Saturday Debate: Innovation or Upgrade: The MMO Dilemma
Staff Writers Dan Fortier and Carolyn Koh take opposite sides of the issue of The MMO Dilemma, to innovate or to upgrade.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of MMORPG.com, its staff or management.
There are lots of varied approaches to take toward any project. Whether you are building a house or designing an online game there are still important choices to make that will effect what kind of future the final product will have. As with most things, it's far easier to stand on the shoulders of your predecessors and build upon what they have accomplished and learn from their mistakes rather than forging your own trail of innovation into uncharted territory. Using the house analogy, it's much simpler to use a tried and true blueprint that has proven it won't fall apart at the first stiff wind rather than crafting your own architectural style.
As far as MMOs are concerned, how much effort should go toward implementing and improving current/existing features versus expanding the horizon and inventing new technology and content that will improve the genre? It's a difficult question and one that is the focus of this week's debate between Dan Fortier and Carolyn Koh.
I think a lot rather depends on that nasty old specter, the root of all evil, the one named Money. How deep are your pockets? I'm going to argue this from the practical stand point. I have bambini to feed and a mortgage to pay. Office rent, employees, benefits, and an investor with finite dollars. I've sold the idea of Killerbunnies MMORPG and now I have to deliver. Innovative new technology to improve the genre? No, I don't think so. The MMORPG market is still in its infancy and we are hardly using the technological capability available to us. Improvement is the way to go.
: No one is forcing Devs with light pockets to jumping the MMO arena. At some point game developers have to stop seeing the MMO industry as a get rich quick scheme and realize that there is a reason that people pay you monthly for your game. WoW didn't do anything but take a bunch of already used features and make it relatively simple and bug-free, but at some point you have to move forward and do something that breaks the mold a bit. I'd personally rather see the focus moved away from eye-popping graphics and toward a deeper game experience that you can't get by simply mixing and matching current features, I don't buy the excuse that new features are 'going out on a limb' either. There is such a thing as 'natural progression' and it doesn't mean re-skinning your models for DX10. Breaking new ground doesn't mean reinventing the wheel either when all we want is another outlet for our game habits. Mini-games, for example, have been a staple many offline game for years, but few to none of the current Devs have even tried to integrate fresh ideas into their games.
Wait, I thought you were talking about inventing new technology and content features? You're arguing my point for me. Welcome to the dark side my friend! Mini-games are in MMOGs. They aren't common, but they are there and often integrated into a quest. I've always enjoyed those particular quests ~ EverQuest had a few and the very first quest in Dungeons and Dragons Online requires you to solve a puzzle. That's a current feature that I think should be utilized more often and improved upon.
There are Devs out there with light pockets that did wonderful things for the MMO arena so I don't buy that argument. The most well-known one is (was) Mythic Entertainment. They're in EA's deep pockets now, but that does not negate in any way what Dark Age of Camelot brought to the table - massive RvR battles, siege engines - an MMO first.
WoW is successful because they used the same old features but made it available to as low a common denominator as they could possibly achieve in terms of required hardware to run the game. A calculated risk that has had their investors chortling insanely all the way to the bank. Nothing wrong with that. It's still a hugely popular game, even with power gamers and those with bleeding edge machines. Why? Because the tried and true is fond and familiar to the gamer heart, the improved tried and true.
Another example: The concepts of faction and how they can be employed to greatly enhance gameplay have hardly been deeply explored. More often, they are viewed as a grind or stepping stones by players - merely a means to an end - that of better gear. Why? Possibly because it was designed that way? What if faction actually meant more? And some games are already exploring that. Two or three different factions in a city need not mean that you're flagged KoS in some areas if you raise one faction. What annoys a player more than anything is making an uninformed choice for faction, and then having to fix it later when spoiler sites come out with the end rewards.
Dark Age of Camelot is a great of example of a game that added a completely new feature to the MMO genre without being in the pocket of a huge developer. I'm not going to drag out the point of the reasons that we don't see more innovation though. What we need are designers with not only a vision for a world to sell but also some kind of plan on how to make it work. If DAoC was made by NP Cube or some other group of incompetents do you think anyone would be copying their RvR style? It's obviously not enough to just pick a super-duper unique feature at random and throw it into a poorly designed game in order to make a successful game and advance the genre.
The most important point I'd like to make though is that you can improve existing features by developing unique features to complement the standard ones. Adding siege warfare and RvR, for example, made a lot of DaoC's standard features a lot more fun and worth doing. It turned a typical dungeon into a three way free-for-all and gave incentive for higher level players to develop strong teams in order to carve out a small empire for themselves where in older games (and a couple newer ones) you would have to settle for farming endless raids for gear that was only useful to look at. My point is that by pushing the envelope of new features you will create more creative ways for your players to enjoy the old ones. Top that!
