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Originally posted by LynxJSA

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Originally posted by JB47394
That's an interesting view of the topic. Unfortunately, the fundamental idea behind RMT is that people care enough about some game change to pay money for it. If there are players who care, then there will be players who care and who don't have the money. They will feel at a disadvantage, feel slighted or feel that they aren't experiencing the whole game.

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But isn't that more of a problem with a player palying a game they probably shouldn't be playing than a problem with RMT? If I'm not willing/able to spend money at a casino, I don't go to a casino. That doesn't make gambling for money bad and it definitely doesn't mean that others shouldn't be able to enjoy it if they can afford to or want to.

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The casino analogy is confused. The equivalent in a casino is showing up and buying extra aces that you can use as you see fit. Despite the fact that casino games are all about the money, players don't circumvent the rules of the games by spending money. Players are expected to accept the cards that they are dealt by an independent dealer. They don't buy cards. In MMORPGs, players are expected to follow the rules of the game to advance their character. They don't buy those advancements.

But all that is an aside to the fundamental notion that if players are interested enough in something within the game to pay for it, then that something is clearly important to the game. There is no notion of a 'good' purchase because somebody's feathers are going to get ruffled as a result of the purchase. That's not good business, which is the ultimate goal of using these in-game purchases: good business.

Ten cents per hour? When a game comes out that I would actually want to play for more than an hour, I'd definitely go for that. I love the idea that players would get feedback that they are spending inordinate amounts of time in games.

Whether a company could operate on ten cents per hour is another question. Getting $15 subscription payments from players who only show up occasionally sounds like a great deal for a publisher. Also, it would tend to mean that servers would not operate 24/7. They would operate when sufficient players were typically online to support the cost of the infrastructure. Lastly, it would tend to encourage publishers to pack as many players onto a server as possible to get the most bang for the buck out of their infrastructure.

It would be interesting. Perhaps Aion will tell us how it can work.

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Originally posted by Axehilt

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I have largely the same expectations as Axehilt. If I was in the industry, I'd be doing my job 99.9% of the time and would read a forum post or blog article when somebody brought it to my attention. There is very little innovation to be found on MMORPG.com.

If I wanted to understand what players wanted, I'd be looking at the way existing games were being received and played and at surveys and polls that had been conducted through the years.

Other than that, I know that there are a few places on the web where the 'names' in the industry get together to talk about this or that. TerraNova is one. The MUD-Dev mailing list was another. I'm sure they visit those because it is a way of staying in touch with their peers, new and old.

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Originally posted by Zlayer77
HAHAHA in the end you are buying AIR/nothing you are spending money to buy NOTHING.... virtual gods have no lasting value, Its like selling sand to the Arabs.

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You are paying for the opportunity to sit in front of a computer and press buttons. There are quite a few people who would think that you're a few arrows shy of a full quiver if you do that.

Just because you don't see value in something doesn't mean that others cannot. As the saying goes, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". You see value in moving a cartoon image around on a computer screen. Others don't.

Which of the two of you lives a healthier life is a separate debate. You certainly didn't win any points for computer gamers with your post.

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Originally posted by Magnum2103
There is good RMT, acceptable RMT, and terrible RMT.

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That's an interesting view of the topic. Unfortunately, the fundamental idea behind RMT is that people care enough about some game change to pay money for it. If there are players who care, then there will be players who care and who don't have the money. They will feel at a disadvantage, feel slighted or feel that they aren't experiencing the whole game. If players didn't care one way or the other, then the game changes would likely never be paid for. It is the fact that players care enough to pay that makes RMT impractical for changes to a player's game experience.

The only situation that I can see additional payments working is when the payments are for services that are outside of the game experience itself. Moving a character between servers, ordering a physical model of your character with its equipment and so on.

The distinction between being 'in game' and 'out of game' is entirely one of player perceptions. That's why changing a character's race might be an acceptable purchase, while getting a blue hat might not be.

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Originally posted by Darth_Osor
As to the point of the thread, I think "hardcore" gamers should be ignored.  You can never please these people, so why even try?

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Game companies find it invaluable to keep those people around if they want to get the free marketing - the buzz - that the hardcore generate. They're the ones who zealously defend the game in forums, blog about their experiences online and tell friends and family ad nauseum. They are the source of game buzz that permits a lot of people to find out about the game in the first place.

