Why are we still in the "Kill 10 rats" era of MMOs?

[Misthalin]

I think it is possible to change the genre using a combination of both old and new. It takes to establishing balanced systems that run in the background.

 

1. Environment. There needs to be a food chain much like what was in in the original UO which was truly for gaming revolutionary. Certain Mobs preyed upon certain other mobs. Mobs would migrate towards prey or flee from predator. Their respawn rates were balanced based around a base value. This provided a sense of life within the environment. You would watch wolves hunt rabbits; dragons devour sheep. Mineral nodes; would increase until mined out but would eventually return within a random area of dispersal. It provided more dynamic enviroment to serve as the background.

 

2. Diurnal Routines. You need a basic cycle within the world which governs all things. NPCs migrate based upon time of day from rest, work to repast. Randomized this would lead NPCs to either gather (Saturday is market day) or isolate themselves (home to bed). Simply movement of key figures and variable speech routines based upon location would make for a more lifelike world.

 

3. Story based questing. I'm thinking something along the lines of Thief the Dark Project. Perhaps one of the best single player games ever made for theme, setting, mood and gameplay. NPCs should tell you objectives rooted in a story. While at it's core all stories follow certain literary devices; Man Struggles Against Nature, Man Struggles Against Societal Pressure, Man Struggles to Understand Divinity, Crime Does Not Pay, Overcoming Adversity, Friendship is Dependant on Sacrifice, Yin and Yang, Love is the Worthiest of Pursuits, Death is Part of the Life Cycle, Sacrifices Bring Reward, Human Beings All Have the Same Needs. While these may turn in to, "Go kill X" it becomes less obvious if it is immersive.

 

A village under "attack by a dark beast" where the beast is just sitting in a cave waiting to be killed would be different if the beast is only in the cave resting at night; the cave location is hidden and only faint clues lead to it; carcasses, footprints in the mud, etc. Then combined with No. 1. above having the "dark beast" roam increasingly at night including periods of raiding said village attacking livestock etc.. you would have something dramatically different than the traditional 1999 quest as described by the OP. The death of the beast would provide for perpetuity if you found that it was actually a female and had recently given birth; justifying why in this fixed world you find another of it's kind prey on the village years later.

 

4. Social Systems. Give players the ability to make their own fiefdoms. Whether it's build a house or a city they will do it. UO proved this. SWG it was one of the favored aspects. Every game that gets released is followed by the "will there be player housing?" question. If you have put the enviromental systems in place for raw materials this becomes simply an expanded crafting system. Combined with decay due to predators; beavers love log homes neighbors; damn thieves stole my tools left outside or elements you can have it be self regulating.

 

Yes there are systems for abuse. Players will prey upon other players. You have to sell this as part of the game however likewise you can sell obligation. There are just as many feudal sherrifs in a playerbase as there are feudal tyrants. If you give them something/someone to fight. Something to unite them; they are less likely to prey upon each other.

 

5. Conflict with a purpose. People do not engage in conflict without gain; whether for entertain or resources there has to be a reason. PvP needs something worth holding; whether it's access to a special forge; set of mines with rare ore, a trade route with foreign power.. something. Let those gains be traded openly on the market so while access may be limited it still spreads to the economy as a whole.

 

6. Market economy. Crafting without decay is meaningless. It makes establishing value difficult or results in a flooded market or inflation. Weapons and armor should break and/or melt if of normal materials; thus providing quests/objectives to find rare ore. Imagine if for weeks a comet was seen in the skies only to be followed by an earthquake from impact; fires and then a huge crater. Flora and fauna are drawn to/or away from the site; mutated into beasts and then making the rock mineable with a rare ore you have a reason to 1. find its location 2. a pvp area 3. a resource area and 4. a change in market economy.

 

It would add to the games history, "hey remember when.." and does not need to be a fixed event; but an occasional one.

 

These are some off the cuff ideas but tthey have not been seen outside of the single player games. They have been implemented in the past and could be again especially with modern coding and computer capability. It simply takes someone spending 300 million on something other than actors.

 

Awesome post.

