The List: Five MMO Facets that Need Innovation

Link is broken.

Aye link is broken, takes me back to news page.

Ahh infinite loops!

*edit after reading*

I would agree for the most part. With nearly everything here.

1. We need to bring back a lot of the "open world" back to MMOs, and we SHOULD have the technology now with ever faster computers and network connections. I think we have gone too far in the "pretty graphics" direction and as such lost a lot on our way. Still, use of instances can have positive effect if done right. I think WoW has really started on the right track with their "phasing" technology, but we just have to make sure it doesn't go too far. 

2. Story. Story is very subjective. I don't care about the world's story or history, i care about MY story. This is a MMORPG not a single player RPG. give me the old school UO story - there was none - just what actions players do effects the story of the game and the devs keep up. EvE Online is the only MMO that currently comes close. 

3. Levels - I am with you get rid of them. Go back to skill based progression, but NOT horrible skill grind progression ala SWG or some such. No jumping or swimming skills or anything ridiculous like that, no afk macro'ing or attacking walls or any of that nonsense. A quality, AAA designed skill system.

4. Quests - get RID of solo personal quests entirely. Make everything open world dynamic public quests. A quest is only solo if you are the only one doing it at the time. GW2 ideas on crack please.

5. Combat - I won't be satisfied with MMO combat till we have Legends of Zelda or God of War or Devil May Cry style combat in a massively multiplayer online world that doesn't sacrifice 1-4 to do so. Guess I'll be waiting a while.

#5

FFXIV phasing :).

Now it's fixed, thanks.

NPCs that don't just stand there.  Sure, we've got a few walkers here and there but, really, would it kill to get these poor saps a chair every now and again?  And a couple of breaks.  I'm pretty sure none of the bankers have had a piss break in several years.  NPC worker rights!

I agree on some.

5. Instances - Yea I was never a big fan when these came out and it takes away some of the gameplay. Currently a neccessary evil.

4. Questing - I also have hopes for GW2. I just want a system where if I kill 20 Ogres running to a quest giver, he doesn't tell me to go kill 10 Ogres. I just killed 20, what do you want 10 more for?

3. Leveling - I disagree here. leveling has been staple since P&P days. Whether you gain exp or you gain skill points whatever its all the same.

2. Story - The community probably can't handle long drawn out story-telling. I dunno how much in this direction MMOs want to go. The story is supposed to be something you make, not follow here. And I don't know character-driven narrative, like WoW making you the one who kills X or sets free Y which impacts Z. I mean just stories from travels, people you meet, and battles you encounter. Stories are some things that probably can never beat D&D. For example I remember fondly of a D&D encounter that was just "walk down the hill" but everyone rolls a 1-4 on the dexterity check and we all start tumbling headfirst down the stupid hill. There was no narrative, there was no quest involved, it just happened, it was funny, and it sticks in my mind to this date.

1. Combat - I see no problem with pressing a key to attack. Again like leveling these are tried and true things that were not originally complex, so I see no reason to add layers of complexity.

Yeah, I'd agree with a lot of these points.  Honestly, SWG had a fine leveling system, prior to the NGE.  I'm surprised more haven't to refine this.  Call a class whatever you want, it still comes down to tanking, healing, and DPS.  

Combat is a tough one.  The problem, to me, is the mob one fights and how many mobs are required.  To start, if a mob stands in one place and hits me, I'll stand in one place and do whatever is most efficient to kill the mob.  If it takes 2 skills or 7 skills, I'll find my method and repeat it until the mob is dead.  That can be fixed with interesting mob mechanics and AI.  However, if I have to pull out some crazy tactics on 5 million mobs while I level, I'm going to go insane.  Battles need to feel important, I'm tired of killing butterflies (or dying because of butterflies) and rats.

We, as gamers, are to blame as well.  We don't embrace change very easily.  Whenever a company does try to change things up, we freak out.  As much as we hate the "kill ten rats" quests, some people get weirded out when they're gone.  

One game I see coming on the horizon that may implement some of these things, which I agree with entirely by the way, would be Rift: Planes of Telara. Of course the game is still in development, so no idea what will come of it, but honestly these are the types of games that pique my interest. WoW is stale, Cataclysm for WoW will just be the same stale stuff once you hit level cap. I want to see games that I can excel at any skill, even unlock skills or learn new trades from other players. Build cities, castles, items, or whatever. Make the system open. A game that has some of these elements is Wurm Online, but it needs some help/backing to improve the client and some game aspects.

However, with that said, I do not want to get into a game that I feel utterly lost or have no idea what to do next. I think phasing/instancing technologies can greatly help with that by providing players a bit of a "guide" to starting the game and open up more avenues of adventure, skills, etc as time progresses or as you discover new areas. A living world that changes day to day would be immensely entertaining, but extremely complex to develop. Wishful thinking I suppose.

It seems refreshing to notice that games like gw2 appear to be trying to improve all of these. Take for example combat they know have interactible objects like being able to pick up rocks sticks etc, greater emphasis on positioning and movement rather than efficiency of using a skill bar. As well as emphasis on skill mechanics like knock back-walls and cross class combo's

In story they appeared to have gone the oldschool rpg method of trying to create a an almost unique experience for each players character by giving them multiple choice's throughout the game with greater focus on thought provoking options rather than what gear will that option give me.

The events system helps removes the single player mentality of playing an mmo since playing with other people isn't actually detrimental to you and can actually make battles more exciting.

The sidekick system also greatly reduces the importance of levels essentially making all content still playable at at max level so potenially the entire game becomes "endgame content" as it really should have always been. Questing has also already been mentioned through the event system.

It's nice to see some companies actually trying to chang things rather than being preoccupied with making a quick buck.  

I believe you meant Arena Net not NetDevil.

I think instances are a great way to add story elements, and that story elements should be optional.  Some of the best stories in MMOs have nothing to do with the devs - it's stuff the players create as in diaries, you tubes, etc. - give the players the tools and they can write the stories for you.

Personally, skill or level based is all the same to me - especially with all the alternate advancement stuff that is prevalent in the level based games.

The big area that needs to be improved is not quests, tasks, kill experience (though something in that area would be very welcome just because it would be different).  It's CONTENT - flat out devs need to figure out how to keep up with us but not just in spewing out the same old content with new names and faces - actually create new content.

I don't have a problem with quests - I just don't like it when the same quest gets used over and over, that just wrapping up kill grinding in brown paper.  At least wrap it with a bow and offer something that makes it stand out.  Or if that is just impossible can we just wrap all the repetitive stuff into it's own interface?  Better yet just create a device that spits out tasks on demand, hmmm SWG has that don't they?

My point is that players demand a ton of content and to meet deadlines a lot of time it's just copy, paste, and adjust that devs fall back on.  I can understand that to a degree, devs are human too and actually have real lives.  What it boils down to is that there is a lot of been there done that in the industry right now, it would be nice to see some innovation.

I'm not quite sure how you innovate combat when no matter what system you are playing on, you are still pressing keys to attack.

there is always the fps type of combat as in planetfall or darkfall. then again, there it ends up after a while as the same  - instead of keyboard buttons, you mash the mouse button. at least though you can't walk away and get a drink in the meantime.

regarding instancing, say what you wany, but wow attempted with phasing someting pretty neat with reagards to changing the environment. ff-XIV seems to implement it, and lotro has it also to some extent, in contrast to wow spread throughout the game in tiny pieces, wheras wow has it in nothrtrend only, but in good "chuncks."

Originally posted by Greyed

NPCs that don't just stand there.  Sure, we've got a few walkers here and there but, really, would it kill to get these poor saps a chair every now and again?  And a couple of breaks.  I'm pretty sure none of the bankers have had a piss break in several years.  NPC worker rights!

 

Hahaha this post is pure awesome.  Agree! +1

I think Crafting needs to be on this list somewhere. Maybe replace instancing or story since those always seem to be in flux in MMO design anyway.

I always attempt to craft in MMOs, and I usually have fun in the beginning, but actually maxing out a crafting profession usually ends up boring me to tears. Although, I think Vanguard takes things in the right direction with giving you recipe work orders with the materials included(saves on all that gathering BS just to level a craft.

Also, SWG had the BEST resource gathering idea ever and should be copied, if possible. Fantasy makes this tough I know, but hey, magic factories aren't that far of a stretch.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

I'm not quite sure how you innovate combat when no matter what system you are playing on, you are still pressing keys to attack.

 

The question is how combat is being used in the game.  If you have to kill a million rats, and combat is overly repetitive, then you are correct.  Each kill de-emphasizes combat, and it becomes a routine.  In many games, combat is about becoming efficient, and little to do with strategy.  

Developers can fix combat by changing how combat is used.  if they decide that we need to kill a million mobs in order to prove our quality, then combat becomes either a tedious mess, or a mindless game of repetition.  If combat remains meaningful, and the fights themselves are tactical, then progress is being made.

The thing with combat is that a lot of people play MMOs because of how slow and easy the combat is.

It allows them to socialize while playing, to type out text, and to read text.

Also the more action packed the combat gets, the more twitch skills come into play. And yes a lot of the younger FPS crowd love twitch gaming, since they can show how good they are by how quickly they can react and push buttons. However human beings reaction time slows as they age, this means that now an older person can never compete with the younger ones and the game is forever unbalanced. I myself like both, and I do play a lot of FPS because I like that my skills can win. Just like a play a lot of RTS games (not many recently as C&C has turned into twitch gaming) because I enjoy that my mind can win, and that I have time to take the actions I have planned out instead of always mashing buttons until it's over.

A lot of more casual gamers play MMOs now, and casual gamers also tend to appreciate the slower/easier based combat that is clicking 2 4 3 1 2 5 2.

There definetly should be some action based, real time combat MMOs out there. But it can't be all of them or you drive off a good portion of the market.

I agree with most of the thing you say, but:

1. Combat is something that cannot be changed easy. I think there are 3 types of combat in MMO's. First you have passive combat where you only press a number so now and then, like in WoW. Second you have full interaction like in Gunz. I don't think Gunz is really an MMO, but it's listed as one on many sites. Last you have the hybrid, like AoC. I think that combat system sucked. Played around with it and I couldn't get used to it. Most of the time I didn't know if the game did what I asked. The problem is when you make something that's fully interactive, it's gonna be compared to something like Gunz. If it's not, it's gonna be compared with WoW. It would take a clever mind or many years before a good hybrid is gonna be made.

2. A better leveling system already here. Skilled-based lvl'ing would be a huge improvement, for me. I've played Runescape, like much people, and I really liked the skilled-based leveling. So, if more games use it and perfect it, that could be the new way of leveling.

3. Questing is something I don't think needs to be changed. The basics are there and they are solid. More different quest is always good. Also storytelling don't need to be changed, because I never read the text in a quest. I don't care about the story of a MMO. I also think the grinding needs to change, but also not. At the moment I'm playing Battle of the Immortal. I like it, but it's gameplay is 90% grinding. So, that breaks my statement. Change is welcome, but maybe not necessary, for me.

All this is my opinion and you maybe think I'm wrong, but these are my comments

Originally posted by SaintViktor

I'm not quite sure how you innovate combat when no matter what system you are playing on, you are still pressing keys to attack.

Easily , you make it more tactical so depending on what your foe is doing you have to vary your attack. How easy it is to impliment is another matter.

And to add one of the best leveling sytems I have seem was in a MUD dragonrealms , depending on the class type you played certain skills had to be at a level before you could move to the next class level.

All skills and experience fed into a tank which slowly drip fed a skill increase, if you diesd you lost an ammount of the xp not converted to permanent. This generated the need to perform or play a large variety of roles and was thoroughly fun.

This also limited powerleveling , and there was a real death penalty again great fun.

A good list, that, to sum it up, is saying the entire industry needs to start innovating.  The only facet that developers seem to want to try new things with is their crafting systems and guild/social systems have already reached a pretty adequate level.

Generally, a nice article. I have to disagree with combat though. If i wanted active combat like you suggest, I have Monster Hunter Tri for that. I will play Tri for a couple-few of hours at most. For MMOs, I could play all day if i have an active one going, I don't right now. Part of the reason for that is it is a little more... laid back then an FPS or Action type game.

5. Instances:  Currently they are being inappropriately implimented and utilized by the industry.  They are providing the exact same encounters over and over again to players who soon learn to roll them for loot as fast as they can and move on.  Instances shouldn't be static locations on a map, but dynamic locations that the player is taken to in order to accomplish a missing (obstensibly) that only they can perform (both skill-wise as well as story-wise).  A variety of setups, a variety of encounters, plug-in values if you like, but enough variety to them to be able to generate hundreds of seemingly random instanced encounter zones.

4. Questing:  Goes along with the instances above.  Missions, quests, tasks, whatever you want to call them, they need variety.  While the leveling system (I'll go into that later) used in Horizons (now Istaria) was HORRIFIC, the questing system was at least moderately interesting.  There were at least 6 diffferent quests available in random order from each questgiver, and you could cycle thru them to get to one you really liked.  This made the GRINDING HORROR of the leveling system almost barable.  Almost, but not quite.  Some variety in quests, not variety in difficulty of the quests, but in what you're doing, germain to the task that you would expect to be doing for said questgiver, would go along way.  Kill X Y's, get gold.  BLEH!  Spice it up a little more than that, and you have something.  Offer different quests.

3. Leveling:  Yeah, get rid of classes.  The whole class-based leveling system blows.  If you want to offer packages of skills thru quest lines en lieu of leveling, that would be an option, and allow players to customize their characters and their skills by selecting the training packages they like as they advance thru their character development.  Optionally, you could remove the ability to select skills at all, and have characters auto-level skills as they use them, so that they get the character they play, whether or not they want it.  However, getting rid of numbers won't help the system, because we're stuck in a rut about numbers.  Big numbers means we're important people, and like little girls at a Jonas Bros. concert, we all like that special feeling we get when a really huge crit goes off because we're just that awesome.