They also happen to be the ones who kill games because they are annoyed by the things that the publisher does with the game. How many games died ignominious deaths after a design change that alienated the hardcore community? Would World of Warcraft exist without so many zealous players behaving like the game was a very important thing in people's lives? You can't buy marketing like that.

That said, I have no interest in catering to people who have extreme enthusiasm for games. "Moderation in all things."

I don't want twitch combat in my MMO experience. Twitch combat can be fun, but I burn out on it after a fairly short time.

If anything, I want to go in the other direction. I want to slow down combat so that I can see every detail of what's happening and really savor the action. Half speed medieval combat where the players control the movement of the characters a la Euphoria/Endorphin technology. It turns combat into a lethal dance, and every nuance of a battle can be etched in your memory because you can see it all happen at a pace that lets you understand what's going on. When everyone can keep up with the pace of combat, everyone can participate and make it interesting. Instead of players needing lighting reflexes to block a sword blow with a shield, anyone can do that block - if they've been dancing the dance well enough. If their body is turning the wrong way, or they lowered their shield as part of another move, they'll be unable to get the shield into place. They'll need to parry, dodge or just accept the fact that the sword is going to intersect their body.

It's 10 years out, but that's what I want to see.

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Originally posted by Loke666
As I see it, they should not raise the level cap.

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Hear hear.

That's the first step that I'd like them to take.

The next step is to eliminate leveling. Retain achievement, but eliminate it as the lifeblood of the game experience. Give players a reason for playing the game that is not focused on power accrual. Once that's done, new content can be tossed into the game and all players will be able to work towards it immediately and experience it.

Rather obviously, that's a different game.

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Originally posted by JGMIII
Im starting to regret putting this thread up, Even with majority of people agreeing with me some of you are just not built to handle even a little resistance in your game play.

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You say that as if it was a character flaw. MMOs aren't about "handling" anything. They are about seeking out entertainment. The greater portion of the MMO player population prefers to cooperate with other players instead of fighting against them. In fact, given the current crop of games, MMO players seem to prefer to completely ignore other players as they pursue their next personal goal.

If other players are anything like me, when they want to fight against other people, they go where they know there's a fight on all the time - FPS games. I find it a far more entertaining way to fight because I'm ready for a fair fight and I can get one. And I find the fights more entertaining than in any MMO I've played.

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Originally posted by Orthedos
The key difference between EQ and WoW, is that it takes a lot of effort to get a group going, and an even greater effort to fight the way into a camp.  Once inside a camp, it is very hard to get out, no kidding.

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Agreed. Good summary of an important distinction. EverQuest imposed commitment on the players while World of Warcraft lets players be as fickle as they care to be.

Something that you didn't touch on is that both games place great emphasis on personal goals. It develops an attitude of "I'm only grouping with people because it advances my personal goals." In EverQuest, I had to group if I wanted to pursue my goals, and once grouped I was really locked in. In World of Warcraft, I really don't have to group because I can pursue my goals solo. I don't need a group.

I wonder if the solution isn't to switch from personal goals to community goals. It develops a sense of "we're all in this together". Dark Age of Camelot did a bit of that with its realm versus realm stuff. Players there always viewed realm members as someone that they worked with. They might do nothing more than give them an update on what's happening, or they might group up for mutual defense or mutual attack.

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Originally posted by JGMIII
I never understood why developers would speed up leveling.

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For reasons of socialization. It's a multiplayer game, yet levels stratify the player population. Players want to play with other players, but after a while most players end up with their characters grouped somewhere near or at maximum level. Developers introduce expansions for the players near or at maximum level. That's where all the content comes in. New players want to join in on all the things that the other players are doing. So they want to level up quickly and join in.

I predict that in five or ten years somebody is going to eloquently point out how stupid the current formula is and everyone is going to declare that person a genius for "figuring out how the industry had gone wrong".

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Originally posted by jimsmith08
This is the thing, there is no risk in a game, its impossible. How can a game have 'risk'?

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The risk is not based on the fiction of the character, such as dying. The risk is based on the reality of the player, such as losing a level (a time investment). Or losing all your gear in full loot PvP encounters.

