Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by UOlover

If everyone copied UO instead of EQ you would have already had your freedom.

MMO School of Design Decisions evolved from Everquest, rather than Ultima Online.

But it has nothing to do with ultimate or limited freedom. The design didnt evolved with freedom,but the opposite, the complete removal of it in all aspects.

Its like we are still in the medieval times of Virtual Societies Design, cant find a cure, cut it out.

1. Never change the rules of the game after release. By rules, it include everything from, in-game rules, game mechanics, balance, player expectatives or feelings derived from the initial experience, with the exception of the feelings whose nature is to fade away.

2. Never change the balance of individual character power through direct means or indirect means such as time or convenience, through micro-transactions.

3. Whatever the player achieved, acquired, or built through his time and effort in the game belong to him and the game company has not the right to alter unless given express autorization by the player or his representants.

If any of these three rules are broken, the player has the right to sue the game company for damages and loses. The game company is held accountable for its acts.

"If the game is not designed to revolve around the idea of "character power", it is not fun, neither F2P model will work."

1. Considering all the F2P games on the market, name those where the "acquisition of power by the character" is not a central theme/focus/structure i.e. motivation.

2. Name F2P games that do not revolve around the idea of "acquisition of power through mass murdering of creatures and/or repetition of uninspired/uninteresting linearly scripted quests".

3. When a game changes from subscription to F2P, does the design addapts to that idea of "acquisition of character power" as the main goal, time sink, end game objective?

4. Could a F2P game live and prosper without "character power" as the player motivator and cash shop catalyzer?

5. Name a fun MMO that doesnt revolve around the "character power" idea. Now tell me its economic model: true free, vip/premium/memberships, isonomic subscription, free trial with content limitations, free to play with cash shop/microtransactions, etc...

6. Of the 10 most successfull F2P MMOs wich ones doesnt revolve around the idea of  "achieve vertical character progression"?

Answer the questions and/or discuss.

"Freedom to not have to socialize."

When they removed the need to socialize because some didnt wanted it, all MMOs got stripped of the socializing aspect.

Its easier that way. You want to socialize, find someone else who wants to! LOL, you can still chat and do stuff together!

Just because the game doesnt force everyone by design, doesnt mean you cant "get creative".

The whole community suffered side effects. What you demand is not your personal socialization, is the feeling of community, but to get that, it penetrates into others "bubbles" and many dont want that... There you go... MMO social design 101.

Originally posted by khanstruct

Originally posted by Interesting

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by Interesting

Originally posted by nariusseldon
so? too much freedom makes a bad game. i dont see the need of all those freedoms in games.

 

I dont see evidence that too much freedom makes a bad game. All I see is evidence that bad design (i.e. lack of tools) around the existance of  freedom makes a bad game.

 

That all depends on what the "freedom" allows the bad acters to do.  Personally, I'd consider it an example of Bad Design, if it allows ganking and/or griefing.  Its not a "lack of tools" thats the problem. Its more a "lack of experience with human nature" that results in many design flaws, and results in a lack of player retention.  Rather few people are going to hang around to be others punching bags, when there are so many other options that do not require that.

You have to have both.

Its only knowing player nature that you will develop tools around it.

In real life we have tools to deal with gankers, in games we dont. The human nature is still the same. In real life people care about their personal/public image, in game they dont. Well, we give them tools to start caring about their public image as well.

I think you're missing the point. First, most people want to play the game. Whether or not they can "take care of the gankers" by setting traps, etc, isn't the point. The point is, they don't want to spend their time dealing with griefers. That's not why they play the game. They aren't combat-oriented people. It doesn't matter if you're telling them to enter combat or spend their time protecting themselves from combat. That's not what they're there for.

Second, yes, that is more like real life. If real life had no real consequences, which is what essentially releases everyone's inner douche. But the main point is, we deal with crap in real life because we have to. In a virtual world, if I'm being oppressed or annoyed, I can just pull the plug and leave. And people will.

I think you are missing the point. People are not actually playing today's games. Most people are dead tired of it already. The whole point is people having to interact, giving them tools for that is the pre-requisite. People are there to interact, thats where the genre structures itself. What it lacks is ability for people to interact, they often find themselfs limited by the lack of tools.

