The MMO genre needs to stop looking backwards.

[Harower]

You are all conveniently forgetting the reason why mmo's keep things simple and start to homegenize even more throughout its carear.

 

 

Balance. If it takes so much work to try and keep the balance of a simple trinity system. Then you have no hope in hell of making a more complicated system balanced.

 

 

Look at rift, so many specs and variables yet only a few are viable and it is just down right unbalanced / OP.

 

 

 

 

Blizzard keep things simple, they are not stupid. They have teams of psychologists they consult for millions every time they make a design more. They know what they are doing.

 

I am all for such new and exciting systems, but real world implementation are often very different then what you would hope. Think of the worlds best FPS games. Then think about how they shine in there simplicity and balance.

[Loklamone]

I believed this game would be ground breaking and earth shattering. I had hopes this would be an MMO that I would play for at least 5-10 years. Now it's been a month and I'm having a hard time just logging into this game due to mass dissapointments and bordem.

 

list of things wrong

 

1. Emersion is non existant: There are no night and day cycles, the back ground and the creatures on all the planets are lifeless. Example: When i started in Ord Mantel and was walking out to quest there were beasts standing in the cavern in weird awkward positions doing nothing, just standing there motionless. at first i thought they were guard dogs or something but the positions and directions in which they were standing didnt make sence .

 

2. There is no community: there are no chat bubble so it makes it hard to communicate threw the spam of general chat.

 

3. No PVP goals: pvp is a pointless gear grind, most people who pvp do it for gear and once they get it they quit. I think if people were able to afk in start zone they would do that and just watch tv while they waited for the match to end.

 

4. Choices don't matter: when this game was in developement they made it sound like your choices mattered. Outside your current quest and getting light side or dark side points, it doesnt make a difference what u choose.

 

5. No ownership: players cannot make this game their own. There is not anything in this game a player can change not even in your own starship. What is the point of having a starship if its the same mass manufactured ship every class gets.

 

6. Putting players in a box: From the first quest to the last you are boxed in. In other MMO's you see a mountain in the back ground you can walk to it and explore. This game almost everything environmentally cool is a Bitmap in the back ground in the sky. A 2d painting of eye candy. It really feels like not only the space combat is on rails. I have felt boxed in and made to stay on course threw the whole game with absolutly not exploration value.

 

TL;DR, TOR is a wonderful single player game.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Loklamone

[DTuloJr]

The future games are MUCH closer to a sandbox than a theme park.

 

Remember: you will be the niche.

 

Keep thinking that. Apathy will kill a sandbox, just about every time. Now, throw in some supported story for players to experience that's designed by professionals, and it might survive. Let the general public at it... and people will either find nothing to do, or find too much garbage that they have to wade through to find good content, which requires too much effort.

[AJediKnight]

TL;DR, TOR is a wonderful single player game.

 

Yeah, but this thread isn't so much about TOR hate as a sadness that games like these are the quagmire that the genre has become bogged down in.

[Malefactor]

Everyone will enjoy their own thing. GW2 offers a wide range of features off the standard beaten MMO path, and I'm sure lots will enjoy it. With it being B2P people can retain their SWTOR subs and still sample around. It's a great idea.

 

What wide range of features off the beaten path might these be then, pray tell? Everything I've seen of GW2, be it on their own site and on fan sites like gw2guru has pretty much been done before in one form or another in other MMO's over the years. The "removal" of Trinity, which they aren't really doing, simply making it a soft trinity is not new, instanced PvP is not new, nor is 3 "realm" combat, nor is dynamic content (which, in GW2 is not unlimited, much like quests in other games), having no real end game PvE outside of what, 3 max level dungeons? is not new either, so what exactly do you believe GW2 is doing that is so different?

 

I see you all over these forums preaching how great it's going to be, it's almost as if you are advertising for Arenanet.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Malefactor

[Rotny]

I agree with a lot of what the OP said. It's really sad that a company I respected took such an easy way out with such a shallow game just to make as much $ as they could. I guess I can't blame them but I've lost a lot of respect for BW.

I'm guessing EA's market analysts and chairmen told Bioware what kind of MMO they were willing to fund and BW just did as they were told. /sadface

[Deisel]

I agree with a lot of what the OP said. It's really sad that a company I respected took such an easy way out with such a shallow game just to make as much $ as they could. I guess I can't blame them but I've lost a lot of respect for BW.

