Dana Massey Asks "Why Not?": Make The Journey Fun
For some strange reason, "the journey" in MMOs is secondary and both developers and fans are at fault. Time to put the emphasis back on fun from 1 to 50, not 50 levels to have fun.
For a few weeks now, I’ve been writing about things that could be changed. Things that would make MMOs better, more fun and varied. But for all the changes developers could make and players demand, the biggest hurdle for players and developers alike is a mental one. Uniquely among games, the “journey” in an MMO is a hurdle to clear, rather than the reason people play.
Part of the problem is the very nature of an MMO. Whether they’re supported by microtransactions or subscriptions, all MMOs rely on players staying involved for a long time to make money. Thus, it’s tempting for designers to leave the good stuff until the end.
;)
These guys had more fun on the
Quest than at the destination.
Almost all MMOs revolve around maximizing experience and loot en route to some mythical endgame. How people do it really doesn’t matter. Players, even when given the choice, gravitate to efficiency over fun.
Sanya Weathers mentioned this last week in her article on low level quest design. Many of the industry professionals she spoke to talked about how they tried to make more involved quests, but players reacted negatively, as these tended to slow down the XP gain rate.
Early on, developers definitely put a shiny bauble on a hill to keep people interested, making games where the end-game was all that mattered. Dark Age of Camelot is the ultimate example. I loved the game back then, but the truth is that almost everyone just ground their way to 50 so they could go do Realm vs. Realm.
Yet, look at Mythic’s follow-up effort. Clearly, they had a meeting at some point where they wondered what would happen if they let people have that RvR experience all the way from 1 to 50. Thus, we have Warhammer Online. The game has its well documented flaws, but the idea was spot on: Give people what they want all the way through.
Unfortunately, in this case, it didn’t work out. The RvR battlefields are completely devoid of life. People prefer scenarios to maximize their Renown Points (essentially PvP experience). The open-world RvR that worked so well in DAoC is now limited to both sides taking turns killing the other side’s NPC defenders.
Part of this is no doubt Mythic’s fault. They are doing their best to tweak the system to get people into the open-world RvR, but I do not put the entire problem squarely at their feet.
Fact is, the players are as broken as the games they yell about.
A fundamental assumption of Warhammer Online had to have been that players would fight each other for their realm, their guild, their honor and… wait for it… FUN!
Wrong.
Players have been so conditioned to maximize experience and run for the endgame that no one gives a crap about fun anymore, and for those of us who are not mindless automatons, it’s becoming a serious problem.
;)
This book was all walking,
but you didn't skip to
the end, did you? DID YOU?
If players would actually fight each other in these zones, they wouldn’t be empty. If they were not empty, more people would fight in them, and so on. It’s a paradox for Mythic. The only practical solution is to remove a feature people are using (scenarios) to force people to use one they’re not. And, let’s just say, that probably wouldn’t go over so well.
Thus, despite the fact they set out to make a game where the “fun” part was available on day one, everyone still grinds it out to the top tier, and the biggest, most epic content.
Tell me, is there another genre of game that would allow the “fun” to start only after weeks, if not months, of gameplay?
At their core, MMORPGs are just like any other genre of game. In a console FPS, players are given missions, sent forward, and kill things. The very basic mechanic of “talk, kill, move along” is the same. Yet, in an FPS, the reason people play is to kill things.
In MMORPGs, the mechanics have superseded the gameplay. The reason people fight is not because combat is fun, but to harvest the loot and experience.
FPS games even hold the biggest, coolest content to the end. Yet, for some reason, no one complains that they have to grind to unlock the rocket launcher. No, they’re just playing the game.
More Dana Massey Asks Why Not? Features:
More Columns:
More Features:
Each Thursday, he asks the question "Why Not?" about some element of MMOs.
Two things I hate in MMOs Levels and Gated content.
This dude is spot on.
Make everything useful and fun.
The journey is the game.
This is why I play Open ended games.
To add to your list...they should never remove content and items...they need to add. It should be a PERSISTENT WORLD.
To add to your list...they should never remove content and items...they need to add. It should be a PERSISTENT WORLD.
gotta love how people talk of the future of MMOs and the way they should be when I've been playing Open ended games like that since UO.
UO, SWG, EVE, Ryzom lol.
Edit: in the article the writer spoke of a main storyline leading a player from zone to zone, with optional quests and fun things to do all around and being able to come back to a earlier area and having it meaningful. Yeah that game is called Guild wars. You can level to 20 (level cap) before you see 10% of the main storyline once done with main storyline you can switch on hardmode where the map is 100% useful.
I almost feel like everyone has started playing MMOs post WoW and forgot how MMOs were before lol. It's like the freaking twilight zone on this site.
Great post.
Always knew there was something wrong with most current MMOs, but you just put the finger right on it.
Thank you for the blog, I'll make sure to forward it to some WoW sheep friends.
I really think most of this is caused by a couple of things:
(1) Poor content design.
Really, quests in MMO are near assinine. Why? They have no impact on the world. I don't really care about the lore, but I know that if Herr Bearkiller needs 10 pieces of bear jerky to live, he's just going to need the same 10 pieces from the next schlub that comes along. I also know that if I don't feed his starving carcass, he'll still be there when I come back again. So why would I care anything about his story/lore/or what not other than an XP perspective. The only aspect of my game experience that changed would be some arbitrary number. He's the same whether or not he tells me his perscribed bit of content. He's the same whether or not I accept his stupid collect X quest.
(2) Some people need to compensate for other things.
Wink wink nudge nudge. Everyone has to have a bigger E-Peen. Look at all the SWG vets that complain years after their game was changed. When you corner one and get to the heart of his argument, it comes down to they had grinded level after level to become a Jedi and then BAM, everyone was. Sure there is more areguments there, but that's the core of why people need to race ahead. We don't like to see people better than us. No one wants to be the wimpy kid that gets sand kicked in their face when Uber McPlaysalot comes along with his raid gear that he's collected over two decades of play. Additionally, those same types are the ones on the boards who talk about how they soloed their own 25 man raid and can kill <insert mob> while playing the bagpipes and watching Sandord and Son reruns. It seems to be an inherent trait of MMOs that people have to talk about how uber they are. Still it is one of the last bastions where the unemployed social pariah has a distinct leg up in society. Want to run a raid on Friday night? Sure! I'm in!
(3) MMOs are terrible PvP games, yet people do it anyway.
This is kind of a corralary to #2, people for some reason want to do PvP in a MMO... why? Beyond the class imbalances, power imbalances, lag, item imbalances, and who knows what other problems, people still want to PvP/Duel or whatnot. So it kind of makes sense that if you are going to do that you want every edge you can get (see #2). Yet if you really want PvP, and want to talk about mad skills then play something like Counter Strike or Crysis or anything that time/money don't determine the outcome.
(4) Everyone has to have the best.
It doesn't matter if getting the best ruins the game for you. It's they best. You have. to. have. it. To not have it implys that you are not the best (see #2). Far to many of us have been treated like precious snowflakes all our life and the words you can't have it or wait for it really don't enter the equation all that often (fellow American's I'm really looking at you here... see credit crunch for proof). So if the best is at the end, then please step aside Mr. EscortMeToAZone, I'm coming through and I don't have time to read why you need to get somewhere. There's some shiney loot at the end of this XP tunnel with my name on it.
So there you have it. Why don't I care about the delectable tidbits devs toss into games?
* They don't matter
* They slow me down from being uber
* If I'm not uber I can't win PvP bouts
* I need the best and the best is at the end
I kinda thought his idea is what TOR is shooting for. You advance through story which is an interesting concept. It seems like it would work just as well as GTA or other games but as usual until you see what they are really doing you never know.
Oh it goes back much farther than WoW. It goes back to the beginning of Online Role Playing Games. He's talking about mitigating the effects of Character progression in virtual worlds. Unfortunately the mechanisms nearly every MMOs uses were direct adaptations pen and paper games where there was both required group cooperative play and a omniscient master to direct player activities. When players become adversarial, anonymous and self directed the systems break down. All of them; class, level, skill, itemization and stats. Every form of player progression. They all lead to stratification and alienation. No MMO has been immune to it and as more and more players have bought into it it's gotten worse. The "golden age" MMOs people wish for would all fail miserably today because the player base has changed.
The journey does indeed need to be fun. More importantly, however, it needs to be meaningful.
EQ and DAoC had meaningful leveling journeys. Now, of course, its rather boring and pointless. The plethora of changes has disinegrated any meaning out of leveling except to bore you to tears. Every game is like this now. Kill 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000 rats and boars, and do 100000000000000000000000 same old quest. NO THANKS, GUYS AND GALS.
Easiest way is making a single player RPG then adding the multiplayer for people to cooperate or do other activities together (which is almost basically a RPG with co-op). (Guildwars except quest progression is necessary?)
The thing in MMOs is players compare, interact and contest with each other which makes one wanting their character at their best to match other player's ability of fun so then playing together is more fun.
Funny I dislike level based games. While I do have to put up with them, it is not a feature that excites me. Probably because I started in UO and then moved on to SWG until they encorporated levels and ruined the game. Eve is about the only game right now that offers choice, every other game out there locks you into rigid class/leveling systems that strictly cater to the "I want it now" audience.
I was disgusted with AoC because so many hit end cap within a month.
Guess I am different because of my backround because I never rush to end cap. I enjoy plodding through the quests and exploring.
Seems a shame that MMO developers are abandoning the best part of playing a game.
The Warhammer Online folks tried to make the journey more interesting by having two types of advancements, Rank and Reknown, the theory being that players could diverge from one source to the other, thus playing it their own way.
But the only thing to do in War is fight, so one way or the other boils down to the same thing. Without some other game feature or more dynamic control of the game world in a way that really helps your side out and punishes the enemy, players could be forgiven for losing the point of it entirely.