In virtual world, if you are being oppresed or annoyed you quit because you reached the bottleneck of the design. Would the game be designed to allow people to interact with whatever annoys them, they would just deal with it using the tools at their disposal.

Someone playing Super Mario would quit the game because at some point they fall into a hole. But if the designer gave them the ability to jump across the hole, they would keep playing. The same thing. You are saying that people would RATHER NOT PRESS JUMP, AND QUIT RIGHT AWAY.

People would not quit right away, they would try things, ask for help.  Even if they quit, at some point they would discover what idiots they were "dude, your trolling the game, but it is your fault because all you had to do was JUMP". And in the game, people would be informed about the jump "tool" alongside many of the other tools.

Open your eyes, start trying.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by mklinic

What you're talking about would, as I see it, require a persistent identity. I mean, if I were to use WoW as an example; I piss people off, my name gets known, I have the option of changing my name, faction, or even just rolling a new character. Now, looking at EvE, I can roll a new character, but the mechanics discourage that pretty heavily.

Now, beyond being a social periah, what are you looking for players to be able to do? Should they be able to ban people based on community votes? Should they be able to silence others in chat? How does this not end up being mob rule, or a situation where a few strong personalities dictate the gaming expereience for the server?

 

Let's take WoW and DAoC, and EVE as an example. What can you do in WoW that controls the world? Well, pretty much nothing. You can do quests, and fight in battlegrounds that do nothing. 

DAoC allows a little bit more. 

You have realms, and you can take over keeps. If you take over enough keeps you get control over a cool dungeon, Darkness Falls. But your realms are pre-determined by the game. 

EVE takes it a step further. You can establish a corporation, and take over territory. The corporations are set up by the players, unlike the Realms in DAoC set up by the developers, and WoW has nothing. 

What would be the next step?

EVE style territory control in a ground based game. Plus, you as players, can decide the government. 

So, you get a bunch of players and decide you want to take over some territory and set up a democracy. There is a vote once a month to decide who the President is, and the President can actually do things in the game, perhaps go to war or something like that. 

But another group of players sets up a Monarchy. A King is established, and there is no vote, and people have to be loyal to the King. 

And you could set up taxes, decide if people could build, and where they could build. You could give them a license to fish off your coast, or have mercenary pirates attack them if they had no license. 

That sort of stuff is what many people would like to see, but is not offered in current games. 

But if you read the posts here, the vast majority of players want to just solo through the game. 

None of that is very useful for someone that just wants to solo through the content and not be bothered by other players. 

But it will be offered in the future, because people are getting bored of todays design's.

Everything this guy writes is not worth reading.

Just because we offer players the freedom to train their "fist" skill, doesnt mean that we have to make it balanced with the "assault rifle" skill.

A fist obviously suck compared to the assault rifle. Anyone who comes expecting that the fist skill should be better than the assault rifle is out of their minds.

In real life if people had easier access to assault rifle, they would pick it over pitch forks any day. The balance behind it is that assault rifles are ilegal, hard to acquire, to hide, maintain and damn expensive, while fists are always there for you.

Originally posted by hcosmin

It's because most people grew out of naive libertarianism by the time they're old enough to have credit cards. Players don't want to play lord of the flies online and the people who make MMOs know it very well.

I've played sandbox pvp mmos before and they are without exception niche games where the people who don't give a damn about anything and anyone but themselves prevail over any attempt at having self-policing and emerging social institutions. It's much easier to destroy than create.

A sandbox was never implemented right, or, especifically, after the discovery of its initial flaws. The lack of in-game tools for consequences.

Another thing you mention... people cannot create when the games does not offer them the tools to do so.

Ive seen games where people built upon the limits and excedeed the expectations of the developers. Just give the players the tools.

There are as much players willing to create as players willing to destroy. If the game lacks meaningfull activities, people get bored and start finding entertainment on the conflict the freedom turned available.

You guys noticed that in all possible derived roots of freedom and its different applications we ended up focusing on the

"Crime" aspect, specifically the "murder" one?

Straight away exactly what people relate  freedom in games with is the freedom to commit a crime, like murder.

In the whole spectrum of aplications of freedom, there would be severe modifications into the game itself that murdering someone, even though possible, would play an insignificant part.

People wouldnt think about "I will murder him' and actually do it. People are having a hard time trying to imagine a system where consequences would prevent people from acting like that, just like it works in real life.