I'm guessing EA's market analysts and chairmen told Bioware what kind of MMO they were willing to fund and BW just did as they were told. /sadface

 

I think I'm leaning to this thought as well. If EA isnt going to fund it, then its a no go, so theres our answer.

 

earlier in the thread, a person linked a youtube vid about the brilliant creator of Ultima Online. He's working on something that sounds like what steve jobs did to mobile computing/social trend, this guys doing to mmos. sounds like at least some people still have inovation ahead of cash grabbing. can't wait.

 

edit: forgot to rate OP, very nice discussion.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Deisel

[AJediKnight]

edit: forgot to rate OP, very nice discussion.

 

No problem. It's a pity we have to have a discussion like this while rearranging the deck chairs.

[macumba]

right, what got me hooked about mmo's in the first place was watching the ongoing realm war (daoc) while not online. so I stayed up far too long in order to defend the relic. then at work I checked the camelot herald only to see if something changed during the night in my persistent world. oh it was a fine time. but shouldn't we not be looking back ? although I totally agree with you (and this has been said before) you seem to be looking even further back ;-)

 

also rpg's used to be judged by a certain level realism. a "good rpg" had npc's that went on with their life. they were unavailable at night (because people have to sleep, right?). sure there would have to be a night and day cycle to begin with ^^.

 

I'll take tor as it is, but I still hope for a game that gives me that feeling again that I am missing something when not online.

[WarTornPanda]

I'm getting a degree in Game Art and Design. Fast forward ten years from now and I'd be trying to hire this guy on the spot. Smart man. Well said.

[sevev]

It's a long post. Don't read it if you don't want to.

 

---

 

The hybrid, and even the hybrid that leans sandbox, really is the direction that MMOs should be headed in, as much as it might make a vocal minority scream in fury. What we're seeing in TOR is the net result of collective burnout with these games. The theme park has become so predictable in nature that you can take MMO player X and insert him into theme park Y, and within minutes he has not only mastered the basics, but is (if he hasn't taken to the forums to moan about the predictably dry nature of the starting zone) racing headlong towards the completely hollow endgame.

 

If I were designing an MMO from the ground up today, I'd be looking at a couple of things:

 

1) The trinity system isn't a realistic representation of combat. I'm not saying that everything should be a twitch system. However, if we were to envision a genuine approach to going out and fighting, say, a dragon, you're probably not lining up one or two huge, slow guys in plate armor to shout obscenities at the beast while 18 other people poke it in the behind with sticks and spells. Can you imagine this working in real life? Can you imagine the dragon not immediately turning around and gobbling up half the raid, saving the 'tough nut' warriors for the end? A real-life pack of wolves might not be sentient on the level of humans, but they know to prey on the weak and the young -- they always always ALWAYS pick the soft target. It's difficult to stomach the idea that a dragon wouldn't have a similar basic understanding of the nature of the world.

 

Real-life (and believable fantasy) combat relies on two mechanics -- avoidance, and mitigation, and the latter can only take you so far when that dragon lowers its forearm to crush you. Ergo, a bigger reliance on dodging and movement is needed. Additionally, all members of a group should be required to be more self-reliant about their own survival -- the age of the dedicated healer, whose sole job is to stand behind the lines showering players with mystical white light -- needs to come to a close. Not only do healers remain a woefully underplayed class in every theme park MMO, they a) lack believability, and b) lack an epic feel for a majority of gamers. Personally, I look at MMO healers as cads who would rather stare at a series of bars all game than actually swing their sword, and I am hardly alone in this. I would never play one, and that's never going to change.

 

2) The rise of social media has made gaming far more popular than it ever was before, but not all gaming appeals to all people. The thing about MMOs is that their original intent was to allow gamers to live their story in fantastic environs. But not everyone's story need revolve around combat -- a lot of people might get their kicks out of homesteading, farming, milling, weaving, serving as a castle steward, a politician, etc.

 

The problem with themepark games is there really is only one avenue to power, and it involves slugging it out in combat, either with players or PCs. In this sense, the 'promise' of the genre has been betrayed, and folded into a single, generalized mechanic -- kill or quit. When I look at the rampant success of social games that involve no combat -- titles like The Sims and Farmville and Minecraft -- I see a vast, untapped resource of potential MMOers who might pay $15 a month to own, say, a tavern, or an inn, or work as a famous musician. And if you did a good enough job integrating all these working parts into a system where they were all required for a faction to prevail in warfare, then I really think you'd be talking about the game that would be the 'next WoW.'