I don't think its fair to chastise players for forgetting their sense of fun. The game must at least provide a context for the fighting, and the although the great struggle to eventually topple the enemy's capital is good in theory, its bloody hard to feel it in game when you're smacking squigs over the head for some reason.
You'd have to define your game world with more than a single activity to make advancement more interesting. Earth and Beyond had three types of experience: combat, exploration and trade. They might have been grinds but they were three different types of grind, and although they weren't balanced very well, they encouraged you to make the most of what the game had to offer. Exploration in particular, showed the player that prying into every part of the gameworld would be rewarded. The xp gains for exploration in most games are usually trivial.
Incidentally, why is trading only ever a feature of Elite-inspired space sims? You'd think it would work just as well in fantasy mmos.
How about if the reward of all the main quests in a game were to unlock a skill/spell? Irrevocable character development choices, like picking a subclass, would certainly make people pay attention, and compete to achieve at the earliest opportunity.
The problem here is simple: Fun is different for everyone. Hence all of the inane arguments that we are subjected to while sifting through the forums, hoping for a small glimpse of intelligence and real thought.
WIth this statement I can see you have strong feelings about intelligence and real thought, or the lack thereof, on these forums. Maybe not so much about the topic at hand, though.
The problem is simple, I agree. There are a lot of disgruntled MMO players, hence all the topics in the forums that we are subjected to while seeking a small glimpse of intelligence and real thought. A lot of us are just not happy mindlessly killing boars, so that we can start the endgame. We want a game that we can play, and have fun from the beginning. Instead we are subjected to repetitive, meaningless content.
WIth this statement I can see you have strong feelings about intelligence and real thought, or the lack thereof, on these forums. Maybe not so much about the topic at hand, though.
The problem is simple, I agree. There are a lot of disgruntled MMO players, hence all the topics in the forums that we are subjected to while seeking a small glimpse of intelligence and real thought. A lot of us are just not happy mindlessly killing boars, so that we can start the endgame. We want a game that we can play, and have fun from the beginning. Instead we are subjected to repetitive, meaningless content.
Asheron's Call was like that. :D
Excellent post and spot on as always.It seems that Bioware and 38 studios up coming MMO are both trying to make the journey matter and fun.But until we know more and see the game running we won't know for sure.
great article. it really does express what a lot of us feel about MMOs....
reminds me of the old SWG and even of Tabula Rasa too (fun quests that never seemed to end)
i also agree that with the current released content for TOR, sure seems like they are heading in a direction of quest oriented progression.
We shall see!! =)
I know personally in City of Heroes/Villains what has really turned me off of PvP is partially the people who seem to be better at it act like "i amn supar 733t" and call those who prever the PvE side as "carebears" when the fact that some of us just know our limitations
what was the point of this article?
I skipped to the end to get my Epic-Mount
Unfortunately, thanks to WoW, this is all we'll see in the industry for at least another decade. :(
EQ started it, but Blizzard has elevated the carrot-on-a-stick level system to an art form. It's pretty obvious the way they are trying to rush new players through by making it faster. And then, come next expansion, all the latest stuff will be obsolete, so you'll have to rush to the level cap again!
Ugh. I play WoW, and I get a headache just thinking about being level 80.
The level cap is only level 80
PSSSSSSSSSSAH
Last i checked The Realm had well over 1,000 levels, i think even a few over 5,000
Freedom
Fear
Satisfaction
To avoid feeling frustrated, you have to be free (i.e., no false boundaries or being railroaded through linear tutorials or quest lines.)
To respect something, you have to fear it somewhat. The dungeon is only going to be exciting if it is fearful (i.e., foreboding setting and a significant penalty for dying.)
To value something, you have to work for it. Free or easy loot has little value and commands little respect.
No journey is ever fun unless you have the above factors.
Well played... well played...
Don't you get it? This is the type of thing the article was talking about. Blizzard isn't trying to "rush" players through the game. It's just that the players decide to rush through the content whether Blizzard wants them to or not. So, Blizzard makes leveling easier to keep power-leveling down [some], and to make people's lives generally easier. Blizzard is just trying to cater to the customer base. Afer all, it would be in Blizzard's best interest [or any mmo company] to slow down the leveling process, because the longer leveling takes, the longer people will be playing, and the more money the company would make. The gaming companies are actually just trying to do right by their customers by making games more accessable and take less time to achieve things However, I think the companies are also contributing to their customers bad habits.
Now, I'm not saying leveling should be slower, I'm just saying all of the companies should be trying to steer the customers away from the rush to cap mentality. People think, "there's no End Game to this mmo"! Or other such nonsense. Really, it's just that people decided to power through 3 months of content in 3 weeks. So, people sit at capped level and whine that there's "nothing to do", meanwhile they're already playing a game. [How do you get "bored" while doing something?] If it were me, I'd just let the people keep crying. Of course, devs probably like having subscriptions and earning money. That is why I would NEVER work in a service industry. People are just goons.
From what the developers are saying, both TOR and The Secret World seem to be trying for this type of approach. Of course we all know many promised features often fall to the wayside before release. I can only hope they see it through and deliver on their intentions.
Personally I like the way Asheron's Call handled it. Except for skill points gained when you reached certain levels, the game relied mostly on the development of skills. Use the skills...and exp goes towards the skill itself and some went to a general experience pool you could spend on any skill you had.
You could remove the levels altogether and put skill points in as rewards to various quest lines.
Darkfall Online uses a skill based system that uses skill usage to raise the skill, not as flexible but it can be fun. There is a grind though to using specific skills to raise them up...and they cap at 100 point each. In Asheron's Call it was a soft cap...costing more and more experience to raise a skill. I had a character that had a run and a jump skill that was into the 300's, unbuffed. City of Heroes reminds me of that when I use Super Leaping, or Super Speed. Of course the character was not as good at other things but it was fun jumping halfway across a village or jumping up 2 stories or a little more.
I would think a game with a skill/exp system like Asheron's Call combined with a strong storyline would be good to start as a game. But, the content at a more personal level could be made just that, more personal. What if, you introduced a little fuzzy logic into the NPC world. In some games you had NPC's that seemed to operate in their own little world but they were regimented by the internal clock of the game. What if the NPC's operated with a small random number generator that would vary their response times and combined with that have dependencies on their actions based on the proximity of other NPC or players of a specific alignment or fame, adding randomness to the way the world works. Some quests only appear when certain conditions occur, some conditions obvious, some not, and I don't refer to just a simple condition such as level...in this case might be better referred to as fame.
Right now, most all quests in games are available if you match a few brief criteria and you complete it...simple binary result...and you fail, you redo it. Why not make multiple result quests based on how you complete it and the system remembers the result...and in theory you could have certain results of completing or not completing a quest causing the NPC to no longer appear for the player, if you ended up killing the quest giver or otherwise made them cease to exist for you. That would be a little tricky to handle in an MMO situation, but not impossible.
Anyway, ultimately I think the original article is correct in the way the developers and playerbase have crafted themselves into this treadmill system of gaming. I apologize if I rambled a bit with ideas I think that might help the games...but I think it comes down to making the game more personal to the player and not always the static cookie cutter world that it presently used...to ensure everyone has essentially the exact same experience. Heck using an itemization system like Asheron's Call would help since the loot was randomized...even two swords of the same name would have a certain amount of randomness to the statistics.
The real question is, what kind of gameplay makes more money for the publishers / devs. If removing levels from the game will make some gamers happy but these gamers are not the majority of gamers, then all you're doing is making a niche MMO. So sure, if that percent of gamers is large enough, that could work to make a sustainable game, but it still won't be a hugely successful MMO.
I agree with the first half of the article, however, I am one who enjoys level based games also. I do like the concept of skill based games in general, however, I have yet to find one that actually plays differently than a level based game. Its pretty much the difference between wearing a red shirt or a green shirt, they are both shirts on the inside but they look different on the outside.
The problem as I see it in most level based games is the reward vrs time factor. The leveling has become so fast and so easy that the time to get to the next major point in the game has become negligible. For instance Warhammer has 4 tiers - that is the game is seperated into 4 distinct experiences based on your level. Each tier represents 10 levels and so players lvl 1 through lvl 11 play together and players 12 through 21 play together etc. There is some overlap but for the most part this holds true. All of the rewards are based on which tier you are in and everyone within a tier is fairly equal in power with some differentiation at the low end to the high end.
Now as a player I can spend that extra time exploring the content and unlocking the really good gear for my tier or I can push through to the next tier in that chase of the mythical end game. Warhammer did do a good job of making fun content for each tier with good rewards in each tier for completing the content, however, they forgot to fix one small problem....the time it takes to complete a tier.
Tier one takes about 10 to 15 hours to complete for an experience player somewhat new to the game, perhaps even 20 hours. Tier 2 takes several days..maybe 40 to 60 hours to complete. Tier 3 starts to take some time...several weeks...not sure how long in terms of hours but its the first real slowdown you face. Tier 4 can take a while if you have no help.
So with those times in mind why would I bother looking closely at the content and trying to acquire tear one gear that will be gone in a couple of days of playing. By the time I get it its allready outdated/outleveled. Tier 2 there is a little more reason to go off the beaten path and explore as you have a little more time to spend in leveling, but for most people the incentive is small. Why waste time gathering gear and doing quests in tier 2 when its going to take me so long to gear up in tier 4?
The answer to that last question is ultimately makes the content/gear of tiers 1-3 meaningless and why the majority of the players push through without looking at it. This is just an example of Warhammer...most games have something similiar in thier experience...that is why do I waste 5 hours acquiring something that I will replace after another 10 hours of gameplay? Most people dont and thus the rush to level cap/skill cap/End game continues.