From time to time people kill each other for stupid reasons, but they get caught and suffer consequences. Implementing the last part very well would work as a moral shackle, just like it does in real life. All that assuming the gameplay is not limited or revolve around some unreal theme of "you mass murder a million of creatures for power and loot".

Because if you try to implement the freedom in a game like that, without doing the necessary addaptations, off course it wont work.

Like the guy who mentioned Faces of Mankind... the game was so empty and boring that the only character interaction was shooting stuff and eventually people had a mental breakdown and had to start shooting stuff. But off course, that was the only interaction tool meaningfull available....

Same thing as Rockstar's GTA. People can drive vehicles and shoot people and thats the extent of their interactions with the world, no wonder everyone runs around DOING JUST THAT.

Now think of a game where combat is just 10% of it... Like a game where people can craft, or farm, or explore and make maps, or sky jump from a dragon....

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by Interesting

Originally posted by nariusseldon
so? too much freedom makes a bad game. i dont see the need of all those freedoms in games.

 

I dont see evidence that too much freedom makes a bad game. All I see is evidence that bad design (i.e. lack of tools) around the existance of  freedom makes a bad game.

 

That all depends on what the "freedom" allows the bad acters to do.  Personally, I'd consider it an example of Bad Design, if it allows ganking and/or griefing.  Its not a "lack of tools" thats the problem. Its more a "lack of experience with human nature" that results in many design flaws, and results in a lack of player retention.  Rather few people are going to hang around to be others punching bags, when there are so many other options that do not require that.

You have to have both.

Its only knowing player nature that you will develop tools around it.

In real life we have tools to deal with gankers, in games we dont. The human nature is still the same. In real life people care about their personal/public image, in game they dont. Well, we give them tools to start caring about their public image as well.

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by Interesting

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by deviliscious

Originally posted by Malickie

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by uquipu

Say there's this NPC who drives a wagon from one town to the next.
.
I wan't to rob him so I chop down a tree to block the road.
.
Simple right?
.
What MMO will give me the freedom to do this?
.

None, really, unless you know of an MMO that wants to deal with every jackass and his brother covering the roads with trees.

Lofty philosophical and social babble aside, that scenario simply needs to be examined by its core components - collision detection and the placement of objects in the game world.

 

From a design standpoint, the issue isn't tech or mechanics. The issue how badly and how often the small number of douchebags in your community will ruin the game for everyone with the tech or mechanic.

This, and only this.

I can even use actual examples from a game that at one time had plenty of freedom built in, SWG. Which had placeable objects that could be used in the wrong manner (to grief). Terminals as an example could be placed in front of doors, blocking players inside.

Another occurance (im not sure how often this actually happened). The incident was known as the Rayen petting zoo on my server. In short a player was rezzed while 4 players sat terminals around him trapping him in place.  Of course these players were banned, so was the player who was trapped if I recall correctly.

This is why we most likely will never see freedom in the scale the OP is calling for. While it would be great if it would work, it wouldn't be long before people started abusing those freedoms. I really can't see it turning out any other way.

 Of course you can't have absolute freedom, but with map zoning, and the ability to server hop at will, the trapped player could easily escape.

It can be done to a certain extent, but it is all about implementation. I love obstacle usage in games.. countless hours of amusement... I am so easily amused.

 

So, the Dev's should waste how many precious man hours of time/effort, talent and creativity to appeal to what is really a very small percentage of the general player base?  Its become obvious over the years that most players do NOT want all of this "freedom" that the OP speaks of.

That is just one of the reasons for the rise of theme park games, and the decline of games in the west that allow (or encourage) ganking and griefing.  Unless the Dev's wish to engage in an endless arms race with such types, its best to keep human nature in mind. Look at the evolution of Concord and the high sec rule set in EVE as an example of how even a PvP centric company like CCP has to protect its business model.

 

1. Socializers, social games, farmville. Do an association thinking and you should understand.

2. Players never had a taste of a well designed game with good implementation, like we are discussing on this topic.

 

People dont want what they experienced. But what they experienced was crap. I dont blame them, But from that concluding by induction that there isnt a market from what we are talking about. Falacy.