Who me? I'll concede that point. I think we are both favoring the grey area where improvement and innovation overlaps - i.e. Is it new, is it improved or is it new and improved? Or is it just new packaging? Is Evian really Naïve spelled backwards? Sure, you know if someone were able to build an innovative and successful game on a shoe-string budget, far be it for me to belittle it. But I doubt there will be something truly new and unique without deep pockets to bring it into the MMO format... especially in the MMO format.
As our arguments are spilling over into each other's territory here, I'm going to leave it here with a couple of improvement "wishes" - 1. Improvement of the use of the Z axis in MMO combat, and 2. More "environmental" combat arenas like fighting in an underwater dungeon. Hmmm... that might also include wish no. 1 above. So, dear readers, time for you guys to weigh in. What do you think? Improvement or innovation? Or maybe even... improvement through innovation?
GAWD this aggravates me to no end. Why is it that people always assume that innovation means reinventing the friggin wheel?? For an industry that is in... how was it put... it's "infancy", there must be a hell of a lot of ways to add new features and content without having to explore new forms of tech. It's called creativity in design... and the tools to do so are already there.
Stop giving your developers stupid ideas. Pay them to write decent code for a fun game, and see the development through to the polish before releasing it. That will improve the genre 1000 times more than attempting to develop new ways to color a rock.
I disagree here. The problem is not that they tried to innovate and failed. They failed to impose new ideas on old gameplay. Give me a feature that was introduced that changes how people played those games that was not a 1+1=2 feature.
Game designers are hamstrung by investors. Everybody wants a succesfull game, but when you mention a new feature that is completely without any support in the market space as a sure fire way of drawing more players aka subscriptions, they are left on the cutting room floor because economics dictate (as in majority of TV and movie productions) that the working recipy for MMO's cannot be tampered with beyond a curtain point.
Apart from pure innovation vs upgrade there is a multitude that affects the outcome of a MMO in the market, not just features. Just look at Vanguard.
At the end of the day, Game designers have to try to innovate regardless of the restraints on them from a number of areas in the industry. If they are just going to create another clone of every other MMO out there to get a market share to make profit the then the future of entertaining MMO's is bleak indeed.
They real key is for an MMORPG developer (meaning the company as a whole) to develop new and interesting content and features BEFORE launching the game, test the hell out of them, and polish the whole thing before charging a penny for subscriptions. Then, as time moves forward, new features and content should absolutely be introduced to the game, and the same process should be followed.
To say that it is impossible to be innovative and creative without screwing it up is absolute crap. Commercial software companies do it all the time... and they don't have HALF of the issues.
It's time that players demanded MORE from the games they play, and it's time that the game publishers recognized that they have been dropping the ball for years.
This is an excellent point. This is one of the reasons why I have always been a little sad that MMORPG's got so popular. It can be nice because there are more people to group with (if you like that), but it turns the industry into just that... and industry. The more corporate gaming gets, the less innovative it will be. ESPECIALLY if the company is US based. Just look at the auto manufacturers here. It's criminal what happens there, and it's becoming more and more apparent with MMORPG's too.
Secondly, Innovation, new features, or changes cannot be implemented in a sloppy way. Many games that try innovation forget to polish all of the many facets of their game. So, it was not the fault of the innovation that caused games to be poor. It was there inability to integrate new ideas into a game seamlessly.
Quality companies know that the product has to "feel" right. First impressions of any product are more important than anything. In a game; sloppy animations, non-intuative controls, lack of "fun" factor, nothing that makes you go "wow" are death for a game. I think developers get caught up on making a game instead of making a game fun.
Yes, I want innovation. But, not at the cost of something else missing from the game.
I like your reference to the auto industry. However, answer me this...
The problem with US auto industry is that we simply cannot compete in manufacturing with countries who pay 1/10th as much to their workers. Hence, why so many jobs are outsoureced out of the US. And why the only people opening plants in America are Toyota and Honda... The US auto industry has been dead for 30 years, people are just finally starting to realize it...
For MMORPG's, the most successfull title was created by a US company. A product that takes Upgrade over innovation. They've become the global leader. Look at what's coming out of Asian MMO market, more Korean grinder games. Look what's coming out soon from US companies, WAR and AoC, Innovation over upgrade for the most part... well, WAR may be more upgrade then innovation but..
Point is, it's nothing like the US auto industry.
lol
True, everyone is trying to hop on the MMORPG bandwagon after WoW's success, but few will succeed. What this means for the industry? Increased competetion for your subscription, but I doubt we'll be exporting MMO design jobs to Korea any time soon. :)
If anything, the MMO industry is more like the television industry. CSI and Law and Order are SO successfull, everyone is trying to make a crime show to run against them, but few will succeed. There hasn't been anything innovative on television in quite a while, just upgrade's to the same old formulas... Hence, much more accurate comparison to MMO industry.
