Its the way the world doesn't really reward you for general activities and only quests does so.

The result is that people run around from quest to quest and generally does not interact with each other or the world. WoW started it and everyone else have copied it because its an easy way to lure people into activities without having to really set down and design things well enough for the gameworld to actually be a living place.

Now in FE you can still solo as much as you want, but its not the quests that is your general source of items, xp and money. Its the general gameworld and what you do in interaction with the enviroment that generate the things you need to move on. This combined with the fact that you have to discover for yourself how it works means that people interact with each other in order to act in the enviroment.

You talk to people you meet on the road when you are both looking for some gear out of old cars. You go on and help each other against difficult tasks (game is set so you don't even need to group for completing objectives, you just have to be a part of the process in the place for things to progress) and people constantly ask each other for information about this and that because other players is _the_ source of information about what happens in the game, game doesn't spoon feed you.

And the world is BIG and open, the general map is 100 x 100 km but only about 10% of it is currently decontaminated and habitable, its still about 1000 square km of game area and there is no load screens anywhere and I have seen 1 instance in the entire game.

And Icarus is only one company that moves away from the themepark model atm, the small indy companies are leading the way out of the trap the old big companies are moving themselves into. Another example is APB, its the opposite of everything FE is standing for, its instant action, no lvl'ing and constant combat between players and yet it has the RPG elements of building up your character over time and create something in your gameworld.

We can never return to the old games, any attempt at recreating the past will always end up with a sick result, but its still possible to see good games being created and they are. Just support them if you like them so they will keep on being made.

I would love if most MMOs had the option to either pay monthly subs or pay by the hour and the choice was yours. Then instead of canceling completely a mmo I don't play enough atm to pay for the sub I would instead set it to pay by the hour so I could log in once in a while again to check if I had changed my mood and try it out, without having to pay for a whole month again.

I don't know if there is any economical advantage for the MMO'SP (MMO service providers) in such a model but it would certainly lower the returning barrier to a MMO game.

I would hate to pay by the hour for a MMO i play a lot since it would stress me way too much, better to pay more overall but have as much time as you want. I do the same with my cell phone, substantial fixed amount paid and then free internet and practically free SMS, MMS and talk.

 Darn . . . too late for me. :)

The game is simply good and have dept.

Its not without faults but Icarus is doing the right thing, they don't ignore the faults, they don't ignore player complaints when they happen, they talk to people and they fix stuff people point out or they tell they try to fix it asap.

That has the result that even though the game does have bugs and performance problems, people forgive it since they know that they have a company they feel they can trust and they still have damn good fun while waiting for a fix.

The big companies are too much governed by policies to have the kind of involvement with their player base that generally make the players forgive bad things so even though they might have a more polished product then even small problems will make their players explode.

I also love that they have made a game where you really feel you are in a place and things you achieve have meaning! 

Originally posted by Bsheezy

really thinking about getting this game.  blasted through champions online and i'd like something with a little more meat on it.  so far, this looks to be  bit more of a feast.

Got this game because I waited for them to fix the content gap in CO and a friend recomended it. I haven´'t played CO since. Things here are just better me.

Just be aware that things take time in this game, no instant gratification. On the other hand you are constantly rewarded by with small increases (no big jumps at lvl gains) and the game REALLY rewards you for good planning.

Originally posted by nate1980

Originally posted by Ozmodan

"Rigid Classes"  Yep that is Aion.  That is the problem with this game, few choices.  Why is it players flock to games where they don't have to make choices?  Where is the challenge?  Seems to be the norm when it comes to games coming out of Asia.

 

8 very different class choices is choices. Compare that to Fallen Earth which the community is raving about its skill system, and you only have about 4 real build choices in that game. I'd rather have the 8 classes, than 4 viable skill-based builds.

Even if that were true then you could say I want to be 25% class one, 60% class two and 15% class 3, the choice would be yours.