 

3) Finally, there is a lack of personal investment and personal loss in game worlds that is draining the life out of the genre. An example of personal investment could be anything: from a house that you own in a town, to a small fort that you and a few friends defend, to a starship crewed by an entire guild.

 

Let's look at WoW: when you go into an Alterac Valley and you lose after 25 minutes, what happens? Are the Frostwolves finally driven from Alterac once and for all? Are the resources of the valley now directed to the benefit of the Alliance? Does anyone even give a damn who wins or loses? The thing about instanced everything; about a game world that neither rewards nor punishes for victory and defeat, is that you wind up with a lot of people who don't really give a crap what happens anywhere.

 

In SWG, players could build towns, fortresses, etc. And if those bases -- which you had worked hundreds of hours to earn -- were destroyed by the enemy, they were gone. You'd have to go farm up another one. Now, the 'modern MMOer' might find such a concept ludicrous, but, if done correctly, loss can actually spurn an increased sense of investment in the gameworld. If my little fort gets torched, I am a) going to defend the hell out of my next one, and b) want to get revenge on the people who did it. When you lose a WZ, do you really sit around brooding about the fact that the Imperial transport on Alderaan got shot down? Do you mourn the deaths of the hundred or so invisible NPCs who manned that ship? Of course not. You don't care, and the game doesn't even want you to care.

 

In our fictional MMO, let's say you and your guild stumble onto a narrow valley, surrounded on three sides by high mountains, and fed by a fast-flowing river. There is land to till, and space enough for several villages. You set about ordering the land immediately, but as your investment in the region grows, you begin to worry increasingly about jealous outsiders who would raid or conquer your budding kingdom. You build a series of outlying forts to warn of oncoming armies, and then construct a mighty citadel in an easily-defensible high spot. It has taken a lot to accomplish all this, and maybe, one day, you'll lose it all. But you'd fight like hell to prevent that from happening.

 

Would you fight like hell to avoid queuing up for Boarding Party for the thousandth time? I think not.

 

---

 

And there you have it. I don't believe sandbox MMOs are the future -- people require a degree of structure. There will always be a large crowd of folks who like to raid, and like mindless PvP, and don't derive any enjoyment out of the non-combat elements that the genre could offer. But as a game designer, I would be looking to incorporate all crowds, and I think there's room enough in these games to please everyone.

 

The problem is that the investors behind these $100 million dollar goliaths are only concerned with the bottom line, and as they see it, 'if Blizzard did it, so can we.' The problem is, 'Blizzard did it' 7 years ago, and even if the genre hasn't moved on, people have. People have learned to burn through content far faster than it can be released; people have learned to race to the level cap, only to find that the bulk of the game's resources have been squandered on what will wind up being (if a player sticks with a main) the shortest portion of the content. It is a system that cannot endure forever -- it should only take one $100 million dollar MMO flop to call the system into question, yet in the past 5 years, we've seen game after game tank when the 'tried and true' method failed to prove lasting.

 

The first major company to realize this, and to design a game that lets go of so many of these dusty old habits and design a quality, hybrid product, is going to make WoW -- even at its apex -- look like a complete joke.

 

 

 

Sorry dude, Galaxies and or DAOC are not going to come back..

 

If this version of MMO development does not sit well with you, quit and never come back.

 

Maybe one day a future company will make that great big sandbox MMO with massive penalties and realistic combat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe they wont.

[Amelyssan]

im sure Titan will adress alot of OPs statements.

 

Lets hope. Because cutscenes and lightsabers are getting old really fast...

[gaalon]

@OP: nice post. You bring some very interesting points that many a game designer could learn a lot from (and truthfully, they probably would have thought of many of these points themselves if they were doing their job properly).

 

However, there ARE MMOs out there that already fulfil many of your ideas and wishes. EVE online comes to mind. It's a sandbox with minimal guidance (probably not enough guidance for most WOW-players) that has very harsh death penalties. It's actually one of the few games where bad players are punished properly. In the WOW-clones (SWTOR, Rift etc.) you really don't care if you're a bad player - the only situation where you may be "punished" for sucking is in a raid setting and most people can't deal with even that pressure (they start calling people "elitists" etc. because they can't admit to themselves that they suck). In EVE online, if you suck then you'll instantly suffer for it (and that can mean losing months or years of work). This kind of risk VS reward really motivates you to play well and forge alliances etc.