I've been drinking, sorry if this doesn't make sense. It IS Saturday
Very close to my thoughts. It will take one group that creates a whole new genre of MMO to create a whole new fad (yes I mean that)
I am willing to bet the next big MMO will be very different from WoW.
WoW will die off old age just like sienfeld etc or will be replaced with a new game from Blizzard that has similar design and execusion as WoW but possible in a different setting, but I suspect not as successfull as WoW.
WoW will be one of a kind. It's the watershed between old style computer games (aka single/networked) games and MMO (massive onlne) It's dominance will decline (some argue it's already started) and the market will settle.
Enough about WoW. :)
I would love to be part of something truly new and exciting. maybe even something completely non related to RPG's in the MMO world.
Now if only some Game Company would hire me ;P hehe
There has to be inovation or the mmorpg genre will die(die as in back to the uo days with 250,000 players). I will not play another fantasy mmorpg unless it has something ground breaking and FUN in it. Leveling and item whoring is not fun.
Things I want from MMORPG's
- A Single player experiance (as in I wanna feel like the hero, not just another moron with a weapon running around)
- A game experiance that does feel like the more you play the harder and more impossible it becomes.
- A game mechanic that is NOT focused on killing things in one way or another (crafting means killing things etc)
- Seperate single and group game mechanisms so that they don't effect each other negatively.
- Create a dynamic game. One where players effect the world and possibly the story.
And that just int he RPM genre. I have a list as long as my arm on different MMO genre's and game mechanics that they can bring to the table.Well, I agree about most, but looking at that settling on the MMO market after (certain) WoW death: This really wont be that easy, especially when dealing with Blizzard Entertainment (now owned by Vivendi) - as we all know, WoW has made loads of cash for BE, so when their gigant will die, they will take this loads and put them into something even greater - please note that BE has the habit to develop, test and polish everything as long as it takes to bring perfect, fresh game to the market (of course when considering its impact and popularity, so again...cash flush).
Maybe some of the WoW players will subscribe and play other games, but millions of new will come and buy new Blizzard product - this company just somehow alway knew how to get to gamers (both casual and hardcore).
So - this will be an everending problem, and I won't be suprised if BE will hold their majority on MMO market for a long, long time.
Of course, till some cash-flushed investor will be called by an extrermely talented developer, so they can both publish new, ground-breaking MMO that everybody was waiting for (ok, not likely)
QFE and jpete3 FTW
This is EXACTLY how I feel
My point about the auto industry was the lack of innovation in design and efficiency with American cars. China, for example, has cars which have better emissions ratings than US cars *might* have in 12 years if the newest regulations for emissions controls don't get squashed before they are enacted into law. MMORPG's are becoming like Ford and GM. The world needs more efficient vehicles, so they come out with Hummers and scrap electric cars.
In this regard, the analogy was spot on, IMHO
The real question is whether MMO developers should follow the trends but make minor improvements on the gameplay or should they try to revolutionize the industry by doing something entirely new. Obviously you run into the same problem that all forms of media run into. TV, movies, music, video games.... The companies with the large sums of money to invest in large projects want a guarantee on their return. So a huge number of them will push for clones of already successful games. All we can really do is hope for the same saviors we find in other mainstream forms of media. Either we look to people within the mainstream industry with enough money or clout to push through truly revolutionary ideas, or we look to scrappy independent underdogs who scrape by and squeeze out something good that then ends up gathering momentum and becoming a break-out hit.
Blizzard has all of those, which is why WoW is so successful. I would say EVE Online also. But at this point, there are few others.
Its the guy who is playing WoW, and all these other clones, that is being bored out of his mind who will someday break out of this Everquest clone gaming style that is so pervasive in this genre. Its people like that who bring about new ideas. He'll want to get into the market, and create a game that people will love. DAoC, Eve Online, Anarachy Online, and Asheron's Call all started from humble beginnings. They didn't have Sony or Blizzard backing them up. They started with a love of gaming, and a want of money. Now all those companies are doing bigger and better things.
Just like in all businesses, though, you have people trying to get rich quick. Your Dark and Light, Throne of Chaos, I'm even going to throw Vanguard in there because that is an obvious scam from my viewpoint. They don't last long, because they were amateurs who thought the business world was easy. They thought you can just throw any old product out there, crap or not, and people will love it. No, people don't like playing with feces, so these guys go under.
Show me one game that had deep pockets behind it which had a new idea. I'm not sure there is one.
Then it is about damned time these companies change their business model, and figure out how to make it work. I am sick of having to settle for half-assed work when the potential is there for so much more. Commercial software companies can do it... why can't gaming companies?
Again, there are multiple components required in this equation. Refer to my previous post.
SoE had a 3 million dollar development budget for EQ2, if I remember correctly. They were the first to... er... uh... what the hell did all that money pay for anyway??
Because they're corporate entities, and corporate entities often don't care about getting things right if there is a faster way to profit.