2: Story:  Modern MMOs aren't geared towards player-advanced storylines.  More specifically, they are geared to isolate the actual storyline from the player and remove them from any sort of meaningful world interaction.  While superficially the quest chains and progression may appear to be player-driven, the world is so static that nothing the player does ever changes anything.  Some games have tried to phase zones to reflect the current state that a player is in regarding events in that zone, but another player won't see the same things unless they're on the same step.  That isn't a player-driven storyline, it's a travesty.  GW2 seems to be heading in the right direction with their dynamic questing system, having resources available to players when a particular area is put under player control, and if they leave it unattended, it reverts to an NPC/Mob-controlled state that the players have to seize control of again.  Taking that a step further, the whole world should be a network of such zones, allowing for various factions (GW2 has only one player faction, despite the new races, everyone is friendly-ish) to seize control of zones and expand their actual ZoC (Zone of Control) to the game world map, changing borders, alteriung mob encounter locations, and even seeing borders shrink if, as with WoW now, players aren't actively using certain areas (like Southshore, the southern Barrens, etc).  Having such areas become more dangerous based on a lack of player interaction with them would be a way of creating player-driven stories and world events.

However, as I said, the current game engines aren't geared towards allowing such things.

1. Combat:  Most games make combat the primary way one advances their character.  EQ2 and a few others, including Vanguard, tried to include alternative class systems, like Diplomacy and Tradeskilling, but they are still tied to the concept of an adventuring/combat class as a primary method of advancing one's self.  To bring down the combat monster, as it were, alternative methods of viable player advancement need to be doable.  So long as tradeskilling is tied to the adventuring zones a player enters at the relative level he should be tradeskilling at, this won't change.  I've proposed, to much positive feedback, that a game should have such avenues open to it, and that a traditional adventuring party should be replaced with the dynamic party system employed by most television drama shows instead of most RPGs.

Let's take the almost released, but no semi-defunct, SGW.  Soldier, Scientist, Engineer...  Sounds like a typical SG-1 setup to me.  O'Neil/Teal'c, Carter, and Jackson.  But let's go one step further and dumb this down a little more so that it becomes really obvious:  Adventurer, Tech, Builder, and Merchant.  The dynamics of such a group would be awesome.  A couple adventurers, hired by the merchant, to escort him and his tech and builder thru dangerous terrain in order to get to a far off city where he can sell his goods (and those of his builder) for a huge profit, a portion of which will be paid to the adventurers as their commision.  But it gets better!  While going thru said dangerous terrain, they encounter a location with lost technology/magic, which the tech is able to examine and reverse engineer into something wonderful.  Then the builder helps him replicate it, and everyone gets one.  And because it was just that group there, only they have such devices, so they're gonna be cooler than traditional raiders.  Now the merchant has even better stuff to sell, and his profits will be even larger!  So they get to the town and because the merchant is a business savvy guy, he manages to work the local markets and does quite well.  In fact, he's able to take the stuff that the group found that was 'junk' and sell it off for more than the others could have on their own.

So why is this all special?  Because the entire party is made of PCs, including the merchant.  But what?  The merchant is the one who offered the quest.  Yep.  Player-driven quests, commissioned work orders, and contract hiring of your fellow PCs.  Solves a lot of problems we've been discussing all at once, doesn't it?

And all of it solves the combat system being the only viable means of advancement problem.  In my example, adventurers would be the combat-oriented class, advancing primarily thru combat and mob encounters.  Techs would advance thru interactions with non-mob encounters (traps, secret areas, and hidden tech/magic).  Builders are your traditional tradeskillers, advancing by making things and finding new recipes (or learning them from techs).  And Merchants are something that is a recent phenom: the AHer.  They would be primarily concerned with their reuptation (their name and brand recognition) since the better that is, the more they can sell 'junk' for, and the lower their broker fees will be, equalling better profits for them and their group.

Just the random ideas from someone who spends way too much time thinking about these things.  My ideas are copywritten already, though.

I agree with all and think more mmo's should be FPS combat styled.

But then you got the old farts or people who cant aim, that will whine saying they get roflstomped because of the FPS mechanics.

So hopefully they start getting with technology and introduce more FPS mmo's, by bigger companies, a lot of them are failing atm due to no funding and just low staff, low budget dev teams.

I agree with the areas listed in your article. But I think there are some other areas I would like to see re-evaluated as well.

Crafting: I crafting system that is rewarding for both adventurers as crafters. Meaning crafted items are valuable commodities in the economy and looted items play an important role as ingredients.

Diplomacy: A faction system with clear consequences which drives both the storyline and questing.

The Endgame: Lastly I would love to see a MMORPG without a classic top-end raiding system. A game where group and individual encounters are the backbone of the endgame instead of 18 or 24 timeconsuming raidencounters.

personally i think questing should be the no1 priority.  I love single player RPG's because they have a lot more diversity in quests than MMO's (there are still kill X rats quests but they aren't as common as they are in MMO's).

The other aspects of MMO's are fine currently, just the quests that need a real shake up.

Originally posted by Death1942

personally i think questing should be the no1 priority.  I love single player RPG's because they have a lot more diversity in quests than MMO's (there are still kill X rats quests but they aren't as common as they are in MMO's).

 

The other aspects of MMO's are fine currently, just the quests that need a real shake up.

That's a vast oversimplification.  Single player RPGs (typically) have a story line that develops characters and plotlines, with a single emphasis on the character alone.  Single player RPGs have a beginning, middle, and end. 

MikeB, good post. I agree all the way through.

I'd add two more, a number 6 and 7:

6) World....We need innovation in "world". Interaction, exploration, mystery, discovery, lore/history, and meaning to it all. 

7) Artificial Intelligence....Why do MOBs just stand there where we expect to find them, and die for us if we do predictable things? NPCs should make decisions based on what they see happening around them, and they should not "see" everything. They should have wants and desires and goals. UO had a basic form of this, where creatures had things they went for (gold, food, etc.) They even had a goal to seek out other creatures of their own type. Why has this not been expanded, rather than just dropped? Once critters are gathering, why do they not "elect" a leader? Why do leaders not lead? Why do they not seek out habitation and all the other things a social cell might do? There's a lot that could be done with AI, and it could make a world much more interesting to "live" in.

We've got Massively figured out. We've got Multi-player beaten (except on launch and patch days). Online has been around since the genre was born and game is everything is a game. But why hasn't anyone ever figured out the Role-Playing part?

Single player games don't even do it all that well. But why is there always a point where I must turn left in order to follow YOUR story. Why can't I turn right and follow mine?

Sandbox games come kind of close, EVE springing to mind.

But real innovation has to be made in the ability of players to Role-Play. What we need is:

A way to make a lasting impact on the game as a whole. That impact creates the roles people want to play (whether they actually change their personality or act is irrelevant). Why does Farmer Frank always need 10 rats killed. Why not 5 or 15? Why can't I buy him a cat to solve the same quest? Why can't I convince a different player to do the quest for me then split the rewards? Why can't I lie to Farmer Bob and say I killed them (when I didn't), it's not like he'd notice cause the rats repop every 8 seconds? Why are guilds and their administration so flat? Why can't I hire an NPC to stand in my guild hall and offer up quests for resources or items the guild needs? Why can't I set up my own barony / dukedom / kingdom?

The next WoW is going to do all the stuff the others have done before (like WoW), but it's going to let the Players create content. Think about how amazingly HUGE WoW would be if every guild leader could (if they wanted), walk to the edge of a zone and "create" a single kingdom with their choice of mountains, plains, whatever. NPCs would flock to player cities based on taxes, alignment decisions, law choices. NPCs would be hired to guard castles, treasure rooms, caravan routes, whatever.

What do low level guild members do? They quest in YOUR kingdom. They kill the goblins attacking YOUR villagers. If they fail then your villages burn and people start fleeing your kingdom. Then you have to hire outside players to come take care of your problems. But the mercs have a spy from the neighboring player kingdom that wants the silver surplus your mountain realm has. That spy assassinates the NPC responsible for your trade income.

Kingdom not your thing? Why can't I buy that crappy bar in the newbie zone and fix it up? I know Bartender Bob hasn't ever seen a gold peice ... why the hell wouldn't he sell me his whole craptastic life for 25 of them?

Give the players a world they can shape (for the better or worse) and they'll have a stake in its survival.

Yes, PLEASE....I want this full meal deal described here!  Every point you made....imo....precisely what I'd love to see.

And while we're at it....I also want highly customizable housing (at least as good as that of EQ2) and a medium deep crafting system (something akin to Vanguard or EQ2 with some kind of mini game that at least gives me the illusion of doing more than just hitting one button and out pops a crafted item).  OR....innovation in housing and crafting that makes them both even BETTER than those example from present day games.

Great article...and I truly agree with it 100 percent.

Couldn't agree more on quests. The whole click this NPC, collect me my random items, and go do this same thing for someone else grew old the moment it started. TBH i never understood hy this has ALWAYS been used, surely someone out there has to have a better idea for 'disguising' our grind.

Instances are on my sh** list.   You got companies who believe thats all tehre should be.   Cryptic, Lotro.  Yes they belive its the only way to do things, when if fact its the cheep way our.

You know what would be truly innovative? Releasing a game that's actually finished and worth paying for in it's first month.

Originally posted by erictlewis

Instances are on my sh** list.   You got companies who believe thats all tehre should be.   Cryptic, Lotro.  Yes they belive its the only way to do things, when if fact its the cheep way our.

It takes WAY more time to build an instance, place mobs w/ pathing, set scripted events and trigger volumes, as well as balance out the difficulty of the encounter, than it is to make an open zone and let people go nuts. No sir, the old ways were the cheep way 'our'.

Yikes, don't push for innovation in combat; otherwise they might do something like FFXIII with easymode hp and NO mp!

And the biggest instanced game of all WOW.. dont forget, even the cities are still handled by blizzards instance manager

I feel the best combat is still Darkfall, it is the most unique combat out there that I have played.  You don't highlight a mob or player and then start mashing buttons, you fight like a First Person Shooter, using tactics, cover, coordination.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by erictlewis

Instances are on my sh** list.   You got companies who believe thats all tehre should be.   Cryptic, Lotro.  Yes they belive its the only way to do things, when if fact its the cheep way our.

It takes WAY more time to build an instance, place mobs w/ pathing, set scripted events and trigger volumes, as well as balance out the difficulty of the encounter, than it is to make an open zone and let people go nuts. No sir, the old ways were the cheep way 'our'.

 LOTRO has instances, but it also has open area. I would not compare STO only games to LOTRO.

Originally posted by Nesrie

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by erictlewis

Instances are on my sh** list.   You got companies who believe thats all tehre should be.   Cryptic, Lotro.  Yes they belive its the only way to do things, when if fact its the cheep way our.

It takes WAY more time to build an instance, place mobs w/ pathing, set scripted events and trigger volumes, as well as balance out the difficulty of the encounter, than it is to make an open zone and let people go nuts. No sir, the old ways were the cheep way 'our'.

 LOTRO has instances, but it also has open area. I would not compare STO only games to LOTRO.

 I will add this back in the day we had a a few instances and tons of open area then we got mom it was about a 40/60 split 60 % instanced.  Then we got SOM  and almost ever thing is instanced now for instance all the skimishes.  After all now they want to add more raid skimishes.  Not to mention ddo.   It is one of the hot debates on the forums about how the instancing with skimishes is killing the game off by segregating the comunity.

There is a pretty large problem that iks holding back the combat system of MMO's. the internet. I play games like fifa and CoD on my X-Box, and while you don't notice the slight lag you can get with 4 players taking part, although if you have just played a single player game just do notice the difference, with 10 players, you certainly notice. Anyone who has ever took part in a large raid or event with a couple of  hundred people taking part will tell you that a game gets unplayable, so the hotbar mechanics are the best way of dealing with the slight lag.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

I'm not quite sure how you innovate combat when no matter what system you are playing on, you are still pressing keys to attack.

MMOs on one of those sit-inside arcade machines with only levers and/or steering wheel!

Seriously though, I don't think there's any way to really make mmo combat "visceral," like the author wants, unless mmos are designed to be played with a game controller; possibly including rumble capabilities.  

Still, there are some things that can be done, like design combat animations so that attacks seem to have more visible impact on the characters (i.e. you slap mob across the jaw with a mace, they react accordingly - don't just stand there and stoicly take it to the face; or if some 5-story tall raid boss hits your character, they go flying as they realistically would).  Add better animations and physics basically.  

Players are always talking about how they want to make an impact on the game world, yet even the lowliest rodent is completely unphased by the most powerful attacks we can muster until it suddenly falls over dead.  It's no wonder we start to feel like nothing we do matters.  This is one area I think TERA has pegged out of all the new generation MMOs coming out.

Originally posted by twrule

Seriously though, I don't think there's any way to really make mmo combat "visceral," like the author wants, unless mmos are designed to be played with a game controller; possibly including rumble capabilities. 

Here comes the Wii sword, the Wii staff, and the Wii bow! 

Girlgeek, have you checked out Wurm for a fun crafting system?

Questing

I'm a great fan of solo questing - but that's only because of the time required in organising a bunch of strangers via IMs to get a group going.  Then you have to watch as the highest leveled characters get all the XP as they drag you through the dungeon - and you get to exchange the experience of being a Polish Mine Detector for a few choice items and little or no XP.

They could fix this by getting rid of solo quests, stop XP accumulation being so closely locked into level disparity (you could instead let the loot/drops be spread between players based on amount of damage done and then leave it up to roleplay and player generosity to see who gets what...), and then institute a few choice genre stereotypes like the Adventurer's Inn or the Briefing Room to get players together for each quest.

I would love a lively open world where NPC's interact with their enviroment. Like on Red Dead Redemption, I will see bandits robbing people and such.  Sometimes a guy comes up to me and asks for help, so I help him without reading a thing.  Just spontaneous quests that provide variety would be great, just something to keep you going and having fun.

This is one thing that irks me more than anything, combat.  If you want FPS combat, play an FPS game,  the more they put this stuff into a rpg it takes away the fact that it is a rpg.  I play FPS games, but I sure as heck don't want my MMORPG to be  MMOFPS!  We need to call these games what they are and stop calling everything MMO.  The combat in WoW is just fine, the people that have a problem with it are the arena and dueling junkies that like to compete with themselves more than anything else.  If you make combat in an MMORPG like an FPS, you will take away one very big thing that exists with MMORPG"S which is the whole point of MMORPG's, and that social gaming.  I would love to see some uber skilled player fight with his character and have to actually type his message in order to communicate, it doesn't happen and it won't.  Which is why so many people are spoiled with 3rd party programs like Teamspeak.  Without those programs we wouldn't see the amount of people in MMO's like we do.  