 

If you're looking for a "meaningful" MMO then EVE is the way to go.

 

There is also Darkfall Online which is fairly similar to Ultima Online on a PVP-shard with ultra-harsh loot rules (anyone who kills you can loot your corps and take all your equipment etc.) but sadly it's an extreme grind to do anything (you're looking at months of repetitious tasks to become competitive in the game world). But I guess if you like grindy games then Darkfall could be something for you.

[Lethality]

I have several friends (and also business associates) that are Devs, Game Designers, or Executive Producers at studios such as NCSoft, Blizzard, and Cryptic. You are damned close to what they have said to me over the past year in various chit-chats.

 

Yep. I can't say too much, but Titan isn't going to be what people are expecting in any way shape or form. But it will in fact be the future model.

[Lethality]

Keep thinking that. Apathy will kill a sandbox, just about every time. Now, throw in some supported story for players to experience that's designed by professionals, and it might survive. Let the general public at it... and people will either find nothing to do, or find too much garbage that they have to wade through to find good content, which requires too much effort.

 

You're not yet understanding what this upcoming revolution will mean... it will become more clear within a year.

[Etherlad]

I like how 90% of the People in this thread talk about MMOs when the only MMOs they know are apparently WoW and WoW-clones.

[Baelish]

Without reading all eleven pages...

 

Very nice post AJedi, even if I don't agree with all of it.

 

1) The trinity system isn't a realistic representation of combat.

 

A-blimmin'-men, brother. Additionally, the "Holy Trinity" gives even more impetus to another blight on games: "Class" and "Level".

 

2) The rise of social media has made gaming far more popular than it ever was before, but not all gaming appeals to all people. The thing about MMOs is that their original intent was to allow gamers to live their story in fantastic environs. But not everyone's story need revolve around combat -- a lot of people might get their kicks out of homesteading, farming, milling, weaving, serving as a castle steward, a politician, etc.

 

The problem with themepark games is there really is only one avenue to power, and it involves slugging it out in combat, either with players or PCs. In this sense, the 'promise' of the genre has been betrayed, and folded into a single, generalized mechanic -- kill or quit. When I look at the rampant success of social games that involve no combat -- titles like The Sims and Farmville and Minecraft -- I see a vast, untapped resource of potential MMOers who might pay $15 a month to own, say, a tavern, or an inn, or work as a famous musician. And if you did a good enough job integrating all these working parts into a system where they were all required for a faction to prevail in warfare, then I really think you'd be talking about the game that would be the 'next WoW.'

Again: word.

 

3) Finally, there is a lack of personal investment and personal loss in game worlds that is draining the life out of the genre. An example of personal investment could be anything: from a house that you own in a town, to a small fort that you and a few friends defend, to a starship crewed by an entire guild.

Here, I'll disagree. The crowd that point 2 might pull in would be instantly, and almost universally turned off a game where their tavern or inn, or farm or shop could be taken away from them at the drop of a hat (and through no fault of their own) because of some other player. Unless you have 'safe areas' where this couldn't happen, and then no one (except a very small minority, and they're already playing in 0.0 space in EVE) will have anything where it can be lost.

 

But much of what you have said has great merit, I believe.

[TKMedeme]

Brilliant post. It just echoes all the thoughts I've had about the game and the genre as a whole ever since I touched the SWTOR beta.

 

 

Personally. I would love an MMO where I could walk the world and just explore absolutely everything. Climb mountains, go down giant caves, walk through dark forests and ride across plains that seem to go on forever.

 

Bioware and EA have gone so horribly safe with this game. They've done so little to expand the genre and the gaming experience that they've stuck almost entirely the 'WoW way' of doing things. It's why I've not only given up on this game but on the this particular way MMO's are being built.

 

I'm currently waiting for TERA, Guild Wars 2 or Blade and Soul to see into the next generation of MMO gaming.

[TheTurniipKing]

Without reading all eleven pages...

 

Very nice post AJedi, even if I don't agree with all of it.

 

 

 

A-blimmin'-men, brother. Additionally, the "Holy Trinity" gives even more impetus to another blight on games: "Class" and "Level".