[Kynesis]

Good questions to ask, even if everything is the best it can be, it's always good to question the premise of your designs.

 

The core problem with "kill 10 rats" is that there's no surprise, you know from the very first moment you become aware of it, exactly how it's going to play out and therefore no matter how interesting it or your class is or how wonderful the world is, it's already the same quest you've been doing every day you've played on every character for the last decade.

 

Area quests are a recent innovation which a couple of MMO's have begun to investigate and they're definitely a step in the right direction but you can't use them all the time, they're one tool amongst ... well, amongst very few currently.

 

Most people (myself included for the most part) typically equate 'spontaneity' with 'sandbox' - this needn't necessarily be the case, story elements seem like a great way of adding extra elements to quests beyond the "kill 10 rats" paradigm and I do think BW particularly, are well placed to recognise this & do something with it.

 

Sandbox play isn't necessarily the answer, without the features of a good story, without direction and purpose they quickly lose their appeal, ending up relying ever more in gimmicks (frequently physics effects).

 

Ultimately the answer as to "why are we still in the kill 10 rats era.." is that game developers are programmers and story-tellers typically go off and write novels or scripts for movies - they're very different kinds of people who generally just don't mix. When Steve Jobs left silicon valley to work in hollywood he described two very different cultures with very different business models that neither culture could explain to the other.

 

We're only just beginning to see people appreciate the confluence of both art and science... there are a great many people who just aren't ready to accept any kind of art in their science (or vice versa) and feel very strongly about it (though they probably never think about it in those terms).

 

Game companies are really at the forefront of this meshing of cultures, it'll take time.

[Misthalin]

I see what you're saying, and I'm on board with that.

 

The issue I was more focused on was how new EVE players see the process of getting into a capital ship, such as a carrier or dreadnaught, as a dauntingly long process, and until they train all the necessary skills, its a part of the game they are closed off from. Probably for years. They also don't know, for example, who Guiding Hand Social Club are... or why you should never accept an invitation to join Goonswarm (for a small fee and everything you own)... or why they can't make any money selling T1 items... or how to make money in a wormhole.

 

The game is so sandbox and so open and so full of stuff to do, and at the same time there are people in it who have made billions and control massive empires... who did almost nothing other than befriend, organize, and manipulate other people. This can be either intimidating, pointless or downright stupid in the eyes of someone who has just loaded up the game and is orbiting an asteroid in a noob ship.

 

SWTOR, on the other hand, says "Hey guys... you remember this, right? Alright then, have fun!"

 

Mmmmm... Goonswarm. Largest pile of scum that ever faced the MMO scene, yet gawd... did they add fun and drama into the mix.

 

I was actually a rather successful "new" player when I started playing Eve about 2½ years ago. The one thing that allows new players to catch up with old players is the simple fact that everything in that game can be purchased with ISK. Get rich enough, and you'll have every advantage at your disposal. My means for this was through trading, capital risk investments and scamming.

 

It requires a great deal of commitment, however, to catch up, and very few would even bother when being faced by the extent of work, studying and networking it requires. The rewards are fun, although stale.

 

The main reason I quit Eve though, was due to the simple fact that I perceived that the game itself wasn't evolving fast enough. 7 years (at the time) since its launch, the game was pretty much the same. The only difference being added content, yet nothing that would add to or truly develop the core aspects of it.

 

I'll be the first one to sign up for Eve 2.0 though, granted it would also come with a clean sheet for everyone to start with.

 

This suddenly went rather off-topic... and I apologize for that >.<

[SWaotc]

Yet here you still are, hanging around in the forums...

 

Sorry to have offended your magnificence (insignificance?) by stating what SWTOR is in reality, but incase you didnt read my post (which evidently you didnt) i said i can only take the game in small doses, which would imply i still play on occassion. (30 free days for example, and perhaps the odd month sub if new future content is promising)

[SvnStrSlm]

I think the OP is over MMO's in general.

 

I think this is a problem with most MMO gamers in general. I find my self addicted for like 3 months then get bored. Not that the game itself is boring but just logging in to grind daily quest, a concept that needs to *********** die by the way, and raid on guild days gets boring. Personally I would love to see a SWTOR and RIft Combo. I love the living world Rift offers and the story from SWTOR.