People want everything to be easier, but if you want to play and FPS game, then you need to be asking for a MMOFPS game, and leave the MMORPG"s to the people who actually like to read and immerse themselves in the story.  Its the whole point of rpg.  Learn the difference!

Originally posted by heerobya

Ahh infinite loops!

*edit after reading*

I would agree for the most part. With nearly everything here.

 

1. We need to bring back a lot of the "open world" back to MMOs, and we SHOULD have the technology now with ever faster computers and network connections. I think we have gone too far in the "pretty graphics" direction and as such lost a lot on our way. Still, use of instances can have positive effect if done right. I think WoW has really started on the right track with their "phasing" technology, but we just have to make sure it doesn't go too far. 

2. Story. Story is very subjective. I don't care about the world's story or history, i care about MY story. This is a MMORPG not a single player RPG. give me the old school UO story - there was none - just what actions players do effects the story of the game and the devs keep up. EvE Online is the only MMO that currently comes close. 

3. Levels - I am with you get rid of them. Go back to skill based progression, but NOT horrible skill grind progression ala SWG or some such. No jumping or swimming skills or anything ridiculous like that, no afk macro'ing or attacking walls or any of that nonsense. A quality, AAA designed skill system.

4. Quests - get RID of solo personal quests entirely. Make everything open world dynamic public quests. A quest is only solo if you are the only one doing it at the time. GW2 ideas on crack please.

5. Combat - I won't be satisfied with MMO combat till we have Legends of Zelda or God of War or Devil May Cry style combat in a massively multiplayer online world that doesn't sacrifice 1-4 to do so. Guess I'll be waiting a while.

 

You've basically summed up exactly how i feel! Glad to know there are others like me out there!

I'll take it a litlle further! #5) Combat: Lets see some Project Natal or some sort of real body interaction with lifelike game movement. I want to swing my arms / sword and have it acurately displayed in game. It would def make combat much more realistic and much more random and therefor continuously interesting. We need a Hiro Protagonist for our age to help write the swordfighting code.

(even the weird looking wands for the PS3 are a move in the right direction!)

Bill, you hit the nail on the head.

Its so sad and pathetic to think the MMO genre has been dead in the water for 6 years. 6 years!!! Look at the innovation we got just from EQ to DAoC. Then the jump from DAoC to WoW. It was a wonderous time, but its like we haven't progressed one iota from November 23, 2004. Sad. Very sad.

Originally posted by malroth67

This is one thing that irks me more than anything, combat.  If you want FPS combat, play an FPS game,  the more they put this stuff into a rpg it takes away the fact that it is a rpg.  I play FPS games, but I sure as heck don't want my MMORPG to be  MMOFPS!  We need to call these games what they are and stop calling everything MMO.  The combat in WoW is just fine, the people that have a problem with it are the arena and dueling junkies that like to compete with themselves more than anything else.  If you make combat in an MMORPG like an FPS, you will take away one very big thing that exists with MMORPG"S which is the whole point of MMORPG's, and that social gaming.  I would love to see some uber skilled player fight with his character and have to actually type his message in order to communicate, it doesn't happen and it won't.  Which is why so many people are spoiled with 3rd party programs like Teamspeak.  Without those programs we wouldn't see the amount of people in MMO's like we do.  

People want everything to be easier, but if you want to play and FPS game, then you need to be asking for a MMOFPS game, and leave the MMORPG"s to the people who actually like to read and immerse themselves in the story.  Its the whole point of rpg.  Learn the difference!

I completely disagree with you.  Why does DnD mechanics (essentially MMO combat is hitting a hotkey to use the RNG - equivalent of rolling dice) equate to RPG gaming?  Because we've been doing it for 25+ years?  It had to be done back then because there wasn't the technology around back then to translate any other type of combat.

If you are playing the role of an archer wouldn't aiming a bow be more immersive - more like an RPG?  Would swinging a sword and having to parry blows yourself be more immersive than pressing 1 and having the computer calculate if you parried or not based off the computer's random number generators?  Do fencers roll dice during a match to decide who wins?  Do archers roll dice and calculate if you they are going to hit a target or not based on their previous hit rates during an archery tournament?  If you LARP, do you sit there and roll dice while you are doing it?

Why do all forms of social interactions have to be through typing (or the alternative voice chat you mentioned if typing isn't available)?  Just because it's that way now, doesn't mean it needs to be in the future.  Prehaps we'll have voice modulator programs where you can talk and stay in character in the future while playing these "twitch" based games (and just because we have these types of combat systems in place does not mean they have to be twitch, aim assistance and long reload and swing times would slow combat down significantly and require less skill, but be far more immersive than the current systems in place).  Not all social interaction has to be through reading text. 

I personally love to read, so don't take shots at people who want a new type of combat system that we just don't want to read and "immerse" ourselves in the story.  How is reading EVERYTHING more immersive?  If I pick up a scroll, I want to physically read it, but if someone is talking to me wouldn't it be more immersive if I actually heard their character speaking it?

Heerobya,

1. Combat, you should try Spellborn. I hate the static number key pushing of WoW, GW(boring). Having to aim and hit a target, position, dodge attacks is what FPS do well. Spellborn's unique combat system makes for highly skill combat and those "God" like moments are of you own doing. The carousel once you max the rows and columns (lvl34) also means you have to think about linking attacks, cooldowns, starter attacks and combo finishes. Throw into the mix, backstabs(melee and ranged), AoE, cone attacks, behind attacks (yes I am not joking some warriors can hit you whilst facing away). 

Combat is also defined by the creature AI, the agro system of WoW may suit the tank/dps but any intelligent creature would know when to run and hide, kill the weakest and have some unique and even random response.

I love Ninja Gadien on the xbox, I enjoy console games and don't believe the keyboard and mouse is a hindrance to unique Combat.

The biggest issue is users/players and the WoWfrackness of expecting every game to play in one way. 

Originally posted by MikeB

MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy examines five MMO facets that could stand to be spiced up a bit in this week's list.
 

The current main use of instancing is for dungeons as a way for developers to control the complexity and difficulty of specific epic encounters.

No... The current main use of instancing (main as defined by what many of the lastest round of MMO releases has done) is to instance the entire game in the desperate hope of bringing lag and requirements down so that their game might successfully be ported to a console.

I have no problem with instancing when it comes to specific quest objectives/dungeons, for the sake of gameplay, but to instance an entire MMO is just ridiculous.

I... I just don't see what's so hard about servers... How many bytes of data do players really need? To get a player position/rotation/current animation/every piece of gear on them/race/class/face/hair/skin colour... should all only be about one kilobyte, maybe.

If there were a hundred people in one place, there'd be...

Ah, I figured out my own question. A hundred people all needing a hundred kilobytes from the server at once. Making the server need an 80MBit/s (10MByte/s) upload, just for 100 players in one area.

And that's assuming all the players can download at 100kb/s too. That doesn't even cover the NPCs. Now I know how my cap went over all those years ago when I played WoW heaps.

It probably wouldn't be a kilobyte, if they were smart about it all. More like, I dunno, 200 bytes or so.

I'd like to try to figure out how to make an MMO... like, try to make an MMO engine... that'd be a fun little project. I think I'd create "instances" for the "zones", where "instances" are different "servers".

The whole world could be made up of a few dozen zones. Let's go... 25. 5x5 zones. And the player would be semi-connected to the 8 surrounding zones (assuming it's like a sphere, a world, or something) - so they can see NPCs and players and stuff from those zones.

I'll stop rambling and get to a more on-topic thing here:

5. Instancing doesn't bother me as long as it's done right, and isn't obvious. If people are calling a place an instance, it's done wrong.

4. Questing is crap at the moment. I agree. I'd like to see more maintenance quests around the place "kill ten boars, get reward", but I'd like those to just be glorified grinding, with no item rewards. The only other quests should be ones that are well written, and big. They should involve little scenarios that play out, and NPC characters that grow on you somewhat. One of these quests should give you (in WoW terms) maybe 2-3 levels worth of experience, all up. That, afterall, is a reall quest. Think Lord of the Rings - the quest to throw that ring in Mt. Doom. That's an epic quest. That's the kind of thing I'd like to see.

3. Leveling is ok so long as it doesn't feel like a chore. Better quests/story would help this, if the game were fun, like say Mario, then the game wouldn't feel so much like a chore. It's a balance of static content vs. player content, and how long it takes to get from "having nothing" to "finishing the game".

2. Story should be, like, half of the game, if you want people to remember it. And story isn't just quests, there should be feeling, atmosphere, in the game. WAR had that one right - it was a WAAAUUUGH the whole time, and the quests were basically all 'do something bad to the opposing side!' which really pushed that feeling onto the player. World of Warcraft... does it partially, I suppose. They try to incorporate story into it all, just not hard enough, and really, with their player base, they don't really need to, now, do they?

1. Combat... I don't think we need something other than hotbars. I like hotbars to choose my abilities. I just think we could be doing more interesting things. Things that.... throw players in a direction, things that stun... summoning meteors from the sky, crazy things. What, we can create balls of fire, but we can't summon up a small volcanic eruption from the magma below us? Blegh. Especially in terms of WoW, there needs to be more interesting spells/attacks/effects going on. At the least, make us LOOK like we're progressing - make my fireballs bigger, make the swing of my axe bigger, give me physics and shiny effects, make me feel alive when I'm playing this game!

Good article, Bill. 

I agree even though I think instancing is something you should be careful with. It do make you feel heroic but it also takes away the massive part from the game. Overusing it is a bad idea.

To have it in every dungeon is bad enough in my book, the end-boss is ok I guess but the entire dungeon should be massive so it doesn't matter if a few other groups are down there.

I hate the small fast dungeons many games have made in the last few years.

As for Combat I would go further and make the mobs smarter. And I would like to get rid of the tanking skill, or at least only make it possible with animals and really dumb creatures like trolls. There is no way something like that would work in real life and it adds a boring predictability to the fights.

Originally posted by Loke666

 

As for Combat I would go further and make the mobs smarter. And I would like to get rid of the tanking skill, or at least only make it possible with animals and really dumb creatures like trolls. There is no way something like that would work in real life and it adds a boring predictability to the fights.

 Smarter AI would go a long way to improve combat in my opinion. Tabula Rasa probably had some of the "smartest" npc enemies that I've played in an mmo.  I mean even simple stuff like using the terrain to their advantage.

Oh yes agree Tabula rasa AI and scripting behavior was amazing. Like being in  a base that was getting attacked and being part of the constant defence/attack cycle of bases... very cool stuff.

Another writer, who never played Dungeons & Dragons Online I guess. Age of Conan cannot even compare to DDO's combat, so if you seek innovation, look there ; ).

Well even DDO or AoC combat system is pretty basic. Lets compare it to something like Assassins Creed or God of War, both have a great combat system in which you can use the terrain and and objects against NPC's and to a certain extent you begin  to creat your own style of play. This isn't the case in MMOs, in which you have your basic tank, healer and dps who all more or less play in the same way. However these are twitch game which wouldn't work too well when you have servers hundreds of miles away sending and recieving data.

Actually, blazz, it takes less than that for a per-person basis.

All you need is a position, most likely in XYZ coordinates, ID number (to represent the player), any erroneous data (such as gear), and an ID number for a skill if one is being used.  All of which can be well under 200 KB.  Any extra information just has to be able to be called when requested, such as character sheets (identify), quest log (just need ID's, staging, all called when requested) and a few other things.  Most stuff is more liable to be bursted info than a constant stream.  Using just an XYZ coordinate, an ID number, and a skill used number, the client can procedurally produce the desired animations, such as walking, running, jumping, swimming, rotation.  There's likely a few calls missed, and it's going to be a tad more complex than this (strafing, anyone?) but the general idea is sound.  The client does the majority of the quesswork, using intuitive code.

However, the real killer for lag time, where you can get ridiculous server issues, is when you have a zone populated with thousands upon thousands of mobs, and then need to tell all clients in viewing distance where these mobs are.  Remember, for the most part, all your client sees are XYZ coordinates, mob ID, model ID's, ability ID's, and the rest is more or less procedural.  But now imagine that, in a game like WoW, you have as much as 50 vissible to any individual person at any individual time.  This is why games like WoW often are sparse on enemies and have max draw distances.  It's easier to have the server feed 1 person 50 enemies, than 100 enemies, or 200, or the entire zone, which is where other games start to break down.

This is, again, assuming things like target of target aren't also being thrown through the pipe (likely another piece of code saying their target's ID number) and any other data I am too ignorant to point out.

But this is off topic, and I digress.

On the topic of the 5:

Instancing:  Instancing is fine as WoW has done it.  Not so much as cryptic in general has done it.  Points have been brought up, additional info not required.

Questing:  Presentation improvements would be nice, for instance full voiceovers, natural progression of acquisition, drawn attention because it's forced in your face, that sort of thing.  A mass effect 2 style presentation is fine, or GW2 where it appears to try to be seemless, is also fine.  In the end, getting rid of reading mountains of text would improve presentation and flow, and keep immersion higher in general.  To this end, both TOR's and GW2's currently shown presentation are great examples of where this can go.  It's worth noting that I actually hate the PQ system (Warhammer Online), simply because it's static, doesn't scale, and were often either grindy or outright ignored (which consists entirely of WAR and CO/STO for now, so...yeah), but GW2's take on PQ's is nice to show people can take a bad idea (implementation) and evolve it into a good idea.

Leveling:  This is fine.  I like having the structure.  I do, admit, missing the style found in AC1, but it would lead to a balance nightmare regardless, so if it must be a casualty, I'm fine with it.  Planetside also offered a nice take on leveling, where levels gave you access to buying skills of your choice, but for the most part, it's liably here to stay, and that's fine with me.  If/when it gets innovated, it will still likely involve leveling, just with different "rules".  Since the days of D&D, possibly earlier, classes have existed.  And to that end, it hasn't changed overmuch, and doesn't particularly need to, at least until a proper skill system can be added that isn't stupid.

