The only scarring that I faced as a result of my expetations was in Ultima Online, my first MMO.  My expectation was that I'd be able to go wandering in a large world, exploring, hunting and meeting people.  I didn't realize that players would be such anarchistic imbeciles, going around PKing folks for fun.

I suppose I should say that I was burnt by having too high expectations of my fellow players.  Being a software engineer helps keep my expectations of the games themselves in line.

Originally posted by Meowhead

We just need to create an MMORPG with a backstory where everybody is EXCEEDINGLY near sighted.

That way there's an in-character reason to only render people within 10 feet of you.

Problem solved.

I don't need an in-character justification for levels of detail.  It's a stock technique and I'm not sure why games with crowding issues don't use it more aggressively.  If there are 1000 avatars around me, keep my screen active and the updates coming. Sacrifice quality of display and range of actions if you must, but keep the game alive.  If I end up seeing nothing but cubes around me that can only turn and move, fine.  Just don't show me a display update once per minute and engage in some kind of weird lottery to decide if I fired my bow.

Originally posted by rothbard

But if, as you say, FFA PvP inhibits interactions, then how did said corporations/alliances form in the first place?  Shouldn't the interaction required to form the group have been inhibited?   By your theory it the game environment itself should have inhibited the formation of these groups.

I'm asserting that corporations form because it eliminates the problem of FFA PvP in player interactions.  Yes, corporations form because FFA PvP is there, but I don't see FFA PvP fostering interactions.  FFA PvP is fostering tribal thinking so that you know who is us who is is them.  Within the us that you work with, you don't have FFA PvP and you do have interactions.

Originally posted by rothbard

As for RL, the vast, vast, vast majority of all "interplayer" interactions are not categorized by violence which would be expected by your theory given the FFA nature of reality.  

By your interpretation of my comments perhaps, but that's not my assertion.  I said "inhibits" and I'll stick with that word.  I'm not saying that pandemonium breaks out the moment people realize that anyone can attack anyone.  I'm saying that when I know you can attack me, and there is anything about you that makes me nervous, I'm less likely to initiate something with you.  That could be your manner of dress, the color of your skin, the way you walk, the way you talk, anything at all.

Originally posted by Amaranthar

To me this is an important part of where the future needs to go. Causing player interactions by game design, but not forced. In PvP games, some players do interact because of that. Many just leave, but that's a separate issue. But there's other ways to accomplish this, I think, in community efforts. Again, not forced, but as part of the overall game design. This is why I think that player built cities, in a much wider scope than we've seen so far, are so important for the "next gen" in MMORPGs. Imagine cities that offer some real benefits to it's players, and so those players actively trying to help build that city up, and organizing to do so.

I completely agree.

Community goals, in contrast to personal goals, are the next step in the evolution of MMOs.  In my opinion, it's the greatest failure of MMOs that they do not have these things.  Creating a game in which players are encouraged to pursue a personal agenda makes no sense.  So many players ignoring each other as they strive to reach their personal pinnacle.

Originally posted by rothbard

Originally posted by JB47394

  I would say that FFA PvP doesn't foster player interactions because everyone is paranoid about interacting with other players.

EVE Online demonstrates to me that sandboxes with FFA PvP only foster paranoia, and that's not conducive to player interactions either.  Players fearing to interact is not conducive to a broad spectrum of gameplay.

I would have thought the exact opposite.  What are all those corporations and alliances in EvE if not groups of interacting players?  RL is canonical FFA-PvP-permadeath and it has no problems with "player" interaction.

Those corporations are examples of groups of players who have agreed not to FFA PvP each other so that they can interact more freely.  They understand that FFA PvP inhibits interactions.

As for the real life comment, I would consider it largely without merit.  Real life includes a tremendously broader demographic with a mandatory subscription, the permadeath is truly permanent, and it certainly has problems with player interactions.  War, crime, etc.

If you want real permadeath in EVE Online, get one character and never play the game again once that character is podded.  Make the entire game work like that and you'll see a change in player behavior.

My most memorable experiences are a result of the people I was having fun with, not the activity itself.  That's true whether it's an MMO, golfing, hiking, skiing or any other activity.  I don't see sandboxes being any better or worse than theme parks because it's all about designing the content to foster player interactions.  I would say that FFA PvP doesn't foster player interactions because everyone is paranoid about interacting with other players.