 

The argument about levels or no levels is moot since you are just changing the wig on the same whore.

 

Lastly, and this is an idea I wish would get noticed by developers, I wish we could see progressive dungeons throughout the level process and not just at end game.

[QuiJonPed]

The issue I was more focused on was how new EVE players see the process of getting into a capital ship, such as a carrier or dreadnaught, as a dauntingly long process, and until they train all the necessary skills, its a part of the game they are closed off from.

 

Alliances need something other than Cap pilots. Logi,BC,HAC,BS pliots are always in demand for the support fleet. You can be a relatively decent 'Cane pilot in a month or so. You wouldn't expect to start SW:ToR and find yourself at level 50 with Tiered Armour bought off a vendor within a month would you? Oh wai... Joking aside, I ma sure you see what I am getting at

 

It should be a long process. Cap ships are expensive to lose, and you should have a firm understanding of the game before you start flying shiny expensive stuff.

[thominoh]

Because that is what the new genre of MMO gamers want.. WoW with the themepark Diablo fans changed the MMO demographic make up.. Since that means MONEY, it means most devs are trying to appease them and their wallets.. I'm not much of a breadcrumb trail follower, but it looks we are stuck with it.. I'd rather we go back to EQ1 style of mmo'ing, but just tweak some fixes here and there..

[erei]

you can have a game with very few scripted quest, involving stories, and lots of instance. Or a game with a lot of fetch/kill/escort quest.

And yet, even in the most scripted game you can say it's all about killing/fetch/escort.

 

Just take mass effect for example. We will just avoid the ending for obvious reasons, and will not enter in the "it's more an action game than a rpg" discussion. There is a whole story, and actions-consequences. But yet, even if the quest is well presented, with discussion, choices... in the end, you land, kill plenty bad guys, grab the objective stuff, save the day (or fail and save the day later).

No matter how you twist it, it will always be the same. Ofc, a mass effect quest is far more interesting than a WoW quest "hey you, kill 10 blue raptor and come back !", but in the end, it's the same.

 

Just try to think to a quest, in a combat RPG, which is not related to fetch/kill/escort ? You may think about building/destroying something, but usually it's just fetch + something.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

If you want REALLY good graphics with a really cool setting, combat system and gore => Age of Conan.

 

I mean hey, you can hit multiple targets at once with all abilitys as your weapon swings, you have actuall characters blocking each other with collision etc. Still loving the game and it sadly has a lot of stuff I miss in SWTOR.

 

^^ exactly, this game is way ahead of TOR, sadly

 

Also there will be an upgrade to single server tech soon after Secret World hits, then you'll be able to play with subscribers from all servers

Edited April 20, 2012 by Lord_Ravenhurst

[dazednconfuzed]

... since you are just changing the wig on the same whore.

 

I love this line, lol.

[iCanUseTheForce]

We are still there because all objectives that make sense can be boiled down to:

 

Collect something

Kill something.

Escort someone.

 

They can be masked well, sure, but that's all *anything* boiled down to, if you look deep enough.

 

If you would like to suggest some alternatives, go ahead. Willing to bet I'll be able to reduce them to kill/collect/escort!

 

To continue/emphasize your point:

Think of any real life military mission. Aren't they all assassinate someone [elite boss], rescue a prisoner [think early Tython], do recon [explore X], collect intel [slice computer terminal], hold a position [PvP WZ]? Yep. MMOs are an extension of these core mission types. Just with proper stories to accompany them.

[Esron]

ahh the good old days where killing 10 rats was a challenge wizard got bitten and died hehehe thos where some fun times allright, we all played it, we all loved it and now we are all spoiled brats who just wants more and more and rats just dont do it for folks now´a´days.

But there is so much happening in the game world today and tbh the market is overfeed with alot of crap as it is now so i say bring back the old school days of icewind dale/Baldurs gate and lets all remember what it was we loved about all this

[vincent-]

I think it is possible to change the genre using a combination of both old and new. It takes to establishing balanced systems that run in the background.

