The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why

[Deyjarl]

You still have to level per se in that you have to get the additional abilities. .

 

That is why everything is repeatable. You can potentially learn every skill in the game. Relatively easy also. I tried one setup to start and hated it, hour later instead of re-rolling I already had a good start on the new path I was going to take, while drops and not having to start all over.

 

And what is wrong with the engine? Their DX11 graphics at max are pretty darn good. You can't upgrade yourself out of customers.

 

I think most games will sit on upgrading graphics until economies improve, as people are going to be putting off upgrading computers for awhile.

[LogunOne]

*Bangs head on desk*

 

IT WAS NOT THE FIRST!!!!

Jesus I wished people actually did a google search before posting this nonsense!

 

1991 -1997

1) Neverwinter Nights on AOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(AOL_game)

 

2) Imagination Network game I forget name of

 

3) The Realms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Realm_Online

 

4) Dark Sun Online

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun_Online

 

5) Meridian 59

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_59

 

6) Twilight Lands

(no wiki, went bankrupt soon after launching before UO hit the sceen)

 

7) Ultima Online

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online

 

HAVE I MADE MY POINT YET????

 

And if you actually do some research and read these pages, EVEN UO doesnt claim to be the first or most influencial. So why do you fanbois insist on trying to rewrite history to your own liking?????

 

PS: EQ is the BIGGUN and anyone that played back then knows the current genre is based off EQ, not UO. EQ is the template for themepark MMORPGs and was copied in a assortment of games, not to mention WOW who basically copied EQ and then just dumbed everything down to the lowest common denominator.

 

UO is not the first

UO is not the template for modern MMORPGs

UOs biggest claim to fame is houseing (they updated the concept introduced FIRST in The Realms) and having 1000 players on a server at one time (previous high was 750 by NWN on AOL (thats right, there was only a 250 player difference between NWN and UO for supporting online. It wasnt this amazing break through and new standard and if you played UO at launch you know the 1000 players number was just a selling point, the lag was idiotic and was unplayable for many people. In reality UO should have released with 500 player caps on servers) just before it shut down in 97)

 

And cosmic is correct that EQ borrowed heavily from those games that came BEFORE UO. EQ did not borrow from UO and actually sold their product on the fact they were the opposite of UO (which was hugely appealing to the masses that left UO shortly after buying the game)

 

So can you and yours PLEASE stop trying to rewrite history to your own desires.

Just because you didnt play those games before UO doesnt mean they didnt exist and didnt heavily influence EQ (which again has become the staple to build off of in the MMORPG genre).

 

Just FYI ....The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, in 1997 so technically not the first in the genre it was the first to be defined as a MMORPG. Therefor Ultima Online could be considered the Grand Daddy of what has become known as the MMORPG.

[azuazunyan]

2. In fact I do have some idea, but since I am not a game developer, I have no idea if a role would be fun. One e.g. is the "thief" role. (in modern or sci-fi settings they could be hackers) Someone who can help to bypass traps, detect hidden doors, unlock locked doors etc... If this is a non-essential role, then all these bypass traps things could be to make the dungeon run less tedious (but without such a role, can still complete the dungeon). )

This is why they had Slicing as a Crew Skill, right? I mean, it's not like the game has tons of puzzles to solve in a flashpoint/instance just to create a role specifically design to fill them in. Yes, I know Slicing is useless in its current form but I really don't think it will be a full blown class in the near future. Star Wars has a whole lot of characters which you can turn into a specific class, and much like any MMO, they will come in the future.

 

4. Well, if you noticed, these are still epeens. Just that they are purely cosmetic epeens. Another way to show growth and power is to give abilities that does not affect combat gameplay much. For e.g., an experience player could have the teleport anywhere ability to show his "power" but essentially does not affect dungeon runs. He can still group up with a new player. Of course, the experienced will be wearing nice looking gear the LOOK powerful while the new player will essentially dress in rags. Really, it's up to the designer to design rewards that don't necessary makes the more experienced player more powerful. (Just to put things into perspective, the concept of bolster already cause this to be a reality. This is why a level 10 and a level 49 can be playing together in a warzone)

I think the best way to progress a character without number crunching is through crafting and gathering the needed materials to create good gear. However, I think the game will need a huge character development system overhaul to do just that.

[Goretzu]

Most MMORPGs since (and including) WoW have just been a poor, partial, remake of EQ1, never pushing the genre on from 1999 to 2003.

 

Unfortuantely those that haven't been have largely be with small companies that have struggled with the basic issues of MMORPG logistics, never giving the games themselves much of a chance.

[Goretzu]

Just FYI ....The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, in 1997 so technically not the first in the genre it was the first to be defined as a MMORPG. Therefor Ultima Online could be considered the Grand Daddy of what has become known as the MMORPG.

 

Yeah I'd still consider UO to be the first genuine, clear cut, MMORPG, although there's a lot of muddy water between it and something that might be clearly defined as a MUD.

[Ellvaan]

Greetings everyone!

 

While we appreciate that this thread has remained constructive and we do understand that other games will be used for comparison to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, we do ask that your replies to this thread still relate to the game in some aspect.

 

We look forward to your feedback and discussion!

 

Have a great day!