Story:  This is a big point for me.  Most MMO's present story passively.  GW's is probably the first that presents it actively.  Real changes happen in GW, so to speak, when you progress the story, up to an epic conclusion (that companies like blizzard seem to miss, especially since they like to stick story exclusively to raids for the most part).  It's nice to see SW:TOR and GW2 sticking story as a heavy requirement, and there are past examples, like GW1 and LOTRO, but those both show bad design and old age even now, so looking to the future, the future looks good for the big names.  Personal story is important.  Whether it's presented actively (SW:TOR, GW style) or passively (WoW) is the real key, however.  Passive story isn't engaging, immersive, or otherwise fun.  Hard to get involved in.  WoW shows this heavily.  It's nice to see MMO's react to your story as well, which most MMO's since the days of AC1 pretty much ignore.  We'll see what the future holds.  That said, I do not want the story to be 100% passive like a game like UO.  "Build your own future" sandbox MMO's wreak of lazy content to me, and I prefer having the structure of a story being presented in a "choose your own adventure" style, than having absolute freeform.  This is one reason I detest EVE.  Sorry for the run-on paragraph, trying to keep them down to one block.

Combat:  This is hit and miss.  Engaging combat like an FPS (see: Planetside) can work in MMO's, but it's hard to make it work in an RPG-styled MMO.  I guess this just comes down to how you want to present the MMO, really.  The standard MMO interface is fine, and is reminiscent of any P&P game in nature.  Press button, use ability.  Having it be more like LotRO, as opposed to WoW, would be a bonus (more buttons to remember, more abilities to use, less time going 1123, repeat).  That said, this system will work fine long into the future, and if it stays that way, I will be okay with it.  Again, it's a matter of presentation, not of balance or fun.  Would it be nice to see more FPS-styled MMO's like planetside?  Yes.  Would it be more fun to see more Action-RPG MMO's?  Yes.  However, to say the current MMO combat is bad is just jumping to conclusions.  Variety is, however, the spice of life.

I always thought the public quests in Warhammer were a step back in the right direction, not that I rate WAR very highly... but more things like that can't really be bad.

The early days of Asheron's Call were the best for me (before people started making websites about update content, maggie the jackcat was it?). No quest system, only hints from NPC's and/or word of mouth.. you could often stumble across things that a lot of other players hadn't found or even heard about.. felt like you actually accomplished something.

I think the community, although obviously necessary, is it's own worst enemy when I comes to losing that sense of discovery and accomplishment. When we had to do things and figure things out all by ourselves (even as a group or guild) the end result was much more.. satisfying.

I normally disagree and all together hate Bill Murphy's articles and input. However, I feel he is spot on with this one.

Interesting list.  I do disagree on a number of points, however.

#5 Instancing:  Instancing does something else very beneficial:  It allows players to actually progress.  I am far from a care bear but when a guild of 50+ people keep a mob camped 24 hours a days 7 days a week there is no fun.  They have all far surpassed that mob but it drops loot that they can sell for a sizeable profit so the rest of the server has to either get a huge army together (not gonna happen) or quit in disgust.  Blizzard has made some changes with Wrath of the Lich King and instances in that they have introduced phasing of zones.  Northern DragonBlight for example, Outside Icecrown Citadel for another.  What it boils down to for me is how many asshats am I going to be forced to deal with on any given day.

#4 Questing:  I do agree in some respects, questing is getting old because its all kill x of y and bring me z items or go talk to alpha and come back.  Oversimplification of stuff that has its roots back in text based adventure games.  This is something difficult to change, hell it permeates single player gameplay and that is a far more controlled environment rather than having a few thousand banging away at quests.  I think there are limitations to technology and here is where we see some of that limitation.

#3 Leveling:  One of the problems that SWG faced was people min/maxing to such an extent that they could never get it under control.  TK/Doc, Pistoleer/Fencer etc etc etc.  The more skills you have the harder it is for a developer to ever anticipate what the players are going to do.  Plus you get to a point (just like in class based games with "talent" specs) where specific builds are expected for different roles and differentiation is not only discouraged but it does lead to less than optimal play.  Just sayin :)

#2 Story: Totally agree but there is a problem.  Without heavy instancing you are going to disallow a large number of people from ever getting to experince the story.  I think the reason why game communities thrived years ago is 1) Rose Tinted Glasses and 2) different mindsets of the people playing those games.

#1 Combat:  I thought there were some "action" mmos out there?  Personally I detest games like God of War and definitely would not spend hundreds of hours playing it.

Sandbox is the future... open world without boundries or artificial limitations.

Developers should set the theme, give us the tools, monitor and provide support.

Originally posted by heerobya

2. Story. Story is very subjective. I don't care about the world's story or history, i care about MY story. This is a MMORPG not a single player RPG. give me the old school UO story - there was none - just what actions players do effects the story of the game and the devs keep up. EvE Online is the only MMO that currently currently  comes close

 

Absolutely disagree with this.  EVE is one of the games most bereft of any story.  The events were shown to be RIGGED, which makes a joke of any player affecting the story if the developers are trying to railroad two sided events to a "right" conclusion.  It only shows there is no conception of what it means to RP or having an evolving storyline if there is such an idea as a "right" conclusion to an event.  It also means one side, the side rigged to lose, is wasting their time for a lie.  EVE also suffers because the developers have repeatedly treated the idea of RP and story with contempt, then when an expansion hits they make a hurried half baked attempt to rush through several years worth of story in one go, then they go back to ignoring it til the next expansion. 

I agree with combat being number 1. For so many years combat has basically been about pressing a button for an ability and then a dice roll is done if it hits or not and how much damage/healing/CC it does. Boring.

One thing that would be really nice if your character had to actually move, like in a real fight you rarely see two people just standing still. They move around, forward, backward, side to side, ducking, seeking cover behind a wall and so on. Really would like to see more of that in MMORPGs.

Also another element I would add to your list is the ability to affect the persistant world, maybe this falls in your quest cathegory but I dont feel it needs to be in a quest. Just living in a world and performing actions in it should have the chance to affect it. Right now the "world" is all but static which imo is quite boring.

Totally agree with this article.

I SO agree with the OP! Great article. Get rid of instancing for example!  Instancing is nothing more than a way for the developer to shorten the content needed to create the game.  For me, it takes away from the gaming experince I expect ingame.

Great article-hopefully developers will read it and act upon the advice given-then again I doubt they will.

6. World design.

Many worlds like WoW or WAR are linear and this serves a problem combined with the level based system where the game becomes top heavy and lower level areas feel empty with noone to group with. I love how SWG had no levels and non linear worlds, so people would be doing content at different times. So you'd often get an old playing just getting round to content that a new player might have just started and it feels no less epic because it is about the Star Wars lore and not getting the best loot for your level.

Originally posted by Yamota

I agree with combat being number 1. For so many years combat has basically been about pressing a button for an ability and then a dice roll is done if it hits or not and how much damage/healing/CC it does. Boring.

One thing that would be really nice if your character had to actually move, like in a real fight you rarely see two people just standing still. They move around, forward, backward, side to side, ducking, seeking cover behind a wall and so on. Really would like to see more of that in MMORPGs.

Absolutley. The only thing I liked in STO's ground combat was the Kirk roll you could do.

I would love to see abilities that gave you combat maneuvers. It would liven up combat a lot. I think that scares or turns off a lot of MMO players whose reflexes aren't as good as they used to be, but you could limit it to certain classes. Why not have an acrobat class?

What about a game with parkour mechanics?

 

Also another element I would add to your list is the ability to affect the persistant world, maybe this falls in your quest cathegory but I dont feel it needs to be in a quest. Just living in a world and performing actions in it should have the chance to affect it. Right now the "world" is all but static which imo is quite boring.

I think that is the biggest thing lacking in MMOrpgs (as opposed to single player RPGs.) The ability to change your world. Now, the big problem is that you change everyone else's world, as well. So, a sand box game is the best I can see in that regard. A lot of people seem to dislike change in their game world, unfortunately.

Originally posted by Reliique

Sandbox is the future... open world without boundries or artificial limitations.

Developers should set the theme, give us the tools, monitor and provide support.

That is the best option for me, but lots of players don't want it.

If players would get over wanting state of the art graphics and settle for a base standard (WoW graphic are plenty good enough for me), game companies could save a lot of time and money on new engines, and design new games, instead.

Originally posted by Reliique

Sandbox is the future... open world without boundries or artificial limitations.

Developers should set the theme, give us the tools, monitor and provide support.

 YES!!! This is what I want. My ultimate MMORPG wet-dream would be for developers to create a world for us to play in. There are no town built for us, there are no vendor NPCs. Think of it like colonizing a new world. The resources are already there and we simply use those resources to build our civilization. I honestly doubt this will ever happen but that's why it's a dream.

Nice article by the way. I remember back in my Anarchy Online (AO) days when a clan...I don't remember their name, maybe "Sands of something-or-other". Anyway, not important, but this clan would pick random times and places to suddenly appear and wipe the entire area clear of people, NPCs and generally anything that got in their way. After they were done and after some of them were killed they would simply leave the area. They were sanctioned by the GMs and there were news releases about the "Sands of something-or-other" conducting another terrorist attack at "such-and-such" City. THAT was player driven story/content and THAT is what I want again.

For instancing and story i think lotro is doing quite well.


Skirmishes area fun and repetitive way of doing instances and they are always playable, as in cant be out leveled.


lotro's story does make you feel that you are progressing in a very epic story.


I think that SWtor will also be very innovative in all of those apart from maybe leveling (said to be traditional levels), epic story fully voiced quests with choices that effect the story, choreographed (sp?) combat, instances we have yet to see details about from the flash point that they showed. (they are going for overwhelming odds as opposed to big massive bosses)

There are tons of facets that need innovation.  Character creation, world design, crafting.  You could probably point to a game that has each of these to your satisfaction, but worlds have to be build so that all of these idea come together and work with each other.  Just pointing out feature 1 of this game and feature 2 of this game doesn't help because you need to know how to make them work together.

Sandboxes are a bit of a dream imho.  You want things to persist forever.  So after 2 months, all newbie quests should be permanently completed/fixed if the world is properly made (due to persistance).  But then any further newbies won't have a good game experience.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Originally posted by malroth67

This is one thing that irks me more than anything, combat.  If you want FPS combat, play an FPS game,  the more they put this stuff into a rpg it takes away the fact that it is a rpg.  I play FPS games, but I sure as heck don't want my MMORPG to be  MMOFPS!  We need to call these games what they are and stop calling everything MMO.  The combat in WoW is just fine, the people that have a problem with it are the arena and dueling junkies that like to compete with themselves more than anything else.  If you make combat in an MMORPG like an FPS, you will take away one very big thing that exists with MMORPG"S which is the whole point of MMORPG's, and that social gaming.  I would love to see some uber skilled player fight with his character and have to actually type his message in order to communicate, it doesn't happen and it won't.  Which is why so many people are spoiled with 3rd party programs like Teamspeak.  Without those programs we wouldn't see the amount of people in MMO's like we do.  

People want everything to be easier, but if you want to play and FPS game, then you need to be asking for a MMOFPS game, and leave the MMORPG"s to the people who actually like to read and immerse themselves in the story.  Its the whole point of rpg.  Learn the difference!

I completely disagree with you.  Why does DnD mechanics (essentially MMO combat is hitting a hotkey to use the RNG - equivalent of rolling dice) equate to RPG gaming?  Because we've been doing it for 25+ years?  It had to be done back then because there wasn't the technology around back then to translate any other type of combat.

If you are playing the role of an archer wouldn't aiming a bow be more immersive - more like an RPG?  Would swinging a sword and having to parry blows yourself be more immersive than pressing 1 and having the computer calculate if you parried or not based off the computer's random number generators?  Do fencers roll dice during a match to decide who wins?  Do archers roll dice and calculate if you they are going to hit a target or not based on their previous hit rates during an archery tournament?  If you LARP, do you sit there and roll dice while you are doing it?

Why do all forms of social interactions have to be through typing (or the alternative voice chat you mentioned if typing isn't available)?  Just because it's that way now, doesn't mean it needs to be in the future.  Prehaps we'll have voice modulator programs where you can talk and stay in character in the future while playing these "twitch" based games (and just because we have these types of combat systems in place does not mean they have to be twitch, aim assistance and long reload and swing times would slow combat down significantly and require less skill, but be far more immersive than the current systems in place).  Not all social interaction has to be through reading text. 

I personally love to read, so don't take shots at people who want a new type of combat system that we just don't want to read and "immerse" ourselves in the story.  How is reading EVERYTHING more immersive?  If I pick up a scroll, I want to physically read it, but if someone is talking to me wouldn't it be more immersive if I actually heard their character speaking it?

*wheeze cough* Y'see, back in my day, a roleplaying game was about creating a discrete character wholly seperate from the player, with skills and attributes defined by a set of rules established by a game system. Fat Bob, the grease-stained cashier at the local comics shop might not have been able to hit the broad side of a barn with laser sights, but his Elven Ranger would make William Tell cry. Why? Because he controlled a character that, as defined by the game's rules, was a master archer with a hit rating of 98 percent.
 

That's roleplaying. Nowadays, people like to pull silly definitions out of their collective asses by saying "roleplaying games are games where you play a role", a definition so broad as to make Super Mario Brothers a roleplaying game, since you're playing the role of a superdeformed little plumber; or Call of Duty, since you're playing the role of a soldier. Poppycock, I say. The minute you take stats-based character skills out and put player skills in as the defining factor of combat, you've taken the roleplaying aspect out of combat and turned the game into a twitch-based action adventure. If that's what you want, fine, but don't perpetuate the fallacy that what you're looking for is a MMORPG, when what you're really asking for is nothing of the sort.

Originally posted by toxicmango

Originally posted by heerobya

2. Story. Story is very subjective. I don't care about the world's story or history, i care about MY story. This is a MMORPG not a single player RPG. give me the old school UO story - there was none - just what actions players do effects the story of the game and the devs keep up. EvE Online is the only MMO that currently currently  comes close

 

Absolutely disagree with this.  EVE is one of the games most bereft of any story.  The events were shown to be RIGGED, which makes a joke of any player affecting the story if the developers are trying to railroad two sided events to a "right" conclusion.  It only shows there is no conception of what it means to RP or having an evolving storyline if there is such an idea as a "right" conclusion to an event.  It also means one side, the side rigged to lose, is wasting their time for a lie.  EVE also suffers because the developers have repeatedly treated the idea of RP and story with contempt, then when an expansion hits they make a hurried half baked attempt to rush through several years worth of story in one go, then they go back to ignoring it til the next expansion. 