 

1. Environment. There needs to be a food chain much like what was in in the original UO which was truly for gaming revolutionary. Certain Mobs preyed upon certain other mobs. Mobs would migrate towards prey or flee from predator. Their respawn rates were balanced based around a base value. This provided a sense of life within the environment. You would watch wolves hunt rabbits; dragons devour sheep. Mineral nodes; would increase until mined out but would eventually return within a random area of dispersal. It provided more dynamic enviroment to serve as the background.

 

2. Diurnal Routines. You need a basic cycle within the world which governs all things. NPCs migrate based upon time of day from rest, work to repast. Randomized this would lead NPCs to either gather (Saturday is market day) or isolate themselves (home to bed). Simply movement of key figures and variable speech routines based upon location would make for a more lifelike world.

 

3. Story based questing. I'm thinking something along the lines of Thief the Dark Project. Perhaps one of the best single player games ever made for theme, setting, mood and gameplay. NPCs should tell you objectives rooted in a story. While at it's core all stories follow certain literary devices; Man Struggles Against Nature, Man Struggles Against Societal Pressure, Man Struggles to Understand Divinity, Crime Does Not Pay, Overcoming Adversity, Friendship is Dependant on Sacrifice, Yin and Yang, Love is the Worthiest of Pursuits, Death is Part of the Life Cycle, Sacrifices Bring Reward, Human Beings All Have the Same Needs. While these may turn in to, "Go kill X" it becomes less obvious if it is immersive.

 

A village under "attack by a dark beast" where the beast is just sitting in a cave waiting to be killed would be different if the beast is only in the cave resting at night; the cave location is hidden and only faint clues lead to it; carcasses, footprints in the mud, etc. Then combined with No. 1. above having the "dark beast" roam increasingly at night including periods of raiding said village attacking livestock etc.. you would have something dramatically different than the traditional 1999 quest as described by the OP. The death of the beast would provide for perpetuity if you found that it was actually a female and had recently given birth; justifying why in this fixed world you find another of it's kind prey on the village years later.

 

4. Social Systems. Give players the ability to make their own fiefdoms. Whether it's build a house or a city they will do it. UO proved this. SWG it was one of the favored aspects. Every game that gets released is followed by the "will there be player housing?" question. If you have put the enviromental systems in place for raw materials this becomes simply an expanded crafting system. Combined with decay due to predators; beavers love log homes neighbors; damn thieves stole my tools left outside or elements you can have it be self regulating.

 

Yes there are systems for abuse. Players will prey upon other players. You have to sell this as part of the game however likewise you can sell obligation. There are just as many feudal sherrifs in a playerbase as there are feudal tyrants. If you give them something/someone to fight. Something to unite them; they are less likely to prey upon each other.

 

5. Conflict with a purpose. People do not engage in conflict without gain; whether for entertain or resources there has to be a reason. PvP needs something worth holding; whether it's access to a special forge; set of mines with rare ore, a trade route with foreign power.. something. Let those gains be traded openly on the market so while access may be limited it still spreads to the economy as a whole.

 

6. Market economy. Crafting without decay is meaningless. It makes establishing value difficult or results in a flooded market or inflation. Weapons and armor should break and/or melt if of normal materials; thus providing quests/objectives to find rare ore. Imagine if for weeks a comet was seen in the skies only to be followed by an earthquake from impact; fires and then a huge crater. Flora and fauna are drawn to/or away from the site; mutated into beasts and then making the rock mineable with a rare ore you have a reason to 1. find its location 2. a pvp area 3. a resource area and 4. a change in market economy.

 

It would add to the games history, "hey remember when.." and does not need to be a fixed event; but an occasional one.

 

These are some off the cuff ideas but tthey have not been seen outside of the single player games. They have been implemented in the past and could be again especially with modern coding and computer capability. It simply takes someone spending 300 million on something other than actors.

 

This all of this.

 

This is an mmo being a single player outright it needs to feel more like an mmo instead of being the first single mass multiplayer.