Personal experience, and understanding of human nature and history demonstrates that this "freedom" approach gets abused by a certain number of gankers/griefers. Its happened time after time after time.  I didn't say there is NO market, I stated that the appeal of such games is limited (in other words niche).  But given the time and money these games take to create, its entirely understandable that they be focused at the much larger audience that doesn't want all of those above "freedoms".   

The abuse of freedom you talk about happened because those games had bad design, they lacked the tools Im mentioning. People's hands were wrapped, they, themselfs, didnt got freedom to do anything about the "gankers/griefers".

If you offered them freedom to do anything about. No, Im not talking about "gank them back". Im talking about in depth system of consequences far more detailed and complex than that.

The games you mentioned (that you didnt mentioned, but we are talking about the same games), lacked a social contract, a structured society with its own laws and criminal persecution, methods of prevention of crimes, and tools of justice, security.

Im talking generically, but to see the bigger picture, think about how real life works. The whole idea derives from how real life works.

If we were to make a paralel about these games with freedom that failed due to excessive ganking/griefing, it would be like comparing real life to a barbaric society, pre-dating even medieval times, because even in medieval times (where most of these games are set) already have their own methods of dealing with "real life gankers".

Originally posted by Ramonski7

I sorry but the problem with your desire for a more self-governing MMO community is finding enough players that wish to govern and enough who are willing to be governed. The thing is most MMO players and most people on this forum do not think very highly of their fellow players. This can be seen by just heading over to any past topic that covered the ReadID debacle and you too can witness for yourself all kinds of colorful characters they think populate the games we play.

 

And this leads me to my next point......anonymity. This will be a thorn in the side of any self-governing community, yet alone a online one where players wish to kick back a bit. Until you can remove most of the bureaucracy and mental legwork associated with such a system, you will never find enough players to uphold it.

 

I believe a semi-automated system is required. Hear me out for a second:

 

In the event of a crime you would have a perp, victim and possible witnesses. Say that you have a witness system in place that flags any given player as a witness if they see a crime, but it automatically reports that crime to npc guards if that person reaches a town. Then the npc system kicks in to send out a warning notice to all npc guards to fine on sight and merchants to increase the price of doing business to shady players.

 

This helps keep your game running smoothly without overburdening your playerbase. Now the victim of the crime gets the option of either opening a bounty on their killer (for pvpers to participate) or curse them (which would take effect immediately) with a effect that debuffs who they group with for 1 hour. So the victim is left with a decision of either take cash from a possible bounty or label their killer a outcast. This puts some power in the hands of victims.

 

The last thing we come to is the perp, who also has some decisions to make. They can either kill someone with a bounty on their head (which removes their curse and pays the bounty out) or kill an innocent (nets them FFA loot)

 

Now what ever system is put in place, it has to be able to do 3 things:

• Automate mundane task (reporting, collection, etc)
• Empower agressive and non-agressive players with a real choice
• Promote non-combative progression as a viable long term option

Everyone can govern. The tools would be there. But are they good enough to govern? Would others follow them? Like in real life some people are not good enough at politics to even get there. To be able to govern something, they would first be legitmally elected by their friends and all the people they talked too. You know, socialize.

They can be kings on their shower. But if a hundred other players dont give them legitimacy, they will not be oficially elected. They can try. They will have to try and do their best, within the possibilities, it will not be for everyone. But some will.

Like the leaders of the in-game guilds, some people just get there. If at some point they arent good enough at leading, others will stop following them, like in real life.

If they are not good at making others following them and they dont want to follow others, they can do that too. They can even whine about "how come Im not president", but its expected from the player the minimum of maturity to live in a social environment. Thats how society works.

Well, in the game tools would be available for the player so that even if he is not popular, he would still be able to get the power by force, by economic superiority, or religious influence... All the tools would be there. Off course, the tools existing would mean that the player can use them, but he still would have to work for it, to get things done according to the pre-established conditions of the given tools.

The player could then become a dictator of a big town. How did he made it? Well, he hired or convinced an army to do his will and take whoever was in charge out. What about the other players? They will have their tools as well, some will not care about it, some will try to get a piece of the slack, others will try to bring him to justice. Everyone possibility will be there as in-game tools.

The player who became the dictator worked his way to get there and he has to know that others will be working to take him out as well, thats obvious.

Just like real life.