Round and round it goes... where it stops, nobody knows...
Sadly, this is VERY true.
Just look at the MMO Forum list. There's games I haven't ever heard of, yet there's probably a ton of people playing each and every one of them, and another ton for each "Game in Development" forum. The problem I see is we, the public, the consumers, keep buying all the crappy games companies throw at us just because we think it's gonna be the "next big thing". How many people fell for the "Dark and Light" and "Mourning" scams?? Most of us are so thirsty for innovation we blur the lines between innovation and upgrades (yes, they're different: upgrading means making something existing better, innovating means creating something new altogether) and go for every upgraded game out there hoping it will play differently from our last MMOG. Corporate entities keep giving us all this crap because we keep buying it, it's as simple as that. On one side, you could think they're just playing unfairly with our hopes as gamers and consumers, but you could also think that they're just reacting to what they believe people like, because that's what people are buying.
The "round and round it goes" poster condensed it very well in a single line.
I'm sure most game developers have great ideas, but I'm also sure most of them get lost in the economic impulses the "people higher up" impose.
How the hell do we fix this??
That is in and of itself, a loaded question, as trying to get a collection of gamers to do the same thing pretty much equates to herding cats. So it's not like we're going to organize a massive boycott or anything... I mean, hell... Are our choices really limited to simply waiting for someone NOT to suck at MMORPG production?
My first experience with a video game was in 1980. Holy hell... that was 27 years ago. Anyway... Since then, I have seen many, many wild and crazy advances in the video game industry. Most of the innovative, groundbreaking work was done by people with very little spare cash and a whole lot of dedication. Now... with all of the incredible technology at our disposal, we have a bunch of people who probably don't even play video games calling the shots in a boardroom somewhere, deciding what to cut out of production based on cost analysis and revenue forecast models.
Gaming is no longer about someone making something really cool, and someone else getting to play it. it is about selling "insert movie spinoff here" wrapped in a shiny box, most likely with a half naked chick on the box... which, by the way, probably doesn't even exist in the friggin game.
Man... I miss the old days.
As gamers? We can't, because it's not an industry problem but a problem of consumer culture. Your herding cats analogy is perfect, unfortunately. As long as there is free trade, this situation will exist.
My personal opinion is that we probably don't need new technology. What we need is to use what we have in more creative, amazing ways, that will actually spark the imaginations of players, and make us feel excited to play these games again.
Ok lets look at Wow, since it is the most successful of the MMO's. What does it have that is so attractive?
- I think the number one reason is ease of play, at least at the 1-59 and of course 1-69 with the expansion.
- very good questing system that supplements or replaces part of the grind.
- well put together storyline, that is fairly well thought out.
- A very mild death penalty and very little downtime when playing.
- The mail system made it very easy to exchange items with other players and other characters.
- A pvp system that is rather easy to compete in with balanced classes.
- a very simple trades system that provides minor enhancements to equipment.
The end game is a different matter, it really only caters to the raider, but the vast majority that don't raid still enjoy socializing in the different areas.
What Wow does not have:
- Open, skill based characters verses the rigid class structure.
- Ability to dye clothing, everyone wearing a certain piece of clothing looks the same. Gets monotonous as more and more of the populace gets raid equipment.
- decent pvp system with collision avoidance and skill being far more important than equipment. Also reasons for worldly pvp.(Wow has added some, but it is very poorly thought out)
- end game that is not the ultimate puzzle palace.
- end game storyline that constantly evolves.
- Timely expansions and updates.
- housing(although I could pass on this, many others desire it)
So in my book, looking at the above list, there are many avenues a developer can address to innovate over Wow, it is far from the perfect game.
Wow is basically an EQ clone with many of the weaknesses of EQ removed. Less downtime, not a harsh death penalty, better questing system. They tried to make things simple and remove anything that interfered with the fun factor. They did admirably well doing that too.
Personally I don't think huge changes are needed to be successful, but I do not think Wow is going to dominate the industry forever, the developers have a distinct weakness for raiders, while it is a plain fact that the vast majority of the playerbase does not favor that part of the game.
As to what is in the pipeline for this year, I don't see anyone challenging Wow, but I could be wrong. LOTRO is doing very well in it's subscriptions so far, I am surprised at the numbers. Warhammer will probably do well initially, but I think it will not be the game people expect as Mythic cannot balance classes for pvp. Conan I am taking a wait and see attitude, can Funcom wait till it is polished before giving the public access.
There are a bunch of others that are niche products, I don't see any of them being more than that and that includes the open pvp ones.
There are others out there, that have possibilities, but remain vaporware, meaning I have doubts about their ability to ever make it to the market, such as Darkfall.