[vincent-]

To continue/emphasize your point:

Think of any real life military mission. Aren't they all assassinate someone [elite boss], rescue a prisoner [think early Tython], do recon [explore X], collect intel [slice computer terminal], hold a position [PvP WZ]? Yep. MMOs are an extension of these core mission types. Just with proper stories to accompany them.

 

The real difference to that is the changes they do effect the world in some ways. In this game killing off a species does nothing overall.

 

Take the event right now. I was given an option to infect the tuskins even worse but I decided to give them antibodies. This attempt will never have a real effect on tat.

 

I won't somehow find my attempt getting foiled by a another player I won't ever see a change of the world. Not like it ever happens not like I'm not saving a farm or town from the tuskins everything is truly static nothing you do will ever effect the planet.

 

I'm like watching a clock trying to move it's handles only to go back to were it started from never truly changing just stuck forever until it's destroyed"shutdown".

 

This game lacks life and it's not the servers being devoid of life of players, it's the game. It's pretty much devoid of any real change made by players or life/death cycle around it's worlds nature, resources, and npcs.

[The_Smith]

This has been a very interesting thread and I share the OP's frustration. I can't understand how, in a game where you can play as a Bounty Hunter for instance, you cannot be contracted by a player to go after another player for x amount of credits. Nothing you do in the TOR Universe matters to anyone else. You cannot become a wanted man/woman by killing X amount of people or slicing into a top security facility. There is no interaction or immersion, just getting XP and getting the the end of your story.

 

This is my personal feeling, I'm not trying to speak for anyone other than myself. It seems to me though that Bioware have made something potentially huge feel really really small.

[DataBeaver]

Take the event right now. I was given an option to infect the tuskins even worse but I decided to give them antibodies. This attempt will never have a real effect on tat.

 

This game lacks life and it's not the servers being devoid of life of players, it's the game. It's pretty much devoid of any real change made by players or life/death cycle around it's worlds nature, resources, and npcs.

What MMORPG doesn't? A truly living world needs an immense amount of human brain power behind it, and that doesn't come cheap. Without an army of GMs pulling the strings, every computer game gets reduced to repeating the same things over and over.

 

I've heard that Guild Wars 2 is going to change all this; while I won't be playing that game myself, I'm interested to hear how it turns out in the months after it's released. The basic premise seems to be that any sort of text-based storytelling is bad, and the attacking armies really need to attack. While this certainly can make the world seem more alive, I suspect in the long run it'll still be static. A village that gets destroyed by rampaging dragons or whatever isn't going to stay destroyed; it's going to get rebuilt, either at the same spot or somewhere nearby, and the villagers will carry on like normal. And it won't take years to rebuild, either. Probably a week at most. Otherwise the world is going to run out of villages. Any conflict between factions is going to last forever, since a final victory for one side would rob the game of a lot of potential ques... sorry, events. There might be times when one side is forced into hiding for a while, but they'll most likely recover in a week or two.

 

I'll much rather be playing a massively single-player online role-playing game with immersive human-created stories than a sandbox with endless computer-generated content.

 

That being said, I do wish the game offered my smuggler more opportunities to, you know, smuggle things. Several times an NPC has mentioned how there's valuable artifacts or something on a planet, but I've yet to find any. Just the same loot everywhere.

Edited April 20, 2012 by DataBeaver

[Mattalix]

Sure!

 

Tracking/BH quests where you have to research/tail your target and find the right time to strike or capture them. Tail you target, track them down etc etc..

(FE has this)

PUZZLES! (SWTOR has a few but its mostly just in raids) DDO did this GREAT btw. All kinda of puzzles in that game. TSW is suppose to involve a lot of this as well.

 

LIVE DYNAMIC EVENTS!

How hard could this be? I like the Rakghoul thing sure, but its static, and one day we will wake up, and it will just disappear.

 

UO had entire cities INVADED by undead armies, with boss mobs controlled by REAL people, who roleplayed the part and everything. Hell they had QUESTS that were like this, with riddles and clues and all kinda of crap.

 

CRAFTNG! Why don't we have quests involving crafting? You would be surprised how many folks would like this. Going out and finding rare minerals or materials, meeting buy orders etc.

