If you enjoy existing games, then playing a repeat of existing games can be fun.  No innovation is required.  In fact, no change is required.

If you don't enjoy existing games, then playing a repeat of existing games won't be fun.  Some change is necessary.  If you consider a swap of Fantasy for Science Fiction with the exact same gameplay as a change, then that can be fun for you.  For other people, it may not be.  If you consider a swap of the Star Wars milieu for Star Trek as a change, then that can be fun for you.  For other people it may not be.  And so on.

Innovation is a catch-phrase for coming up with a change to gameplay that people haven't tried before.  If you've tried everything that MMOs have to offer and you don't find anything there interesting, then having somebody do something innovative is your only hope.

So my answer is that MMOs don't need to be innovative to be fun.  Innovation is just change, and it can produce an albatross as easily as an eagle.

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

 Thats exactly what I am saying.  The plan was to open it to people in the game or whatever but authorities would need a warrant to access it.  They wouldn't need one at all, they would not need to get anyones permission to view it, they could just make an account themselves. 

This is about personal information, not in-game character stats and such.  You can see your personal information and nobody else's.  Name, address, phone number, credit history, etc.  That applies to police, soldiers, your cousin and the President of the United States.  You can't see their personal information and they can't see yours.  The only way your personal information can be obtained without your permission would be through legal process.  I claim that it should require a warrant, but it could be as vague as Probable Cause, however that would be applied.

In a game setting, other people can see whatever in-game information the game allows them to see.  Your character, its possessions, etc.  But a game can't show your identity information to anyone because the game operators don't have it.  As far as they're concerned, you're identity #3958792345.

The goal of the system is to protect your personal information while still allowing you to use internet services such as games, discussion forums, etc.  On top of that, companies can take action against you to the extent they control a given service.  If a forum operator is upset with your antics, they ban you.  They don't know who you are, but they can reliably prevent you from using their service because you're always identity #3958792345 to them.  They can also reward you for using their service.  They can just hand you $10 and it'll go into your bank account.  They won't know anything about who you are or what bank you use.  All they know is that they like you and can make you $10 richer.

Without the protection of the system, for you to get the $10 reward you'd have to hand over personal information.  They'd have to have it in order to give you the money.  Even with the protection, a company could say "We will give you $10 on the condition that you let us know your date of birth and state of residence."  That can even be assembled as a strict online contract where as soon as you push the buttons to allow the company to see your date of birth and state of residence, $10 shows up in your account.  You decide how important your privacy is.

Originally posted by lizardbones

Yeah, that wouldn't work. For one, it would be run by people, so there would be leaks. For another...well, that's the only problem you need with it. If you put a system in place that depends on being able to trust a large number of people, it will fail.

All systems are run by people, ergo no system 'works' according to that definition.  Yet we still have credit cards, banks, employers and so on.

The system described requires no trust per se.  The system implicitly assumes that people are not trustworthy, which is why it takes involvement of the justice system to get to any information out that you didn't put into the system or that wasn't authorized for your access.  RealID is providing unrestricted access to certain data and requires trust of every person on the internet.

I want internet accountability, but RealID isn't the way to change things.  Showing everyone on the internet your personal information?  What a disaster.

I want an internet-wide database of people that is opaque to everyone except law enforcement.  And even law enforcement needs a warrant to go in there to see specific private details.  When I play a game or use any service, I must use one of those database identities.  The company I present it to can't see any of the details unless I authorize it.  If used universally, I wouldn't have to show them much of anything.  They can charge my identity without seeing its details, and money would just show up in their account.  They don't need my home address, name and credit card number.

If I then violate terms of use of a game or other service, then whoever defined those terms can point at my database entry and tag it with a red flag.  Anytime I show up and try to use their service with that identity, they'll look at the database and see that red flag.  No service use for me until they remove it.

Get all the gaming companies to respect the same red flag and somebody who acts up in one game simply cannot game online anymore.  Or not until the ban duration ends.  A time out, if you will.  Additional offenses pile up until you're facing bans of a year or more.

The great challenge is in coming up with a secure identity system for users of the internet.  It would require some kind of state-sponsored identification program such as passports, driver's licenses, birth certificates, etc. presented in person.  Eventually, biometrics and whatever else comes down the road would be used.  Internet identity would become as critical as your national identity.  Given the importance of the internet, that only makes sense to me.