[Rayla_Felana]

I love the irony of the term 'WoW-clone'.

[Gangrel]

That is why everything is repeatable. You can potentially learn every skill in the game. Relatively easy also. I tried one setup to start and hated it, hour later instead of re-rolling I already had a good start on the new path I was going to take, while drops and not having to start all over.

 

And what is wrong with the engine? Their DX11 graphics at max are pretty darn good. You can't upgrade yourself out of customers.

 

I think most games will sit on upgrading graphics until economies improve, as people are going to be putting off upgrading computers for awhile.

 

To be honest, i am impressed that Funcom had the guts to charge the EU/UK people *more* than other MMO's charge in their own regions.

 

The US customers get the game at the same rate as other MMO's in the US.

 

However, in the EU... subscribers are being charged €14.99/month to play (normal rate for MMO's is €12.99), and in the UK, they are being charged £11.49 (normal rate is £8.99)

 

So i feel that they are pricing themselves out of the competition as well (especially as their refer a friend promo that is running right now is a 1 day trial)

[Valkirus]

Most MMORPGs since (and including) WoW have just been a poor, partial, remake of EQ1, never pushing the genre on from 1999 to 2003.

 

Unfortuantely those that haven't been have largely be with small companies that have struggled with the basic issues of MMORPG logistics, never giving the games themselves much of a chance.

 

There are millions who would disagree with you about WoW being a poor copy of EQ. For one, I hated how you enteracted with the npc's and the game world in general in EQ. WoW improved that aspect a lot. And TOR now has one of the best customizing UI's on the market. Of the two MMO's..we know which has been the most successful and it sure is not EQ.

[Valkirus]

To be honest, i am impressed that Funcom had the guts to charge the EU/UK people *more* than other MMO's charge in their own regions.

 

The US customers get the game at the same rate as other MMO's in the US.

 

However, in the EU... subscribers are being charged €14.99/month to play (normal rate for MMO's is €12.99), and in the UK, they are being charged £11.49 (normal rate is £8.99)

 

So i feel that they are pricing themselves out of the competition as well (especially as their refer a friend promo that is running right now is a 1 day trial)

 

I think in general all MMO's which charge a monthly sub overcharge. Esp in today's weak economy. They would get more subs if they lowered the price down to a more reasonable price. No MMO should exceed 9.99 US dollars per month. And like you have pointed out, they should adjust that price down to equal whatever it would be in other countries. FTP models are the wave of the future because of this. And I have read LOTRO has made more money sence they went to FTP than they did when they had a all sub base. It gives the player the option to spend what they can afford to pay each year. One reason GW2 will gain a lot of new players.

[CosmicKat]

There are millions who would disagree with you about WoW being a poor copy of EQ. For one, I hated how you enteracted with the npc's and the game world in general in EQ. WoW improved that aspect a lot. And TOR now has one of the best customizing UI's on the market. Of the two MMO's..we know which has been the most successful and it sure is not EQ.

 

The Phantom Menace made a lot of money... it's still likely a consensus pick as one of the worst movies ever made.

Success does not equal quality.

[Goretzu]

There are millions who would disagree with you about WoW being a poor copy of EQ. For one, I hated how you enteracted with the npc's and the game world in general in EQ. WoW improved that aspect a lot. And TOR now has one of the best customizing UI's on the market. Of the two MMO's..we know which has been the most successful and it sure is not EQ.

 

Yeah they improved some things (although they also removed at least as much) with vannilla WoW, but the basic concept was EQ1, or EQ1-lite more realistically.

 

EQ1 could never have been as successful as WoW, it was released into a different online Universe and was too old by the time WoW came along (although equally WoW could never have been as successful if EQ1 had never existed - even ignoring the design perspective).

 

But that still doesn't mean WoW (and pretty much 90% of MMORPGs since haven't been based on the EQ1 model), nor indeed that games could be much better both by going in new ways (rather than endlessly photocopying and losing things along the way) and indeed perhaps going back to some of the things EQ1 orginally had that made it.

 

 

 

In SWTORs case the game could only be improved by adding things like SWGs strengths an perhaps some of EQ1 forgotten hooks.......... as well as, of course, directly innovating new concepts and ideas (one of SWTORs strengths is the pushing on of companions, from what we've seen before, for example).

[LilSaihah]

The Phantom Menace made a lot of money... it's still likely a consensus pick as one of the worst movies ever made.

Success does not equal quality.

 

To say the two aren't correlated is pretty silly. The only other aspect which can drive success is advertisement/visibility.

Edited July 9, 2012 by LilSaihah

[zoofar]

I stopped reading at grand daddy of MMOs.

 

If you dont know who the grand daddy is, how can you form a accurate opinion!

....

You saying that OP has no point because of one arguable detail you consider a fact?

This is what a quick google gives via Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_massively_multiplayer_online_games#The_first_virtual_worlds

"The term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott, the creator of Ultima Online, in 1997.[18]"

 

Other games had many players in one "world" before...back to the 70s even.

 

 

I share OPs thoughts in much. This "not daring to think outside the box" is praxis in most all buisness today. Corps are to afraid of loosing large investments. But now and then someone innovative comes along and we get progress, hope the gaming industry will see such an innovator soon too!