There is real risk in EVE Online. You might spend 100 hours going through all the work needed to build up a ship a certain way. Go into battle and you're risking that ship. That's 100 hours of your life. Not everyone wants to repeat that 100 hour process to get the ship back. That's what hangs in the balance.

Nobody actually plays that way because it's too risky. The rule in EVE Online is to bring ships to combat that you can afford to lose. People are naturally risk-averse and they do not like to throw away their accomplishments when that is the focus of the game.

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Originally posted by hinge645
Safe zones are not needed. What is needed is a self policing system where you are free to attack whoever you want but there are consequences. Even a ganker will think twice about killing people in cities if the result of doing so is themselves getting swarmed by elite guards every time they enter said city.

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EVE Online has the elite guards in the expansive high security areas. Attack someone that you don't have the right to attack and you are immediately set upon by guards. That's why people sometimes put quotes around the phrase "safe zones"; they're not perfectly safe. You can be ganked at any time.

The system you're talking about has many supporters and it has been debated long and hard through the years - but nobody has been able to make it work as far as I know. The side effects and complexities always kill it.

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Originally posted by Neanderthal
This is why a certain amount of recovery time isn't such a bad thing.  If you have to stop fighting once in a while to rest up for a minute it lets you catch your breath, look around, talk to your group, and not feel so much like you are racing through everything.

[...]

And if you couple longer fights with possible exhastion of mana/energy/stamina or whatever so that players needed to manage their resources better it would make people think a little more and be a little more carefull. And maybe even communicate with each other a little more.

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I'm not a fan of forced downtime. Let the players choose when they take a break. Part of that is the requirement that the game design must give the players opportunities for breaks, both at the level of game mechanics as well as socially. Perhaps clearly, I don't consider forced downtime a viable game mechanic towards that end.

I recall many times in EverQuest where trying to exit a group gracefully just took forever. Leaving a group without a key function provided by my character could spell the end of the evening for all concerned. Not to mention trying to get out of the dungeon that we were in without dying.

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Originally posted by Neanderthal
Also, slower paced combat would help alleviate this problem.  If it took longer to kill each thing and the fights were a little less spamtastic and a little more tactical it would help.

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Hear hear.

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Originally posted by Neanderthal
When I was reading the OP the game that came to mind for me was Guild Wars.  I started that game years after it first came out so when I grouped with people for missions it was almost always a mad dash through to complete the mission as fast as possible.

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I got into a habit of returning to MMOs every now and again after locating my old guild. Naturally, as soon as I showed up with a level 1 character, they would run me through everything so that I could get close to their level as quickly as possible.

When I got to World of Warcraft, they didn't do that (they were busy raiding) and I was able to enjoy the game at my own pace. I rarely grouped.

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Originally posted by Neanderthal
I just spammed my own attacks in the midst of the general chaos and then, "oh crap we're moving again" and run up to the next batch of mobs to kill.

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That was my City of Heroes experience.

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Originally posted by Neanderthal
I remember one mission towards the end of the prophocies campaign that I must have run about 40 times and couldn't beat it because nobody I grouped with would ever just STOP AND TALK for a minute before rushing blindly into the action.

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Deja vu :)

[A fellow Neanderthal]

That entire post could be talking about just about any creative effort. I can well imagine that this has been the litany of countless authors and designers through the generations when the great work that they had prepared with great effort for the consumption of others was folded, spindled, mutilated and rejected by the very people who were expected to praise it. They turn cynical and tell others to give up - as they intend to do themselves.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, learn from your experience and try again. You have been handed many lessons by your first effort. You can either learn from them or waste the experience and give up.

Races: World of Warcraft gets the nod here because of the personalities of the races and their starting areas. However, my preference is to have no racial divisions. If differentiation between groups is needed, use something more superficial to indicate it.

Classes: World of Warcraft again because they cover a solid range of basic archetypes. As with races, my preference is to have no classes. I don't care for the now-standard formula of leveling a character through a given class structure.