My solution(for myself) is a level based game where the death penalty is negative experience where you can lose levels ( AKA early EQ). Slow the level progression way down so that gaining a level is meaningfull(say one week of 4 hours a day to go from level 1 through lvl 10 and a progression from there). And the most important aspect of the game....real content for every level so that you dont get bored. In the end its about how much content is there and the amount of time I have my sub running on any game is determined by this more than anything.
I would also like to see a game where the content is so fun its not a "grind" to level. This is the linchpin for me. A simple example of what I mean by this is you can have a game where I grind out 100 orcs to hit my next level out in the woods or in some small orc town where I mindlessly kill them one after another as they pop into existence(very boring)....or I can just happen to kill 100 orcs on my way to rescue the princess at the bottom of a dungeon...IE: a story with a purpose that yields that same result - I killed 100 orcs and gained a level. In the second case I will llikely be more engrossed in the overall objective of freeing the princess and not really caring just how many orcs I have killed. And no getting 10 quests to go kill 10 orcs is not my idea of avoiding the "grind" by doing quests.
Hmm long post again heh..thanks if you read it all the way through :) .
The problem is that most MMO developers will try the perceived safe route as you described and we have another of the same type MMO, that many players complain about. The problem is you have too many games that use the same formula and the market becomes saturated with games mostly copying each other and each one obtaining a smaller slice of that same market. Most that flock to those new games hoping for something different and when they find the same they either go back to a better implementation of the formula or hang out on the new game until another comes out.
If a new game used a new methodology and implemented it well, people would come to it. Word of mouth could do wonders. The game may start as a niche that early adopters came out to explore but if it was done well it would attract more, especially people tired of the end game of other games and want more, or at least want something different.
I think a game that provided a more personal approach or at least the appearance of a personal approach would so wonders since it would appear to the player as something less static and more persistent, at least for them. What would be interesting is a destructible environment, such as forest trees that can be damaged or even destroyed and regrow...within reasonable limitations of course.
Okay while I agree with the idea that games need to ditch the "race to the end" mentality...and that they need to get back to being "fun to play"
I have to take exception to this part: - blaming the players for this aspect of WAR
If players would actually fight each other in these zones, they wouldn’t be empty. If they were not empty, more people would fight in them, and so on. It’s a paradox for Mythic.
It's not a paradox, it's an obvious design flaw that Mythic should have been able to see coming a mile away.
As a player, I am presumably playing a game to *have fun* this generally means that I need to be doing something in game to experience that fun. WAR's RvR zones are flawed because aside from RvR there is NO REASON TO BE THERE. If I don't find an enemy, there is nothing I can do. No content at all. No quests, no resource gathering, no mob camps, NOTHING. So, since I am not paying my fee to sit there and watch an empty screen, if no enemies are there, I leave. (When it happens often enough, I stop going altogether.) Thus when my potential opponent shows up, 5 minutes later, he too leaves - bored - and writes off the zone.
Players have plenty of flaws and our collective tendencies are responsible for some problems in current MMOs. but not all of them. Constantly blaming players for reacting in predictable fashion to bad design decisions ia just a lame cop out.
I remember those EQ corpse runs, some were an adventure upon themselves.
The difference between a level and a skill based game can be great. In a level based game there is one arbiter of qualification, your level. Your level dictates how all skills operate and how easily you can hit NPC's with skills based on their relative level. Your level dictates what skills you can have and what equipment you can own, and when you outlevel your equipment.
In a pure skill based game there are many paths that can be taken, it could be a total sand box skillset that the player makes themselves, or they could have "class" templates of skills with optional skills they can obtain later. Equipment might have multiple requirements of certain skills at a certain threshold to wield but their effectiveness could also be attached to that skill's accomplishment, making that weapon not immediately useless if it continues to do more damage as the skill increases. Sure, at some point you might find a weapon with a higher minimum skill requirement, but it does not necessarily mean the old one is useless. Ability to fight NPC's is not just about level anymore but its own set of skills concerning defense and offense. Not every NPC is the same and that would be part of the challenge, not everyone can fight the same monsters equally effectively depending on the number of and what skills they chose to work on. With a skill system there is also a breakdown in assumptions of what someone can do.
I said as much in the article. Yes, in my opinion, it was predictable and a mistake on their part.
...but the fact that "because it's fun" is not enough to get people to play something is still a sad comment.
People played much the same kind of content quite well in DAoC. The difference was that RvR, at least at its core, was not about leveling up. It was the end that people leveled up to play. Once they made it also about leveling up, people instantly abandoned what was fun to take the most efficient means of advancement (scenarios). Battlegrounds didn't kill RvR in DAoC.
Thus, by trying to bring fun to the entire journey, WAR actually made the problem worse in a sad fit of irony.
...I should have written this stuff in the article, eh? :)
Dana this is why i look forward to mortal online where there are no levels... the fun starts when you get into game
No grind, free choice = what people want
Interesting article. I am currently playing a single player RPG called The Last Remnant which has some very interesting concepts.
The level is called Battle Rank which depends basically on how many mobs you kill. Battle rank also affects the level and capabilities (e.g. things like spell levels) of the mobs you fight.
Some people play a low Battle Rank game, where they actively avoid fighting, and some a high one.
Quests rarely give loot. This mainly comes from crafting using hard to find components. You can get by without the upgrades, but it makes life easier.
But the thing I like best is that you can make your character whatever you want them to be, a mage, a warrior, a hexer, a healer, whatever. You do this by using your fledgling abilities over and over again until they level. It also helps if you have the right type of weapon. Stat upgrades also come from fighting battles, particularly with hard mobs.
While I am not saying that these concepts would work in an MMORPG, as someone else has already said in this thread there are some interesting ideas out there in the single player games, some of which could work well and make it fun and engaging.
I too have been guilty of power levelling up to the next level, particularly in WOW. This is mainly because I am useless at PVP and have always found I don't get ganked as much if I am among the first few to level on the server. I have played 36 hours at a stretch, taken holiday from work, etc, just to get to the next level cap. Very sad.
Keep on writing, my friend. From that Progressive insurance add: "Nailed it!"
One of the biggest issues I think you'll find as well is that a majority of these developers have only played level-based, "end-game" MMOs and so that's all they know. I'd wager rare is the dev outside of an upper management/personnel role that has played Ultima Online or Asheron's Call. Those games were, in my opinion, good examples of what you hint at. The Level system in AC was no where near what those systems used today are. It was your experience points earned that drove advancement, not "ding new level new skill that every <insert class> gets at this level".
I've said it time and again, but some of these big name companies need to modernize the gameplay and systems of those two games (UO and AC). Even the skill box progression of SWG is a good base to build on.
I never understood the power level thing. I also never understood the "showoff factor" in mmos. Endgame is fun but never interested me much. End game for me is a mix of "a job well done" and now what? Since 1996 when I started in 3d mmos it has always been about the journey for me. I could careless what level you are or what gear you have. It makes no difference to me or motivates me, as developers think, to subscribe longer to get that must have item.
This is even in my favorite mmo at the moment EQ2. I am sick of the whole "mythical weapon" thing as if that marks your success as a player. Great you got your mythical but did you complete every quest in Nek Castle? Are you a player of real game knowledge or just a capped level player? Two very different things. What EQ2 does do well is give you many other ways to enjoy the game, that is why I stay. For me the mark of a successful player in EQ2 is their house more then their level. Now that might also be considered a type of end-game but it is something you can work on every level you play. You actually have impact on the game world others experience with housing, this was one thing that made pre-nge SWG so fantastic. You could find your own fun place in the game world no matter what level you were and feel successful. SWG offered so many tools and freedom player got very creative, far beyond what the developers probably expected.
That brings me to the behemoth World of Warcraft. I am one of the millions of players who found the endgame the end of the game for us. WOW was a fun journey. I never felt the need to powerlevel but you progressed at a nice rate even for the more casual. While a linear game journey, there was a lot of variety of enviroments to explore and a great story if you actually followed it. So I just took my time exploring every aspect I could of the detail world. While I did that my guildmates flew past and to the endgame. Some became "raiders" many slowly disappeared. The guild split the "raiders" demanding you play their way or you are out. I got my first toon to endgame with a mixed set of feelings. The feeling of success was lost to the emptiness of only endgame content. I had fun for a few weeks but missed the journey. So I started another alt, then another. The cycle continued for about a year when I had enough. So after over 4 years in WOW with almost 2 years of leaving and coming back I finally closed the door on WOW.
In 13 years of mmos pre-nge SWG gave players the most freedom and ways to be successful at almost any level. In my years in that game one thing you never heard any talk about was endgame. SWG did not have an endgame. To bad SOE lost it's vision of what a great mmo could be. In my opinion the greatest failure in mmo history. SOE believed people wanted WOW and by doing so would fill their pockets with cash. The journey is not enough, freedom of creativity mixed with the journey is the answer.
Developers we have BRAINS! Let us use them creatively. Give us a feeling of ownership in the game. Challenge us, not timesink us to death. Give us direction but don't drag us by a leash. Realize you have a maturing audience. Give us many way to guage our success not just a fancy hat and a big sword. Put the tools in place and we will use them. Understand this: WORLD OF WARCRAFT WORKED ONCE, STOP TRYING TO MAKE IT WORK AGAIN, IT WON'T! IT WAS A ONE TIME DEAL!. You might be suprised, you may end up with pockets full of cash if you actually realize many of your potential customers actually have brains and wallets. Try really earning our money with your own creativity. I wonder how many developers are really up to that challenge.
sounds to me like what everyone is saying basically the same thing combine a bunch of different modules from various games and whala the next big thing.
what i miss the most is the useful crafter that has just about every item to be made be useful.
I do love to craft and played swg as an architect but we do need decay and damage from use on items so thet people have to take it to there local blacksmith and or armorsmith for repair and or replacement if too badly damaged cause for the life of me i cannot see someone in a sword fight not cutting a piece of armor or damaging the sword or shield in fights even with monsters.