[azuazunyan]

I share OPs thoughts in much. This "not daring to think outside the box" is praxis in most all buisness today. Corps are to afraid of loosing large investments. But now and then someone innovative comes along and we get progress, hope the gaming industry will see such an innovator soon too!

 

I think we're at the point where almost everything has been done in video games. What else can developers do to entice players to continue playing their game without compromising sales or subs?

 

I believe the next step in video games is augmented/virtual reality, especially in MMOs. You want total immersion? That might do the trick.

[Aricus]

I think we're at the point where almost everything has been done in video games. What else can developers do to entice players to continue playing their game without compromising sales or subs?

 

I believe the next step in video games is augmented/virtual reality, especially in MMOs. You want total immersion? That might do the trick.

 

That won't be happening for years down the road. But the closes thing you could get though is Second Life. I think you're right though video goes are being outplayed. Nothing new. The only thing that's new is the story and visuals but everything else plays out pretty much the same or worst. And most games now days are very restrictive.

[Tholdrinn]

Well I have bit of professional insight in this problem so I would like to share my thoughts on the matter.

 

Level up!

Well the problem is, in many ways, simple. Everything you do is driven by motivation. Levels are the easiest way of distinguishing between players. It is a way of rewarding accomplishments. You did this much, your power grows and you can do cool new stuff. This system has a goal and a reward.

 

There are other systems of course! Skill-based and even more imaginative. Most of this field already is explored by indie pen and paper RPG's which even have much less burden of technology upon itself. Problem is that reward is less rewarding. Somehow... getting /one handed increased to 75!/ is not as much fun as Ding! I'm lvl 30!. The main goals of level system are recognition of someone's "work" and distinction between the players and their power. Level system also gives you one thing - practice. You can give lvl.1 Jedi knight 4 abilities and he will be entirely happy because he knows it will change as he will progresses throughout the game. He will learn how to use them effectively and when you add two more it wont be a problem. He just learn them up. Give player 30 abilities and talent tree from the beginning and he will be frustrated by the sheer amount of things he must to know. Give him 4 and he will be disappointed by that amount. Even EVE is not entirely a sandbox - you have to learn your skills to drive bigger ships and use their equipment etc.

 

Be Classy!

Why divide players into classes and factions? It divides community. Yes.. but it also give you a colour. In RPG generally if you don't divide classes and their abilities you get, sooner or later, a grey mishmash. It happened to me even with LARP. We took classes from the system and people just learned a bit from everything making game somehow less fun. It's great on paper and in mind... but in reality?

Just imagine how you have a fierce discussion about whether you have bigger impact in a PVP with an AOE Inquisitor or single target nuke - Sniper. And now take both classes out. Leave their skills to be learned the way mastery points are spent. How will it look like? "My character is cooler than yours because I learned this AOE heal" ... no, it just don't do the trick.

And this whole imaginary discussion is just a symptom of one thing - passion. Passion for character, for its style and uniqueness from graphics to playstyle and lore. Without passion, there is no bond. Without bond, there is only the indifference. Through indifference you shall reach freedom... and go play something else.

 

Come for a heal big boy!

Character role differentiation. Well that is a bloody difficult question. "All DMG" means that any "epic encounter" is a problem in one way - you can't have "glass cannon" style champions who deals immense amount of dmg but die under slightest pressure, you also have no or minimal sustain. All that combined means - fight can't be challenging and pushing you to the limits or it became waiting for who will be the last one standing. An "army" with a miniboss could do the trick... but that would not be much distinctive, standing out of regular, and certainly not epic.

Yes I believe there could be diversification - and I think War had it right. With its close combat healer who had to be in the middle of the fight to be able to heal, tank-buffer who's positioning was making the whole group much stronger. Nuker who could raise his dmg output but if he pushed it too far he could kill himself. So yes, there are some tweaks to the system. Also - when we reach for EVE... there are classes as well. Someone is a "master of wealth" digging up minerals and building gigantic ships. Someone else is charging the battle... there are roles just stretched over the game. Guy building ships is a healer... he gives the fighter prolonged ability to fight his war when his space ship is destroyed or needs repairs.

 

Yes.. you can have this in SWTOR too.. but that will take time before space battles are multi-player.. not to mention PVP. Before guilds will have really access to capital ships as was rumoured.

 

Gear Up!

Yes, tiers of gear enabling you to do something is kind of unfortunate. It is a way of progressing the characters when the levels are reached to maximum. I respect that and I don't have problem with that part. You know... getting these epic sets is cool. BUT, and that is a big but, you should not stop there. What about social status, economic? I am a rich smuggler, decorated war hero or even a Sith lord. Why can't you built yourself a mansion. Buy a mine where lower lvl smuglers could make some profit running goods to my army friend who might build our guild a capital ship. Why can't master Jedi or old Major teach kids new tricks if they came along and ask?