Obviously, that's a huge investment to get some responsible behavior out of gamers.

Originally posted by CoolWaters

Players today are freakin wimps.  Christ, it isn't a *real* golden axe of uper prettiness.  It's a bunch of pixels.  It's a virtual world.  It shouldn't be as routine and boring as your routine and boring life.  There need to be real bad guys for good guys to have any substance.  Without real, meaningful player conflict I really wonder how the hell you people can stand playing these sorry excuses for  games.

This is exactly why open PvP is niche.  The people who are most enthusiastic about open PvP are the very players who drive away everyone else.  A game with open PvP accommodates such a narrow band of play styles that the industry can't support more than one or two titles.  There just aren't enough people who enjoy being attacked at random while they try to do anything but fight.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

It's the same old stuff they made 10 to 12 years ago with some shiny eye candy to impress the munchkins.

[snip]

I guarantee that whatever "new" game I try, after 30 minutes I can see the same old shit with a new coat of paint on it.  No wonder games are going Free To Play - they aren't worth paying for so the companies have to get their nickels and dimes from the cash shops.

I can only agree.

We're not old, we're just seasoned.  MMO gameplay is simpleminded and I think that a lot of us would like to move to the next level.  Unfortunately, it looks like the developers are content to keep cranking out the simpleminded stuff.  It's certainly easier than inventing and implementing new gameplay.  We do need the simple games because there are piles of novice gamers out there, but we also need some more sophisticated games for those of us who have had their fill of the starter stuff.  Not games with 'mature themes', but games that are deeper than Kill This, Loot That, Be Happy With Your Shiny.

I don't care if a game has character progression or not.  Tell me what it does have and how it's going to present it.  My own dreams of MMOs head off in the direction of a bunch of gamemasters telling a story to a couple thousand players.  The players collectively try to figure out what's going on while the gamemasters scheme about ways to stop them and drive them back.  Not very hard, of course, because the players should continue to experience content progression, but there can certainly be setbacks.

If that's content progression, I'll take a dozen.  It's a murder mystery for piles of people at one time.  It's old fashioned D&D for you and 5,000 of your closest friends.  It sounds like fun to me.

I played Ultima Online briefly, then jumped into EverQuest with everyone else.  To my way of thinking, the one thing that separated EverQuest from other games was the huge mass of people that converged at one time, and the seeming similarities that they had to one another.  Few kids, just lots of folks in their 20s, 30s and 40s who were willing to grind.  It was players versus the developers, it was new and it was different.  Mostly, it was players playing together.

When I got around to playing World of Warcraft, I found a very polished and, to my eye, beautiful game.  As a leveling MMO, I'd say that Blizzard got it right (I'm not a fan of post-apocalyptic photo-realistic environments and opponents).  That said, fantasy MMOs could be so much more than simpleminded level and/.or gear fests.  That's why MMOs are a disapointment to me now; they haven't evolved.  Blizzard refined the EverQuest model and made a fortune.  Since then everyone has been myopically searching for another El Dorado instead of taking a look at the genre and figuring out something new to do in it.

If EverQuest is any indication of what MMOs could be, developers should be focusing on community in their games.  If the players aren't interacting in fun ways, what's the point of having them in the same game space?

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

According to their feverish (and almost obsessive) wish to redefine what an MMORPG is would lead to over 90% of games in the MMORPG genre to not be MMORPG's anymore, including all the popular and AAA ones, and only the oldest games in the MMORPG genre to be called 'MMORPG'. Now, if such a line of reasoning isn't insanity then I don't know what is

That 'insanity' is as old as the hills.  "You call that hunting?  Back in my day, hunting was fire-hardening a tree branch, stalking a deer for hours until it was in the right terrain and undergrowth, then charging it and killing it, trying to make sure it doesn't escape while also trying not to get hooked by antlers or kicked by rear legs.  That was hunting.  Bows and arrows?  That's not hunting; that's harvesting."

There's also the 'insanity' of those who believe they always know better.

I started playing back in 1998 with Ultima Online and EverQuest, and I was an avid player.  I even stayed up into the wee hours one night trying to help somebody deal with an early EverQuest bug.  I mention that because it was the only time I passed out while playing an MMO.  Apart from that, I certainly put a lot of hours of my life into playing them.