Also not know if its possible but try to make the damage a little bit visible like if i wore the same helm for 10 month have it look older not just a decay number
This is what i would most want to see pulled of successfully i think everyone would enjoy
Get rid of endgame raiding. That seems to be a huge reason people rush to the cap. I play solo or duo, and move sloooowly to the level cap. I play AOC around 40 hours a week, and I don't care if I ever make 80. I see people calling for, need x at least level x for this or that raid or large group thing. Since I don't bother with them, I can read the quests, and enjoy the game.
Heretic! burn the witch! Seriously though if they made scaleable content even large groups could do that. Difficult programming I suppose.
I tend to agree with the author on some of the topics, except for the position on imposing the gated content. (The character will progress again when continuing up the main story line.) Everquest II tried that upon release (remember completing access quests to get to zones like Enchanted Lands, Zek, etc?) It worked really well in the beginning, but when the main player base moved beyond that level / zone, new characters or alternates could have a difficult time finding a group for the progression.
I suppose that could be solved with having the main story line solo-able. AoC did that with their 1-20 story line, and many people commented that it was one of the more enjoyable parts of the game.
I also like the way AC-1 implemented the skills system, giving the player the ability to spend XP to increase their desired skills.
Agreed with that first statement 100%, but I still think you gave Mythic a bit of a pass on the obvious mistake part.
As much as I dislike 'ole Smedley from EQ for other reasons, he realy was right on in that MMOs are social engineering. Players do act fairly predictably in large groups and their choices can be be steered by the mechanics of the game. It seems many of these games could use a good sociologist or behavioralist on staff in place of a coder or two.
As much as it is maligned, the old "risk vs reward" paradigm is still a very strong influence in MMOs, so is accessibility. Comparing DAoC to WAR, Mythic not only made the "scenarios" much more easily accessable than the BGs were in Camelot, they made them more rewarding. At the same time, the actual RvR battlegrounds did not get "much the same content" in WAR, they got vastly less content than the Frontiers had in DAoC. Thus while I can agree with the ironic part, it's not even vaguely a paradox...just a really bad series of decisions by someone at Mythic.
Skipping to another train of thought for a moment, I think a huge element in changing the focus from the "endgame" to the "journey" would be a system that was more "realistic" and which followed more of a pure skill based development system. No levels, no obvious break points and most of all, no need to kill 9999 orcs just for "exp". A focus on more quality combat, quests and interactions and less on the quantity of them.
Spot on post!!!
I have always preferred online worlds with a central story. For me taking your time to really absorb the lore and feel of the world is what makes for the most fun. What is the point of compulsively playing to max level to only then grind for max stat gear. Then what stand in the middle of a capital city in the hopes someone will tell you how cool you look? :) As the author of the post stated the players have become as broken as the games. In fact I think it's the compulsive players who have contributed to the lack of innovation in this genre.
I think that good developers know how to make a fun game. The biggest problem is they are encombered by demographics reports from marketting and silly players who think that good graphics are all you need to make a good game. :P
BTW as another poster stated. Guild Wars got out of the box in many ways, and IMO is to this day still one of the most innovative spins on the traditional MMO. Here's hoping they continue that process with GW2!
Most people who play LOTRO would wholeheartedly agree that its one of the very few games that you actually enjoy the journey to the end-game, and then the end-game itself. I gotta read the blog then I'll have more thoughts :). But LOTRO is probably the best developed game where you can enjoy the journey in all of its glory.
Nice blog, Dana! And everything makes sense.
I think mentality of most of the gamers is developed already, though. For some people it will probably be an intellectual challenge to play a game without levels. They wouldn't know what to mark as the goal in those games. They used to think that the best equipment and content is available after reaching the max level and if someone put them in game without levels they'd probably lose interest. Reaching the highest levels for players now is the most challenge, and they push hard against it. If levels are taken out they may lose the incentive to play the game. Like you said - its not only about the games any more, its about players as well.
I also think that levels is only a part of "recipe" which drives the player's mind. If you mix competition into this recipe the whole thing becomes even more complicated. Younger people - teenagers and young adults are driven by competition like crazy. Reaching cap level in the shortest time than anyone else is sort of a recognition now amongst them. They self express themselves like that now. Thats why they skipping the school, get on a 'Red Bull' diets and having heart attacks by playing the games for 60 hours straight without sleep is sort of an accomplishment for them. Reached level cap faster than anyone else - broadcast it in OOC channel and people will respect and praise you.
I think in order for MMOs to change the mindset of current generation of players must change first.
I also think about levels as the way for MMO developer to stall the player in a longer billing cycle. Its much easier to create a game based on the leveling template then a very diverse story line with multiple branches of endings.
Create few zone, add areas and monsters into them, some NPCs for mob grind quests, design it all to have some level requirements and you have an MMO. It takes a lot more creativity and planning and maybe even risk, to create something really fun and not as dumb. Unfortunately most of the devs chose the easier template - which is level based. Thing is that kids who used to play the games they grow up and become game producers and game developers themselves now. And they cerate new games based on old templates that have reputation of keeping laid back gamers interest. As long as there are at least 50 levels in game, couple hundreds of fed-ex or mob grinding quests, somewhat decent graphics and ok game mechanics - there will be some interest.
I think gamers are tired of this type of gameplay themselves, thats why games don't retain very large player base any more. People just go from one game to another and cant find anything new, since everything is based on an old template that started since Everquest. I think people shouldn't say "WoW clone", every new MMORPG now is "Everquest Clone". Same mechanics, same requirements.
Very nice post and good to know that other people actually want to play the game instead of rush through it.
I personally do not care to have one central storyline, nor do I want to have to complete a given quest to be able to go to other places in the world to see more of the content.
I would like to see is a game that actually involves people and adjust to thier actions. Such that, if the man that is starving to death ask me for jerky and I dont get it for him, he actually dies, becomming inaccessible to me in the future. Other players who did the beef jerky quest would see the poor bastard still alive, but he would be located elsewhere, such as a nearby hut or village. To further this, if you completed that simple beef jerky quest, you would get some type of positive faction adjustment, or alignment value; if you left him for dead, just the opposite.
MMO's have lost the immersion effect that they used to have. UO, Asherons Call, and EQ were all very immersive games, you could get lost in them. The communities were friendly for the most part, people enjoyed grouping up and the challenges that were faced with group mechanics. These things have gone and been replaced with kill stealing, random PKs, and poorly designed worlds that dont offer that deep immersion into the game.
To top this off, MMO developers continue to rush through the building of thier games, to get to thier end goals of making money. This approach, in any industry, almost always leads to failure. The people who are controlling these projects need to re-evaluate thier criteria; games are being released that are less than half finished, with tons of bugs ranging from incorrect text/speech to major problems like holes in the terrain and system crashes.
Just ask yourselves this simple question, would you buy a new Mercedes if they hadnt put the doors, hood, trunklid, and backseat in; or, would you buy a new Mercedes if you knew that the cars instrument panel, lights, and engine had many reported, and acknowledged, random design problems? This is what gaming companies of today are selling us; half finished, buggy code that is very poorly implemented!
i understand what you r saying about how some developers (blizzard) make an mmo all about getting o the end game. i've played daoc, EQ, silkroad, rf online, and am currently playing warhammer and i have to say that although war has a lvling system in it and some players think it all about the end game. i am rather enjoying the journey in war although i am exploring alot. but htis is one thing i think war did connent on is that they have the content for both types of players and they give u exp for both ends of it. one specific thing that i really like is the TOK.
Great read. MMORPGs nowadays are simply gigantic chat rooms in which people only seek to increase their levels and acquire a nice-looking armor so that they can show off to others in order to gain recognition. It's all about comparing e-peens with other people, sad but true. Nobody gives a damn to the content anymore, it's all a race to the top, people who don't want to socialize, people who don't want to contribute, they just want to reach the top, no matter what (even by cheating sometimes). It's not to wonder that asian grinders are crowded with bots, it's just those people trying to be someone in a ridiculous community that nobody gives a damn about in the first place.
Frankly, they should just avoid using numbers for measurement. I'm goddamn tired of seeing those kids in MMORPGs calling others "weaklings" just because they are a couple of levels higher. And hey, companies are pretty happy by overlooking the journey and taking the endgame as the focus. People grind to hell believing that what they are doing will be compensated later on, they believe that they will have fun in the future. Who the hell thinks that grinding is fun anyways? It is a pain for most games out there, people just want to build their character so that they will have lots of fun in the future. Guess what? This fun never arrives.
Most MMORPGs are simply not fun, not fun at all. They're like gambling machines, people just play because they expect something great to come if they keep on playing. But you never gain anything, you just waste time. And quitting is hard for most of those people because they simply can't accept that all the time invested into that game was a pointless waste. They will just wander around those games forever because they don't want to throw away all of their efforts, and that is just how many companies manage to keep a lot of their players playing. There may be a lot of fun in the beginning, but with time it's all the dull repetitive sameness, everyone realizes it sooner or later.
And still, they won't stop. A lot of people seem to enjoy being enslaved to such games, they just won't ever quit, and then more and more companies behold how profitable all of this truly is and start building more and more crappy games. People need to open their eyes, as long as they insist on playing without having any fun, they are just torturing themselves for nothing. I do acknowledge that some people play such games and enjoy them, but it is just a matter of time until they get bored of the sameness.
Agree with the article, and for the life of me, can't figure out why evveryone is in such a hurry.
I'm playing ROM right now, and while I'm taking my time, leveling both of my character's classes equally (38/36 Rogue-Priest) and and my gathering skills (all 3 are level 41) my guild mates constantly encourage (berat?) me to get to 50 so I can run the end game 'Cyclops' runs so I can earn all the fat loot.
I hate running end game raids endlessly, so I'm certainly in no hurry to get there. I'm more likely to begin leveling up a different alt combo then spend time gearing up my level 50 ad nasuem.