If they want, they can do anything about it. If they think its too much trouble, they dont need to. If they think they are powerless to do so, despite the game offering them the tools, they cannot blame anybody else, but themself for their lack of action.

About the three things you mentioned.

Automating mundane tasks is one thing. Making a fun gameplay out of it is more like it. You see, a lot of time and effort developing a fun gameplay to make a report? How is that possible?

How is that possible to even have a fun gameplay that is not derived from combat?

What I answer to that is this: if someone has to fill a report, for whatever reason they are doing it, is because they need to do it, or accepted to do it. They werent forced to do it, unless they wanted to do it, they wouldnt be doing it. If for some reason they are in an administrative position and according to whatever rules are in place (wich the player had to agree with at first), he has to make a report about something.... making said report is part of his responsabilities, duties, if he does feel fun and rewarding being in a position where at such point he has to make a report, then by all means, dont do it, dont be in said position. The next time they decide if said administrative position has to make a report, he will be able to express himsself and work towards the goal to make said position does not need to make a report. We will give him the tools to change/remove any "burocratic" activites he does not want to.  If he loses the "vote", he will have to make a choice, between all the good fun of being in said administrative position versus the negative side of having to make a report. He, the player, will be the chooser in the end.

Its not the design's fault. We allowed him to change it, but he couldnt manage to do that. Can the player cope with the failure in influencing other players to change a rule that determines he has to make a report?

What kind of person wouldnt understand or accept that?

Originally posted by DesolateWolf

Wow, this thread is really on fire. I was just browsing around offline, but I just HAVE to take part in this. Call me a noob, call me a rebel, whatever you want, I don't care.

There are many ways you can go into this, because so many of you have discussed so many aspects on the subject. But my opinion on the initial topic, is well, yes, freedom is good. I think many of us misunderstand what definition of freedom we are talking about here. My definition of freedom, is to be able to craft our own story in an RPG and yes, some of our actions may bring consecuences, but that's the whole thrill about it.

Yes, maybe in real life such actions like speeding past a red light might cause a crash and most likely followed by death. But to me, that's the whole point of a videogame, to ESCAPE reality, my philosophy on games is that, all the developers and the whole team in it's entirity work together to IMAGINE something, form it into a DREAM, and sculpt that dream into our "REALITY". Think of it this way, our fast asleep in your bed, and your in the middle of a dream. All these big game companies and what not, are handing you the control to your dream, allowing you to do whatever you want.

Now, obviously there is a difference to theme park games and a sandbox game. In a theme park, the devs are giving you the scenery and a certain backstory for you to guide yourself in. A sandbox, just offers your the scenery, it's up to you what happens in it.

Now, I think what our friend here is trying to say is, that some games kinda do strip some of our freedoms. Like such games that make you follow a story line, and there really anything else to do but that. Now obviously everyone has their own opinion and they might even like games like that. But I really have to agree with the one line about "Making mistakes and having to deal with the domino effect later", the whole talk about balance really does make games feel kinda dull. So what if some overpowered player comes out of nowhere and woops your ass? your just gonna quit the game? I don't care who you are, I just see you as a wimp. Instead that should fill you with energy and momentum to take your character and spend countless hours buffing your character and finnaly wooping that guys ass, It feels rewarding.

Now another example I would like to include on my own account, is how linear some games can get. (I'm using WoW in my example since it's a very simple one to relate to) Games like WoW are a bit "free" but after spending days forming a group, or rallying your guild, and say spend countless hours and casualties raiding ICC, yeah it's rewarding throughout the way, but in the end, you finnaly down the Lich King.....now what? So that would be another example of my definition of freedom...

Umm, I hope I haven't left anything out. Excuse my horrible grammer skills. And hopefully you either agree or disagree in a civilized manner. So in conclusion, I say yes to freedom, complete freedom.

The part where you talk about people quitting after losing. You know, some people are just like that. Sometimes its not the game's design' fault.

Maybe this is the invincible argument against freedom. That some people are just like that. In my vision, I would like to see a game is designed in a way that even after they got their ass whooped once, they would still give the game a chance and try to do whatever the game allows them to do, to prevent getting their ass whooped, and off course, the game being fun and rewarding while they do it.