Davs need to make something unique and not just the same "go out and find things go kill that are just waiting for you". I think most devs need to be like Valve, they took a real chance coming out with the first Half-life and it worked out for them big time. They took a risk and they have one of the biggest games out there. Years after the game has been made and still people play it today. Half-life 2 took them 7 years to make and they weren't going to bring it out until they felt it was ready. They went through 2 game engines until they felt it was right. Now if we can just bring some of that same innovative thinking into MMO's I think it would be great.
The last article "How GTA can effect MMO's" I think it it on the head. We need devs that will give us diversion in a game, that will give us more choices than just grind or craft. I've had games in my head for a year or two now and I wish I had the money to develop them, because I think they are innovative. Hell you won't see monsters walking around a 10' area thats for sure.
I think in time things will change, its just taking longer than all of us would hope. There have been some devs that have tried to make different types of MMO's and have failed, like Face of Mankind. I don't know how Huxley will be, and I have high hopes for Star Trek Online and Stargate Worlds. Only time will tell if any of these games will break the mold and start a new way of thinking.
Even if not maybe you'll just give part of the community the reason to say - "That's it! Why it doesn't look this way?!"
Ready to hear some fresh ideas.
Rallying the people who don't care about changing things and convincing the ones who don't want to change is the key to getting the support necessary to throw a bucket of cold water to the devs. Getting some twists on existing projects and also being vocal with the respective communities is what's gonna throw us into the real 'next-generation' games. Personally, I'm not very creative, but I know people who are, and I'm part of the group who can support or discard an idea and improve upon it with discussion. People like me just need 'the push'.
We, the gamers, are a source for the stagnation of current MMOGs. But also we, the gamers, are the definitive source to change the MMOGs we play. We're the only audience the devs have. Let's use that power to our advantage.
The MMO market is growing every year. More and more money is spend by consumers and the devs pay attention. Unless something/someone exceptional comes along, the marketplace will continue it's current trend until the money starts to decline. At that point, they will either innovate or spend less on content which might force them to different business models like free with ads.
If something new comes along which is innovatative and a success in the marketplace, then a new template for other games will come along and we will be back in the same boat.
The MMO community is it's own worst enemy. And by community, I mean not just us, the players, but the press, both print and online, as well. We wail and moan about wanting innovative, new games, but when one comes along, it get's slagged in the press, and generally stomped by the players, because the graphics suck, and it's not polished enough.
And then derivative games like WoW pull in 9 million users, and are generally lauded far and wide. Guess who's gonna get the money next go around?
It's like watching a third party candidate run for office. Everyone bitches that it doesn't matter if you vote Republican, or Democrat, they're all crooks, but no one bothers to pay attention to the 3rd party candidate on the sideline, jumping up and down, shouting "Hey, you dumbasses, you claim to want something different, well here it is!".
This doesn't even take into account that what players say they want, and what they really want are usually two totally different things. Take Vanguard for example. Ignoring it's technical shortcomings for a second, it is a very sandbox-y game. It dumps you in a huge world, and leaves you to make your own story. I recall a lot of people crowing about how they wanted just that. To not be spoon fed, hand held, et all. Then when they were given that, they bitched that there was no lore, no direction, and so on.
There's plenty of innovation out there, but it's not going to have the polish of a game like WoW with a $70 million budget. If you really want innovation, vote with your wallet.
We had a little contest on our own forum a while ago to develop an idea from existing media and the things you'd like to include in the game.
Anyway copy and paste....see what you think
Well my idea for a new MMOG comes from a game I have played many a time and think that it would make a superb game and am quite surprised no one has picked up the license of tried to at least develop something along the same lines.
That game is Fallout, for the uninitiated (i.e. you young uns) the game came out in the mid 90’s. It is a single player RPG that paved the way for a lot of the RPG’s you play today, as at the time they weren’t very popular. The original game was set in the 23rd century after the third world war and was billed as a post apocalyptic role playing game. The basic premise was that you played a character that had survived the war by sheltering in a big bunker and when it was safe stumbled back out into what was left of the world. Your main quest was to find a piece of equipment to mend the water purifying machine in the vault before the water ran out.
The game zones consisted of areas of wasteland and ruined cities on the Western Seaboard of America, with a few scattered settlements of survivors, tribals, raiders, mutants, ghouls etc. The game proved quite popular and was quickly followed up with Fallout 2 which was set 80 years later and you played the previous games grandchild.
One of the major attraction of the game and also what would make it so easy to turn into a MMOG is the character selection process. Yours character has a set of Seven stats called the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. Each stat was given a set value of 5 and you had a further 5 points to allocate across the seven stats as you see fit up to a maximum of 10. You could also take points off the stat, i.e. reduce it below 5 so you could make you toon a beefcake monster or a super sleek brainiac depending how you want to play.
Further customisation is achieved through the next stage of selecting 2 ‘traits’. This added extra flavour to your character, a trait might make you a brute and add to strength to you total but for the loss of some speed, or you could be resistant to drugs or poisons etc.