I actually enjoy the journey, and in ROM there's lots of PVP that can be done at my current level, yet few players outside of the reds bother to do it. All they care about is running end game instances.
the article rights about more single player experiance, this is wrond, mmo's these days are all single player ( u can lvl max in most games single player) for more fun we need more party based mmo's like EQ, ffxi, UO <----- those are the longest going mmo's and hell those arn't single player mmo's at all. Developers need to focuss less on constant quests for exp, while the quests should just be for items or money... partying with random ppl to kill mobs is how exp should be got!!!!!! As a result fun would be given to the new generation of gamers
The only mmorpg I can think of different than run-to-the-end rpgs is PlaneShift which is an open source project, so who knows when it can complete its alpha stage let alone reaching final stage. It heavily promotes actual role playing and community interaction over leveling, grinding etc. It was quite an experience for me to actually read the quest logs and "converse" even with NPCs. Alas, its graphics can not compete with current mmo's. But, PlaneShift's system is the only one I can come up to overcome repetitive grind and mindless race to level cap. Seriously, most of the mmorpg's don't contain any role playing at all.
Another problem with "gated content" or a "forced storyline" is that it knocks immersion. Artificial restrictions on gameplay are bad enough, but just when you are sinking into your character and the game world, the fakeness of arbitrary limitations (i.e., you cannot move off the forest path because the quest writer wants you to walk down the path instead) just jerk you back into the present realization you are playing a game.
There is a easy solution to this.. I dont know why any developer wont see over it
Its time = exp
If they make a long awsome quest then reward the players with the exp and items accordingly
If its you get 10x better items and exp from doing boring fast quests then people will do it instead
I have played hundreds of mmo and almost NONE award the players enough for those hard to do quests and long quest chains.
If I need to run 10000 miles to deliver something that takes me 20 min and get 50 exp or kill 2 mobs in 20 sec and get 50 exp what do they think everyone will do?
Its so simple to fix REWARD THE PLAYERS according to the time it takes.
The developers have created this themselfs and not the players.
As long as there's exp in the end, gameplay will stay grind-ridden. More exp at the end point = more desire to grind.
I don't think that's quite the point, I mean, you're still aiming at the rewards, not the journey itself. Quests should be enjoyable, the way that they are currently designed is just too dull. You don't learn anything, you don't do anything significant, you just repeat a bunch of pointless tasks and get rewarded for that without a reason at all. They should change the whole thing, not just the rewards. The whole "kill 1000 X" quests are already boring as hell, and have no purpose whatsoever, nobody enjoys completing them, they enjoy gaining rewards.
It staggers me how one of the very 1st mmo's out there had it so right for so long and everything that followed just went downhill game by game
That would be UO of course... no levels, no grinding... spend the day talking to mates, looking around players shops, making yourself an outfit, spend all day in a dungeon, go on a pub crawl (did this often)....
Damn, so many many good days of doing practically nothing but ENJOYING the experience of doing nothing lol
All comes down to choices in my opinion, don't want to quest tonight? Go decorate your house, do some fishing, sail about on a boat, do a treasure hunt, go claim a bounty on a red pk'er...
How did it all come down to this endless grind?
if you get down to the basics of mmos they consist of basically watching 10 little blobs go to a different colour then you get a ding a number goes up then you get to fill another 10 little blobs and wait the ding. then after the number has reached a maximum your entire life either revolves around making another different 10 blobs and a ding. OR aquiring little purple items that slot into a grid and everyone goes oo oyou got purple x item
the problem ive found is that noone wants to have fun blowing up big mosters. People want large areas where we all congregate and not spread out in our own little instances.
The problem with the journey is that mmo companies think we all want to live in the same story, i dont like questing i see it worse than grinding the difference being is you have to find npcs with circles over their heads. To make the journey more fun dont put in little bubbles and dings that way people wont be just watching that and instead might actually enjoy the game.
I especially like the part about the players being part of the problem. I realized this a few years ago and immediately started working on my point of view. Now I play MMO's for the fun that they offer, without feeling rushed by the rest of the community. However, I'm a minority and I am very irritated with the MMO community to the point where they will likely lose a dedicated, skilled, and fun person to be around. While I may be okay taking my time, reading the quests, and actually enjoying the journey; while I may choose a class based off its concept and theme, and spec them according to my ideal representation of that class and theme; and while I may be able to make use of any class, spec, and have the skill to make the improbable work in group dungeons, I am in the minority. Since MMO's at its core is about grouping up with others at some point or another, being in the minority is actually harmful, which is actually driving me away from MMO's. Because I refuse to get into the rush to endgame, use the optimized class/spec, I fall behind on raids and may not even get invites to raids. However, since returning to WoW, I've been playing the game my way and so far I've impressed quite a few people with what they thought was improbably, such as 3-4 manning Gnomer as a Ret Pally, but healing, dealing from what they said, great dps, and tanking some, all at the same time.
So in summary, I feel players are more of the problem than MMO design, because MMO design actually has evolved if people would give an unbiased look at it. I think WoW is a fantastic game and representation of the genre, even though it has its own flaws, which I'd hope future MMO's would learn from and evolve into something even better. Yet, players are too hung up on speed, efficiency, and optimization, that they lose focus of why they even started playing MMO's to begin with. Not to mention, players put more emphasis on raids and pvp at end game, when you can play in some very nice dungeons and battlegrounds along the way. The difference is that in the lack of epic encounters you have at end game, you instead get to follow various story lines, spanning across many different zones, with different looks and feels to them.
I've learned that part of adjusting my view of MMO's is to except that they're not designed to last a person for years, they are designed like a game in any other genre, meaning the game does have a beginning and an end, even though the end is farther off than games in other genres. The more hardcore you play, the shorter the lifespan of the game is. The more casual you play, the longer the lifespan of the game, and if you're the type that likes to replay games with a different class or by taking a different path, the game may even provide enough content until each expansion releases, making the game actually last for years and still feel fresh.
Anyways, I got off to a rant, but this was a good article.
To add to your list...they should never remove content and items...they need to add. It should be a PERSISTENT WORLD.
I agree that a company shouldn't make content obsolete with updates and expansions, however, a persistent world? MMOs are persistent worlds, because the world continues to exist whether you're online or not. You never can save your character, can never reload the game, and appear in the gameworld where you last was when logging. That by any MMO company definition is a persistent world. But I know what you mean, you want a world that provides an alternate life, but through virtual means. While I used to want the same thing, and part of me does, it just isn't feasible. For one, games like that require way too much time and effort to be called a game. A better name for them would be "an alternate life," because you would need to spend your real life playing the game to obtain any real measure of success in any acceptable amount of time. A game that requires a person to forsake their real life to succeed in a game life only draws and promotes unhealthy individuals. Fortunately for our world, there are less of those people wanting to play games than there are responsible people who would like to play a game, but not at the expense of their real life, so it's not profitable catering to the no-lifers; instead, companies need to cater to people who have lives, thus a story driven game online, where you can solo or group is the common sense approach and the most profitable.
Do you realize that the use of the word everyone indicates you are implicating yourself, me, and the several billion people who live in this world to build your arguments around? All it takes is 1 person that doesn't conform to this idea you have of people to completely prove your argument wrong, making anything else you have to say questionable. So let me tell you about myself.
1. MMO content cannot be disposable in the way that once you complete a quest, it disappears from the world forever. The reason why is because only the hardcore would see the best content before it disappears forever. Everything costs money, and the developers could never keep up with the pace people consume content. Also, what would change for one person in a MMORPG, would likely have to change for everyone, making the MMO instable and probably unplayable, since everytime the several thousand players on a server completes a quest, the entire server would have to reload to show the changes that quest had on the world. Not to mention, the only real way to do this is to implement phasing, which GW, WoW, and LoTRO has done, but even it can't be done every single time a person completes a quest. It's not reasonable, realistic, and anyone suggesting it lacks common sense. Plus, WoW for example actually has some good quests. Take humans for example, you have the defias storyline that spans lvl 1-20, the black rock orc storyline that spans lvl 16-27ish and so on. Each zone has a storyline that you follow if you'd bother to actually read the quests, so your comment isn't 100% true either.
2. You said everyone has to have a bigger e-peen. Well, I could care less about my e-peen and actually even dislike the term. It shows a persons lack of intelligence to even give that word any weight in the English language. I do not need to compete with others online, nor do I have a strong desire to. I play MMO's to have fun with other people, not to have better stats, gear, spec, or kill ratios.
3. My first game was DAoC. I picked that game up, because I liked the sound of playing with other people, to swear loyalty and defend a realm, and that it all could last me for several years. I didn't care about the amount of kills I got, if I got the killing blow, or anything else. All I cared about was that my realm was free of invaders and that the people I played with were nice. People were nice, I had a great time leveling in groups, and RvR was fun for a while. Now I don't PvP at all, and for most of the reasons you stated. There just isn't anyway to make PvP balanced and dying every couple minutes and waiting for a respawn timer isn't fun either. But that's okay, because like you said, if I want to PvP, I can just play a FPS game on multiplayer mode.
4. You said everyone has to be the best. Well, I don't. In fact, all I care about is seeing everything the devs have to offer. I don't need to compare myself nor do I compare myself to others. I don't care if gear is blue, purple, gold or whatever, because it's just gear. I do like how some gear looks, and may shoot for it for purely aesthetic reasons, but I don't try and get gear to be better than another person or to show off. I do it, because I like to look at it. I don't choose a class based on how good they do in any particular part of a game, instead, I choose a class based on its concept and lore. I don't choose a spec based on what people say is the best or what's socially acceptable, instead, I choose a spec based on what I figure out to be the best spec for my playstyle.