 

They are telling us story, creating relationships with our companions, making legacy over the characters... but it feels cut off. There is one thing that Never Winter Nights online have perfectly done. On most servers, or worlds more likely as each one was unique with story and geographics and stuff, you could have get that far that you bought a house, fill it with furniture and stuff, you could get into a city council... in other words - possessions beyond tools of profession, pets and vehicles. Social status too! And (most important) player made content. I remember a city build by players, brick by brick. DM told them in the long quest that this placed is rich of minerals... and they started to build mines, creating houses for workers, bakery for food, etc... It took two years but after that... it was one of the most epic things they ever lived. Well maybe Bioware could let us be a little of Lando Calrissian as well. Putting our blasters aside for later needs and becoming a "respected businessman".

 

I believe this is a way to go with a game. Adding new bosses, operations, items and a moving level cap higher is not adding new content, new depth to the game. It's just copying what is already inside. Shallow and cheap.

And many things are easy to do. Like item customization - not changing colours but to have crafter able to design his own new stuff. If Never winter could do it, why not TOR?

[twinionx]

OP your are pretty much right in everything youve said but you forgot the huge amount of money involved in developing an AAA title , so much money being used to create a game like swtor kills any thoughts of innovation incase it is not popular and the game dies , the mmmorpg genre has not moved on or evolved in any manner since everquest 1 , everything that made that a success is still the core of every mmo created after it , sure wow added bells and whistles and prettier interfaces etc but basicly it was a clone .

 

the genre is dead in my veiw and till someone with substantial amounts of money takes a risk on introducing new and exciting ideas we wil be stuck with this ancient game formula for years to come , star wars galaxies was offering something exciting for awile but sony got cold feet and with nge perverted a great promise into something was a gaming equivalent of a wall street crash

 

Personally, I don't think money is the issue. We just need someone like Steve Jobs or Richard Garriot or even George Lucas (or is James Cameron a better example?) who is willing to take the risk, sink in the money and carry the genre forward.

 

There are no lack of ideas from players. Or better still, be like Steve. Don't give us what we asked. Give us what we want.

[twinionx]

I think the problem is that everyone expects Warcraft out of the box for any new MMO but forget that it took Blizzard 10 years to get Warcraft to where it is. In the early days, warcraft had all the same problems Star Wars does now. I went thru several free-transfer waves where blizzard was trying to keep the servers balanced when they started getting underpopulated. People constantly complained about a lack of content until the first x-pack came out. A decade later and 4 x-packs later its ok content wise but people still complain about this imbalance and that imbalance. MMOs will never be perfect. They can't by design because they are evolving products that never end.

 

I'm sorry I have to disagree. WoW, despite its initial troubles, did WOW many players. It made people like my wife and nephew a computer gamer, when previously the only computer game they probably played is Solitaire. This story is repeated throughout the world.

 

In fact, it is after the introduction of expansions that WoW became lacklustre.

[twinionx]

Everquest added a lot to the genre, but Ultima Online is still called the grand daddy of mmo's not because it was the first. Which it wasn't but because it is considered the first "main stream" mmo.

Which even in its day was a niche in pc gaming market, Which EQ expanded on and made even more popular.

But even then EQ was more or less a niche game, not until WoW rolled around did the mmo market sky rocket.

 

Also all the things the OP talks about have been done in multiple MMO's as people have pointed out. And are continuing to come out in future mmo's "cough" GW2 "cough". Reading the OP at first, I thought it was a pitch for GW2.

 

Nah, I don't even consider GW/2 an MMO. They are more like Diablo2/3 to me. But my view may be biased as I have never played GW and have no desire.

 

Honestly, I have no desire to play ANY MMOG after SWTOR. Once I finish all my 8 classes' storyline, I will say goodbye to the MMO world until the next breakthrough comes. And my first litmus tests will be my 4 criteria on the new MMOG.

[Aricus]

Personally, I don't think money is the issue. We just need someone like Steve Jobs or Richard Garriot or even George Lucas (or is James Cameron a better example?) who is willing to take the risk, sink in the money and carry the genre forward.

 

There are no lack of ideas from players. Or better still, be like Steve. Don't give us what we asked. Give us what we want.

 

Technically money is the issue. You have to approve and satisfy investors (or even a CEO) of taking a risk change. Steve Jobb, Richard Garriot and George Lucas were able to take these risk because they dominated company shares or owned the company itself.

Edited July 10, 2012 by Aricus

[LancelotOC]

The Stagnation of MMO industry/genre and why

 

The MMO industry has been stagnant for many years ever since World of Warcraft became the breakout poster game for the genre. After that, year after year, new MMO games released are either clones of it or have many elements that copied it. No doubt there are games that tried to be different. However, either they do not have the backings of a popular IP or fat financial support (or both), or they chose to be a niche market, they could not flourish in a world where the masses demand the lowest common denominator and make an impact.

 

It is no wonder then that none achieved the financial success the level of WoW and not even a close second (even if one considers WoW a "freak" phenomenon). Think about it. If the MMO industry is flourishing, there should be a new game coming out periodically (around the frequency of once every 2 or 3 years) that is a "hit". What is a hit? It should be first, the numbers of subscribers (or profitability of the game) will be more than the previous hit. Second, the subscribers or profitability of the game should be increasing or at least maintain at a stable rate.

 

The reasons the industry has been stagnant can more or less be attributed to the following factors and all of them are related to the fundamental design particular to MMO games. I will use SWTOR as an example but you could also see these in other games, especially up and coming new ones, inclusive of expansions of WoW, having the same fundamental problems (with some exceptions).