The final stage of the process was to ‘tag’ 3 skills that would level up quicker then you others. The skills to pick from included things like Large Weapons, Small Weapons, Hand to Hand, Speachcraft, Repair and Bartering. To raise your skills every time you levelled up you would get a base amount of skill points plus a bonus depending on your intelligence. Different skills have different governing characteristics, i.e. Small Weapons skill rating would be the base rate + a bonus from your perception characteristic + any skill points put into the skill. These then would translate into a percentage chance to fulfil the task you were attempting, be it sniping a guy in the eye, disabling a mine or repairing a machine.
My idea would be to carry the game on from where it concluded at the end of Fallout 2. The players could play a number of races like a Vault Human, a Survivor Human, a Super Mutant (these were normal humans that were transformed in the original game to form an army of heavy weapon wielding super soldiers, slow and stupid but built brick outhouses), a ghoul (heavily irradiated humans that have incredible resistance to things, but a bit prone to dropping to pieces) or a Deathclaw (A monster race that resulted from the radiation, think small Godzilla’s, rip your arms off in a fight, then stick them down your throat).
Each race would have it own advantages and disadvantages as usual, bit like the SWG toons. Also they would have there own starting town/area i.e. a vault, a ruined settlement, an abandoned military base, a nuclear power station and a cave/den. From there the players could go anywhere and do what they like, level the skills they want to focus in and interact or war with all the other races as they see fit.
So far that is pretty much how the single player game works with the exception of not having an overriding mission for the players to complete. For it to work as a MMOG it needs to have its unique selling points and give the people something to do. Firstly each town would have a mayor/leader to get everyone started with some simple quests like were being threatened by X or we need you to find Y like any other game. But I would like this sort of thing to be kept to the starter areas only and for the players to make there way on from these places and explore the bigger area and do their own thing.
Nobody will have any knowledge of what exists outside there starter areas, all they will have is a topographical map that shows hills, canyons, rivers etc, it won’t how new town, raider camps, resources, these will need to be found and bookmarked by the player. My idea would be for there to finite amounts of items in the game world for people to find and exploit. These then can be traded, sold or taken by other players as they want, after all it’s an anarchic society where survival is your only concern. So yes people can take your weapons and armour from your barely lifeless corpse.
Eventually the basic plan would be for groups of players to set up there own camps, towns etc, using old ruins, caves or captured facilities and any resources they can find. To give an example, the Solar Wraiths group of friends have left there starting area and set off into the wastes. After a while and after fighting through a few mutant scorpions they find the remains of a town, none of the buildings a usable as shelter, but there are still some half decent wooden beams and a nice corrugated metal fence. Noting the location they move on and eventually find a raider camp set into hillside. After defeating the raiders they decide to take the camp as their own base. Needing to strengthen the defences they head back to the ruined town, they take the timber a sheet metal back to the cave and make a wall for better protection. They can then fight off any npc or player mobs that happen by there camp.
That’s the sort of thing I’d love to see in a game. Eventually they could start a small town, have some traders, make the walls bigger, invite in some other groups/guilds, or try and keep it secret/low key and raid nearby towns for their items. Like I said these places would by finite so there would only be so many to reduce overcrowding, with finite resources and finite weapons/armour to find in the remains of old bases or being carried by npc’s or other players. It is all geared towards more cooperation and teamwork and stop soloing/farming for things to sell for real life profit and spoil the game.
I would have a crafting system in the game but it would work differently to other game where as it would be more geared towards customisation and conversation rather then creating. For instance it would be hard to find the means to craft a new mini gun, but a person with high enough skills in the required skill areas could make the ammo capacity bigger, or fit a laser sight to increase accuracy. These items would be found and could be traded or sold like anything else. Also you could experiment on things like cutting down a long range rifle to make an extremely powerful pistol, of course it’s all on a percentage chance and it could go wrong ruining the weapon and thus there would be one less of that weapon in the game.
I personally think it would make a mutts nuts of a game, the setting is completely different to anything else on the market. It would allow for ranged and close combat and also offer players the chance to run and build their own towns, bases and camps and then defend them from all the other jealous players who just want to take it away from them.
Fallout also offers huge potential for other silly little things to do while in game, in the two single player games you could gamble at casinos, make drugs and sell them, pimp your wife, find a vehicle and repair it to use to move around in quicker and other fun past times. So even of you’ve cleared out every mutant camp in 5 miles, got a pile of guns bigger then an Al’Qaeda ammo dump and a fortress a Space Marine would be proud of, you can always have a game of poker with your mates in game and wait for the next bunch of raiders to assault you gun line.
So I guess we all shall wish luck to the devs at Interplay Entertainment and look forward to more info.
"I'm working on the David Perry Secret Project "
P.T. Barnum once said "There is a fool born every minute"
First off that secret project is strictly a publicity stunt. Secondly even if it weren't why give away ideas for free?