What's nice is that how I am in-game is no different than how I am in life. I don't dress a certain way, talk a certain way, or act a certain way because that's what I'm told to do, or because it's what society expects of me. No, I am an independent person who dresses based on what I think looks good, I talk in a way that serves its purpose, which is communication, and I act in a way I find to be appropriate for me.
So really, your whole argument is flawed, because you made the mistake of acting like you knew what I want, do, or expect in a game.
I would also add that MMO's, unlike single player games and FPS, are about competition and comparing your character to the rest. By having levels and the best loot at the end its no surprise people want to rush it out to become a high profile figure in the game.
Pre-Cu solved this by having a skill system which did not reveal any "competence" about your character at all, and the economy was all player-driven. As such, people were more likely to enjoy the mid-way content without feeling inferior to other players as well as changing skills and professions altogether.
I agree that a company shouldn't make content obsolete with updates and expansions, however, a persistent world? MMOs are persistent worlds, because the world continues to exist whether you're online or not. You never can save your character, can never reload the game, and appear in the gameworld where you last was when logging. That by any MMO company definition is a persistent world. But I know what you mean, you want a world that provides an alternate life, but through virtual means. While I used to want the same thing, and part of me does, it just isn't feasible. For one, games like that require way too much time and effort to be called a game. A better name for them would be "an alternate life," because you would need to spend your real life playing the game to obtain any real measure of success in any acceptable amount of time. A game that requires a person to forsake their real life to succeed in a game life only draws and promotes unhealthy individuals. Fortunately for our world, there are less of those people wanting to play games than there are responsible people who would like to play a game, but not at the expense of their real life, so it's not profitable catering to the no-lifers; instead, companies need to cater to people who have lives, thus a story driven game online, where you can solo or group is the common sense approach and the most profitable.
Simply being there when I log on is NOT a persistent world. By persistent world I mean not removing that of which was earned within the game...removing items or accomplishments or replacing said items or making items completely worthless. The game world must remain persistent. Change is fine...but do it by adding to the world not taking away.
I have mixed feelings on this one. I could never get past level 20, because I found combat to be very bland as are the classes. Now I know many people share my opinion on this, but it's still just an opinion. So for me, while LoTRO had an awesome environement and well written quests, it just wasn't fun doing them due to the boringness of the classes and combat. It just didn't connect for me. Add to that the fact that people rush throught he book quests, because they've done them a hundred times ruins it. People would tell you to join a guild, but the fact about that is not even guilds can promise you that they will be available whenever you reach a book quest. I love how groups in DAoC were created from just a bunch of strangers online, not usually a group of guildies and I believe that's how it should be, because there are far more people available to play with on the server level, rather than the guild level.
I actually enjoy the journey in WOW, because I've played WC 3 and understand the lore. So when I read quests and get into the story lines that may reference things that a person knowing the lore would appreciate, I get into it. It's sad how the best story lines, which actually progress the meaningful storylines from the warcraft series exist in raid environments, because a person is at the mercy of other people to experience that part of the story, and MMO players are just so messed up now, that they'll only invite people who are the class, spec, and gear level they think would optimize their raid ability. So instead of inviting random people, making do and learning how to work with what you have, you have people scientifically building groups that will plow through raids.
Like everyone else, I agree 100% with Dana.
I've played EQ, SWG, DAoC, CoH/CoV, DDO.. I am sure I am forgetting a couple, but most important is my current game of Lord of the Rings Online.
In LOTRO, your character has an epic quest that parallels and intersects with the Fellowship's journey. These quests give you awesome items, too. There are a lot of things you can't do if you haven't progressed your epic quests appropriately. They have the right idea to go with the ideal MMO we all want.
Imagine playing an MMO that has no experience system. I think that's pretty much the only way to eliminate the level issue. As long as there are numbers, people will strive to reach the max ASAP. I personally don't know how I would handle such a game. Every MMO I've played over the past 13 years had a leveling and experience system. It wouldn't *feel* like it's supposed to.
Just because it's new and out of your comfort zone doesn't mean it will suck, however. I think it's 100% possible to develop an MMO with no levels and story-based progression along with the niceties like crafting and sparring. Maybe it could be made so there isn't even an option to attack someone who hasn't gotten as far as you to minimize disgruntled noobs.
There's definitely a market for this sort of MMO. I wonder if anyone will take a gamble.
I largely agree with the author. As has already been mentioned, the game the author is describing is Guild Wars. You stop levelling at 20 and instead, you push forward the story line to get to new areas of the world. I've had more fun playing Guild Wars than any other game.
Having said that, there is something I would like even better, which would be for the "storyline" to be about the decisions I make, instead of a railroad through the game-designer's story. I loved Guild Wars, but I never could bring myself to care much about the fate of Prince Rurik or whether Nightfall would come.
The term "end game" has been missused, abused and overrated. Developers need to provide more game content along the way to the end.
Post is spot on, too bad devlopers lack the intestinal fortitude to turn it's Back on teh Jeff Kaplan school of design.
Fun's not just an ill-defined term, but an overused one. There are countless activities that people spend their leisure time pursuing, but which don't really fit the "fun" category; learning a language, decorating, making clothes, painting watercolors, fishing, training for a marathon, building a model railway, gardening, learning to juggle... a milion human activities that, while you are doing them can seem like anything but "fun", yet you choose to do them all the same.
MMOs are more akin to this kind of activity than to pure "fun" experiences like going to a theme park or a blockbuster movie. You do things that aren't intrinsically "fun" and after completing them you have either a sense of achievement or a visible outcome or, best of all, both. In MMOs, the visible outcome is your character, which is a never-ending work-in-progress. Like a project you know you'll never quite complete, your character provides endless opportunity for tinkering and modifying. You secretly hope it will never be "ready".
At least, that's how I see MMOs. The OP seems more interested in the activity; the "game". I spend my time in MMOs for many reasons, but the primary one is the building of the character. I'm not really all that bothered with what I do with the character; building it is an end in itself.
As for storylines, that would be close to last in a list of things I come to MMOs for. Storylines are actively unwelcome, and the idea of being required to follow one in order to progress would have me progressing away from that MMO entirely. Stories are far beter told in a number of other media, where the reader or viewer isn't asked to perform tasks before being thrown each small gobbet of plot.
Bravo! This is a very inspiring post!
To each his own but countless hours of level/gear grinding is not my idea of entertainment. For me a good MMO should be more of an adventure leaving me with memories of things seen and done. However a well designed MMO can provide something for everyone. WoW comes close to this. Yes for all the harsh comments it recieves the game world has a lot going for ir.
While the basic idea is a nice one, its about as likely as world peace. Sure, it d be nice to have and everyone would be better off in theory, but its not going to happen due to human nature kicking in.
In MMOs, that human nature is the urge to get to the top of any given heap, or more importantly, the need for progress. No matter how you slice it, as long as you can outlevel, outplay, outskill or outwhatever content, it ll be done, and if you are dealing with the mainstream audience, it ll be done really quick and efficiently after a while.
The developers are, by and large, just accommodating this behaviour, and trying to channel it into something they can use to make a game work. For everyone I know that likes Guild Wars for the fact that, esp. in Factions and Nightfall, the levelling stops after 1/3 of the game, and the story goes on, I know at least one person who dislikes exactly that fact, stating that they dont feel like their character is advancing much, and that storyline is just an excuse for giving out xp.
The journey needs to be a minimum of fun, yeah. But the mainstream audience, which is what you have to market for most of the time, does not feel happy if they see people ahead of them, and will strive to speed up the journey anyway.
Even the most laid back and oldschool communities, like in Vanguard, quickly found and emphasized quest hubs that were crap, but gave lots of exp in a short amount of time.
You cannot design counter the drive of the players. You can nudge here and there, try to teach different things, but the overwhelming influence is the need to achieve, to be fast, efficient, get to the goal. Its ingrained in our society, and a game will pay dearly if it tries to get away from that in the current market.
Well, it seems like Bioware is working on this. And I agree, problem is in GW you can never really affect the story.
And I actually laughted when Rurik bought the farm, he was such a moron...
I agree that part of this is the fault of the players. I played EQ1 like a level maniac, but when i realized it would take a year to hit 50 (at the rate i played), i started again with no intention to even hit 40. It was much more fun the second time around because i wasn't playing with a levels in mind.
I've learned my lesson, i get my fun at the lower levels, ignore the upper levels. A fireball is a fireball whether its 100 damage or 2. Play while its fun, then get out. No grinding for me.
But the problem for game developers, what is to keep me playing. If its the same 20 missions no matter what class/race i play, then we have a problem. They have to give you 30 ways through the lower levels that are different enough. Not completely different, but different enough to make it interesting. The game has to be REPLAYABLE. That will keep the money coming in while keeping it fun. Not pushing the max level to 70 or 80.
A good example is EQ. EQ at least had 10 different races and 5 different classes that all played different. Each race played different as did the class. That was 50 ways to start off. And they didn't all lead to the same main story line throughout. You weren't put on rails, it was more like a sandbox.
Excellent work and spot on!
Enjoy the journey!! WHich is how I enjoy LOTRO, I can relate to the world, I don't worry about levels, I go for silly titles.
I quit WoW at lvl 13, cause leveling is the pits
Well for once i have to say a writer or anyone for that matter actually sees the genre as i do.The mad dash to end game/levels and the perception that means you are a better player is ridiculous,but that is what the players have become,as stated..."Broken players".
One thing i am not so sure on is the quality quests and players crying about them.I have yet to see these quality quests in most games and i have not seen much in the way of complaining about quality quests. I know for a fact i would not complain about quality quests.For myself any game that utilizes a lot of effort into a massive crafting/questing game would be on my good list,but it has to be done well>>quality >quantity.
I have seen a decent quest design done in EQ2 and EQ using the idea of a quest line.WHat i liked about doing EQ2 was killing mobs,you could get a quest or spawn a boss and get decent rewards,i liked that idea alot.