 

1. Sharding.

The concept of sharding goes all the way back to the grand-daddy of MMOG, Ultima Online. And that is where the name origin comes from. Sharding is basically the duplicating of the game worlds into different "shards", or servers (in reality, clusters of servers). Essentially, each shard is a complete world by itself

 

This design has one fundamental flaw that is plaguing most MMOGs, especially "hot" ones like SWTOR, WAR, AoC etc... First, an initial wave of gamers swarmed in, necessitating the setup of many shards (or servers) to cater to the new swarm. Since the initial swarm can be up to a million or even more players, many shards has to be setup to allow players to play without the inconvenience of queuing. Unfortunately, reality is that after the one month inclusive subscription, a significant percentage of these gamers quit.

 

Thus reducing the population of each shard to less than optimum. At the end, many shards or servers became ghost shards.

 

The nature of MMOG is that a player's experience is proportional to the number of players concurrently online. Things like PvP, dungeons, group quests are not doable without a ready pool of active players also wanting to do the same. And when you divide that by factions, levels, type-of-gameplays (i.e. PvP vs dungeons) the pool of players are even further fragmented. Now you further divide them by the various shards, you can see why players could not find (easily) other players to play with or against.Even the most anti-social solo player needs a thriving economy so that the auction house or whatever is that game's equivalent is fully stocked with player goods and also as a ready market to sell his haul.

 

Without a critical mass of population, a MMOG is nothing but a glorified single player game with an online connection and persistency.

 

If a shard becomes a ghost shard. Then what is the point of playing MMOG? Why not just play a single player game instead with no subscription and no need to connect to the internet?

 

The concept of sharding has to go. Either a game has to be better designed or,if this is a technological limitation, a technological breakthrough has to be achieved to put the MASSIVELY back to the massively multiplayer game label. New games should boast higher and higher simultaneous active players. The lack of this phenomenon is a sure sign that the MMO genre is stagnant.

 

Note : So far, only one known game has a single-shard design and it is called EVE online, which has a healthy subscription going. The only thing going against EVE is its niche factor (space-based, sandbox, PvP) and high learning curve. In any case, the technology is there already.

 

2. Trinity

Trinity refers to the "holy-trinity" of the tank, healer and damage dealer roles. The tank gets the attention of the boss and other mobs, the healer heals the tank and others and the damage dealers fires away at the boss and mobs.

 

The concept of trinity was grounded in the traditions of fantasy genre. You have the hero and the representatives of every race and class to fight the big bad in a dungeon. With the trinity design, you justify the need for different classes mixed into a gaming group. This was made popular by games like Everquest and solidified in diamond casing by WoW. Thereafter, every other games followed this design and

 

this has been infecting single player and even pen and paper games which DO NOT need such a design in the first place.

 

The problem with the trinity design is very simple. Tanking and healing is work. Damage dealing is fun. Hence you have a disproportionate number of players who chose to do damage and only a very small percentage of players who choose to tank or heal. Yes, there are masochists who find such activities fun for them (I myself likes to tank and I have a friend who swears by healing). However, in a dungeon group, you HAVE to have at least one tank and at least one healer. In a raid group, that number increases proportionately. So the requirement and the actual situation is vastly different.

 

Not only that, the tank and healer need to be properly geared, need to know their skill sets, need to do this and do that. You can have a relatively clueless damage dealer player in a group and you can generally breeze through a dungeon but if you have a clueless tank or healer, there is no way you can successfully clear the dungeon or you can do it painfully.

 

So why is there a need for trinity design? Actually, there isn't. A group of pure damage dealers should theoretically be able to kill the boss and mobs IF THE DESIGNER DESIGN IT THIS WAY. The way a MMOG designer design that dungeon, will affect the roles a class can play and how that dungeon play out.The industry needs to abandon the trinity design and come up with new sets of roles that are FUN instead of chores. By all means, keep the tanking and healing roles, but they should not be NEEDED in order to run a dungeon or raid. If they are unable to do so, at the very least make everyone a damage dealer so everyone can have fun.

 

Think about it, a dungeon or raid is essentially one big puzzle or a series of puzzles. Boss fights are also puzzle fights. That is why they are interesting and people wants to do them. If every fight is all about how a tank or healer do their job, then it becomes stale and uninteresting and worse, chores for a significant portion of a required group when there are significantly fewer percentage of players willing to do that.

 

Let's use the quintessential fantasy as an example : The Chamber of Marzarbul fight in Lord of the Rings movie. When the orcs came in, do you see Boromir yelling at them so that the orcs only fight him and no one else? Do you see Gandalf or Frodo standing one side and "healing" the others? No. Everyone chips in and fights. They help one another. Even when the mini-boss the cave troll came in, they took turns to deal damage to it until it dies. Yes, Aragorn tried to be a tank but he got beaten. Then frodo became unintended tank and then got beaten as well. The rest enraged and dps the troll to death. No tank, no

 

healer, equally if not more fun.Then along the staircase, the orcs shot arrows. What happen next? Legolas and, to a certain extend, Aragorn became the "tanks" and damage dealers to tackle the archer orcs while the rest move on. And finally, you have the Balrog. This is a special case. Only Gandalf is high level enough to take on the Balrog. So the rest has to flee. Essentially, Gandalf "tanks" the Balrog although he was sort of defeated (at that point of view from the fellowship).