Today, I look at MMOs and I shrug.  I don't feel any connection with the players, the gameplay hasn't evolved in a direction that I care about, and the only appealing thing about the games is the remarkable quality of the graphics.

So I'm definitely not a member of the Addicted camp.  However, MMOs retain their appeal as a fascinating and demanding exercise in software and game design.

Originally posted by Castillle

Why not just keep the debt that the player has to pay back?  Itll take 75% of the players profits until its paid o.o  Simple and without skill point loss o.o

Criminals will use an alt to do all their dirty deeds.  Anything relating to money will be done by their law-abiding character that will then equip their criminal mastermind.

Originally posted by Castillle

As for the collecting the bounty thing...I think that there should be a balance. Maybe let the contract makers decide who gets to participate in the bounty hunt?   That will solve a LOT of problems and that will let bounty hunter guilds  become famous o.o

Yes, the contract issuer needs to be in control.  The contract he issues can be issued directly to a bounty hunter that he knows.  Or to a group that is known to be reliable as bounty hunters.

Originally posted by Castillle

I like your idea as well that the one with the bounty will lose assets/money as he gets killed that way it becomes impossible to exploit because if his guildie kills him, he loses 20 billion and the guildie gets 20 billion o.o

See the alt exploit above.  The criminal will be massively in debt but he won't care because he never uses money.  To stop this from happening, there would have to be something for which a criminal must use money.  I don't know what that would be, given that a criminal supposedly operates outside the law.  Perhaps training or other services provided only by law-abiding NPCs.  Then the player would train up a criminal to the level that he's happy with and then go on his criminal spree.

To stop that would then require some ongoing expense that the criminal has, and for which he must tender payment in person.

It very much depends on the game.

Originally posted by Nerf09

If the bounty is not high enough it won't be worth anyone's time to hunt Criminal Bob down, or even PVP Criminal Bob if someone randomly runs into him.

Absolutely.  That's why bounty contract PvP must exist, so that if it is possible to place a bounty that bring misery to a criminal, profit to a bounty hunter and satisfaction to a bounty issuer, it will be found.

Originally posted by Nerf09

Players maximize their grinding time when playing, doing whatever gives them the most gold or exp divided by time, and that includes maximizing their gains when PVP'ing.  If the bounty is too low, nobody will even considering going after it, and PVP'ing is a bigger risk than NPC killing.

If we're restricting ourselves to level and loot grinders being played by min/maxers then there's no need to discuss a bounty system.  Nor an interesting crafting system.  Nor any system that doesn't return maximum levels and loot in the shortest time.

Originally posted by Nerf09

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by AzurePrower

It's easy. Just make the bounty worth slightly less than the penalty for that person dying.

That way if they get themselves killed and claim the bounty. They still lose out.

Uhm, thats... Brilliant. Really, too bad no one told Lord Brittish this in '97.

But it should still be enough to make it worth to take it so I guess it only works when you have a pretty tough death penalty.

Except someone will get their 2nd character, second account, or friend in game to kill them after they remove all of their armor/weapons, to remove the bounty.  I'm talking about an unexploitable bounty system.

The closest thing to an unexploitable bounty system is one where the person issuing the bounty controls the conditions.  That produces Bounty Contract PvP; the target of a bounty is always trying to twist the bounty so that he can minimize the sting or actually profit from it while those issuing bounties will try to maximize the sting.  The ultimate point is that the bounty issuers would figure out what bounty has bite.  It may be generic to the game or specific to the character, but the goal is to have meaningful bounties.

As AzurePower points out, a good start is to say "I'll pay 50 cents on the dollar for any of Criminal Bob's assets that you destroy."  The assumption is that destroying assets costs far less than 50 cents on the dollar for a bounty hunter.

As I observed in my earlier post, being able to say "I'll pay 8 gold for the death of Criminal Bob's horse Trigger" is even better.  Trigger may be worth 100 gold, so if a bounty hunter wanted more money, he could steal the horse.  But stealing the horse could be done by Criminal Bob's alt, so that's too exploitable as a bounty.  The bounty issuer wants the horse dead because he knows that it's a signature part of Criminal Bob's character.