The only comment I can make is you obviously have ignored the story line in Eve completely to make such a silly statement.

I have played with Rpers in Eve and they would be ahgast at your comment.  Eve story line is quite deep and is constantly updated.  Sure anyone can ignore the backround story, but it is there for you if you want.

I suppose you want the story line forced on you so you have to particpate?  That is not CCP's way, they want you to decide what is important to you.

As to the article, it is right on the spot.  Leveling is what irratates me in these games.  There is no such thing in reality, or in any stories I have ever read.   Levels was something artificially invented for D&D and unfortunately introduced into the MMO genre by EQ for most of us.  Soon as I heard that Bioware's Star Wars was going to be levels I knew it was going to be another Wow clone no matter what they do to it.

Originally posted by Amaranthar

MikeB, good post. I agree all the way through.

I'd add two more, a number 6 and 7:

6) World....We need innovation in "world". Interaction, exploration, mystery, discovery, lore/history, and meaning to it all. 

7) Artificial Intelligence....Why do MOBs just stand there where we expect to find them, and die for us if we do predictable things? NPCs should make decisions based on what they see happening around them, and they should not "see" everything. They should have wants and desires and goals. UO had a basic form of this, where creatures had things they went for (gold, food, etc.) They even had a goal to seek out other creatures of their own type. Why has this not been expanded, rather than just dropped? Once critters are gathering, why do they not "elect" a leader? Why do leaders not lead? Why do they not seek out habitation and all the other things a social cell might do? There's a lot that could be done with AI, and it could make a world much more interesting to "live" in.

THIS

My personal favorite plan for quests is to change how they are created and players run them. Quests should be created based on the need of npc's to get jobs done not based on the need of the players to have jobs to do. These also shouldn't be all single job quests, how bout instead of a kill 10 rats quest you get a "join the local gaurd" job. That job means you now get payed for killing all the local nasties like rats/wolves/goblins you also may get called in to help stop unruly players. Or how bout join the army fighting off one of the other factions getting paid for each enemy you kill. Maybe you join the army as a medic getting paid by the number of people you saved etc.

Combat / Leveling

Ok more crazy plans for this. My personal favorite plan here is for a game to make great use of npc's as weapons/tools for the players. It may not be every class but you should be fighting alongside NPC's not against them all the time the line between you and your army should become blurred. You would also have to make sure they are extremely easy and natural to use, selecting a unit and ordering him to launch a net at an enemy = bad, it should be no different than if you where using the ability yourself in a game like wow.

As for combat. hack and slash, think ninja gaiden, dynasty warriors swing your sword around do some combo's and chop through the enemy. Some abilities may still be targeted using a wow like system though. The holy trinnity for this sorta game would be slightly different and be more of a rock paper scissors thing: Minion muncher (aoe dps) > commander > assassin (target dps) > minion muncher. Also make it possible for the commanders to substitute part of their group with a player so armies will be composed of a mixture of npc's and pc's at all positions.

Would most likely use a skill based system to allow players to pick and choose hybrids and add more 'classes' / skill trees as the game evolves. Also limit what skills are active for a player by what equipment / config they currently have active, allows younger players to catch up quickly by focusing but gives older players more variety in what they can do.

Level system I would make more complex by working the death penalty into it. It would be fast and easy for a player to get to mid level but around here they would stop growing unless they increased their death penalty which would let them use higher level skills and give them base bonuses. For example "x % chance to drop armour" would increase your armours effectiveness by 25% and let you train and use more and higher skills. You could of course always go back to low risk and you would give players some flexibility in what penalties they choose to have active. For the highest levels you would add in things like perma-death or perma-injury (lose an arm) but the bonuses for these sort of penalties would make characters a force to be reconned with.

Anything NPC faction's can do I can do

Player guilds/corps/factions/alliances are an awesome thing but they need to be able to do more. I believe that eventually these player run groups should be able to rival the npc run groups created by the makers of the game. Also as the title says ANYTHING an npc faction can do you should be able to do with time and effort, for example:

- Have new players start the game in your area (player made starter areas \o/)

- Build Cities, castles, watch towers, gates, roads, fast travel systems, labratories.

- Releasing new technologies, items specific to your faction

A lot of this sort of stuff we would need to look at a game like second life, player created content is extremely powerful. Balancing these sort of things and preventing them from being abused would be a monumental task but if you manage to pull it off.....

Yoottos'Horg - Yeah i also dream about empty world that could be colonized.

I'll make one example using WoW(vanilla)

Raid of 40 people are going to kill Onyxia, main benefit from you completing that encounter is ofc LOOT.
How much lore is put behind Onyxia? A lot, even a long long chain of quest to get a key.
But that kill dosent reflect on World scale at all(Buff and Head on the stick at Stormwind? was nice,but thats just cosmetic)


In sandbox game you dont have that problem, there is no need for 10 pages of lore for that encounter, instead lore is generated by players, cause people travel around the
game world, eventually find ''Onyxia'', get excited about it in general/guild chat and die trying.

When the beast is slain for first time you get all the usual rewards, but also you get world loot,
when used dosent give looter anything special, but unlocks your World/Server technology for EVERYONE,
be it a new armor material being useable(dragonscale?) for armorer profession or dragons available as fly mounts.

After first kill Onyxia is raidable as usually and encounter location could move a bit deeper into her lair.

Originally posted by elocke

I think Crafting needs to be on this list somewhere. Maybe replace instancing or story since those always seem to be in flux in MMO design anyway.

I always attempt to craft in MMOs, and I usually have fun in the beginning, but actually maxing out a crafting profession usually ends up boring me to tears. Although, I think Vanguard takes things in the right direction with giving you recipe work orders with the materials included(saves on all that gathering BS just to level a craft.

Also, SWG has the BEST resource gathering idea ever and should be copied, if possible. Fantasy makes this tough I know, but hey, magic factories aren't that far of a stretch.

 

I fixed that for ya' :)

What about some dramatic improvement on NPC system, where they will born, grow-up and found a job? If you kill a Prison Guard, he is dead! The prison is without a guard, it has to be noticed by next turn guard (in the while there is no guard! ), reported, guards chief needs appoint another one, that will go there at its turn. Maybe the chief will issue a wanted announce to have YOU killed, if someone witnessed you killed the guard. 

I wanna go more in deep: NPCs don't respawn! They have a family, and make children (yes, they are the only allowed to spawn!), they grows and then, children will seek a job. There was one children who grew up, and applied for a vacant Prison Guard job. This will take its time. In the while, there is a missing guard, and 4 guards 6 hour turns will become 3 guards 8 hour turns, until a new guard appointed. 

Wanna more!!!: if guards at that prison are continuously killed, guard chief maybe will decide to appoint more guards, so instead one guard, you found two guards at gate. Then three, and so on, if chief found someone other applying for the guard job :) Maybe he can't appoint more than two, because in its little village not enough people to hire. He will ask help to the capital city! From the city it may happen an elite will go to guard place for some time.

Thats real amusing to see!

More and more: an epic Dragon went killed in a fierce battle, his spirit lying around the country and after a while the spirit will merge in a little whelp egg. The newborn whelp will grow fierce and if not killed before, he will go again to be the epic dragon. maybe more strong than before!

Lets see that happen in a game :)))

A.I. for NPC's is the biggest thing that could be added to MMO's. A whole lot of good things come with it; better combat that can almost feel like pvp, better player interaction with NPC's, This will make Quests more engaging. A lot of research is being done on making NPC's that people can't tell aren't human unless told. This will make MMO worlds seem more real.

The next big leaps in technology for Video Games will be Artificial Intelligence. Graphics of course will be improved as well, but it will move at a lot slower pace than other areas. 

I imagine we will also see a more advanced A.I. Version of the Game Director from games Like Left for Dead. Able to dynamically change content on the fly around Players to alway make the game rewarding and challenging. 

I think that is the Future of MMO's.

Instancing: rules, sure some mmos do them too much but standing in line waiting to kill a boss is shit quite frankly. Also not to forget doing missions in EvE for say when suddenly some guy drops by and steal/salvage all your stuff

Quests: In mmos quests are but grind agreed, they suck. Mindless tasks that seems to be exaclty or as close to the same as the last one, often there are only three types, kill x, go/deliver x, talk to npc. No glory in those slave errands.

leveling: Who doesnt like leveling? After all it takes us one more step closer to be rid of the grind (atleast the one for exp)

story: Theres a story? MMOs in general mostly shallow and half dead excluding players running around. Who bothers going through those walls of text. Its never exciting nor does it ever pay off to read up, unless you get stuck which if you use a 3rd party program never happens.

combat: 1,2,3, 1,1,2,4,1,2,3, buff, 6,7,8.. real good... or not. Every mmo utilizes it. A crap system older then the genre itself. Diablo 1/2 has a better system, so does 99% of all single player games. I recall I was greatly disappointed when launching Dragon age origins for the first time to see it had the same piece of shit in it, most disapointing, not to mention reading they were trying to copy WoW (dev comment about combat system)

The 1234567890 is only supposed to be for support, not the main combat interface itself, its retarded literally.

If there are no NPCs, you don't need good AI.

Let players run every character/monster in the game.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

If there are no NPCs, you don't need good AI.

Let players run every character/monster in the game.

 would be an interesting game, not sure how long it would last though

people like direction in their life, games included

Well regarding this whole combat debate...look no matter what game you play combat is pretty basic....consols you have 2-4 buttons MAX for combat attacks and moves, MMO's you have an entire keyboard...

so whats the difference?

Consoles have cinematic but less complex combat

MMO's have far more complex combat but much much much less cinematic

MMO's need to spice up their combat, even if its Dragon Age style by allowing comabt physics and dynamics, giving some cinematic action to the battles....while keeping it as complex as MMO's can deliver.

Originally posted by arenasb

 would be an interesting game, not sure how long it would last though

people like direction in their life, games included

Some people do. Some people prefer freedom.

Some people prefer chunky sauce.

Originally posted by PapaB34R

Instancing: rules, sure some mmos do them too much but standing in line waiting to kill a boss is shit quite frankly. Also not to forget doing missions in EvE for say when suddenly some guy drops by and steal/salvage all your stuff

Quests: In mmos quests are but grind agreed, they suck. Mindless tasks that seems to be exaclty or as close to the same as the last one, often there are only three types, kill x, go/deliver x, talk to npc. No glory in those slave errands.

leveling: Who doesnt like leveling? After all it takes us one more step closer to be rid of the grind (atleast the one for exp)

story: Theres a story? MMOs in general mostly shallow and half dead excluding players running around. Who bothers going through those walls of text. Its never exciting nor does it ever pay off to read up, unless you get stuck which if you use a 3rd party program never happens.

combat: 1,2,3, 1,1,2,4,1,2,3, buff, 6,7,8.. real good... or not. Every mmo utilizes it. A crap system older then the genre itself. Diablo 1/2 has a better system, so does 99% of all single player games. I recall I was greatly disappointed when launching Dragon age origins for the first time to see it had the same piece of shit in it, most disapointing, not to mention reading they were trying to copy WoW (dev comment about combat system)

The 1234567890 is only supposed to be for support, not the main combat interface itself, its retarded literally.

 

 umm.....whaaaa?!

I totally agree with Bill's five points. It's refreshing to see I'm not the only one wants these innovations to come to the MMORPG genre.

What players want varies greatly, some want a pure MMORPG where only their stats and achievements matter, some want an MMOFPS/MMOBeat-em-up where only their skill matters.  I think I'm among the majority that actually wants something in between. 

There is certainly nothing stopping designers from making an MMOFPSRPG with stats artificially improving players aim, for all I know games out their probably already do.

Genres are merging, they have been for a while but more and more RPG elements make it into almost all other genres as do elements of other genres make it into MMOs.  It's up to us as players do decide which we play, rather than trying to stop this change because it's not how things used to be.  The worst thing we can do is make developers feel like pushing out the same tired old system is their best course of action for success.

Hybrids aren't just the future of cars.

There are more parts that need a big overhaul:

Crafting  + Harvesting - boring watching of bars growing with bad and annoying sound and mindless numberpushing with ridiculous timelimits.

It should be either good visualized, good sounding, mind challenging (at least a tiniest bit) giving room for exploration and experimentation.

Make it more like a boardgame, a liil strategic and tactic boardgame, you have your resources and skills and tools and the enemy is anything that can be going wrong while crafting. Beat the enemy and you have a protoype that can be used for automated massproduction that then needs some managing skills etc...

Entertainement + Erotic - We kill each other in any imaginable fashion not afraid to show the most brutal types of fighting arts one know but fear a every bit of entertainement and even more of erotic.

SWG had its cantinas with the dancer that originally helped you with their dancing arts to get rid of your combat exhaustion while musicians gave concerts etc.

Politics - Vangaurd treid to implement some sort of politics - a playfield that is not really developed in any game out...

Designers will go for the easiest means to make money. Why do you ask? Because for the corporations that back them, its about the bottom line. Some of the expectations of the posters on here are just delusional. Innovation is rare in this genre because of the money aspect, no one wants to throw money into the development of wholly new concepts especially in a down economy. Designing a game large enough to incorporate huge new ideas would be exceptionally costly and risky when compared to what already works and people will settle for.

Haven't read all the posts so I'm sorry if this has been said before.

About story-lines being driven. I'm all for it but let's face the fact that developping new content or making important changes to the gameworld aren't really easy if you're expecting it on a regular interval. (I am pro expansion packs and story line in the way that Lotro advances you further in the game)

A fun thing I have noticed is a mechanic that allows you to help a guild/nation/allignment/.. gain control over a strategic area. In Ryzom it's some sort of resource keeps, in old SWG it was rebel vs imp bases on planets (I liked that system), in POTBS it's port control, etc..

Anything that makes me participating in large scale events that have noticable outcomes is good in my book. Massive player events like arachnoid invasions in Ryzom or Stormtrooper attacks on towns are fun as well.