 

I know with limited interfaces like the Keyboard and mouse its tough to innovate, but other genres have done it, why not MMOs?

 

I dont just mean quests btw. I talk about a lot of concepts that have grown stale, or been over used.

 

I thought you were an idiot at first, but i actually like these ideas

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

this thread should be sticky. Hopefully BW gets some inspiration here to improve the game concept..

[Songwhistle]

Second life is just a virtual chatroom. Its not like zombies are going to invade and kill everyone or something.

 

WHat im talking about are things like MMOs still have static NPCs that just stand around waiting to be killed, while real RPGs have evolved to have living breathing dynamic worlds.

 

Eve doesnt have levels in the traditional sense btw, Ive played Eve, its nothing like traditional WoW/SWTOR

 

hmm thinking minecraft for some reason.

 

but all in all live and scalable content would be nice. although we would still be running headless with no real goals in the game without gear levels, char levels, and some other ways to measure your progess.

[vincent-]

hmm thinking minecraft for some reason.

 

but all in all live and scalable content would be nice. although we would still be running headless with no real goals in the game without gear levels, char levels, and some other ways to measure your progess.

 

Does everyone really need their hands held?

 

I would love just having all the pvp/pve gear not be the the end game gear to get I rather it was for fashion than for stats a crafter should be doing our end game stats. Goals are pretty simple from the story outlook empire wants it all and the republic says no to that.

 

I rather throw out the measuring stick I also hate levels I rather earn the skill I'm good at give me the basics and I decide what I use most and give me more training in that to be better.

 

Wait galaxies had this of course we all love balance but not like this game has anything really to keep your attention with.

[Ghaiana]

I like games where I'm guided but I also like games where I'm not guided. I'm just happy if there's enough diversity in the game market. The best that I get out of SWTOR are the stories and the more stories I play the better they get, because I recognize people from other stories and situations, in the end it becomes one big story.

[Kheld]

I remember some interesting quests for Neverwinter Nights, where you had to collect evidence then act as a Lawyer during a trial.

 

The evidence you collected & the dialogue choices you took dictated wherether you would sway the judges, 5 being the best score you could get. You could end up with 1 Judge favouring you , or 3.

 

DAOC also had some random steps in their questlines. You did it on 1 character you had to go to A & kill X. If you did the quest again on an alt you might have to go to B & kill Y.

 

With 8 chars, many 30+ I find im bored of TOR. The quests are boring & most of the planets are pretty dull. I dont feel anything for the npcs I talk to, and even my companions are boring.

 

Im not sure what the difference is but I enjoy the crew interaction in ME3 much more. I actually feel sad when some of the crew have died.

 

I couldnt care less about my TOR crew members.

[Marak]

Jumping into this thread late and I'm not reading 28 pages to see what I missed, but one thing that I absolutely loved about EQ1 was their epic weapon class missions. Yes it was kill/collect/etc style, but in a more grandiose sense. You could do parts of it solo, parts with a group, and parts with a raid that each could potentially require months of farming to pull off. In the end.. you absolutely loved your weapon.

 

So my chief complaint is there isn't enough "epic" in the sense of time/achievement in MMOs anymore. Yes we cater to casuals more than we used to, but that doesn't mean we can't still get creative.

[ThiborF]

So, i was kinda thinking today about MMO's in general, and I have to wonder, with the advancement of other genre why is it that a AAA critically acclaimed MMO like SWTOR resort to the same old boring "Kill X number of enemies" Or "Click/collect X number of items"?

 

Couldn't we do better? Shooters have evolved from run down (relatively) flat corridor A to room B shoot guys on the way to epic movie quality story with physics mechanics and vehicles, branching nonlinear gameplay etc etc.

 

RPGs went from menu driven battle systems to active time to real time battling/sword fight, awesome exploration, free flowing skill systems, and incredible presentation.

 

Sports games have gone from top down click button throw ball games to motion sensitive actually throwing/hitting the ball, full body experiences.

 

 

MMOs? Or SWTOR specifically as well. Same crap(for the most part) from EQ days. Go kill some rats. Go collect some weeds.