I don't think that class is really a problem. It just means that players can have differing skill-sets. (that said, I do like the way Champions handles it, with Free players being constrained to class archetypes, and subscribers being allowed to free-build from all the skills available).

 

Level though, don't get me started on level. All level serves to do is give some people licence to grief, and lets face it, EVERYONE has a little griefer inside them.

 

If you could look at a player and have no idea how tough they are, players would be a lot more leery about attacking each other. Hell, that's why the consideration mechanic evolved, so you could get a rough idea how much tougher than you someone is, and it's completely undermined if you can see they're 6 levels higher than you.

 

It's a far more interesting mechanic when what you can do is determined by your gear, and gear can be lost and/or destroyed. Because one has to explore and loot for gear. Gear that can be sold and passed on. (I remember once being able to buy a fantastic sword from another player in UO, for an amazing price because it was old and getting fragile: For him, it wasn't worth the risk of continuing to use. For me, it was an amazing weapon and I had a much easier time of life until it finally disintegrated).

 

Bound weapons are a scourge upon the modern MMO. What's the point in playing with other people if you can't share weapons and resources?

Edited February 8, 2012 by TheTurniipKing

[MithurElb]

It's a long post. Don't read it if you don't want to.

 

---

 

The hybrid, and even the hybrid that leans sandbox, really is the direction that MMOs should be headed in, as much as it might make a vocal minority scream in fury. What we're seeing in TOR is the net result of collective burnout with these games. The theme park has become so predictable in nature that you can take MMO player X and insert him into theme park Y, and within minutes he has not only mastered the basics, but is (if he hasn't taken to the forums to moan about the predictably dry nature of the starting zone) racing headlong towards the completely hollow endgame.

 

I agree completely. A hybrid between sandbox and Theme park is needed. That's the way to go. Repeating WoW one and again will be more and more frustrating and unsuccessfull everytime.

 

 

If I were designing an MMO from the ground up today, I'd be looking at a couple of things:

 

1) The trinity system isn't a realistic representation of combat. I'm not saying that everything should be a twitch system. However, if we were to envision a genuine approach to going out and fighting, say, a dragon, you're probably not lining up one or two huge, slow guys in plate armor to shout obscenities at the beast while 18 other people poke it in the behind with sticks and spells. Can you imagine this working in real life? Can you imagine the dragon not immediately turning around and gobbling up half the raid, saving the 'tough nut' warriors for the end? A real-life pack of wolves might not be sentient on the level of humans, but they know to prey on the weak and the young -- they always always ALWAYS pick the soft target. It's difficult to stomach the idea that a dragon wouldn't have a similar basic understanding of the nature of the world.

 

Real-life (and believable fantasy) combat relies on two mechanics -- avoidance, and mitigation, and the latter can only take you so far when that dragon lowers its forearm to crush you. Ergo, a bigger reliance on dodging and movement is needed. Additionally, all members of a group should be required to be more self-reliant about their own survival -- the age of the dedicated healer, whose sole job is to stand behind the lines showering players with mystical white light -- needs to come to a close. Not only do healers remain a woefully underplayed class in every theme park MMO, they a) lack believability, and b) lack an epic feel for a majority of gamers. Personally, I look at MMO healers as cads who would rather stare at a series of bars all game than actually swing their sword, and I am hardly alone in this. I would never play one, and that's never going to change.

 

I agree too with this. Let's take a look a real life combat, and make some categories. I'll use modern setting, but it could be easily applied to any tech level (Medieval, future...):

 

1. Damage power/movement binomy:

 

a)Light: high movement rate, low damage. Submachineguns and so on. You make little damage, but move faster. Knife/rapier in Medieval setting.

b)Medium: An equilibrium point. Standard automatic weapons. Standard movement and damage. Std sword in medieval setting.

c)Heavy: Heavy weapons. M60s and Minimi. Slow movement, high damage rate. 2 handed swords and so on.

 

NOTE: Almost without exception, the bulkier and hevier the weapon is, more damage is done.

 

2. Reach/attack rate binomy:

a) Short: High attack rate, short reach. Knife, bayonet, pistol. hand-to-hand combat.

b) Medium: Std attack rate, std reach.

c) Long: Extreme reach, lower attack rate: Snipers. Archers.

 

NOTE: The farther you are from action, the lower is your attack rate, notheless the gun you are using: need to aim, to differentiate friend from foe, etc...