Professions: EVE Online, A Tale in the Desert. EVE Online makes many professions practical, including hauling, mining, manufacturing, spying, protection, etc. A Tale in the Desert gets a mention because of the implementation of the professions such that the involve player skill. Charcoal manufacture, gem crafting, blacksmithing, etc. EVE Online doesn't include enough player skill in the practice of the various skills. Particularly asteroid mining, which was an area I really wanted to delve into. Unfortunately, there's nothing to delve.

Quests: World of Warcraft, PvP titles. For me, "quests" are just "things to do". World of Warcraft is the best at PvE prepared quests, but PvP titles excel at motivating players to do things. I'm a PvE player at heart, and I want to see a PvE title with clear motivations for players such that they don't ask an NPC what random thing to do. I want players to look at the world and see a need that they can fill. That's what PvP titles do.

Advancement: EVE Online. Advancement in EVE Online is more nebulous because there isn't an obvious scale that everyone can compare themselves on. There are accomplishments to be found in the game, and that's the way a game should operate. People vie for wealth, collect many different ship types, rise to the top of a corporation, visit more of the world, build their own hauling business, etc. EVE Online still suffers from achievement grinds that serve as content gates, and I'd like to see a game that can simply give players interesting things to do. No content gates, no "achieve this before doing anything in that space".

Environment: Lord of the Rings Online. The graphics are going to continue to get better with each generation of games. Sadly, the graphics are getting better much faster than the gameplay. I favored Lord of the Rings Online because of the light fantasy presentation. So many games go with dark palettes, and they attempt realism in some facets of their artwork while other facets fall well short. The result is a jarring clash.

Story: None. For my PvE gameplay, story is of no consequence. I look forward to the day when a PvE title actually has a living, breathing environment where there is a story to be watched and that has an impact on my gameplay. "Look, there's that band of orcs that the bad guy sent to attack the town." We had reports that they were coming and sure enough they're here. We spent some time preparing for them and should be able to defeat them. We just have to hope that we didn't miss anything important.

Rulesets: EVE Online. It has the best overall gameplay experience as a result of its rules. It produces interesting gameplay, provides for professions, supports an active economy and lets players pursue a variety of goals. It's not perfect, but at least it gets off the rails of the stock fantasy MMO formula of class and level.

Here's the blog article I wrote on the topic. Vajuras links to his blog in the comments, and that blog in turn links to Tobold's writings on it all.

The gist of my article is that levels stratify a population such that its members cannot interact with each other. It is a crippling limitation in a massively multiplayer environment. Levels are a personal achievement that motivates players to pursue their own agendas. Games with group achievements (such as EVE Online's potential for galactic domination) motivate players to pursue community agendas. Levels have no place in a multiplayer setting.

Your complaints against levels run a bit counter to my own intuitions and reasoning.

Leveling systems don't reduce player populations, but they sure do stratify them. It is the stratification that is the number one flaw to the use of leveling. Player characters fall behind and the player loses his social group. Player characters race ahead and again lose the original social group. Meet someone at random who is not the right level and again, you are simply not in the same social group.

Leveling systems don't result in large server populations. Marketing hype produces that. Hype on day one draws a big crowd, then the crowd fades when they find that the game isn't The Next Big Thing, leaving a bunch of servers at half population. That would be a problem with or without levels.

Leveling systems do not reduce content. Leveling systems ARE content. If you don't like that content, that's your business. I don't like it either, but it's definitely content. It is the backbone of the game structure.

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Originally posted by paulscott
The problem with having staff employee interaction is that no matter what you do(even if it's nothing besides forum chat) you'll eventually be seen as favoritsing one group or another.

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And that favoritism is only significant when the groups involved place significant emphasis on their in-game accomplishments and goals. When runners are in the middle of a marathon, you don't start changing the conditions of the race. They set their expectations according to the rules when they started.

If employee involvement is going to work, lighten up the entertainment to the point where players are only looking to experience what the game has to offer. Regular involvement of employees will be welcomed because it will mean that something new and different is going to be in effect. Those changes won't endanger the players' accomplishments and goals because the players won't have set the expectation that they can pursue those goals. At least not with a fixed set of rules. Rather, the employee changes will just make the game a little different.

That's a game for explorers, not achievers.

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Originally posted by JGMIII

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The answer to all of your questions is simple:

People don't see life the way that you do.