I wish the OP came up with some ideas on how to make the gaming experience fun instead of a speed dash to end level.I offered my ideas awhile ago,one was utilizing the NPC's a LOT more including voice overs and NPC's joining in battles or traveling alongside players.NPC's are suppose to be the main part of the world,and we have yet to see any developer utilize them to it's fullest extent.I have seen small bits and pieces but not much at all.
We could also have more puzzles and uique ideas involved in boss killing rather than just warping through a portal or gaining access.You could have different locks and puzzles and NPC's and mobs every day to make the experience different.This is something else we have yet to see from ANY game....have multiple spawns for the same nodes ,including NPC's or mobs.How about the FFXI ideas like Besieged or Campaign battles?how about a quest or idea like FFXI where you start naked and have to work your way through the zone to gain back your weapons and armour.Perhaps a knockout system ,where by 8 players enter a zone and only one can enter the final battle to fight the boss,so it brings into play the PVP aspect that so many love.You could also do it with groups of 6 or 5 or 4.So again this offers more than just warping to a zone and fight the boss utilizing said methods attained form the internet.That gets old and boring as does leveling.
Unfortunantly, that would not work. In a single player RPG the player is the sole focus of the game. Everything revolves around him and he is a walking god among men. He can feel powerful because nothing and no one can challenge him.
Now, add in 5000 other players. Each one of them is going to expect that feeling of power, and they are going to measure it as compared to the other players. Now you have balance issues, overpowered abilities, underpowered abilities. Worse, each players view of where their characters abilities are in relation to everyone elses characters is going to be skewed in their own favor.
I am playing EQ2 these days, on a level locked Mystic. As I progress through each area, I turn off my xp until I have done the majority of the quests and fully explored all the zones.
No race to end game, no outleveling content before I am done with it, no cares if anyone else happens to be higher level then me.
Now, if only more people would slow down and enjoy the journey.
I'm also playing some alts in EQ2 currently with xp off for the same reasons (even thinking about re-rolling my old main for the same reasons). The article is good and I agree completely. I've personally always hated the whole level/class based model that the vast majority of MMO's slavishly follow. I've always hated the whole concept of holy "end-game" (I usually get bored with a game before I get to it anyway). I've never been at all a fan of PvP, but I must say the skill based open sand-box world that Mortal online is at least talking about (no idea if they'll actually pull it off) does sound appealing.
I am playing EQ2 these days, on a level locked Mystic. As I progress through each area, I turn off my xp until I have done the majority of the quests and fully explored all the zones.
No race to end game, no outleveling content before I am done with it, no cares if anyone else happens to be higher level then me.
Now, if only more people would slow down and enjoy the journey.
You know, I can't stand SOE much, but I have to hand it to them for creating such a large world, with so many classes, and more quests than WoW could hope to have. It's one reason I've thought of playing EQ2. I've only ever made it to around lvl 20ish and I just couldn't get into the game. I play WoW right now, and what has me sucked into the game is the lore and story behind it. I love the story of the orcs against humans, because neither are completely innocent or at fault for what went on. I love the story of the elves, their eternal life being lost, of the scourge, the former liche king, and Arthas. I love the lore behind the Paladins and their coronation, mages, and druids with Emerald Dream. It's all such a captivating tale with a lot of sorrow when the beautiful is destroyed, the brave being forsaken, and hero's becoming villians through tough, yet unavoidable choices. I just don't get that lore or story with EQ2.
I would love to find a game that didn't put players 'on rails' as another poster stated. The linear, cookie-cutter, level based MMORPG = been there/done that for 90% of the people who read these boards.
Another thing wrong with level based MMORPG's:
Ever started a game 3-4 weeks after your friends did? And now they are way, way over the n00bie stages of the game. You have to bust your arse to catch up to them... meanwhile, you aren't getting to play the game 'with' your friends, you're playing to try to catch up so that you can play with your friends.
So, yeah, I love the topic and it was an excellent article. As others have said... 'spot on'.
I don't think thats so. Take oblivion, ignoring the main quest, 100 people could be wandering around the world and it would be just fine. Its not a question of power, or being a walking god. The world would support the players just fine.
OTOH, your balance issues are spot on. If theivery doesn't work well in a single player game, you can live with it. But in a multiplayer game, these imbalances stand out more. Especially when the game is so combat based.
Good read,
I hope some company has the balls to experiment and give it a try.
While I agree with the ideas presented, the problem is always going to be people. No matter how you design the game you are going to have people who ruin it, and the more popular it becomes, the larger the number of idiots or farmers you are going to attract who figure out a way to ruin it for the honest players. Anything that is any good almost never stays that way because of that fundamental principle of the world we live in. Commercialism ruins just about everything.
Great article with incredible accuracy, along the the low level design article it makes me really enjoy reading some of MMORPG.com articles.
current MMOs aren't really persistent worlds, they are just a linear progress (sometimes with a few ramifications, but if you do both of the paths you'll just be dumb as you'll play in outleveled content) for your characters, with levels being the measure of progress.
I'd really love to see a MMO shifting from this trend, where the place you go is not determined by your level but instead by where you want to go to do *insert storyline options here*, level being a mere consequence of your actions, not a cause for your actions (or no level at all, but whatever it will be used.
I don't know about GW2, but GW1 had the feeling you wanted to play through the storyline (especially because there is no pwnage equipment and level cap is easily reached) for checking it out and for the fun of it (at least this was my experience, played all campaigns exploring all the unique content of it). It is not perfect for me though, because of the 99% instancing. Good enough for me to put faith (and the retail price) into its sequence though.
The fact that there were/are so many level based mmos is why I think the genre took so long to catch on. I remember SWG fondly and how the entire game was not this huge level grind but instead a set of tightly bundled meta-games that all seemed fresh and new. I think the main reason that so few people actually enjoy a given game as a whole is that the actually narative and story in mmo's is contained in the end game. Back in my wow days I remember how terrible questing was, the npc's and quests surronding the grind were just unlikeable and dull. Howeve I think things are going to get better, The genre is splitting down the middle into two entirely separate kind of games, on the one hand you have sandbox world allowing players to make decisions a-la EVE and on the other narative driven rpgs that allow for interaction with other players living out their own story SW-TOR.
I think we have very similar tastes. Except in Guild Wars where the level cap is very low, I have never played a character all the way to the level cap - not in WoW, or LOTRO or CoX. It is much more fun to try out a few different classes to get some different game experiences rather than doing the same thing over and over and over.
As you point out, a wide variety of classes with different play styles is a great thing. I would happily give up balance for more variety in play style. I think my favorite system so far is Guild Wars where you get to mix and match powers rather than being stuck with a predefined set for each class.
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Originally posted by EricDanie
I'd really love to see a MMO shifting from this trend, where the place you go is not determined by your level but instead by where you want to go to do *insert storyline options here*, level being a mere consequence of your actions, not a cause for your actions (or no level at all, but whatever it will be used.
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I couldn't agree more. It gives me much more investment in my character's adventure if I'm going someone for a reason, rather than just because its next in line.
gotta love how people talk of the future of MMOs and the way they should be when I've been playing Open ended games like that since UO.
UO, SWG, EVE, Ryzom lol.
Edit: in the article the writer spoke of a main storyline leading a player from zone to zone, with optional quests and fun things to do all around and being able to come back to a earlier area and having it meaningful. Yeah that game is called Guild wars. You can level to 20 (level cap) before you see 10% of the main storyline once done with main storyline you can switch on hardmode where the map is 100% useful.
I almost feel like everyone has started playing MMOs post WoW and forgot how MMOs were before lol. It's like the freaking twilight zone on this site.
Ya, WoW ruined online gaming for us old school peeps! I don't blame them though, just how things seemed to work out.
Great article Dana but I just don't see it is being anything much more than the players being broken I don't see anything worng with levels which is in effect what we do in real life we level up to the things that we accomplish in adulthood, a championship sprinter once had to learn to walk, a world class vocalist also had to learn to talk if you get my drift.
On the one hand I think it has become "cool" to jump on the "innovation" band wagon, we often declare things lame without a hint of an idea of what would make things better or make more sense than the current build used in todays games. LOTRO has an ideal system using the same standard level builds almost all of todays games use as a standard should you chose to you can live in middle earth without ever taking part in the main storyline which should always be a players option but your detachment from the "fun" of the storyline will ovbviously be sacrificed for it.
In all if the players would actually take an interest in the ip (which to hear most of the complaints they don't) things would not "seem" as bad as they do if you read the quests saved an old weapon that you got off a difficult quest drop etc. we would experience all of the things we claim are missing from games nowadays.
The only thing wow did was make a game the way they saw fit and thankfully for them it turned out highly successful blame the devs of newer games for copying to a fault if that is in fact the case, but I just want to add that most games are still made the way an above poster mentioned, we are given quests to complete which lead us to higher lands and we are allowed to return to earlier levels anytime we choose to. The difference as I've stated is so many players only race to "end game" they don't take simple pleasures in mind because there are none for them, only the singular goal of end game.
I often travel to lands I've out levelled to gather resources that once seemed imposssible to gather but now are a breeze due to my increased experience, I would actually reason I have probably spent more time since level cap in lotro on gathering resources,helping firends and working on quests I have yet to complete as well just to do it at my own pace and actually learn about places in the game I had missed. Most players now just don't care about the experience friends have if it doesn't help them achieve their own goals which has become one of single mindedly racing to the mythical end game. Even when you reach the end people you will still play with the basic rules and principles established on your journey to the end so why does it surprise so many when what they find doesn't satisfy them.
My post comes off like I wish more people actually wouldn't play mmos which I don't as I see the benefit of the larger audience but I could certainly see the benefit of not having so many of the speed racer type players in the mix we would see alot more innovation if we actually changed the way we play as a player base. As it stands the most money companies can gain is from those who will race to the end game to find nothing new because those are the extra 100-200k that play for sometimes up to a year before burn out while the main base of 100-200k play for the lore,community and actual fun how do we compete with that?