I play to be part of a group and get my fun out of interacting with others instead of mindlessly smashing the same Yubo, Gnort, Dusk-Wolf or whetever..

Just my 2 cents 

I think the quests need to have more of a story behind them and link together for larger story. The generic kill quests should just be made into posted bounties or something similar. I don't mind some instancing as the memories of fighting for camp sites in EQ are still fresh in my head even years later. Instances for dungeons are helpful because you can't count on your follow gamers not to try and shaft you.

Originally posted by karat76

I think the quests need to have more of a story behind them and link together for larger story. The generic kill quests should just be made into posted bounties or something similar. I don't mind some instancing as the memories of fighting for camp sites in EQ are still fresh in my head even years later. Instances for dungeons are helpful because you can't count on your follow gamers not to try and shaft you.

Yes. I never played a game with open dungeons, but it sounds horrible to me.

I do think they can work in one way: change the reward system. When a dungeon is cleared - give everyone a reward (tokens of some kind or a buff like WoW does for a few big bosses).

I think the biggest problem with MMORPGs in general, is that players are encouraged to be selfish. There is little to do which benefits everyone. I liked the AQ gate opening in WoW because it was a mass effort for the whole faction, and when the gates opened, you even had Alliance and Horde workign together against the common enemy for a short time. That sure felt strange.

I see so many people moan about instancing. I remember 11 years ago running around dungeons in Asherons Call trying to find something to kill. But during busy times there were more players than monsters. The monsters used to get killed so quickly and hence you would often have to camp a small corner just to get some xp. Hence I love instances and would like to see the instance haters stuck in a free for all dungeon. Wouldn't take long for them to change their view! Though I admit I also like the free for all aspect to at least be an option and do agree than many game designers are using instancing too much. It can make the game your playing feel somewhat contrived and turns the gamer into nothing more than a dancing monkey (yes I'm looking at you Blizzard, the master organ grinder). So I'm for instancing but done in a limited and intelligent way, which sadly rarely happens.

All that needs done is this: A team of writers working on quests (much like a team of writers on a serial tv show) and a team of scripters working to implement those changes.

Writing out old quests and writing in new quests in their place.

The developers could keep an eye on the player base to observe the "flow of the gameplay" and make their changes based on that. With the writers coming up with new storylines and quests based on what the playerbase seem want from their actions.

Like an election, how you play is your vote of how you want things to turn out. I'm not saying every individual player can cause a quest to be solved and written out by doing it once.

You could possibly even do away with levelling with this style of mmo. Since you don't want to be too high level to go and experience the new quest evolutions from zones you were previously in.

And WoW's phasing is the worst idea I've ever heard. Almost as bad as playing a game where it's nighttime in game but to the guy I'm grouped with it's daytime. Pretty crappy and stupid.

instancing was introduced first and foremost to avoid camping (thus to control the drops of epic loot) and griefing. secondly for the reasons you pointed out in your article.

in any event, its antisocial architecture needs revising.

I agree on most of your points

I have some reservation on instances. I appreciate, as you point out, that it allows for a better coordinated scenario and all, but I disfavour the way in which it isolates a group of players entirely from the rest of the  MMO world, making them quite literally untouchable...

One thing you failed to mention is PvE.

I know it's an MMORPG, and hence the focus should be on players and player interaction. However, it is the NPCs that are the greater part of the population most of the time. Also NPCs are the only ones you can always count on being there when you get taken by an urge to kill something at some unearthly hour of the day!

Would it really kill the Devs to invest some more time in AI?! Maybe I've tried the wrong MMOs, but in my experience the mob combat style is repetitive, static and sometimes varies only ever so slightly between different types of mobs

A second thing you failed to mention is non-PvP content

Yes lets all go hack and slaughter and bathe in gore! yada yada yada ...

Seriously I feel insulted that devs find us players so one track-minded! There is no or minimal in-game content to cater for player-interaction that does not involve hacking on another! The only real attempt to cater for this I've seen was LoTRO's music system.

It was a great step in the right direction! And I was convinced other MMOs would gobble up the idea immediately, but instead they ignored it entirely, much to my dismay :(

Seriously, there is HUGE neglect in this area. The only available form of non-PvP interaction is RolePlay, which is only around cause a number of the more mature players agree to a set of mutual rules to play by

The demand is there if they look to see, but this sector of the player community has been very much ignored and only recognised as an after thought

I agree, I haven't really played an MMO for a long period of time in a long time.  I get bored way to easily.  Go to a static NPC, Get a quest, click some keys to kill some monsters and repeat.  Its just dull.  You don't feel like your in a real, living, flurishing world.  You know in a couple minutes the quest is going to reset itself and someone else is going to do it...or even worse its a repeatable quest and you can keep doing it all day long.

I love how Red Dead Redemption does its quests.  I know its not an MMO but if an MMO can do questing like this, it would be great.  Your walking (or riding) along and all of a sudden someone asks for help, or you see some poor person getting beat up on, it may be an NPC mob or a real person, and you can help them.  Its a great way to do things and it works well.  Even the questing in Oblivian was pretty good where you had to look for the NPC's that were giving out the quests.  Maybe he/shes in the shop, maybe in a pub, maybe in their house.  These are ways of questing that are fun because they're more realistic.  I know it may be to difficult to have quests where you finish them and they're done, and that quest changes the world.  You kill an NPC and they're dead never to come back to life again.  Maybe thats to much to ask for because then game devs will have to constantly make new quests.  Unless there was a way to make random quests that are maybe similar but more importantly with different people, so the person you killed you know he's unique to the story at hand, even though someone may have a similar (not quite the same) quest at some point.

Combat could be made more fun if it were more like Fable.  Sure you're hitting keys, but you're also aiming and you have skill instead of luck.  Conan kind of got it right.  You could dodge, hit from the right, center or left, you have some interesting abilities.  There are other games that look like they might get it right (Vindictus, Starwars The Old Republic and APB are three off the top of my head).  We'll have to see how well they do it.

Leveling has always been a thing that has kind of bothered me.  When playing with a friend you always hear them ask (how close are you to leveling) and you find yourself looking at that damn bar and numbers.  Leveling should be more on the quality of work than the quantity.  In real life you get a promotion if you work hard and the boss notices you (in a good company anyway).  I could see it more be about how much you were hurt and if you're in a group who single handedly killed the most or who helped the most, or if its a mission that could be done with stealth or hack and slash, if you do it stealth you get a better reputation which would mean you stand out to the leaders more (depending on the faction you're with).  Also instead of level 1, 2, 3...etc.  How about leveling goes with the type of game.  For instance if its a military type game you start out as a lieutenant and move up to general.

The story should be more dynamic.  If you decide not to kill someone what will that change in the world?  If you just hack up everyone you see how will that effect the world?  Like in Fable you can be looked at as a warrior that people respect or fear.  You have choices which would lead you in several directions in way of story.  Maybe when you help someone he/she may become a friend and maybe someone will kill that person...do you want to get revenge for them?  Why not let you find someone, get married and maybe one of your enemies may kill her or steal her away (kidnap or try and seduce her).  Also you can be a spy within another persons guild, maybe pay people to give you info or you become friends with someone within the guild and if they tell you anything you can tell your guild leader.  All these ideas can effect the story and make it feel more real and fun.

Now Instancing.  I have a love/hate thought of instancing.  I like it because the quest is yours, you don't have anyone trying to butt into your game, stealing your stuff.  At the same time instancing makes the world feel less real.  If you do need help and you're in a quest by yourself you can't really get help from a passer by...because their aren't any.  If you're in a group instancing can be fun because the quest is yours.  I like the idea of on the fly being able to ask for help if you need it.  If someone sees your getting the crap beat out of you they can help and maybe at the end of the battle you can give them something, weather that be XP from the battle or a drop or gold...but if you give nothing then you're known as an unthankful jerk and maybe you won't get help the next time you need it. So what to do with Instancing?  I'm not sure.  If there is a way to like William said "make instancing invisible to the user" that would be nice.  Maybe have make it an option, how many hit points do you want to be down to before someone can help you?  Or they can only join if asked?  Or just have it that if you're not down to a specific amount of hit points and they come in and steal your kill you still get full XP and all the lute and you don't have to share with them and if they attack you while you're in battle they become an enemy with a tag on there head.  So in other words instancing isn't a "room" you have to yourself but more an invisible wall that if anyone crosses and does anything to you or tries to effect your quest, the consequences will be bad or good for them depending on the situation.

Originally posted by Yoottos'Horg

Originally posted by Reliique

Sandbox is the future... open world without boundries or artificial limitations.

Developers should set the theme, give us the tools, monitor and provide support.

 YES!!! This is what I want. My ultimate MMORPG wet-dream would be for developers to create a world for us to play in. There are no town built for us, there are no vendor NPCs. Think of it like colonizing a new world. The resources are already there and we simply use those resources to build our civilization. I honestly doubt this will ever happen but that's why it's a dream.

 

Nice article by the way. I remember back in my Anarchy Online (AO) days when a clan...I don't remember their name, maybe "Sands of something-or-other". Anyway, not important, but this clan would pick random times and places to suddenly appear and wipe the entire area clear of people, NPCs and generally anything that got in their way. After they were done and after some of them were killed they would simply leave the area. They were sanctioned by the GMs and there were news releases about the "Sands of something-or-other" conducting another terrorist attack at "such-and-such" City. THAT was player driven story/content and THAT is what I want again.

A few years ago I would agree with you, now I dont... The MMORPG community have evolved to something different, leaving their ´dream of RPG´ and naive ways behind... Today everyone is looking for the soft spot on any MMO, the way to level faster, to explore PvP weakness of the system... Everyone, after so many years of the same thing, same grind, same combat just wanna pass this part.. Do not want to explore, to wonder and marvel with the world itself, faking that we are on a magical and mysterious world... The old school knows all the tricks, from lolcopterism to fast grinding... The community, with a free world to roam would transform it in something like a theme park guided by the ´sage old school´ (i.e. ´Do you wanna to kill X? Dont use this weapon, use this in this postion and with this ammo, jumping when shooting, you always make triple damage´- ´Do not go to area Y, the area X is better because you will have a more time x XP rate from hour´)... They would hastly discover a way to spoil it and transform it on a FPS, like Half-Life 2... On DFO, for example, they ask ´why home?´ - and if the answer is not something to give them a advantage on PvP, it doesnt matter... Even on SWG Pre-CUthey were building cities with houses on a defensive form, to make it easier to defend... (the housing was no more some spice to RP or to the world itself,but one more way to exploit the game)...

We would have to bring back the naive MMORPG, something completly new that would dazzle the old school vet, taht they would tak a few years before starting to spoil it...

#5 Instancing: 

Instancing is good for the key story quests/missions so that you don't have to camp a named mob.  I am against camping mobs for key drops in general, which is probably contrary to some EQ vets' thoughts.  Otherwise, instancing hides players from the world and makes the game less massive. 

#4 Questing:

Kill x and return is getting old.  Unless it is combined with another quest in the area so that you don't have to kill 1000's of boars, maybe its still a good "bonus" on the side.   Also, quests shouldn't run you to the far corners of the map unless the intent is to be a tour of the game.  I don't think a little running is bad, but when a quest-giver sends you halfway across the map, then you return only to have them send you back to the SAME place several more times, the quests get frustrating from a repetitive standpoint.

#3 Leveling: 

Improving skills vs gaining levels is a common arguement.  If I'm skilled with a sword, can't I do some damage to a well-armored foe even if I'm level 10 and they are 50?  At the very least, there should be less difference in performance between levels, and perhaps having stats have less meaning would help.  Would a level 50 really be 10x stronger or more agile than me?  If you go to a purely skill development system, you get rid of some of these issues but you are still left with balancing issues (why is every player in the game using a 2H weapon?).  But you're always going to have balancing issues in an MMO.

#2 Story:

Applies to instancing, which helps with storytelling.  Many players don't care about the story or don't care about it on the second or third (or tenth) time through.   But story doesn't have to be all words.  It can be a recurring enemy that gets stronger and changes as you progress; this enemy may also yell insults at you while you fight, so you're playing instead of reading a book.  It can also be driven by player choice, which makes the game more interesting but the game more complex (kill the prisoner or let him go?).  Choice has been mixed into games already, and I think it will continue to make MMO stories more interesting.

#1 Combat: 

Combat has always been my main issue.  I'm tired of tank taunts and healer spams.  Make combat more interesting by having enemies that don't always go for the taunt.  Have random "personalities" -- some are susceptible to taunts, some attack the nearest player, some may hate archers or casters and go for them first.  I don't like the standard class rules where each class spams a certain thing.  Maybe get rid of or reduce tauning and replace with more knockdowns or stuns for the tank.  And maybe healing the same player over and over gives diminishing returns.  This forces a team to perhaps have more balance to their attack, where everyone attacking the same target no longer makes for the best gameplay.  Perhaps uncontested enemies are smart enough to go behind or to the side of the tank, so a rogue may pick up one and keep his focus since the tank was being battered from the back.  Yes, these changes can make battles more complex. This can all be balanced by increased experience or skill gain if battles end up lasting longer. 

My biggest wish is to shake up class roles a bit so that we move away from the standard 5 mobs on a tank, healer spams heal and everyone else /assists the tank.  Isn't that getting old?

What can I say....I miss ShadowBane.  Yes...sometimes innovation is not always required to have subscribers playing.  Minor tweaks.  Then again.....  I remember way back in suggesting something similar to GW2 to the SB devs....to spice things up but probably not do-able at the time.  So if GW2 can pull if off....thank goodness.

What I see as a complete failure to understand is the progression of the casual gamer.  Starting in the Unix MUD days the draw was multiplayer and socialization that truly became recognized in EverCrack.  But yet...Facebook games have over taken?  Why?  Because on Facebook your "Friends" see what you have accomplished and what you are doing.  I believe this is what is currently missing.  To build your own city, your own room, your own "life" and have a story with yet.  Now that is why we are back to my comment about SB.  While it didn't succeed in mechanics the player base videos, the bragging and "discussion" on the forums were constant and people knew who to watch out for, who had the best tactics, etc.  People had names for themselves.  So did cities and nations and if someone pissed you off....you had a good ole Hockey Fight...or something close to it.