After the horse is dead, Criminal Bob shows up on an identical horse.  Or perhaps on a horse worth 7 gold named "Trigger".  The bounty issuer has to figure out a new bounty because he doesn't believe that he found the right one for Criminal Bob.

Why is the horse example better than the straight 50-cents-on-the-dollar deal?  Because Criminal Bob can destroy his own assets and get 50 cents on the dollar.  That includes everything that he has stolen and can't get to town to sell for  a good price.  Or anything that he can attach his name to but not transport.  So he 'steals' a house then burns it down and gets 50 cents on the dollar.

I think I also mentioned that bounties cannot stack.  When you do something in a game that has bounties associated with it, you get to pick the one you want to receive.  If bounties stacked, then the bounty issuer would no longer be in control of the bounty.  If bounty stacking was desireable, then the bounty system could allow for explicit stacking.  "I'll pay 8 gold for the death of Criminal Bob's horse Trigger on top of bounties A, B and C issued by other characters."

Progression, sure.  Character levels, no.

MMOs are social games, and it makes no sense to fundamentally stratify the player character population such that players have difficulty interacting.  Certainly not just because one player has been playing longer than another.  Players can progress in money, assets, gear, standing in both player and NPC organizations - and also in player skill.

I consider player skill to be the ideal form of progression because when one player has accumulated a certain skill, that player can teach other players.  It is a social interaction that emerges as a result of a difference in progression instead of an isolation.

I'm fine with the fiction of dragons.  If not a dragon, then the developers need to come up with some other massive beast that has a fairly universal appeal or dread for people.  The odds are that the developers won't pull it off unless they rope in some other large archetypal monster.

I'm sick of the way MMOs depict dragons.  They may look tough enough, but MMOs just don't have the machinery in place to do them justice.  They're big bags of hit points that respawn.  For me, the silliness of MMO gaming is too obvious when it comes time to down the big boss monsters.

I can tolerate killing lots of nameless orcs far better than I can tolerate killing the same distinctive, uniquely-named dragon over and over again.

Originally posted by AzurePrower

It's easy. Just make the bounty worth slightly less than the penalty for that person dying.

That way if they get themselves killed and claim the bounty. They still lose out.

Yep, but make sure the criminal has no control over the penalty structure.

If the bounty says "50 cents on the dollar for any assets belonging to Criminal Bob that you destroy" then Criminal Bob can get a friend to destroy his stolen stuff, effectively getting 50 cents on the dollar for it.  It's a great way to fence stolen goods.  That applies to the character as well.  If character gear is destroyed when the character is killed, then Criminal Bob can load up on stolen gear, get killed by a buddy and they split the profits from the bounty.  Obviously, that's all dependent on the character death system.

A better system is to have the bounty issuer identify the exact assets that he wants destroyed.  "Kill the character and I'll pay 1 gold."  The assumption there is that a character kill is pretty meaningless.  "Kill his favorite dragon pet and I'll pay 30 gold."  The assumption there is that the dragon is far more valuable than 30 gold.  Doing things that way, the bounty issuer has careful control over what's going to be paid out.  The criminal cannot simply steal somebody's dragon, kill it, and get 30 gold.

Naturally, only one bounty can be paid out per destroyed item or killed creature.  If bounties stacked, you'd end up with the typical bounty problem of the destroyed stuff being worth less than the bounty on it.

Originally posted by Talinguard

if a player is in slowmotion combat with another, what happens when a player from outside attacks?

I don't want to derail this thread, so I'll reply once just to give a sense of the idea.

The slowdown is a surrounding field.  If you and I are in combat, then there is a field around us that slows down everything around us.  The effect fades the farther something is from us.  So being within 5 feet of us means that something is in full slowdown while anything 50 feet away have no slowdown effect at all.  If a character rushes straight at us, he will start out at full speed and slow down as he reaches us.

If everyone stops making attacks for N seconds, the field quickly fades away and everyone reverts to normal speed.  If somebody again initiates an attack, the field snaps up again and everyone near the attacker moves slowly.

Ranged attacks follow similar rules.  An attack that involves an object such as a bullet or arrow following a path from attacker to target would involve a slowdown all along that path.  This is not a statement that anyone can dodge bullets or arrows, but that the game could allow for it.  An attack that only triggers an effect at the target, such as a magic spell, would trigger a slowdown around the attacker and the target.