Sometimes people quit, because they just didnt found the game fun, for whatever reason (there are hundreds of them), but quitting due to other players interference is the one that removal of freedom prevents. I ask myself if this is an inate problem of human nature, as in, some people are just quitters and even if they get all the tools at their disposal, they still would not make good use of them.

Like people playing Starcraft II on battle.net. The game is perfectly well designed, perfectly balanced, but the differences between the players themselfs, causing direct effect on each others demise. Most people quit, instead of try to learn of get better. Off course, some of them are like that, because they simply dont like strategy at all, but Im talking about those who like strategy, just dont like to compete, to get owned, and to try harder next time to get better/evolve.

Some are like that, the question is... how many of them are "type B" players. You see... the whole problem of freedom, gets even more pronounced when we are talking about "combat focused games", games where "power over others" and the "acquisition of power" is the focus of the game.

Completelly changing the axis of the games, back into a social simulators, while still having an actual fun and entertaining gameplay activity and content that is not  focused on combat...  Certainly it would be more forgiving, because the combat side of freedom wouldnt be as intense, wouldnt appear as frequently, or in a way that is ultimatelly intolerable.

So its both a matter of rethinking fun gameplay that doesnt revolve around power/combat, and designing a game that offer said freedoms while still giving players the tools to work around/prevent abuses...

In terms of players, we would be looking for the players who are not easily frustrated (wich there are many) and for players that would actually get interested by a game that doesnt revolve around what 99% of other games do: combat, those two elements together would soften the intolerance to frustration of said players by not causing effects 99% as often...

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Interesting

Only ignorant fools repplied with the idea that freedom itself is inerently bad, with a short thought, pessimistic, one sided, blind sided view of it.  They cant think ahead of their noses, they only see "gank", "grief". Dont even realize they can use their heads to find a creative solution.

 

I get the feeling you misunderstand the responses so I will try once more to clarify. MMOs are a business. Subscribers pay to have fun. Most MMO gamers do not find your wishlist to be a list of things they find fun, nor do they want to be subjected to those things. It is not some pessimistic view of MMORPG.com posters, rather an understanding of the interests and experiences of the majority MMO gamers.

For many, the changes to MMOs over the years have granted more freedom. Freedom to keep what you've gathered. Freedom to travel without fear or random attack. Freedom to have nice things. Freedom to engage in individual or private group events/activities without interruption.

 

Since you grow more pretentious and insulting with each post, this is the last I'll contribute to this discussion. Hope the above helps clarify things a bit for you.

Freedom to "not be just another insignificant dude"

Freedom to  "never have to lose, specially to another player, that cant be!"

Freedom to "always be able to compete despite playing a massivelly multiplayer online role playing game where the world and other players continuously evolve and it doesnt stop when the player has to go work or sleep or whatever".

Freedom to "not  need to socialize, despite it being in essence a virtual social environment ".

Freedom to "not be responsible or fail for their actions"

Freedom to "not have to learn, think or addapt"

Freedom to "not be affected by other players, not even the market!"

Freedom.

All of this freedom you speak off are in reality artificial protections from the freedom.

What Im talking about if a Freedom in an environment where those protections are offered by players in-game, as tools.

Originally posted by paulpmb

Originally posted by deviliscious

Originally posted by Interesting

 

 I completely agree, and have made similar posts in years past. Many MMORPGS these days are lacking player freedom. I disagree with those that think that " freedom" should be limited to SPRPGs. There ARE games that have more freedom in many areas but are lacking in polish and need much work to make them successful. From my understanding, when the developers spend all their money on new graphix engines creating competing graphix, they do not seem to be able to fund the content as much as would be required to deliver a quality content enriched game.

These days people seem to think that customization means being able to change their items different colors rather than determine the weapons stats. Game customization became more like that old barbie head girls used to play with when we were kids. Like you get this barbie head, and you can change her makeup, hair color, jewlery- but really the thing can do no more than it could when you started. They focused on cosmetic rather than ability.

There are games where quests are optional. There are games where you can access all game content on one character. There are games that allow players to  determine their weapon stats. There are games where you can mage in range armor, melee in mages robes and range in warrior gear. These do exist, but are not as polished as they should be, and do not have all this content in one game. There are games that have zones for different activities, yet you can still do all activities on one server. There are games where you can hop servers at will with your character. There are games where you can craft a great variety of items in the game. 