Now I am not suggesting an open PvP world like SB (or am i?) but that social interaction and having a name for yourself is the key and the missing innovation.  I was a nobody in WoW, WAR, etc....even though WAR Open Quests were a good decision.

I hate to say it but the only good innovation that I experienced (but sure there are more out there) in the past 2 years is Modern Warfare....are you kidding me?  I have to go to an XBOX game to get my fix.  No thanks.  Give me an MMO worthy of my time.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

 

The only comment I can make is you obviously have ignored the story line in Eve completely to make such a silly statement.

I have played with Rpers in Eve and they would be ahgast at your comment.  Eve story line is quite deep and is constantly updated.  Sure anyone can ignore the backround story, but it is there for you if you want.

You could not be more wrong and shows how little you really know about the real RP scene .  I was heavily involved in the RP scene for years until I found out it was all pointless with rigging of events with fixed outcomes and forced railroaded storylines which makes it all choices and actions meaningless.  It is not an open sandbox game when the referees are helping one side of players over another side of players.  There is no way to influence the storyline when the developers have this sick notion there is a "right" way for the story to progress.  It's like saying "You can turn left or right.  You want to go left?  The path is blocked, so you go right."  Choices are not choices unless they are meaningful.   EVE's story seems deep but in reality it is a shell because the developers have no interest in supporting real progressive iterative RP.  They just do rush jobs whenever it is time for the next expansion and then ignore it for the next year or so. 

My advice? Try Mabinogi.

No, seriously. Many of the things you'd like changed are different in this game and it's not a WoW clone. You don't wanna kill, you don't have to. There are levels but really they don't mean much. Not only all of that, but combat is more fluid, and I think even more fun then Dungeons and Dragons Online (which had one of the most active combat engines I've seen). It looks a little blocky compared to some of the other mmos out there, but what they do they do well. Try it out for a few days, you might be hooked. I know I was an I'm extremely picky when it comes to MMOs.

People here are having trouble defining what role-playing means.. It's the art of taking on the personality of someone that is different from you. It is very similar to acting or writing. The biggest difference is that it involves interacting with other people without the benefit of a script or an outlined plot that you already know the ending of.

The most difficult thing to understand about roleplaying is that you only get out of it what you put into it. You can’t just come into a room and sit in a corner and expect the others there to pull you into their RPing just out of the blue. Many people accuse RPers of being snobbish or elitist because they don’t go out of their way to include everyone they run across. The simple fact of the matter is, most RPers get very involved in their characters and the existing plots that they are participating in, and they never think about trying to drag in people they don’t know. Look at it this way...if you and some friends are standing around talking you usually won't try to pull nearby strangers into the conversation. If you want to be involved with a group of RPers, you have to actively involve yourself. But do so with politeness and consideration.

The trick to being a successful RPer is to have interesting characters. If your character has nothing of interest to say, then people won’t interact with you. It’s important to work out a full history and personality for your character, and to stick to it when interacting with others. It’s also important to not have a perfect character, or a ridiculously powerful character. Such characters will rapidly wear on the nerves of the other RPers you try to interact with.

The most important thing about Rping is to remember that everyone involved is in it for fun. Be polite, be considerate of the players behind the characters you interact with, and enjoy yourself. If you aren’t having fun, then you need to change something, either your character or the group of people you interact with.

I basically agree with this article, what developers should focus on is realism in the game mechanics. The more realistic and immserive the game mechanics are, the more it will cater towards actual role-players, who will play their character how they want. I have played Ultima Online for 10 years and let me tell everyone, that game is far better than WoW or WAR will ever be.. I played Darkfall and enjoyed the combat and the open world without instances, it was fun to explore and being able to go wherever I wanted without blockades or insible barriers.. I also enoyed the siege mechanics, the ships etc.. It was really neat..

Also, we must get rid of floating player name-tags.. WHY DO WE HAVE THESE IN ONLINE GAMES WITH PVP? By not having name-tags would cater towards everyone, by not having them alone would add in a new dimension of tactical combat, why would you want your "enemy" to see your name from 100 yards away? It just makes you an easy target and takes away from the game world, you should be able to use the game world to your advantage with sneak attacks, stealth etc..

Anyways, on tat note.. I am a old school roleplayer, I have been around for a very long time, I am even fluent in J.R.R Tolkiens Black Speech and the Elvish language known as Quenya..

Hate to sound like a broken record but as I've said many times before UO. Thats what this all boils down to lol.

No levels, no instances, the quests didn't feel as static and the story lines mainly came from actual devs IN GAME. They didn't just tell you about some epic invasion, you took part in it. They didn't just tell you that such and such needed help they took on NPC roles and acted it out.

I mean for the love of Jeebus, game news came from the lead developer Richard Garriott as he played his toon Lord British. We all would gather in his castle to hear the news.

Sure the FFA PvP may have been to much for some, but just about everything else is what gamers are clamoring for now days.

No more lvl's you got better at skills by using them. Death meant something and being a ghost was just neat on it's own. Player housing was was very entertaining and kept many busy for long long periods of time. Public quests, world quests, w/e you want to call them started in UO but were done better imo since the developers and GM's got in game and acted things out. These weren't recycled scripted quests, they were almost always unique.

Even leading up to the launch of The Stygian abyss devs and GM's took part in an event where players particiapted in the ushering in of the expansion. The combat, controls and graphics may be dated but the ideas are some that the MMO industry sorely needs to get back to.

I mean seriously lol. Everything in that Article basically asks for UO with the acception of combat and it's an MMO from 1997.

Well, since I'm cranky and old, let me take on these from a contrarian view.

1)Instancing. Sorry, but I don't remember Frodo and Sam getting in line behind 500 other people to kill Sauron. What I'd like to do away with is "Run the instance 500 times". An instance should be a special, unique, experience, ideally generated procedurally and not repeatable. You get one shot to kill Sauron. If you fail, that character can't try again.

2)Questing. I understand there's serious database/response time issues with this, but I'd like it if you can "complete" a quest without even knowing you're on it. I'm walking along, I kill Brog the Ogre King, I get to town, I discover there's a reward for killing Brog -- I get the reward then and there, I don't have to kill him again. I'd also like some sort of system which makes it a lot harder to just look up the quest's solutions online, but random quests end up being boring, predictable, and often bugged. (Ask me about the "quests" that UO shipped with. Yes, I played it at launch. Take off your rose-colored glasses, people, and stop pretending the drunken skank you lost your virginity to was the most beautiful girl in the world.)

3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:

a)Flavor Of The Month

b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".

c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')

d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".

e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".

I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.

2)Story. Sorry, but "This one time, me and my friends, we, like, totally ganked this n00b!" is not a story. Neither is "Behold, great hero, thou must go and killeth ye evile liche, just like 10,000 other people have done." The problem is, with present technology, there's really no hope for real story. Imagine if you create some kind of global quest which can cause 1 of 2 events to happen. Do this even 4 times, and you have 16 different possible world states to consider and balance. On a single server game, this might not be a problem, but if Server 1 is in State 12 and server 2 is in State 9, you've got a maintenance and support nightmare. I don't see a viable solution to the problem of story. Especially not when 99% of the player base is called "ifarkdurmomma" and "slaughterd00d99".

1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

Well, since I'm cranky and old, let me take on these from a contrarian view.

1)Instancing. Sorry, but I don't remember Frodo and Sam getting in line behind 500 other people to kill Sauron. What I'd like to do away with is "Run the instance 500 times". An instance should be a special, unique, experience, ideally generated procedurally and not repeatable. You get one shot to kill Sauron. If you fail, that character can't try again.

 

2)Questing. I understand there's serious database/response time issues with this, but I'd like it if you can "complete" a quest without even knowing you're on it. I'm walking along, I kill Brog the Ogre King, I get to town, I discover there's a reward for killing Brog -- I get the reward then and there, I don't have to kill him again. I'd also like some sort of system which makes it a lot harder to just look up the quest's solutions online, but random quests end up being boring, predictable, and often bugged. (Ask me about the "quests" that UO shipped with. Yes, I played it at launch. Take off your rose-colored glasses, people, and stop pretending the drunken skank you lost your virginity to was the most beautiful girl in the world.)

Yes the noob quests in UO were like any other but thats what happens in tutorials. Thats also why I didn't mention them and instead talked about the Dev and GM run events that happened frequently. The ones where they acted out there roles and we aided who we aided. So no rose colored glasses here, just missing something I liked a lot that hasn't been reproduced.

 

3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:

a)Flavor Of The Month

b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".

c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')

d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".

e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".

I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.

 

Levels don't work any more than skilling up did. Here's where I ask you to take off the rose colored glasses. People get around levels just as easily even more so since all you have to do is focus on one thing that xp bar. Power leveling has been around as long as levels. Max level in most MMO's can be hit in days with different power leveling tactics that MMO's have.

And yes with the leveling system there is still the random swinging of the nerf bat because such and such job is OP'd or such and such class is gimped. Leveling has the same problems that skill based systems have and then some so... off with the rose colored glasses my friend.

2)Story. Sorry, but "This one time, me and my friends, we, like, totally ganked this n00b!" is not a story. Neither is "Behold, great hero, thou must go and killeth ye evile liche, just like 10,000 other people have done." The problem is, with present technology, there's really no hope for real story. Imagine if you create some kind of global quest which can cause 1 of 2 events to happen. Do this even 4 times, and you have 16 different possible world states to consider and balance. On a single server game, this might not be a problem, but if Server 1 is in State 12 and server 2 is in State 9, you've got a maintenance and support nightmare. I don't see a viable solution to the problem of story. Especially not when 99% of the player base is called "ifarkdurmomma" and "slaughterd00d99".

1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.

 

And here we are pushing the same age with the same experience pretty much and I just differ I preffer the fun fast paced combat. Slow and boring has got to go. Thats just me though. Reaction time is a skill, aim is a skill, those are your personal skills. Keep that in mind when you go on about wanting skill to matter and dismissing twitch. Because those are more about player skill than a slow paced combat relying on accuracy stats and such.

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

3)Leveling. We have it because it works, and open-skill systems tend to result in:

a)Flavor Of The Month

b)Hideously broken balance and random nerf bat swinging to fix "a".

c)Flavorless, cookie-cutter characters. (Version of 'a')

d)Difficulty designing balanced content because you have no idea what kind of abilities someone will be bringing to the table, and angry players who can't access the content because they trained "Kitten Juggling" and the next cool content area requires "Puppy Tossing".

e)Attacking the wall. Any "improve on use" skill will lead to this, or to "my buddies fight each other" or "I pick my friend's pocket" or macro grinding or anything else which is essentially "Do not actually use this skill in actual gameplay against AI or real opponents who actually plan to do you harm." If you make the skill gain too fast, everyone caps in a day. If you make it too slow, new players can't "catch up".

I like the EVE system, where you gain breadth more than depth and the diminishing returns of higher skill levels mean the "new player" can be 90% as good as you in 1/10th the time (making up numbers, but you get the idea). I dislike the total disconnect of skill gain from activity -- I like the idea of "I want to get better at using my laser, I'd better shoot some things with my laser", but I have no idea how to implement this without running into the other problems I mentioned.

Ok my stab at a solution. Every npc faction can have players join them and fight for them (eg. in wow you can fight for the murloks), if you really need one that doesn't have players for starter characters give it no exp or no skill xp for any characters beyond starter levels. While the main factions (3 of them) should be reasonably stable the other factions constantly lose space get whiped out in certain area's try invading new areas, get set up in caves/hideouts etc.

Now make it reasonably easy to get up to mid levels/mid skill levels. To get beyond this however you have to start adding death penalties that let you reacher higher levels and give you bonuses. Low level isn't much just extra armour damage, summoning sickness etc. Mid level would be lose exp you recently gained drop armour etc.  To get to max level you need to risk perma death.

Basically the goal here is that you should always be at risk the higher level you push yourself the higher the risk. You shouldn't be able to hide yourself away in an instance or arena with your alt an practice swinging your sword against them. If you wanna fight you need to be risking versing players out there even if most of who you meet are NPC's. Would you really trust a macro to get you to max level against players when theres perma-death at stake?

1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed.

Sorta agree with this. I mean reactions and what are nice but I shouldn't have to sit here spamming a key like a madman so I hit it just as my move comes out of cooldown. A system like eve where you just press it once and it will keep going till you run out of ammo, get out of range or lose lock on your target is good imo. I think it has place for some classes/systems but only for some classes where it makes sense not for every single class and every single action.

Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.

I mostly agree with this, watching some heavily armoured soldier bounce around like the world is a giant trampoline is just painful. I like how it's done in a game like dynasty warriors, you can jump pretty high do a attack in the air etc. but it slows you down you basically stop moving for a couple seconds after you land. However I think for the right class it could make sense, for example a ninja class bouncing around between trees instead of running around on the ground would be awesome.

Basically what we need is worlds that make more sense. We need to focus on what is good for the virtual world not so much on each individual player.

Before I even consider playing a MMO anymore I look at two things.  How much grinding there is going to be & if the quests are worth the effort because frankly I hate both options.

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.

Beautifully put! I've always had the thought that true RPG combat is in essence a game of strategy and tactics. The skill involved has nothing to do with how fast a person can button mash and bunny hop, rather how effectively one can use the abilities he's given.

Games evolve, true, but there's a big difference between evolution and metamorphosis. The changes I see proposed by some people are akin to wanting to add baskets and a free throw line to a football field. I guarantee that the ratio of people wanting to add RPG elements to shooters is miniscule to those wanting to add shooter elements to RPGs. Either pick a genre and stick with it, or learn to love the genre you're playing.

How about an mmo with no ranged classes. Sure you will get some people saying you need ranged. But the greatest factor to unbalanced pvp is having ranged and melee together. Make a game with all melee and actually take some time and imagination to make unique skills for each class.

Also for leveling it needs to be sloooow. I hated Aion for how slow it was to level. But as time went on I realized that it actually gave me more of an appreciation for the armor I worked hard for and the skills I got every few levels. Sure it sucks you wanna get to end game asap but thats not what its about. 