 

So from this example, you can see, even if you need a tank, it does not have to be a single specific player with a specific class and a specific build. Anyone should be able to "tank" as long as he has to hit points. As for healer, well, just have potions do what healing spells can do and everyone is a healer. So anyone can chip in to heal if necessary. Or better still. Don't have healer. What you have in terms of total hit points is all you have in that battle. This makes the battle more exciting as the danger is higher. Players may attempt to run away because they know they will be defeated if they don't OR this forces other players to "taunt" the boss or mobs off their allies if they want their allies to live. Or even better still, mix it up. Have a variety of encounters. Some encounters need all to be dps. Some encounters need rotation of "tanks" and so forther.

 

One last thing for people who still want to cling on to the idea of trinity is that they may ask : "If there are no roles, then why bother to have so many classes?" Well, having different classes means your PLAYSTYLE is different and you have CHOICES. Sure, we are all damage dealers but he did it by swinging that big axe while I did it by lobbing a fireball. The type and number of classes do not have to be related to the roles a class may take.

 

Think out of the box. Be creative.

 

3. Factionalisation

WoW has horde and alliance. WAR has Order and Chaos. SWTOR has Empire and Republic. See the pattern?

 

In a world that is divided by shards or servers, tanks and healers, players are further divided by factions. Some are even divided into 3 or 4 factions! If you are a game like EVE with hundreds of thousands players, maybe you are justified. But if you are a server or shard of only 1000 players, you just divided your pool of players by half! Why would you want to do that?

 

The original design decision was PvP. Back in the granddaddy of MMOG, Ultima Online (UO), anyone can kill anyone else. So it created a hostile gaming environment of bullying, intimidation and anti-social behaviours (much like high school). So factions were created and now, you have a ready pool of allies and enemies. In theory, it sounds good. But in practice, you can only play and trade with allies. But if you want to fight your enemies, you either have to travel to a mutually agreed location to fight them (world PvP) or you queue up for some 15 minutes soccer-match-like instanced PvP (called battlegrounds or warzones or skirmishes or some such...)

 

And because one faction is traditionally the "good" faction and one faction is the "evil" faction (or pretty vs ugly), naturally players gravitated towards one faction, further making the population imbalanced. Hence, world PvP became meaningless because it became a number game and not tactics or strategy. Instanced PvP became instant gratification but the side with more people has to wait longer because the other side is simply too ugly or too evil.

 

So a mechanism created to facilitate PvP, ended up affecting PvE (grouping) and the economy and does not really help PvP much either.

 

Here, I would like to say SWTOR did some good work. Most recently in the 1.3 patch, SWTOR has unified the economy by making the GTN tradable by both factions. And instanced PvP now allows players belonging to same faction to fight one another. However, flashpoints and group quests are still affected, ironically.

 

Faction division should be organic. Players should at first belong to one single faction, friendly to one another. To facilitate world PvP or instanced PvP, they can choose to join a particular faction or many factions. This choice can be automated. Joining of factions can be semi-permanent with choices to switch or temporary. After all, players are either heroes or mercenaries. So there is no reason why they cannot switch factions.

 

This way, in PvE and economy, you have one unified player base and in PvP, you can have a 50/50 split. You can even have multiple factions (think guilds, sects, orders, armies etc...) fighting one another if so desired. The closest idea to this concept is Arena where anyone can fight anyone else and anyone can ally with anyone else. Now broaden this concept to battles and you have PvP essentially. To justify this in game, remember, players are free agents who can choose to ally with any faction he desire or he is simply a mercenary for hire.

 

So an Orc Warrior could join the alliance because the alliance pays him to do so. A bounty hunter can fight for the Republic because the republic has deep budget.

 

4. Grinding and leveling

Leveling comes from Pen and Paper RPG and carried to single player RPG. Leveling makes sense in a single player game with a definite start and end. Once you become high level, you fight high level monsters and get high level loot. And then you retire and live happily ever after. Makes sense.

 

Now transpose this to MMOG and this design is broken. Why? MMOG by its nature is persistent and also long lasting. (At least long lasting than a typical single player RPG game)

 

In a SRPG, you pay an upfront cost and the developers do not care a hoot if you took 1 week to finish it, took 1 year or never even finish it. In a MMOG, the developer wants you to keep playing as long as it is needed, for years if possible. The problem is, once you reached the "MAX" level, you feel you are "done" and no longer need to continue. So now the designers added another concept of "end game content" which is also another form of grinding. After all, a player with tier 5 gear should be able to beat the tier 5 dungeon and able to beat a tier 1 geared player right?

 

So what's the problem? The problem again is that it divided the pool of players. A level 10 can't run a dungeon with a level 50. A tier 1 50 cannot run a raid with a tier 5 50. So while there are many dungeons, each dungeon has a limited pool of players (and when you divide that by shards and roles and factions, you make that pool very small or non-existent, see the pattern?). Some games like SWTOR make some of the dungeon "heroic" so that players can run the same dungeons again but that is only solving the problem at a certain level bracket. Those dungeons at lower levels have no players to run and those raids at higher levels also have no players to run. Think of the bell curve. In the end, designers spent significant efforts to make dungeons but only a small percentage is fully experienced by players.