The difference between these games and the others is kinda like the difference between an underground band that is playing out of their garage with crappy equipment and a " boy band". The mainstream companies support the boy bands and give them tons of cash even if they have no talent just to sell their products. It is easy money for them, wheras the more controversial metal band playing in the garage that may be insanely skilled musicians cannot get that kind of support simply because they do not follow the guidelines set by the mainstream.

 What needs to happen is a major developer takes all the good from these games, changing the bad, and combine them into one content enriched game and it would  be awesome.

Those who enjoy the linear, tell me what to do games can still play them, there are plenty for you to choose from out there, it just would be nice to have one for the rest of us.

IS asking for one polished ,  content enriched , quality mmorpg  with player freedom really too much to ask? Why would it bother those who oppose player freedom that much if we actually received one? Why is freedom so  offensive to some people?

 

 

 

 The reason why nobody is making 'polished, content rich quality mmorpgs with player freedom' is because the market for them is not that big.  It's like a fan of 'Brokeback Mountain' demanding that Disney put a romantic subplot between Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp into the next 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie.  Nobody is going to give the garage metal band in your example a multi-million dollar recording contract, set them up in a studio with a top producer and then send them on a stadium tour because they won't sell enough tickets to be profitable.  And if they do change their style in some ways to be more acceptable to a mainstream audience, their 'hardcore' fans will cry over them 'selling out'.

That being said, I have no problem if a major game developer decides to make a game like this.  My problem is with the droves of people who show up on the pre-launch forums of every game that comes out demanding that the game developers change their design decisions to accomodate them.

There is a bunch of reasons for this...

Time, Effort, Resources, Expertise... The initial minimum investment to make sure it works is too high.

Compared to what game companies are offering and what people are accepting to buy. Just look at the market and see hundreds of games labeling themselfs as MMOs, trying to sell virtual power for real money, with strict focus on combat, linear, balanced gameplay, very simple, low investment... Its obvious.

The kind of freedom we are talking here requires major work. Some people say it wont work, I say it can work, but it has strict conditions. Some say it doesnt have demand, I say there is huge demand for it, increasing ridiculously fast.

I even made a comparison about the Fall of Great Empires of our history. We are getting to a point in MMORPGs that the current design crippled itself too much, its canibalizing itself, killing itself, making games boring, unentertaining, empty and meaningless, wasting precious time... At this stage, there is a need for evolution, for change. Topics about people feeling the same about todays games multiply by the minute. There is this whole "social" aspect of MMORPGs that got left behind in the design boards that one day will have to be picked up again... with the advent of "social games", many eyes are being opened, there is a huge opportunity.

In short, freedom can work and there is demand for it. Seing how freedom potentializes social interaction, as long as its well designed (i.e. tools to allow people to addapt, evolve and get around the problems originated by said freedom organically).

Originally posted by uquipu

Say there's this NPC who drives a wagon from one town to the next.
.
I wan't to rob him so I chop down a tree to block the road.
.
Simple right?
.
What MMO will give me the freedom to do this?
.

Eudemons Online and Silkroad have similar things.

Dark and Light promised that, but didnt delivered.

But thats the example of freedom I was talking about. Freedom to cause effect on the world and other players.

If there is this is narrow path from where the wagon has to go and it has a block of wood blocking it, the player on the wagon would have to option to remove it out of the way or to cut it down, or to go back, or wait, or chose another path if available.

Thats the sort of consequence that one player freedom has on the world. He cut down the tree, made a block, blocked the road. Untill someone remove that block, it will remain there. The tree cut wont exist anymore, so the next time it will be different and such...

Same way with a bridge, for example...  Players can make a bridge, or make a boat to cross a river, or swim across, or steal a boat, or destroy the bridge.

This is the kind of awesome possibility of freedom that we dont have.

Originally posted by nariusseldon
so? too much freedom makes a bad game. i dont see the need of all those freedoms in games.

I dont see evidence that too much freedom makes a bad game. All I see is evidence that bad design (i.e. lack of tools) around the existance of  freedom makes a bad game.

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by deviliscious

Originally posted by Malickie

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by uquipu

Say there's this NPC who drives a wagon from one town to the next.
.
I wan't to rob him so I chop down a tree to block the road.
.
Simple right?
.
What MMO will give me the freedom to do this?
.