 

3. Stealth/Grouping binomy:

 

a)Commando roles: High stealth, low group skills. The role of commando usually is a solo role. They infiltrate -alone- and work alone.

b)Grouping roles: Low/none stealth, high group skills (buff, heal, communications, etc...).

 

 

And this is only an example. Note, please, that two of the three poins of the trinity aren't here: Armour (Could have some sense in medieval setting, and again, could not) and healing (Only have sense in non-realistic setting). And is no needed.

 

Using this three binomial clasifications, you could get a wide repertoire of roles, makig a lot more sense, and a complex, richer game.

 

 

 

2) The rise of social media has made gaming far more popular than it ever was before, but not all gaming appeals to all people. The thing about MMOs is that their original intent was to allow gamers to live their story in fantastic environs. But not everyone's story need revolve around combat -- a lot of people might get their kicks out of homesteading, farming, milling, weaving, serving as a castle steward, a politician, etc.

 

The problem with themepark games is there really is only one avenue to power, and it involves slugging it out in combat, either with players or PCs. In this sense, the 'promise' of the genre has been betrayed, and folded into a single, generalized mechanic -- kill or quit. When I look at the rampant success of social games that involve no combat -- titles like The Sims and Farmville and Minecraft -- I see a vast, untapped resource of potential MMOers who might pay $15 a month to own, say, a tavern, or an inn, or work as a famous musician. And if you did a good enough job integrating all these working parts into a system where they were all required for a faction to prevail in warfare, then I really think you'd be talking about the game that would be the 'next WoW.'

 

3) Finally, there is a lack of personal investment and personal loss in game worlds that is draining the life out of the genre. An example of personal investment could be anything: from a house that you own in a town, to a small fort that you and a few friends defend, to a starship crewed by an entire guild.

 

I said in some other thred: I'm thrilled to grind for ME. If I choose to have a house, I'll grind the mats, the skills and whatever could be neccesary.

 

If I must grind just to get a standard point in game, the same for everyone everywhere, then I'll not grind.

 

And, of course, instance ruins all that. If you got a house, or wathever, you want it in the real world, not in some instanced place you'll be the only one to see.

 

 

 

Let's look at WoW: when you go into an Alterac Valley and you lose after 25 minutes, what happens? Are the Frostwolves finally driven from Alterac once and for all? Are the resources of the valley now directed to the benefit of the Alliance? Does anyone even give a damn who wins or loses? The thing about instanced everything; about a game world that neither rewards nor punishes for victory and defeat, is that you wind up with a lot of people who don't really give a crap what happens anywhere.

 

In SWG, players could build towns, fortresses, etc. And if those bases -- which you had worked hundreds of hours to earn -- were destroyed by the enemy, they were gone. You'd have to go farm up another one. Now, the 'modern MMOer' might find such a concept ludicrous, but, if done correctly, loss can actually spurn an increased sense of investment in the gameworld. If my little fort gets torched, I am a) going to defend the hell out of my next one, and b) want to get revenge on the people who did it. When you lose a WZ, do you really sit around brooding about the fact that the Imperial transport on Alderaan got shot down? Do you mourn the deaths of the hundred or so invisible NPCs who manned that ship? Of course not. You don't care, and the game doesn't even want you to care.

 

In our fictional MMO, let's say you and your guild stumble onto a narrow valley, surrounded on three sides by high mountains, and fed by a fast-flowing river. There is land to till, and space enough for several villages. You set about ordering the land immediately, but as your investment in the region grows, you begin to worry increasingly about jealous outsiders who would raid or conquer your budding kingdom. You build a series of outlying forts to warn of oncoming armies, and then construct a mighty citadel in an easily-defensible high spot. It has taken a lot to accomplish all this, and maybe, one day, you'll lose it all. But you'd fight like hell to prevent that from happening.

 

Would you fight like hell to avoid queuing up for Boarding Party for the thousandth time? I think not.

 

---

 

And there you have it. I don't believe sandbox MMOs are the future -- people require a degree of structure. There will always be a large crowd of folks who like to raid, and like mindless PvP, and don't derive any enjoyment out of the non-combat elements that the genre could offer. But as a game designer, I would be looking to incorporate all crowds, and I think there's room enough in these games to please everyone.