The investment community is very wise to David Perry scams, I much doubt he will get enough funding for this.
Are they really? I'm not sure whether or not thats good news or bad news. I know Interplay had gone out of business a while back and that another compnay was messing around in early developement of Fallout 3 and that never got off the ground. My main problem with Interplay rearing their heads again is that most of the staff that made the original have moved on (Most founded Obsidian Entertainment which produced KOTOR2).
Anyway I merely posted that up as an illustration of a game mechanic that is both taking current ideas, upgrading on some and bringing in new innovation to further the genre. Starting areas which are quest powered to get you started are nothing new, WoW does that very well. One of the major problems with a game like EVE is that you get dropped into this massive immersive universe and have no clue where to go or what to do, while the tutorial gives you a basic run thourgh of early commands, it's by no means a complete overview of everything you can do. This I think is why you get alot of people who play the trial for 14 days then say "boring crap" as you can't even begin to experience that game in 14 days.
Upgrade comes in the form of the systems of bringing people together to survive, a better trading and selling system, houses and cities that need proper planning and defending. None of my ideas are that "flight of fancy" that they couldn't be done. Same with a real death penalty, it's been done before and I believe there is definately a market out there for a game where if you get careless you can lose all your gear.
Finally innovation is in the form of interactive terrain and finite resourcing. Fences you can take down for materials, vehicles to scavange, bases to take over. I believe it all could be programmed and would give the player chance to change their environment. If there is only a finite amount of everything it again brings communities together to protect what they have, enhancing trade with other groups and also allowing those with evil intent to attack and take materials and items.
I believe like the OP's state in their article, you need a mixture of everything to get the customer's in, then you can develop your product in new ways, after you've got the playerbase in and playing with atleast some mechanics their used to.
So far we've seen a great deal of games simply upgrading a tried and tru formula, with merely cosmetic changes and balance issues, or removing some of the aspects which players found frustrating. That's all very well and good, but there's only so much of it you can take.
Back in the day, there were only 2 or 3 MMORPGs available to the discerning player, therefor you put up with the problems and shortcomings it had because there was nothing else.
These days you can't open a website or magazine without seeing a "new and revolutionary" MMO coming out. But quite how "new" or "revolutionary" they are is a little suspect. New character models don't make a new game.
So the developers need to stop churning out mindless copies and start thinking "why should plays choose this game over GameX or GameY?" A successful IP will sell games initially (WoW, Warhammer, etc) but you need something with substance to keep them forking out their subscription. There's enough choice now that if players aren't entertained, they'll go somewhere else.
LOL,
Many SWG players would agree with you. No matter how you spell it, Dev are having to equate FUN = MONEY. For them they are not exclusive issues.
Innovation has to do only one thing. Make more money. It can be a crap grind that all will do and hate. As long as it makes money they wont mess with it. Let some other poor suc... Gaming Company develope a idea that works. If its good (and easy to implement) then others might copy its formula. Heck, all the devs of the popular MMO's live in Austin. They probably swap ideas and solutions all the time. FRS --->Honor Rank--->GCW Rank anyone?
In truth, making money is great but does it make a better company with better games? You need people with ideas, talent and vision to change the status quo. Are there still people out there that can do that? Lets hope so.
yes
Actually there are ppl who Do get BORED of thier houses thats why there called "investers"
That would be great if I had the money to develop my own game, but since I don't this seems the best thing to work on. Plus I still have my original game ideas. Ideas don't make you money unless you have money or a way in. I have neither, wish I did because I think my ideas are good. I can't just got to EA games or Activision and say "I have an idea" and their going to want to listen. Its like all the people with screenplays out there that try and hand them to directors, 99% of them get thrown away without being read. This gives me a little hope even though nothing may come of it.
What MMO developers fail to consider I think is that the players are taking a risk too, not just the developers. We players are awful hesitant to part with our hard-earned $15 per month; we need to feel there's real value in what we're being offered. I play WoW, for instance, for two reasons: 1, because all my friends play it, and 2, because there's nothing else out there I am willing to risk getting hooked on, because ultimately its going to be the same old experience, only I'm going to have a few less friends to play with.
Any developer that wants to eventually oust WoW as the obscenely-wealthy-market-leader, needs to give us a reason to switch. At the same time, they need to make us feel like we're still getting the same experience, plus added value. In other words the devs have to sell The Players just like the have to sell the studio execs or publishers or whoever. They do that by offering a comfortable, familiar and natural experience, but adding a level of depth we haven't seen before, that becomes more apparent as we get more into the game.
WoW is advertised by word of mouth. That's how it got to be the dominant product -- people said to each other, "Hey, its just like what you're playing now, only it sucks less, and I'm playing too."