World of Warcraft is also fairly bad at fostering player interactions because of its general emphasis on solo gameplay.  Raiding involves many players, but they don't interact - they follow the procedure for the raid.  There's limited opportunity for players to demonstrate their personality unless they plan on wiping the raid a la LeRoy Jenkins.  My experience with player personalities coming out was limited to folks making jokes and witicisms in voice chat.

My most memorable MMO experiences were in EverQuest.  As much as we complained about forced grouping and grinding, EverQuest was structured to foster player interactions (that's 'fostering' with an iron fist).  The pendulum swung to the other extreme with World of Warcraft and now lots of people figure that if only we had a good sandbox (the antithesis of World of Warcraft) we'd have everything just right.  EVE Online demonstrates to me that sandboxes with FFA PvP only foster paranoia, and that's not conducive to player interactions either.  Players fearing to interact is not conducive to a broad spectrum of gameplay.

So we just need MMOs that focus on player interactions instead of achievement, PvP, crafting or any other specific experience.  Player interactions are a trait of those activities, and if an MMO design is done properly, players will walk away with a wide variety of memorable experiences because of their interactions with other players.

For players interested in getting through content, a harsh failure penalty is a way of delaying their progress.  That would appear to present a greater challenge.  It's like climbing a mountain.  Each time you trip, you fall 100 meters down the mountain.  Then you have to climb back up again.  In that respect, there is a greater challenge to reach the top of the mountain.

For players interested in experiencing content, a harsh failure penalty is a way of distracting or handicapping the player.  That would appear to present a greater challenge.  In the example of climbing a mountain, you are trying to focus on your climbing technique.  But if you're scared of falling, you're not devoting your full attention to your technique.  Therefore, your technique is handicapped by a distraction, and mountain climbing is more difficult.  The same could be said of wearing a blindfold.

For players like me, the harsh penalty for failure is uninteresting.  I want content that is inherently challenging because it taxes my skills, not because it distracts me from using those skills.  I'm certainly not in the camp of "getting through content".  I want to experience the content.  Which is why I don't bother with MMOs.  My skills are not taxed, so there's not much for me to experience.

Originally posted by Creslin321

It would be great if this happened, but unfortunately there is no game that I know of that features an NPC economy that is affected by inflation.  Also...I really don't like the idea of my money constantly and rapidly decreasing in real value because of mega inflation.  It would mean that if I ever took a break from the game for a month or so and came back, I would be a pauper unless I put my money in material assets that could be resold.  And if you force players to do this, then it really becomes kind of painful and not very much fun.

You've dropped into hyperbole.  The goal here is mild inflation.  America targets roughly 2% per year.  That's not going to crush anyone's assets during a month-long break.  More crushing would be falling behind in leveling and gearing relative to your peers.  There's another nasty form of inflation in stock MMOs.

Originally posted by Creslin321

What this means is that achievements that used to be milestones, like getting mounts, become mere pennies to even new characters later in the game's life.  In addition, expenses meant to penalize you for dying like repair costs, or prevent you from accumulating massive amounts of money like training expenses lose their weight due to this disparity in inflation.

We have to assume a market economy across the board or the game is just busted.  Mount prices would rise with inflation because the NPCs who provide mounts are obligated to cover their (mythical) overhead costs which are rising with everything else.  Alternately, players locate, tame and train mounts for other players.  Player costs would be very real and would rise with the inflation rate of whatever gear and consumables they use.  So their mounts would be priced a bit higher each month to allow them to cover their own costs.

Originally posted by rothbard

There is no social benefit to a change in the money supply.

Clearly I disagree.  Inflation encourages people to keep their money circulating in the economy.  Without it, the economy stagnates.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Let's assume that you create a game where mining and crafting are actually enjoyable and people do them simply for fun.  Now let's assume that I am a warrior and I want a sword so I go to the store house.  But when I arrive there, there is only an average sword and I wanted a good one.  So I wait for a good one to arrive.

That assumes a number of things:

1. That there are objectively Good Swords.  In a game of player skill, a Good Sword for you may not be a Good Sword for me.  We have different skills and want different gear.

2. That Good Swords grant a significant improvement in quality of gameplay over Average Swords.  In a game dominated by player skill, the gear is more an issue of exploration of the limits of the player skill.  For the bulk of a player's skillful use of gear, any old piece of gear will work.  For more skillful applications, specific traits are desired in gear.

3. That there is a dearth of Good Swords.  I could easily say that the problem is that crafters are cranking out so much gear that many crafters' goods aren't even being used.