If your like me with every game I get to max level fast and I can and do it in a few days. Then I say to myself what to do now? I can pvp but you need a break from that now and again. What now? Grind same boring instances? There has to be more to an mmo then just leveling super fast. You have to have fun along the way or there is no reason to play it.

But in order to make leveling slow and make it enjoyable there has to be something to leveling besides same boring gathering quests. Its gotta change every few levels something completley new every few levels. 

Another thing I will say that I did like about Aion was that a person that took time to stop mid lvl and twink out there gear could kill someone who power leveld to max level with crap gear.There should be rewards for playing your character to its full potential and not just rushing the whole experience.

Hope any of this made sense trying to fit this in before my Tee time.

One more thing that really bothers me. WHY IN THE WORLD IS THERE NO ORIGINALITY IN THE GAMING WORLD? I have so many ideas for great games even got them all written down some with storys, yet you have these companys with plenty of people and nothing original coming from them. 

Sword and board tank, hybrid melee, rouge of some sort, mage, healer. Why the F$%k does this have to always be the case in most games? Really? is this all they can think of? So many minds and so little imagination? 

I know there are many people out there with the same thoughts as I have but I am to the point of pure frustration at what garbage they come out with. We are forced to wait years for an upcoming game to realize that its absolutely terrible or they didnt listen to the community at all. 

God pray that star wars saves us all or I am going back to tetris

I'm suprised more of the new MMOs don't utilize Warhammers public quest ideas.  This was really the only thing I absolutely loved about that game.  No need to talk to an npc, or read, you just jump in, take out a bunch of enemies, get a reward.  What more do you need? :)  I would love to see a game with "zone" quests just like warhammer public quests.  You enter a zone (zone like WoW, not an instance) and the objectives for the zone pop up.  You can choose a side and get to work on the objectives :)

Originally posted by TaoMcDohl

Yeah, I'd agree with a lot of these points.  Honestly, SWG had a fine leveling system, prior to the NGE.  I'm surprised more haven't to refine this.  Call a class whatever you want, it still comes down to tanking, healing, and DPS.  

Combat is a tough one.  The problem, to me, is the mob one fights and how many mobs are required.  To start, if a mob stands in one place and hits me, I'll stand in one place and do whatever is most efficient to kill the mob.  If it takes 2 skills or 7 skills, I'll find my method and repeat it until the mob is dead.  That can be fixed with interesting mob mechanics and AI.  However, if I have to pull out some crazy tactics on 5 million mobs while I level, I'm going to go insane.  Battles need to feel important, I'm tired of killing butterflies (or dying because of butterflies) and rats.

We, as gamers, are to blame as well.  We don't embrace change very easily.  Whenever a company does try to change things up, we freak out.  As much as we hate the "kill ten rats" quests, some people get weirded out when they're gone.  

 

Agreed, good old SWG had a very nice leveling system, no lvls just skills. I cant understand why other MMO's didnt try something like that again. EVE is one of the only games i can remember that is skill based and not lvl based and i have to say imho it is way better.

Talking about combat, again, good old SWG had a very nice combat system, fast, dynamic, with very cool moves, something i miss since they screwed it up with NGE untill now. I have never found another MMO with a combat system i enjoyed so much.

People actually want games that take no skill?  What's the point?  We have movies to tell us stories, and if you really wish to role-play, you've got your alternatives.  Granted, and interactive, skill-less story has it's place, but it shouldn't dominate the genre like it does now.  Games should be able to be completed by everyone, but there needs to be some level of skill involved to sperate the good from the bad.   Not as a means to attain status, but to allow skilled players to have a chance against better-geared people with less skill.   Not to mention FPS "twitch" mechanics create a much more enjoyable experience than auto-attack.  People just have to grow up and realize they're not going to be the best, but they can still enjoy the game if they try.  AoC's done a decent job, as did Hellgate, but we need to see more attempts. 

Originally posted by jonrd463

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

1)Combat. I am 45 and have been playing tabletop RPGs since 1978 and online RPGs since Isle of Kesmai (1989, Compuserve.) I do not want any combat system which requires twitch reflexes of any sort. I believe player skill should be involved in selecting actions, and character skill should be involved in carrying them out. I'd like SLOWER paced, more tactical, more thoughtful, combat. Why does combat have to be leaping and jumping and particle effects? Why not implement combat as a turn-based tactical wargame, with a time limit to keep people from just doing nothing on their turn? I want more risk/reward in my choices -- I want to go for a headshot that does double damage but, if it misses, makes me vulnerable. I want to carefully manage resources -- mana, "energy", "fatigue", whatever, and win because I know when to go "all in" and when to hold back, not because I can click the mouse like a crazed weasel on speed. Lastly, I want anyone who has their character jumping all over the place for no reason to spontaneously explode. Not their character. THEM.

Beautifully put! I've always had the thought that true RPG combat is in essence a game of strategy and tactics. The skill involved has nothing to do with how fast a person can button mash and bunny hop, rather how effectively one can use the abilities he's given.

 

Games evolve, true, but there's a big difference between evolution and metamorphosis. The changes I see proposed by some people are akin to wanting to add baskets and a free throw line to a football field. I guarantee that the ratio of people wanting to add RPG elements to shooters is miniscule to those wanting to add shooter elements to RPGs. Either pick a genre and stick with it, or learn to love the genre you're playing.

 Why pick a genre if you like both? Why do they need to be mutually exclusive of eachother? People are acting as if RPG and FPS have been around since the creation of the universe and can never change. Both or only a few decades old, its not like its some ancient tradition that we must stick to, and we betetr not dare blend the 2. Theres no reason a 3rd genre cant be created called MMOFPSRPG.

That doesnt mean every game will be MMOFPSRPG, just that there will now be 3 choices instead of 2, and as you said... pick a genre. You can stick to RPG, some will stick to FPS, and some of us will enjoy the mix of the best of both genres.

Instancing has already been innovated by Blizzard with their 'phasing' technology. it works really well and I'd like to see it in more MMO's.

Fans of combat that is more skill-based should check out Dungeons and Dragons Online, it has the best combat I've found in a MMO. It's a shame that MMO developers are scared of making their combat twichey.

Originally posted by kaiser3282

That doesnt mean every game will be MMOFPSRPG, just that there will now be 3 choices instead of 2, and as you said... pick a genre. You can stick to RPG, some will stick to FPS, and some of us will enjoy the mix of the best of both genres.

Except that it won't be the 'best of both worlds' it will be the worst of both. MMO devs have a hard enough time getting traditional RPG mechanics to work right in an MMO.

The industry has a lot of maturing to do before the devs can mix and match cross-genre mechanics well.

Where is the "like this" button?

I totally agree with these points!

Dosn't EVE solve almost every one of these "issues"?

Well there I see your problem. Your playing a game online with 100's of other people. What, you think this is supposed to be a single player game? Your an individual, just like everyone else who plays. Happy grinding!

Lots of people can't get into EvE. Me being one of them. I am not saying its a good game because it is. But I am not a fan of flying a ship kinda mmo. Just doesn't feel personal enough.

Originally posted by Domenicus

Originally posted by Yoottos'Horg

Originally posted by Reliique

Sandbox is the future... open world without boundries or artificial limitations.

Developers should set the theme, give us the tools, monitor and provide support.

 YES!!! This is what I want. My ultimate MMORPG wet-dream would be for developers to create a world for us to play in. There are no town built for us, there are no vendor NPCs. Think of it like colonizing a new world. The resources are already there and we simply use those resources to build our civilization. I honestly doubt this will ever happen but that's why it's a dream.

 

Nice article by the way. I remember back in my Anarchy Online (AO) days when a clan...I don't remember their name, maybe "Sands of something-or-other". Anyway, not important, but this clan would pick random times and places to suddenly appear and wipe the entire area clear of people, NPCs and generally anything that got in their way. After they were done and after some of them were killed they would simply leave the area. They were sanctioned by the GMs and there were news releases about the "Sands of something-or-other" conducting another terrorist attack at "such-and-such" City. THAT was player driven story/content and THAT is what I want again.

A few years ago I would agree with you, now I dont... The MMORPG community have evolved to something different, leaving their ´dream of RPG´ and naive ways behind... Today everyone is looking for the soft spot on any MMO, the way to level faster, to explore PvP weakness of the system... Everyone, after so many years of the same thing, same grind, same combat just wanna pass this part.. Do not want to explore, to wonder and marvel with the world itself, faking that we are on a magical and mysterious world... The old school knows all the tricks, from lolcopterism to fast grinding... The community, with a free world to roam would transform it in something like a theme park guided by the ´sage old school´ (i.e. ´Do you wanna to kill X? Dont use this weapon, use this in this postion and with this ammo, jumping when shooting, you always make triple damage´- ´Do not go to area Y, the area X is better because you will have a more time x XP rate from hour´)... They would hastly discover a way to spoil it and transform it on a FPS, like Half-Life 2... On DFO, for example, they ask ´why home?´ - and if the answer is not something to give them a advantage on PvP, it doesnt matter... Even on SWG Pre-CUthey were building cities with houses on a defensive form, to make it easier to defend... (the housing was no more some spice to RP or to the world itself,but one more way to exploit the game)...

We would have to bring back the naive MMORPG, something completly new that would dazzle the old school vet, taht they would tak a few years before starting to spoil it...

 

Face of Mankind tried this and it failed.  Leaders were able to make their own missions sure but you'd look at the missions and they'd all be like "go to this sector and make sure no one attacks".   A lot of people don't have the imagination to make a good mission.  It would be nice to have a game that people can make their own missions and we had various types of missions like kidnapping and robbing (if your a crook), or assassinate someone...etc.  Also there would have to be a decent story behind it and a reason for doing these things and people don't want to take the time and write a good quest with a good story.  So they make these simple boring quests.

Originally posted by Greyed

NPCs that don't just stand there.  Sure, we've got a few walkers here and there but, really, would it kill to get these poor saps a chair every now and again?  And a couple of breaks.  I'm pretty sure none of the bankers have had a piss break in several years.  NPC worker rights!

 

I agree completely.  It's an issue of immersion.  Why bother to do away with things like floating symbols (GW2) when the NPC's stand in one position all day doing nothing anyway?  It seems to me that completely misses the point of removing identifiers.

I liked the way that Bethesda (Oblvion/Fallout3) handled NPCs in that they had lives and things to do.  Sure they spent a lot of time talking about meaningless stuff but it was an evolution in gaming.  And how sad it is that something so minor is an evolution...

I don't know, I just feel like having dynamic game-affecting events means nothing if the places players pend their time the most are completely stagnant.  

Here are some of my suggestions as to how to improve MMOs... nobody seems to have thought of them yet...

To replace classes, add "sliders". Essentially, you get to adjust your damage, defence, healing, aggro, aoe, etc the way you want to and potentially "on the fly" and/or through profiles. A decent example would be how Trekkies divert power from their warp core to their shields. The difference, though, is that the more you use a certain style, e.g. if you take a lot of damage by having your defence high, then your maximum defence would be higher than someone who chooses to damage all the time.

What that would mean is that you would Always have variety. Got bored of damage dealing? How about tanking for a bit, or go healing for a while? It would also remove barriers that healers/tanks have when levelling compared to damage dealers. The change would allow you to experience a lot of different play styles with the same character, yet you will become stronger at whatever you like doing most. This will differentiate players, plus it will make grouping much, much easier!

PvP would also be more interesting too as people switch between high damage, tanking, healing :)

Combat to be skill/character based. Not sure how to "title" that one... but here's my idea. Think of a FPS where you have a pixel for your crosshair. A lvl 1would have to shoot the enemy directly with their crosshair to get a hit. There would also be critical zones, e.g. a headshot vs humanoids... meaning that a good player with good accuracy could heavily out-damage a not-so-good player with not-so-good accuracy - Even someone of higher level!

The levelling, though, does come into account. As your character levels, your crosshair point stays the same, but it takes on an outer-crosshair (think of a circle at the centre and an outer-circle). If you shoot whilst your enemy is anywhere within the OUTER circle, you get a hit or crit as appropritate. Essentially, this would mean that it becomes easier to aim as your character levels... but that a better player could still beat you.

This could be applied to many things.

Crafting - To my knowledge, nobody has created a good crafting system. Its always about gathering and then selling crap to NPCs and the Auction House at lower prices than the materials are worth.

They should consider real life a lot more. Start newbies out at collecting wood, then when you get enough skill you can start crafting components. Once you're crafting components, you can set up "contracts" which newer players can sign-up and you pay them for collecting your materials. Somebody is then paying you for your components so that they can build items, e.g. weapons, etc. Those are then sold in a building where you rent an NPC to hold onto your items. That building is then owned by a player who earns the rent from everyone involved. That building was sold to him by another player who moved to a higher level zone where the shops and items are bigger and the rent can be charged higher.

Guild houses would also be used as shopping areas where people would not be charged tax - thus making it more enticing for people to visit guild halls as prices would be cheaper. 

Aution Houses would show all items in all houses/guild halls, but they would always charge a 10-20% fee on top. The key other factor would be that it would show the location of the place that was selling it. You could then add a waypoint on your map and be able to visit the house/shop/guild hall and save yourself 10-20%. Woohoo - a point of having houses/guild halls!! They would be the modern shopping centres of the world!

You get the idea... a whole new economy lead by the players! I'd also try to implement dynamic NPC pricing on items based on the number of items sold to the public. Essentially making it so that... when a product floods the market then the NPCs will buy them for more than publically available. When people start all selling to the NPCs they will pay you less and people will start buying from the public again. This would mean that shrewd players could monitor markets and shift their emphasis into up-and-coming markets instead of flooded, dying markets.

Thats enough typing for now. I really hope that games try to push the boundaries, because they all get very stale, very fast lately. Essentially because they have been the same for the last 10 years!

Originally posted by pauly6478

Lots of people can't get into EvE. Me being one of them. I am not saying its a good game because it is. But I am not a fan of flying a ship kinda mmo. Just doesn't feel personal enough.

I think a fantasy game done in the Eve style might be a big hit, but I don't see anything even close on the horizon.  Rather a shame really as all these "me too" type of games just compete with each other and don't really offer anything new, that includes the new Star Wars that Bioware is making, all that game is is Wow in space, except we don't know if they will have a space part to it.