When i first started playing Dark Age of Camelot i found it to be cool to advance skills with every level. Like an addiction i had to get stronger with every level to achieve max level *50* and PVP non stop or make another character and level it to 50 so i could do the same on a different class.
The basic concept of MMO's in general is stale. Do quests, grind mobs until max level. Get the best gear you can to compete against PVP opponents. There is no real interest in PVE combat. Heck i would be happy if i logged in a new game at max level in the best gear you could get and play PVP from the get go with cause and effect style game play. If you've done it *PVE* once you can do it 1 million more times and it's still the same. They can create encounters but once you figure it out its unchallenging as well.
In order to have a fun journey you cant have a simple path. That is why from a immersion standpoint you will never find what you get in single player games like Fall Out 3. IN FO3 there is cause and effect to your behavior. In MMO's what you do has no bearing on squat. Follow the dotted line, complete quest or kill 100 bears and ding, " I leveled".
Like i said after your first MMO you pretty much have all the rest down as well. The immersion of per say reading a book is no comparison to following a quest sequence. The book is superior in every way.
I prefer to play against human opponents therefore i don't think there will ever be a PVE game that can hold my interest. I love Lords of the Ring but the online game sucked imo. It had no feel like the immersion you got from the 3 movies.
I've seen ALOT of very few cool immersion factors in many different games but regretfully no MMO Producer seems to have the ability to implement even 10% of those in their games.
This is in response to the article, not any one person's post.
All of what Dana said is true.
Levels as a yardstick aren't good, then all anyone cares about is levels.
Grinding to the endgame "where the fun starts" isn't good as all anyone cares about is leveling fast enough to "get to the good stuff".
Inane dopey quests that are just repetitions of other quests "Go kill ten zorks" immediately followed by "Go kill ten ings" isn't good as we all get bored out of our skulls and demand open PvP "kill everyone all the time" to get their kicks.
What's the answer? I don't really know how the devs who are stuck so far inside the corporate game companies "box" will do it.
But, I recently ran a personal test of a game for a group of parents and I saw some light in the tunnel.
FreeRealms was interesting in that there was a lot of game play in many different things. Harvesting wasn't a mindless characterization of digging in the dirt, it was an arcade puzzle game. Some of the errand quests were timed - and if you don't think it makes it difficult you should try it <grins>.
You could drive cars in races or crash them in a derby. Fighting was instanced where you could solo it, or get a pickup group together and enter. There were cooking games, and even a maze.
I guess a lot of the fun came from the fact that you didn't just specialize in one "job" but could have several. Since I tried the free portion of the game I could be an Adventurer, Brawler, Ninja, Miner, Cook, Demolition Derby Driver, Race Car Driver, and Pet Trainer - all at the same time with one character.
If you got bored with one, you "changed jobs" and went to do something else.
Each "class" or "job" came with it's own tools and gear, which upgraded as you leveled. There were even tickets so you could play a random game to get clothing, weapons and other gear in a surprise box sort of situation.
Heck there were even table games like Chess, Checkers, some card war game (I never played it) and Castle Defense type games.
The Adventurer job was to explore and find "collections". I don't know what the reward was for completing collections as I had to stop playing (work demanded it), but I had 33 collections started.
The ONLY flaw with FreeRealms was the way you could mistakenly delete your character very, very easily with no hope for retrieval. It was instantaneous and irrevokable. Not bad for me being a free player, but the subscription and cash shop players are getting burned by that. If they fix it, this will be a near perfect children's entertainment game.
Which brings me back to MMORPGs. Why can't WE have adult versions of the above? Why can't an adult level game exist with games within the game, and other activities that are interesting?
Why is fighting the focus instead of something you do AS PART OF the story line? Why is crafting - when there is any - such a PITA? Why do we NEVER do any of the other things that should exist in a persistent WORLD?
Why are we accepting and in some cases paying a high price to consume sawdust instead of demanding the luscious dessert our money should be going for?
Ah well, I guess it's all about getting stuck in boxes and letting others lead us about by the nose. Until we ask for what we REALLY want, we aren't going to get it.
Yes indeed! Fighting is my favorite activity, but too much of anything gets dull and variety is the spice of life. I thought EVE handled this well. When I didn't want to fight any more, I could go take on some other job.
The one thing I find interesting that about half the people who have posted in this thread still seemed to have missed is this. While most in here aggree with the basic premise behind the OP just about every solution or idea on what would fix the problem is different. There is a reason your perfect MMO has not yet been created...you have not yet created it and your probably the only one that knows exactly what it is. While there is a lot of overlap from person to person what makes a good MMO there are as many differences too and thus we will never get our own perfect MMO, although it is possible to get close.
On the subject of grind - levels vrs skills. I have found that skill based systems offer as much if not more "grind" than level based systems - yes even UO had grind...at least the original version way back in 1999 or 2000...hard to remember exactly when I played. The difference in level grind and skill grind is merely the interval and frequency. For instance in level based game I might have to kill 100 mobs to reach lvl 10 whereby i get a handfull of new skills instantly ready to use. In a skill based game I might have to attack 100 mobs...not necessarily to death but at least attack and perhaps defend for a length of time to take that same handfull of skills from 0 to 100 or whatever numbers the skill based system happens to use.
The difference in UO was the fact that you could grind a skill to max in a single day, except for magic. You only had a handfull of skills and thus the biggest factor in the game was equipment as even a newbie could match your skill point level within a day or two. So now we switch from skill grinding to equipment grinding to gold grinding to XXX grinding. Anything that you do that is repetitive and lacking in fun for the sole purpose of reaching a goal is in effect a grind. Anything you do in which the goal is fun and that goal is achieved while getting secondary benefits(aka loot, xps, skills, reputation, whatevers) is not grind. So if a player races through zone after zone tackling every objective in front of them in a race to see how fast they can reach level cap and they are having fun doing so is in essence not grinding. A player, however, that is racing through zone after zone tackling objectives in order to reach a mythical end game thinking thats when they get to have fun is grinding.
So just like one mans trash is another mans treasure.....one mans grind is another mans idea of fun. A successfull MMO will find a way to make thier game where a majority of people see fun and not grind, an unsuccesfull MMO is where a majority of people see grind and not fun.
I agree with the OP - most players learned to grind AS PLAY, because companies needed a measure to project revenues, and how long it would take a player to reach X level is a convenient metric. They can put that into a spreadsheet, look at the number of signups, and say "we can expect Y months of revenue from each player that makes it to level X".
So the "players" (who are really online workers paying the game company to do chores with flashy gear and effects to distract the poor saps) don't even know what playing should feel like.
I'm from the old school. I remember what fun games were like, and why they were fun. I cannot at this time play an MMO that allows me to have that kind of risk-filled, reward-fulfilling fun. It's just stupid to see, and very sad, because running to the nearest featherhead on your map and following his work instructions to get a pixel paycheck so you can rinse and repeat endlessly is so far below fun, it's pathetic.
Compare this with being trapped in a dungeon with monstrous enemies - skeletons, zombies, imps that hurl magical attacks - between you and freedom, and being forced to fight your way out with a starting weapon and whatever you can loot from the dungeon rooms and the enemies you kill. That's a game that makes you sit up and PLAY, and your reward for victory is 1. the sweet, sweet feeling of bad@ssery that comes with your escape, and 2. the chance to then go do it some more in a way that makes a difference in the game world. But with some preparation this time :)
Here's an idea - just remove all indications of player levels from MMOs. Just have the same level checks for questing and item use, and refuse you with the same dialogue ("You're not strong enough for this blah blah).
There. Now without the mile markers, players can concentrate on the journey, not the destination.
For the first 30 levels of LOTR, i didn't even know where the level indicator was, nor did i particularly care.
To me, thats the mark of a good game.
Dunno if anyone else posted this (hopefully it's not the one above mine :p), but I think Star Wars: The Old Republic might be the kind of game the article writer is speaking of.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a main story and as a player we can choose to group with other live players to continue that story or not. There also appear to be consequences to our actions, so it looks like in that game, the journey is the focus.
The developer has also cranked out games (Mass Effect, Jade Empire, KOTOR) that can stand tall with some of the other major players the article writer mentioned (Fallout 3, Fable II). So we might actually see that type of progression based on the journey rather than the level.
Nice article.
The game I play doesn't have levels, it has skills, and they don't show your skill level, so when you talk about someone it's always, 'that guy is a great warrior', not, 'that guy is level 50'. You know you are skilled when you do things better than you did before and no one complains about unfair level differences when they get beat... they just praise the victor. There's no grind at all. You live, work, craft, build, adventure... it's completely open. You don't need quests for that. You just need the coded tools for your character to have a rich and full life with a real impact on the world (which is freaking massive, BTW). You don't need great graphics either, because after you get over the graphics it's all just about what you want to accomplish and whether or not the game supports that goal. In the end it's all about your imagination, not some cartoon that does more to detract from the feel of the world than add to it.
Where am I at in the game? Well, I'm one of the better warriors in Brygga, but have no idea what my skill level is in terms of numbers. I just finished a shop to sell items crafted from rarer metals that I pan in dangerous lands from the streams others have a hard time getting to and therefore are richer since the gems and metals (gold, silver, mithril, etc) deplete over time and regen very slowly. The easily reachable areas are quickly depleted. I am now beginning a small fort out there so I can have a base of operations for NPC hirelings that will do some of the panning for me, as well as guard the fort. I also am helping to build roads to ease travel into the north where the other main player race lives. They have things we want to trade for and it's a really long and slow journey right now without good roads.
So where am I? I don't know... but I'm having fun there and it's never a grind. ;)