So I can easily see players grabbing a sword and going off to smash in heads.  It doesn't really matter if its balanced just so, has just this much flex and holds an edge in this way or not because that player's skill level just isn't high enough for it to matter all that much.  In contrast, a really skillful player is going to want a very specific weapon.  He talks to the crafters to get the weapon he wants.

What I don't want to get into is gear that is so valuable to anyone that the game starts to see real money getting into the act.  "Ooo.  I crafted an Objectively Perfect Sword.  I think I'll put it up on eBay."  Instead, the crafter created a Perfect Sword for Creslin's preferences.  Next week, your preferences may change.  For most players, they won't even have preferences.  They'll just grab a sword and go.

This notion does not work at all when players need to focus on min/maxing their gear.  I want them min/maxing their player skills, as with an FPS.  The only reason that there is variation in the gear is so that the crafters have a sense of pride in their work.

Originally posted by rothbard

As for purposefully "wasting away" someone's savings, besides being a sneaky way of robbing the saver, what does that gain you?  There is no benefit to be had from any increase in the money supply, or decrease.  Any amount of money will perform the job of a money.  If the money becomes so rare, such that the purchasing power is astronomical, a more convenient money will be chosen by the participants.

The goal is to have mild and sustained inflation.  That encourages people to invest in the economy at a slightly aggressive level.  That's what you want.  If the money supply jumps around then the economy grows unstable.  People know that the economy is unstable and will hoard as a buffer against the instabilities.  As people hoard, the instabilities grow in size.  Nobody wants to invest because of the price fluctuations - nobody knows which way the prices will move, so investing in the hope of future returns becomes a crapshoot.

That's all for a real world economy where people aren't in the economy for entertainment value.  They know that their lives depend on that economy.  In a game, economic volatility could be considered a good thing.  However, once the volatility kicks in, things may gyrate wildly.

EVE Online has the most successful player economy that I know of.  They have treated it like a real world economy, even though they know that there is plenty of cash hoarding.  When new items come out, the hoarders jump on them and drive the prices up beyond the level that the average player can pay.  Eventually, things stabilize again, but the price spikes are definitely a trait of that player economy.  I'm sure the players sit on big piles of cash in anticipation of the introduction of future items.  Especially when an expansion is announced.

Originally posted by UknownAspect

I think you are on to something here.  But you can't have crafting without some kind of economy.

Crafting without an economy works like this:

Miners mine ore because they enjoy mining.  They go where the ore is and dig it up.  The ore that they dig up gets dumped into a big pile in the nearest town.  Crafters craft because they enjoy crafting.  They go to the ore pile and get what they need.  The item that they craft gets dumped into a big pile in a storehouse.

From there, everyone who needs gear goes to the storehouse and picks it up.  If there's a Good Sword, you take that over an Average Sword.  Good Plows are preferred over Poor Plows, and so on.

If that's considered an economy, so be it.  I'm excluding money and asymmetric barter.  That is, you can swap weapons with someone, but you can't swap a weapon for a helm.  It's like being in a club and everyone gets the same standard gear choices.  The club provides everything.  After all, you've paid your club dues.

Originally posted by Creslin321

 After reading your first few sentences I was about to say that this sounds like an FPS, but you of course realized that :).  No economy can indeed be successful in games, but I feel like it's less of an RPG without one.  Not that, that makes it bad, but I prefer RPG games.

The only loss of roleplaying that I see is that nobody gets to roleplay a financial role as they can in, for example, EVE Online.  A wealth of roles would still be available.  In truth, I would consider the game I have in mind to be superior in roleplaying because of the fact that everyone would be playing their role without the ubiquitous pollution of concerns over money.  In an RPG with an economy, everyone has to worry about money.  In an RPG without money, players focus on the activities that they want to experience.  Unless they want to focus on money, they've got immediate access to what they want to do.

One alternative is to eliminate the economy.  Show up, get some standard gear and go play.  Success would rely on player skills instead of gear or money.  This is the FPS formula, and they don't have gold farmers, problems with inflation, or a need to grind money.

To provide a sense of achievement in a persistent world, the players would contribute to changes to the game as a whole.  Help clear the monsters from the castle.  Once cleared, repair the castle.  One repaired, use it for defense, as a resource depot and crafting center.  Then move on to the next large task.  Explore, fight, harvest, and build.  The game progresses along, discovering new materials, new gear types, new towns with new NPCs and even new opponents.

It's a very different game from soloing personal achievements in a static environment while relying on gear and character skills.

Originally posted by Creslin321

What are some examples of these activities that could be put into an MMORPG?