 

Why not do away with levels and tiers?

 

People will ask : then what is the motivation of playing dungeons or even the game?

 

Well, how about...wait for this....ummm, fun? Don't level a character because you want to get to "end game" so that you can get tier 1 gear, so that you can tier 2 gear, so that..what? What's the purpose again? Play through the game because it is fun to do so. I guess it is more challenging for the designers to come up with fun quests or dungeons as compared to kill 10 rats or spank the boss.

 

Same for PvP. Why do people play PvP? Well, why do people play sports? Sports is a form of PvP right? Make PvP depends on PLAYER SKILLS, TACTICS and STRATEGY. In this case, SWTOR's Huttball somewhat got it right.

 

It's just that we need a whole lot of more huttballs. Again, think out of the box for PvP (world or instance) and dungeons such that players want to play BECAUSE of the journey. And when that journey is FUN, no one cares what is the destination.

 

If you really must have rewards, then give rewards that does not imbalance the gameplay but are nice to have : faster or better looking mounts, trophies, furniture for homes or starships, titles, statues (in capital cities) and bragging rights. Even epic LOOKING armor and gear will still be more desirable than starter gear even if their stats difference are very small. Honestly, if I enjoyed a game of soccer, I don't really care if I win the world cup. But if I really want to win the world cup, I should then play a lot of soccer matches and practice my tactics and hone my skills, instead of getting a sets of shoulder pads or some epic shoes so that I can "pwn" other soccer players.

 

Another reason to play without levels or gears is story.

 

SWTOR nearly got it right with the story element as the main pillar of design. However, their execution is FLAWED. Instead of one epic story, they broke it up to many small insignificant stories. If you think of MMOG like a TV series, you will then understand how an MMOG can survive 8 or 9 years like a TV series. Think Babylon 5 (5 years arc), LOST, Friends, Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined) and so on. Even the clone war cartoon series has a sort of main story going along. This is starwars after all.

 

This also means your year 1 should not be the same as year 2. Imagine SWTOR's main storyline. Year 1 is the cold war. Year 2 is the cold war almost turning into a hot war. Year 3 is the hot war phase 1 year 4 is the hot war phase 2, year 5 is the finale of the hot war (theoretically a hot war can last many years). Year 6 is the winding down of the hot war. Year 7 is the peace building. Year 8 is the mini-relapse. Year 9 is the final peace (And if SWTOR can survive 9 years, by itself is already an achievement!)

 

Unfortunately, SWTOR took a good design and screwed up the execution. The stories are again all factionalised. So that every players have their own experience and writers are forced to write 8 or more different threads of stories, some good, some not so good.

 

Getting rid of leveling and grinding means that now EVERY MAP and EVERY QUEST and EVERY DUNGEONS/RAID can be participated by potentially, ANYONE in the game. You don't have to wait for that person to level or get the correct gear. It's like a giant theme park where you can ride anything you want, visit anything you want, without having the need to be of certain height or age or gender. And use story, vanity rewards and the fun experience as main motivation for players to keep playing.

 

Do all of the above and maybe, maybe, we will see the MMO industry flourish again. And not see clones after clones after clones being churned out and failed to advance the industry/genre as a whole.

 

TLDR version

 

1. Get rid of sharding, have one single world

2. Get rid of trinity, everyone is DPS OR invent new fun roles

3. Get rid of static factionalism. Everyone is same faction with the ability to form their own rival groups or have dynamic factions.

4. Get rid of levels and grinds. Introduce fun in the journey and forget about the destination. Introduce vanity, quality-of-life and title rewards for the achievement oriented players.

5. Do all the above and the MMOG industry becomes less stagnant, more vibrant

6. Profit. [<--- investors, please see this, if you see nothing else]

 

All this seems so obvious. There must be a valid reason they don't do it imho.

[twinionx]

Very well written and some great points, but it sounds like you are talking about Counter Strike. All players are the same levels with the same skills and lots of maps.

 

4. This is the one I disagree most with, and of course this is opinion. Leveling is the heart and soul of RPGs, whether single player or MMO. It represents the growth and learning through the experiences you encounter through your adventure. Take that away, and it it not an RPG IMO.

 

I've been playing MMOs since UO, and have tried or played many since. 5 years on UO, 6 years on WOW, and much less on many others. I'm not sure yet how long SWTOR will last, but I am having a blast (at level 35 right now). If there was no leveling, I would not be playing. I've always loved leveling more than end game, to me that is where the meat of the game is. I had 8 lvl 85's in WOW before I quit, each a different class. I stopped playing them at 85. I would not have played it that long if there were not so many class/race/faction choices to make it interesting.

 

An MMO without these choices will not succeed financially, because faction conflicts, class/race choices, and different leveling experiences are what keep people paying for the long haul.

 

I respect your opinion. However, might I remind you that I did say leveling came from RPG, specifically PnP and Single Player RPG, where there is a definite beginning and definite end. In an MMO, as a designer, you don't want your player to reach "the end". There should not even be an "end game". Instead, design around the concept of perpetual fun.