None, really, unless you know of an MMO that wants to deal with every jackass and his brother covering the roads with trees.

Lofty philosophical and social babble aside, that scenario simply needs to be examined by its core components - collision detection and the placement of objects in the game world.

 

From a design standpoint, the issue isn't tech or mechanics. The issue how badly and how often the small number of douchebags in your community will ruin the game for everyone with the tech or mechanic.

This, and only this.

I can even use actual examples from a game that at one time had plenty of freedom built in, SWG. Which had placeable objects that could be used in the wrong manner (to grief). Terminals as an example could be placed in front of doors, blocking players inside.

Another occurance (im not sure how often this actually happened). The incident was known as the Rayen petting zoo on my server. In short a player was rezzed while 4 players sat terminals around him trapping him in place.  Of course these players were banned, so was the player who was trapped if I recall correctly.

This is why we most likely will never see freedom in the scale the OP is calling for. While it would be great if it would work, it wouldn't be long before people started abusing those freedoms. I really can't see it turning out any other way.

 Of course you can't have absolute freedom, but with map zoning, and the ability to server hop at will, the trapped player could easily escape.

It can be done to a certain extent, but it is all about implementation. I love obstacle usage in games.. countless hours of amusement... I am so easily amused.

 

So, the Dev's should waste how many precious man hours of time/effort, talent and creativity to appeal to what is really a very small percentage of the general player base?  Its become obvious over the years that most players do NOT want all of this "freedom" that the OP speaks of.

That is just one of the reasons for the rise of theme park games, and the decline of games in the west that allow (or encourage) ganking and griefing.  Unless the Dev's wish to engage in an endless arms race with such types, its best to keep human nature in mind. Look at the evolution of Concord and the high sec rule set in EVE as an example of how even a PvP centric company like CCP has to protect its business model.

1. Socializers, social games, farmville. Do an association thinking and you should understand.

2. Players never had a taste of a well designed game with good implementation, like we are discussing on this topic.

People dont want what they experienced. But what they experienced was crap. I dont blame them, But from that concluding by induction that there isnt a market from what we are talking about. Falacy.

Originally posted by BuzWeaver

 

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Originally posted by Interesting

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Originally posted by SaintViktor
Thats like letting the inmates run the prison. Too much chaos and gaming is big money. Most devs will not hand over the controls to the players. I wouldn't either.

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Yes. There is Chaos. Gaming is big money, but thats something noone made yet that many would like to see implemented.
There is a ridiculous market for a game that offer such life like social structure.
 
You are wrong in thinking that everyone on the internet are criminals due to anonimity. With freedom everyone can choose to play sheep, wolf or dog. Things will balance each other, people in this organic living breathing system will addapt.
 
All we have to do is give them the tools for that. For everything that doesnt work, we have to give people tool to do try it again, or in a different way, in a better way and so on. People can not feel that they are out of tools.
 
If a group of players make a town near some good natural resources and a river. The city starts to grown, more people come, eventually bad people come. We have to give those players the tools to deal with the bad people with their own strenght/organization. It will be ultimatelly the power of the group in organizing themselfs and using the tools at their disposal, working together that will beat random criminal individuals.
If the law is not good enough, let them change it to another laws with difference requisites/punishments.
If they cannot enforce their own law, they will have to seek refugee in another town. They will have to organize under a wider group of people.
What I say is...
let the nature run and eventually we will have built virtual societies greater and more organized than real world societies.

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Let this thread or forum(s) sever as your litmus test. In this thread you have people with varying philosophies, ideologies, concepts about game mechanics and play style. Ultimately what you're left with is power a struggle. You'd be spending a majority of your time delineating and all the while people are most likely going to disagree with your method, this is assuming that you are the 'ruling class'.

Like in real life, there wont be just one place, one entity, one set of rules, one party... There will be a lot of conflict. But everything will be permeated with tools that allow people to express themselfs, to participate, to cause effects. They can always start something new, be part of something else, decide wich degree of comitment they want to take part, the power and responsabilities... If they are not satisfied, within the game, there will be options for those insatisfied to do something about it, even their social whinning will be part of the in-game influence power schemes and struggles.

Agreing and disagreing will be options with dozens of in-game tools that derive from them.