FE is all about compromise, there is no single build that is uber, every single choice give an advantage or disadvantage. For example I like high damage long range combat with scopes, but it makes me extremely vulnerable to martial artist. I could have gone for shorter range firearms with mobility but I like my personal style of playing.

You see melee people that depend on attack avoidance, melee that depend on psi buffs, melee that depend on toughness, melee/pistol combo users, snipers, gunslingers with veritable gun kata's, weird priestly healers, stout crafters, soldiers types with a ton of armor and heavy weapons and its all available to you through personal choices in how you buy up your skills and stats.

That being said; to the gentleman with the blue letters: Not all people like choice, sometimes it is just comforting to have things prepared for you so you can focus entirely on playing and not worrying about whether or not you make a wise choice. I think we should be happy that the same day two different games came out that in many ways create a wonderful experience for different types of gamers. Both Aion and FEs are great games but they certainly do not cater to the same audience.

I would like to add one little thing: Last night I actually ran out of quests . . . and my reaction was: "Yes more time to do stuff!" not what you usually see in new MMOs "what now?"

The game is deep and its build around you having something to do all the time without HAVING to do quests. You don't just automatically progress, often you have to seek out trainers of specific stuff.

On the other hand you progress constantly, the only things levels does is to increase caps on your abilities ( and a tiny amount of hits) but you constantly gain APs which you use to buy Stats, skills and powers and its up to you to balance how you spend your points, skills give fast easy progression in a single element but stats give expensive but broad increases. Its your choice.

If you have ever played GURPS compared to D&D then you will understand the difference between FE and most new MMOs.

 The difference in success has nothing to do with background lore. Its caused by the difference in quality both of the technical product and in game design.

Mythic got a big success with DaoC, many don't remember but in its day it was the 2nd most popular MMO out there and it went to the heads of the leadership of mythic. The initial game was amazing but it was luck more than skill that got it there and the development team went on and broke more and more of the stuff that made the game good until its quality and popularity waned.

It was only when the lead developers left daoc for WaR that the "reserve" team took over and turned DaoC around so its still a profitable game today.

Seeing how bad the mythic leadership understood what made their own game so good it was no wonder that they had no idea that the entire fundament on how WaR was designed was fundamentaly flawed and created a basically boring game that had no connection between goals and efforts, where you main enemy were the guy next to you, not the guy across the enemy lines (because of the borked reward system) and where the concept "war is everywhere" resulted in a game that felt like cutting down a tree with a herring.

If you were a fan of WW1 trench warfare, or accounting then WaR would have been a good game. Most gamers want action and the feeling that what they do mean something and WaR failed to provide that. Add in that the game itself was poorly made with many of the bugs from early daoc re-emerging and you had a stinker on your hand.

WoW otoh was fairly polished from the start, there were problems with queues and the item servers in the first 6 months but apart from that the game was solid and more importantly it ran like a dream and it was FUN!

Blizard spend years and years to perfec their product and the end result shows, the world was large, VERY content filled and worked.

I think that the most important element of game design these days are skilled leadership and management and a strong vision about what game you want to make and then time enough to finish it. Take Fallen Earth, it also took like forever to develop but the end result is quality and content and a game with its own extremely strong vision about what it should be. It could have been a stinker too but  it seemed to have had good management.

 The Road looked interesting. The others are either too much CGI or too much Macho. Only the road gave me the sense of grittyness and desolation you should get from this genre.

I wonder how many of the badmouthers have actually tried to tweak up their graphic settings, the game automatically starts at low settings no matter how good a rig you got and you have to manually set the settings up to a lvl your computer can handle.

I got a 2.67 Ghz I7 with a GTX 260 card and a 32 bit XP (for 3 weeks more) and still it set my settings to low, but once everything was maxed to 100% and all turned on, all of a sudden you had dynamic shadows playing across persons and any surface, the light was amazing, the visual range much longer than most other MMOs and the details damn!

The only MMO I have ever played that have had better graphics is AoC, anything else is behind FE in quality (and no I haven't played Aion).

Edit: Check out this vid if you badmouth the animations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj6tHgLWMMc