Other devs need to take that just one step further. As soon as I can say to all my WoW-playing friends, "Hey, its just like what you're playing now, only it sucks less AND its got a lot more depth, and I'm playing too" then I'm pretty sure they'll all come running, and so will everyone else.
Really when you get down to it, you really don't have to innovate as there are lots of good ideas used by some of the early MMO's that were ditched by Wow and all it's clones.
I still have many fond memories of times spent in Pre-trammel UO of course when they introduced Age of Shadows in the attempt to make it more EQ like, they really destroyed the essense of the game. But the wonderfully implemented skill system is to this day better than almost anything out there. If you did not like the skils on your character you could change it, you did not have to make another character.
EQ is the evil incarnate monster that introduced rigid class lines in this genre. Just lazy developers that use this because they don't want to take time to balance skills, instead of balancing classes.
Asheron's Call introduced a huge world with very little zoning and more dungeons than any game to date. It was a skill based system, while not as good as UO's skill system, it was still good. The prevalence of botters though pretty much ruined the game and Turbine reacted too late to correct the problem.
DAoC was a great innovator, but made some major goofs too. Too many classes at the start of the game and then constant adding of more with every new expansion doomed the game. They just could not balance the classes and all the class lines. They also started with far too powerful crowd control and allowed buff bots to dominate the rvr scene. Then they gave the powerlevelers their wish with powerful weapons and special powers for really hard quests and the game just died.
SWG after a rough launch became a very interesting game with it's skill system and player maintained economy. It was not like some other MMO's because when you killed something it did not drop a sword, gun or armor, it dropped raw materials which other used to make things. Besides the new player equipment almost everything was player made. It was not until NGE destroyed the skill system and introduced reduced rigid class lines that the game died.
Innovation seemed to die with Wow, until Eve came along. Eve extended the player based economy of SWG and added a unique skill system that trained skills over time, whether you were in game or not. While you can still find things from hunting pirates in Eve, the items manufactured by players is as good or better than most of the stuff found on pirates. Eve's is not perfect, the rules are very confusing for the restricted pvp in the Empire space, so called safe area and really need a restructuring. They also have a problem with large fleet battles, mostly because they use a lot of interpretive code verses compiled code.
So if I were to design a better fantasy MMO, it would be:
#1 be skill based. I personally like the time trained skills that Eve uses, who cares if you play 1 hour a day or 10 with such a system. With such a system levels would supperfluous,
#2 have a player crafted economy. Creatures would drop raw materials mostly, but if the creature could carry weapons or armor then it has a possibility of a good drop. Player manufactured items would be the better items except for a few rare exceptions.
#3 have a large world, with few zones. Difficult to eliminate zones, but limiting them would be paramount.
#4 Lots of dungeons, Some instanced ,some not. So both crowds can choose what they like.
#5 Open pvp in some areas, BUT with consequences. Those who player killed often would have restrictions. Sorry pvpers you can't have your cake and eat it too, others just won't play if you dominate. Some areas would be dangerous and open pvp, probably would have the rarer resources too.
#6 Player towns are something I would like, but are a problem when it comes to being attacked, how do you defend an attack at off hours, definitely need a mechanism that only makes it difficult to destroy one quickly.
#7 Questing seems to be still well liked, but would include puzzles as well as quests that are not tied to one specific area. Perhaps many of them would require you to gather resources to get something made and would be repeatable and the item recieved could be random in it's usefulness.
#8 Crafting would be important in this game. Highly skilled crafters would be able to make much better items than the run of the mill crafter.
This is just a skeleton of a what I think a good MMO needs, I am sure many of you differ with what I would like, but I really don't think innovating is as important as just using the good ideas that are already out there.
Classes and levels technically come from Dungeons and Dragons. EQ was not the first online game to use this system, but it was the first that seemed to go to great lengths to strip out any semblance of depth from its core design, thus introducing the terrible phenomenon known as "Evercrack".
That said, I agree with Ozmodan; innovation isn't entirely necessary when there are many giants gone before upon whose broad shoulders a developer could stand and still be touted as an "innovator". Just as an example, one thing I and others enjoy about WoW is the "seamless" nature of the game world -- go from one end of a continent to the other without interrupting the game experience to load a new zone. But Ultima Online offered this feature (of course the non-MMO Dungeon Siege was the first, I believe, to offer this in a 3D world).
However I want to re-emphasize that all of these features are just a different shade of the same color. What's important -- and what developers have yet to really figure out, despite over a decade of MMO history, is that players want to make a difference in the world. If you you finish a quest and kill all the bad guys, but the bad guys respawn and the quest doesn't ever change, the whole experience feels cheap.
There are technical issues with addressing this issue, but thats what I'm saying -- the time has come for MMO developers to invest time and resources to deepen the experience we've already got, rather than to "innovate" new features.
Excellent point about deepening the experience. Everyone wants to have some effect on the world, yet rarely does it happen in current MMO's.