 

And it's an apples to oranges comparison that you are making in my opinion. Many of the changes you describe in other genres have taken place in computer RPGs. I've been playing them, or similarly styled games, since the days of Gateway to Apshai on an Atari 800 and Adventure on an Apple II back in the early 80s. So I've seen the changes in the genre.

 

Your sports games? The sports themselves haven't changed so what you're doing in the games really has not changed much at all. It LOOKS better to be sure. And they've made them more realistic as we've moved from the days of a Geforce 2 MX to the 680GTX but, you're still playing football (or basketball, baseball, etc.)

 

Shooters? Your environments have DEFINITELY improved. With increasingly better physics (graphics programming), buildings and objects that can be destroyed (graphics improvements), the games have certainly improved. And at the end of the day be it Team Fortress 1 or BF3 it's stalk your prey and eliminate them. Same concept, shinier packaging.

 

Meaning you're doing many of the very same things in those games you've been doing game after game ...

Just like you are in MMORPGs.

 

I've had this discussion numerous times with friends that play MMOs and we've batted around different ideas for quests. And what we discovered was that with the exception of adding randomized puzzle elements to them, the fast majority of quests ideas, once you boil away the reasoning for doing them (story line from NPC) are generally one of or a combination of the typical types we've seen since the days of EQ.

 

Yes, they could start using more/better puzzle elements. The problem is if they don't put in some large variance of them with a randomizer, the answers are known and posted on the Internet and the uniqueness of the quest is lost with a large part of the playerbase consumed simply with getting from point A to B as quickly as possible.

 

Case in point: One of the ideas that got tossed around one night after several "beverages" was a wish there was more political intrigue to this game. Manipulating corrupt politicians OR corrupting a straight laced one, etc. to achieve a greater goal whether it be for a NPC you serve (like a Darth/Moff) or to gain something in game (like a political title, etc.) or whatever reason. So as we looked at it we started breaking it down ... if you want to manipulate someone you can a) do it by force/threatening violence which we already do plenty of in-game, b) have in our possession something that can sway another's views ($, information/evidence, etc.) or c) through guile/diplomacy (story/conversation wheel choices.)

 

A and C we already see plenty of in-game. And with B you are in need of having something to be that bargaining chip. Which means you're back out killing X# of mob A to acquire item B to deliver/present to npc Z to get the result you want.

[ThiborF]

LIVE DYNAMIC EVENTS!

How hard could this be? I like the Rakghoul thing sure, but its static, and one day we will wake up, and it will just disappear.

 

UO had entire cities INVADED by undead armies, with boss mobs controlled by REAL people, who roleplayed the part and everything. Hell they had QUESTS that were like this, with riddles and clues and all kinda of crap.

 

And what was UOs subscription pop? It launched in '97 and peaked with ~250k subs in '03. How many servers/shards did they run? The difficulty of managing the logistics of such events I doubt scales linearly. Put it this way, if you invite 10 people over to your house for a party Saturday night, it's relatively easy to maintain control of the party. Now invite 100. Keeping it at sane levels proves much much more difficult.

 

CRAFTNG! Why don't we have quests involving crafting? You would be surprised how many folks would like this. Going out and finding rare minerals or materials, meeting buy orders etc.

 

I know with limited interfaces like the Keyboard and mouse its tough to innovate, but other genres have done it, why not MMOs?

 

I dont just mean quests btw. I talk about a lot of concepts that have grown stale, or been over used.

 

You mentioned SWG crafting in a prior post in this thread. I played it too. I applaud them for the depth in their crafting system. And I shudder at the near carpel tunnel inducing mechanics that went along with it. Along with resource gathering in that game was some of the most mind numbing time spent in the game.

 

Another aside to SWG ... you point to leveling. SWG didn't have "levels" BUT you were certainly progressing (ie. "leveling" aspects of your character. So no, you weren't a level 24 Tera Kasi (sp? ... been a LOOOONG time) but you spent time playing your character to increase their skill. Same is true of most MMOs. Some use systems where you advance individual skills based on using them. Others use a more general overall character level which bumps up the individual skills as you progress. Process is relatively the same it's just managed differently.