 

The problem is that the investors behind these $100 million dollar goliaths are only concerned with the bottom line, and as they see it, 'if Blizzard did it, so can we.' The problem is, 'Blizzard did it' 7 years ago, and even if the genre hasn't moved on, people have. People have learned to burn through content far faster than it can be released; people have learned to race to the level cap, only to find that the bulk of the game's resources have been squandered on what will wind up being (if a player sticks with a main) the shortest portion of the content. It is a system that cannot endure forever -- it should only take one $100 million dollar MMO flop to call the system into question, yet in the past 5 years, we've seen game after game tank when the 'tried and true' method failed to prove lasting.

 

The first major company to realize this, and to design a game that lets go of so many of these dusty old habits and design a quality, hybrid product, is going to make WoW -- even at its apex -- look like a complete joke.

[MithurElb]

Brilliant post. It just echoes all the thoughts I've had about the game and the genre as a whole ever since I touched the SWTOR beta.

 

 

Personally. I would love an MMO where I could walk the world and just explore absolutely everything. Climb mountains, go down giant caves, walk through dark forests and ride across plains that seem to go on forever.

 

Bioware and EA have gone so horribly safe with this game. They've done so little to expand the genre and the gaming experience that they've stuck almost entirely the 'WoW way' of doing things. It's why I've not only given up on this game but on the this particular way MMO's are being built.

 

I'm currently waiting for TERA, Guild Wars 2 or Blade and Soul to see into the next generation of MMO gaming.

 

Not safe, but greedy. Witch is not bad for a company, but they have gone wrong greedy.

 

I mean, the easy thing is: "Ok, WoW will be wear in a few years, let's make something that will get all the people from WoW, so must be similar to WoW".

 

That was the idea. so they made a WoW with lightsabers. But alsto took another focus: more casual, more storyline, less hardcore-player-fiendly. (again, the greedy choice, because the hardcore players base is too small).

 

What is the problem? They have attracted a WoW base. Almos everyone here (Only a few of us are free of that) come from WoW or WoW-like games. And here they don0't find WoW. Find a different thing. And they are frustrated.

 

You can't replace something if you don't meet the expectatives.

 

And if you meet it, then, is a problem again... because the people left WoW because was bored of it; not only the content, but the system.

 

The making of a WoW-clone, looking as a Win-win, is, really, a lose-lose.

[originalpodster]

Perhaps Elite 4....

[Lethality]

 

A-blimmin'-men, brother. Additionally, the "Holy Trinity" gives even more impetus to another blight on games: "Class" and "Level".

 

.

 

See, I'm definitely in agreement with what the OP is saying, but I disagree about the trinity.

 

I think it's a perfectly suitable way to "simulate" combat in what is a rules based combat system. You have damage, you have damage mitigation (tanking) and you have damage repair (healing). These 3 are all "tactics" for staging real combat.

 

Now I think it could be expanded a bit, similar to how GW2 is doing it (making each character more responsible for their own survival.)

 

But the thing about the trinity is it does provide different gameplay styles. Healing is decidedly different from tanking, which is decidedly different from damage dealing. And there are players that LOVE these roles... so why take that variety away from them?

 

If not done correctly (and GW2 faces this potential problem) it's going to feel very generic and classes can lose their meaning entirely.

[MithurElb]

See, I'm definitely in agreement with what the OP is saying, but I disagree about the trinity.

 

I think it's a perfectly suitable way to "simulate" combat in what is a rules based combat system. You have damage, you have damage mitigation (tanking) and you have damage repair (healing). These 3 are all "tactics" for staging real combat.

 

I'm pretty sure you've never make some kind of simulation of real combat (I don't mean the real thing, just a non-virtual simulation).

 

If you ever have done so, you'll know that the trinity is the most unrealistic and ridiculous thing, inherit from a simplistinc and idealiced idea of medieval fantastic combat.

 

It's easy to grasp, very defined and funny until it wears out, true. But is as opposed to real combat as anything could be.

 

And I can tell you this because I do medieval fencing and airsoft combat.

 

The real tactics for modern combat or medieval combat (SWTOR is modern except for the magic) are nothing like the trinity tactics.

 

Of course the trinity system allows for tactics, and could be funny. But is unreal as hell.

 

As the OP have very well stated, in real combat the tanking is absurd, and healing too. You have avoiding and mitigation, and have to elaborate tactics around this.

 

Avoiding is stealth, flanking, and so on.

 

Mitigation is cover.

 

Also, the trinity systems disregards completely some facts of the real combat: mobility and range.