Building (all forms of crafting), cultivating, harvesting (all forms of resource extraction), taming, mountain climbing, orienteering, city planning, city operation, business operation, hunting, politics, you name it.  If you can think of a single player game that makes significant demands of player skill then you've got an activity that probably has intrinsic rewards to it.

The problem with all of this is that involving player skill requires state information.  Without state information players cannot be faced with meaningful decisions.  Chess has the state of where the pieces are.  That's what presents the opportunity for player skill - where should the pieces go?  With lots of state comes lots of data.  That data needs to be stored and displayed to all the clients who should be able to see it.  It's a significant challenge, and MMOs don't lend themselves well to it.  It may require some hybrid style game that allows games to be developed to target small groups of players per activity, but when not engaged in an data-rich activity, they interact more freely.

Originally posted by Bazharkhan

If you could improve crafting in an MMO, with the stipulation that crafting had to consist of more than just creating martial equipment (weapons, armor, clothes - generally stuff you can use to whack things/not get whacked by them), what would you include? 

Crafters should be making everything in the game.  They're the ones that should be filling the markets with goods that other players buy.  NPC traders run the stalls 24/7, and players can run stalls as well for those who enjoy being a merchant.  The goal is to have players craft and consume, but not require the consumers to go find a flippin' crafter when they want something.  EVE Online demonstrates how that can work.

Crafting itself should be a full game experience that requires player skill (as should combat).  The net result of crafting would still be standard items with variable traits, but the traits of the items would be a result of the player's skill.  A Tale in the Desert did this very thing with blacksmithing.  You'd have an object that you were trying to make, and you'd start with a lump of material.  You'd strike the material (click on a spot) to shape it, and when you were happy with the shaping, the game would rate the quality of the item you crafted.  That process could get very involved, including multiple steps, each requiring skill from the player.

Another example from A Tale in the Desert is the charcoal oven.  Feed the oven fire with wood, fiddle with the air supply and try to keep the temperature just right for the required amount of time - while at the same time try to avoid using too much wood to stoke the fire.  It may not be a mainstream crafting task, but it's the sort of player skill that I'd like to see involved in crafting at the low end.

In case it wasn't obvious in the first paragraph, a game needs to have systems that involve various types of gear if crafters are going to make various types of gear.  Introducing bridge building isn't too interesting if nobody ever needs a bridge.  The game would have to be structured such that players would want bridges from time to time.  Also, if the game doesn't have an interesting fishing game, then there's no need for crafters to make fishing gear.  And so on.  The game needs the systems that use gear so the crafters can make it.  The systems cannot exist just so the crafters have stuff to craft; the systems themselves must be interesting to players.

It takes the same amount of time because time is a business, not technical, consideration.  A product is designed to hit the market in N years, and the developers have that much time to stuff good features into it.  Businesses that try to stuff too much into a product will spend too much time in development and not enough with a money-making result and ultimately lose their way and fail.  This rule is so important that companies will cut features from a product instead of missing their defined product window.

The toolkits and such exist to allow product teams to be as efficient as possible and to pursue grander goals within that N year timeframe.

I enjoy exploring the game's systems to see how they work and then to delve the depths of the ones that interest me.  By delving their depths, I get good at a few things that give me a focus for my interactions with other players.  I also enjoy exploring the game world geography, flora and fauna, etc.

I find that I enjoy an MMO only so long as the game experience never settles down into a grind.  If I'm continuing to find new twists and turns in the content, I stay interested.  When things settle down to predictable patterns, the game is over for me.  Going off to the batte fields for the 100th time to zerg rush the enemy faction so we can get another reward is just going to put me to sleep.  Having the game world change is critical to holding my attention.

The things most missing from MMOs for me are depth of the game systems, a changing environment, and the ability to casually interact with other players.  The game systems are either simple and easily mastered or are artificially obscure and annoying.  I revisit the same content day after day.  Either I'm solo or I'm locked into a group that's going to want to keep going for hours.

Casually tackling shared tasks side-by-side is something I'd really like to try.  When I'm interested in an activity, I go to where that activity is performed, and I either join in or start on whatever wants to be done.  All the players would be after the same community goals and would be mutually supporting each other.  Clear the orc lair so our shepherds can keep their flocks safe.  Build the bridge so that heavier traffic can travel between two towns.  Find the bandits in the woods to keep merchants safe.  Build a new town in the monster-infested frontier.  Defend it.  Pacify the area.  And so on.