The short form is that any volume of space affected by a weapon in use would be in slowdown.  A swinging sword or an arrow in flight triggers a slowdown.  It could also be structured such that a loaded bow or drawn sword could trigger the slowdown.  In that case, folks would keep their swords sheathed and their arrows in their quiver.

Originally posted by Talinguard

What would a player in real time see when looking at players in slow mo?

Slow motion combat.  If they want to participate, they will have to go near the combat and be slowed down as well.  If they don't want to be involved, they either stay clear of the slowdown field or they only dip into it slightly.

I've quoted specific distances for the field, but I honestly don't know how far out they should reach.  I do know that I want a gradual onset of slowdown.  The slowdown ramp may start at full at a distance of 5 feet and drop to no effect at all by 10 feet.

Note too that character reaction times can be factored into this.  The player may not be surprised by a guy suddenly swinging a sword at his character in slow motion, but his character may be completely unable to react and would simply stand there in shock while the sword comes at him.  No matter how furiously the player pounds the keyboard in an attempt to command his character to do something.

If you want to discuss this further, let's take it to private messages.

I agree with the comments about trains; they were memorable, but so is being in an auto accident.

One point in favor of trains is that they were a multiplayer design.  In World of Warcraft, you pull, the monster chases you and if it gives up, it goes back to its start point.  It doesn't involve any other players that are nearby.  That's bad design because it produces the solo experience that so many gripe about.  Nobody cares if you blow an attack because it only affects you.

I don't want trains, but surely monster AI can be structured such that player experiences are intertwined to some degree when they are operating in the same area.  I'd want something non-catastrophic so that if the two of us are operating solo in an area we're actually working in concert with one another to some degree.  The best World of Warcraft can do in that direcction is that two solo players can be implicitly agreeing to clear a camp so they can reach the boss.

We don't need trains that cause everyone in an area to stop playing the game while they watch a conga line of 30 monsters go back to their spawn locations.

Kinematic combat would be a big win, but not real time combat.  In my opinion, rushing around swinging weapons like crazy in real time as in a shooter is not going to have broad appeal to the RPG crowd.  The combat would have to be slowed down considerably, with characters moving in slow motion while in combat, transitioning to normal speed when away from combat.  With slower combat, every nuance could be brought out for the average player.

Involving player skill would be another big win, particularly in crafting.  Instead of my character knowing how to make a sword by virtue of having made 1000 daggers, I would have figured out how to use the game controls to hammer out a blade, guard, pommel and handle.  Perhaps another player spends his time etching patterns on blades or just makes ornate guards.  It would all take a lot of time, but that's what crafters would be doing.

Bringing the multiplayer back to MMOs is the most important change that should be made.  We have two ends of the spectrum today: solo or joined at the hip for hours on end.  Examples of being joined at the hip include grouping in EverQuest, fleet actions in EVE Online, or raiding in World of Warcraft.  If activities were available where players could simply join in and help as long as they cared to, then left when they wanted to without causing a serious problem for others, I think we'd have a much better MMO community.

I'll add the example of electronic gadgets.  Consider the wars between the supporters of Apple, PC and Linux computers, phones and other such gadgets.  These people have very strong brand loyalty.  I think the same can be said of certain cars, motorcycles and other goods.

Why do people do this?  Because many people invest of their emotional energies into things and ideas.  They identify personally with those things and ideas.  World of Warcraft isn't just a game to them, it's something far more personal.  Anyone who criticizes it is criticising them, and they will react appropriately.  Their iPhone isn't just a cell phone, it's something more personal.  Talking about problems with the iPhone will immediately produce push-back.  These are people who identify with the product, its manufacturer and the community of people who use it.  They can be fiercely loyal.

For people who don't go through this process, World of Warcraft is just a game and the iPhone is just a phone.  You can be as critical as you like about them and people will look at your criticisms objectively.  That or they'll just shrug because they don't really care.

So I figure it's all about personally identifying wth products.  I think that can be particularly problematic with MMORPGs because you are encouraged to identify with your character and the environment in which it operates.  The younger the player, the more seductive that effect likely is.