They don't look to MMOs the same way that you do. They don't look to them for the same sense of reward, thrill, satisfaction or fulfillment that you do. In fact, they may only be in the game in the first place for a sense of socialization with people that they find different and intriguing. The social element is a huge motivator.

Players don't lack imagination and motivation. They simply don't turn to MMOs to give vent to it. They put it into their family, their other hobbies, their job, their faith, whatever. MMOs might well be where they go so that they don't have to use their imagination and motivation.

The question to you in return is whether you ever did anything half-way in your life? Job, relationships, hobbies? If you have, then you're clearly a member of the human race because very few people do everything in their lives with full imagination and motivation. People pick and choose. Just like you do.

The extremists always rant at the rest of the crowd for their lack of dedication to The Cause.

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Originally posted by Repulsion
You say that you want action slowed down, but I don't see our thoughts as far away from each other as you'd think.

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I don't see us as all that distant. I believe that the combat should be the dance that you proceed to describe, but I believe it needs to happen at a slower pace than real time. That pace will be determined by how quickly the average player can use the interface to indicate the next action they want their character to take.

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Originally posted by Repulsion
When player's are struck, they are temporarily paused (thanks left for dead common horde) and must make a decision.

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I believe I see what you're after, with the game progressing from state to state in combat, and each state is a certain type of contact between characters. It's an interesting approach. I'd have to spend a little time thinking about how it would work with a network of connections between characters. That is, A and B are hitting C which is hitting D.

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Originally posted by Repulsion
I'm not sure that I understand your wanting to visually slow things down. We aren't producing movies, we are trying to produce movies, we are trying to kill eachother. I, for one, enjoy fast paced games as long as they provide that necessary depth to allow you to be strategic.

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The visual slowdown was not included for dramatic purposes. It is entirely a practical issue: players need to see what's going on in order to make decisions. That's why I mentioned the director's goal of communicating that very thing - he wants the viewer to know what's going on. In a movie, the viewer makes mental decisions that the hero should do this or that, heightening the tension. In a game, the player makes decisions and then implements them.
 

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Originally posted by Repulsion
I do agree with your "community goals" statement. I am definitely a promoter of player control, whether it be creating cities or raising your own faction to wage war

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The major caveat for me is that the gamemaster retain control. The players don't drive the game world. They operate within it. It is the job of the gamemaster to ensure that the entire player base is given interesting things to do.

MMOs started out by giving players a variety of simple tasks to perform. That's not good enough anymore. The gamemasters should be starting to move the gears of the game world so that it is no longer static and repeatable, but dynamic and accessible. The same style of experience will be available, but not the exact same experience.

Instead of 1000 players running the quest that's next on their personal quest chain, there is a branching chain of global quests that everyone is working on.

We need to find the hill tribes, then use diplomacy with them to gain access to their knowledge. Meanwhile, we're taming plains horses so that we can use them to ride against the plains orcs that ride wargs. The plains orcs stand in the way of reaching the imperiled town at the base of the mountains and the orcs are harassing us constantly anyway. We know that the people in the town have crafters that make a variety of mountaineering equipment that will help us move through the mountains.

This is similar to the way EVE Online operates. In that game, players know that their alliance or their corporation has goals. They help out with those goals either singly, in groups or even in large fleets at the appropriate time. One may help out financially, another materially, another politically, and so on.

Take that mindset and use it in PvE. Now the players are part of one vast alliance against the gamemasters and their monsters. The gamemasters are providing the goals, and the players decide how they're going to tackle them.

Such an experience is probably 10 years out because of the problems of bringing so many players into the same encounter space. It's impossible to have an army of 1000 attacking the same castle given current MMO designs. Even when they're spread all around the castle and its surrounding environs. It's probably why MMOs are so bad at community - they can't let lots of players interact.

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Originally posted by Repulsion
But I also think that players should be playing a game because it's enjoyable, just because an "MMO" has a lot of people in the same world, doesn't necessarily mean that we require in-depth community interaction.

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To continue, in-depth community interaction isn't the only way for large groups of people to come together in an MMO. "Community goals" can be as simple as having a common enemy. I'll tackle that enemy my way and you do it your way. EVE Online alliance members can interact as superficially or as in-depth as they care to, but at least they have a starting point for beginning any interaction.