I'm not interested in being optimal.  I'm not interested in the music.  I'm not interested in my character's appearance.  I'm not interested in collecting stuff.  I'm not interested in personal achievements.  I figure that being a casual part of a dynamic game world would be enjoyment enough.

Originally posted by Creslin321

My only point is that if the game doesn't somehow reward the player for the activity, they probably won't do it.

Now define "reward".

Extrinsic rewards are the stock "kill something, get a drop."  It's the destination.

Intrinsic rewards are the feel good while doing something.  It's the journey.

I'd like MMORPGs to advance to having more intrinsic rewards.  Games of player skill have a much greater sense of intrinsic reward because the player is responsible for the success of an activity.  That activity might only be making a friend, or it might be in getting new armor or a castle or a planet.  Either way, the player is more involved and identifies more personally with whatever happens - even if the result is no material gain.

Players talk about having their actions matter.  They want sandboxes.  They want a story.  To me, all that stuff is screaming for a need for intrinsic rewards.  Players want to enjoy the activity that they're engaged in, not just to get something at the end of the rainbow.  Part of it is wanting a bigger extrinsic reward, but I think that there's a significant need for games to provide stronger intrinsic rewards.  Social sites thrive on the intrinsic reward of socialization.

There's a whole world of gameplay beyond the simpleminded kill, level, loot.  Pick any activity in the world, implement it in the game with player skill involved and you've got something intrinsically rewarding.  That ranges from mining to accounting to stamp collecting to piracy to hunting; it really doesn't matter what the activity is, so long as it's designed for enthusiasts of that activity.

Themepark and sandbox are simply points on a spectrum.  Themepark implies game-defined structure while sandbox implies player-defined structure.  A mount quest is game-defined structure.  Wandering the wilderness looking for a mount and then capturing it and taming it is player-defined structure.  The sandbox end of the spectrum tends to allow players to mix and match game features to get various results that they prefer.  Of course, no matter how freeform the game, the player's options are still limited to whatever behaviors, features and outcomes the game developers can implement.

As for the original poster's topic question, the answer is that if you add tons of structured content to a game, you're pushing that game towards the themepark end of the spectrum.  If you add tons of building blocks and bits and pieces that players can mix and match as they like then you're pushing that game towards the sandbox end of the spectrum.

Next time: the debate rages over whether Pluto is a "planet".

Originally posted by A.Serenity

That is true about World of Warcraft, however WoW isn't 'that' limiting.  Within a class you can perform different roles.  [...]  Though agreed you're limited to the class, but there is a lot you can do with that particular class. :)

Yup.  The point is that each class has to have the ability to compete in PvP solo.  In contrast, not every ship in EVE Online has to have the ability to compete in PvP solo.  This gives CCP the freedom to design ships that are utterly useless in solo combat, but are ideal for other activities.  That's the crux of the point.

I'm of the opinion that gear-based roles are infinitely superior to class-based roles.  That's true for both developers and players.  Everyone goes on about how restrictive the class trinity is in fantasy games.  To open things up, go with gear-based roles.  With that one change, player characters can temporarily adopt extremely niche roles in a group, allowing for all sorts of group dynamics.  All you have to do is change your gear (and have the requisite character skills).  That will give you the abilities of that gear and temporarily gimp your character otherwise.

Because EVE Online takes place in a science fiction setting, they can restrict gear changes by forcing players to change whole ships.  That's just like changing characters, which is why so many people find EVE Online disasteful.  "I don't want to be a spaceship."  While it alienates players, it makes mutually-exclusive gear changes very easy.  Wholesale gear changes in a fantasy setting are a bit more problematic.

For example there's the problem of a character wearing plate mail, shield, bow, magical rings, lock picks and sharpening stones.  There's nothing inherent in the fantasy setting that makes it obvious why a character cannot wear the gear for most every activity in the game.  Yet because the goal is to make roles mutually exclusive, something would have to be worked out.  The classic example is that metal interferes with magic, so characters pursuing a magical role would leave their metal at home.

Originally posted by Swollen_Beef

Should a cloth wearing healing class be afforded the same chance to beat a chain wearing DPS class?

Or should a developer flat out refuse to allow the everyone can beat everyone mentality?

If the game allows only one combat role per character, then the developer would be wise to allow any character to beat any other.  If the game allows characters to change combat role with a change of gear, then the game can easily say that one role easily defeats another in direct combat.

World of Warcraft is class-based and allows essentially one combat role per character - its class.  EVE Online is gear-based and allows change of combat role by change of ship.