 

And only this two variations, mobility and range could allow for an almost infinite range of tactics, a lot more than the trinity system.

[Gulthaw]

 

1) The trinity system isn't a realistic representation of combat.

(..)

A real-life pack of wolves might not be sentient on the level of humans, but they know to prey on the weak and the young -- they always always ALWAYS pick the soft target. It's difficult to stomach the idea that a dragon wouldn't have a similar basic understanding of the nature of the world.

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

2) The rise of social media has made gaming far more popular than it ever was before, but not all gaming appeals to all people.

The thing about MMOs is that their original intent was to allow gamers to live their story in fantastic environs. But not everyone's story need revolve around combat -- a lot of people might get their kicks out of homesteading, farming, milling, weaving, serving as a castle steward, a politician, etc.

 

I still remember spending HOURS on UO leveling taming, among other milion things. When was it? 11 years ago?

 

3) Finally, there is a lack of personal investment and personal loss in game worlds that is draining the life out of the genre.

(..)

In SWG, players could build towns, fortresses, etc. And if those bases -- which you had worked hundreds of hours to earn -- were destroyed by the enemy, they were gone. You'd have to go farm up another one. Now, the 'modern MMOer' might find such a concept ludicrous, but, if done correctly, loss can actually spurn an increased sense of investment in the gameworld. If my little fort gets torched, I am a) going to defend the hell out of my next one, and b) want to get revenge on the people who did it. When you lose a WZ, do you really sit around brooding about the fact that the Imperial transport on Alderaan got shot down? Do you mourn the deaths of the hundred or so invisible NPCs who manned that ship? Of course not. You don't care, and the game doesn't even want you to care.

 

In Legend of Mir 2 there was this city with special traders and a special blacksmith, there weren't two sides but guilds.

In Ragnarok Online, you have the war of emperium, with your own castle and your own dungeon inside the castle.

 

Both games are quite old already but these ideas can be exploited quite well.

 

In our fictional MMO, let's say you and your guild stumble onto a narrow valley, surrounded on three sides by high mountains, and fed by a fast-flowing river. There is land to till, and space enough for several villages. You set about ordering the land immediately, but as your investment in the region grows, you begin to worry increasingly about jealous outsiders who would raid or conquer your budding kingdom. You build a series of outlying forts to warn of oncoming armies, and then construct a mighty citadel in an easily-defensible high spot. It has taken a lot to accomplish all this, and maybe, one day, you'll lose it all. But you'd fight like hell to prevent that from happening.

 

Would you fight like hell to avoid queuing up for Boarding Party for the thousandth time? I think not.

 

---

 

And there you have it. I don't believe sandbox MMOs are the future -- people require a degree of structure. There will always be a large crowd of folks who like to raid, and like mindless PvP, and don't derive any enjoyment out of the non-combat elements that the genre could offer. But as a game designer, I would be looking to incorporate all crowds, and I think there's room enough in these games to please everyone.

 

The problem is that the investors behind these $100 million dollar goliaths are only concerned with the bottom line, and as they see it, 'if Blizzard did it, so can we.' The problem is, 'Blizzard did it' 7 years ago, and even if the genre hasn't moved on, people have. People have learned to burn through content far faster than it can be released; people have learned to race to the level cap, only to find that the bulk of the game's resources have been squandered on what will wind up being (if a player sticks with a main) the shortest portion of the content. It is a system that cannot endure forever -- it should only take one $100 million dollar MMO flop to call the system into question, yet in the past 5 years, we've seen game after game tank when the 'tried and true' method failed to prove lasting.

 

The first major company to realize this, and to design a game that lets go of so many of these dusty old habits and design a quality, hybrid product, is going to make WoW -- even at its apex -- look like a complete joke.

 

Also they are looking too much to Flashpoints imho

They can be fun, ok, but once you know the story and you are repeating it for the 10th time it gets boring.

 

Also, it feels too much like WoW Instances, honestly.

 

I think we need more dynamic worlds, WoW is absolutely static (except when new content comes) and you don't feel as part of the universe.

 

In SWG we had this massive story lines that would affect the story for everyone, after one specified date they would count how many people from each side did it, the winner decided were the story would go.

I remember "forcing" people in my guild to do them so more republic players would have it

 

I'm not saying "this is what you have to do" but "look, XXX did this and YYY that, get some ideas!!"