 

Looking at another way, what is the different things you did at level 10 compared to level 50? Nothing! You still kill mobs, do fetch quests etc... for what purpose? Now, I know there are achievement-type people that needs reward/motivation to do things. This is why I suggest non-powered reward. For example, a ranking system where you gain rain (but not power) as you continue to do quest. You may start off as "squire" and then eventually become "champion" or "king" or something (and you have spiffy looking armor and weapons to match your rank). Just no levels. That means that "squire" who just started playing yesterday, can still potentially kill you if he wants to (you being the "champion" that have played for 6 months), but you will probably win because you are a more experienced player and has many more tricks up your sleeve.

 

Alternatively, that "squire" can also save your butts as you try to kill your 1000th mob when you were careless.

 

Not having levels also means that certain mobs will always be dangerous. That fire breathing dragon in that dark cave? Well, he stills need 10 players to kill, regardless of how many years each player have played. No "soloing" that dragon no matter what.

 

More importantly, developers can stop creating new contents that will be consumed within 2 weeks and have all their existing contents that can be consumed consistently by any player, any time. Want to visit Tatooine? Anytime, any day. It will be equally hard/easy as you have visited 3 months ago.

 

This is the concept of "no level". It is nothing to do with no-reward. Not having level can still be equally rewarding and fun. Because if not, then those shooter games will not be popular at all. (But here, I am not advocating a shooter game, some gaining of stats should be present, just the difference between the MAX and the MIN should not be too much different)

 

I hope I have clarified that concept.

[Tewnam]

1. Get rid of sharding, have one single world

2. Get rid of trinity, everyone is DPS OR invent new fun roles

3. Get rid of static factionalism. Everyone is same faction with the ability to form their own rival groups or have dynamic factions.

4. Get rid of levels and grinds. Introduce fun in the journey and forget about the destination. Introduce vanity, quality-of-life and title rewards for the achievement oriented players.

 

First off, no MMO will ever be as popular for WoW. A big part of WoW's success was timing and the fact that it was based on an already incredibly popular franchise. At the time, MMOs were just starting to become well-known and video games in general were becoming played by a larger audience. A generation of people that had grown up with video games were in or coming out of college and just entering the workplace and there were new generations of people starting to play.

 

The stage was set, with a large audience receptive to video games available. The time was perfect for a blockbuster hit. The key factor was a game that would appeal to everyone and Blizzard used their video game line to deliver just that. It continued to become more popular and increase in subscriptions because after the initial hit, it was simply the game to play. The number one key business decision in World of Warcraft was appeal to the masses.

 

However, by now the video game market has grown immensely, and there is a lot of variety in games available. The video game audience simply is no longer aligned to the point where a single hit will attract everyone.

 

Now, to comment on your bullets:

1. Sharding or separation of servers is simply a performance thing. There is no way to support, from either the server-side, or the client-side, a scenario with hundreds and hundreds of people in the same place at the same time. The number of objects that need to be processed and textures to be rendered is simply massive in games these days. Dark Age of Camelot could potentially have a lot of people in the same place on relic raids, but I don't know anyone who had a PC that could run one smoothly. And DAoC even had separate servers themselves.

 

Add on to that all of today's graphics and textures and additional objects and components and it simply isn't feasible for the client to do. You mention EVE online, but even their servers can barely support 2000 people in the same system, much less on the same grid. The recent burning of Jita event put that to the test, and they had to specifically tweak the servers to allow more horsepower to allow it.

 

2. The trinity is all about game design. You have no idea what you're asking for when you say to make everyone DPS. If everyone is DPS, then the variety of fight mechanics becomes very much limited. You can no longer have mobs that hit super hard because the DPS need to be able to accomodate for that. If some DPS have more healing capability than others, then they will have an easier job of handling themselves, and balance becomes far more difficult.

 

3. Factions are also about game design and lore. There is nothing inherently bad to having more or less factions, static or dynamic. One way or another, players are going to form their own groups. Having those groups built into the game from the start does not fracture the playerbase any more than not.

 

4. Leveling is all about putting time into a character and developing them and watching their progress. There's nothing bad about levels; it's simply a measure of a character's relative power. Granted, levels mean less and less in games with a level cap, but continue with equipment progression, but there it is not hurting the playerbase like you're suggesting. An RPG is about developing a character. If all characters enter the game at a point relatively equal to others, then it's no longer an RPG.

[twinionx]

This is why they had Slicing as a Crew Skill, right? I mean, it's not like the game has tons of puzzles to solve in a flashpoint/instance just to create a role specifically design to fill them in. Yes, I know Slicing is useless in its current form but I really don't think it will be a full blown class in the near future. Star Wars has a whole lot of characters which you can turn into a specific class, and much like any MMO, they will come in the future.

 

 

I think the best way to progress a character without number crunching is through crafting and gathering the needed materials to create good gear. However, I think the game will need a huge character development system overhaul to do just that.

 

Can SWTOR implement the ideas I mentioned? I doubt so. I think SWTOR can "patch" some ideas but that is the best it can do. For example, if it introduce a sort of "sidekick" system, it may allow those of different levels to play together in the same dungeon. This is a sort of pseudo no level.

 

The orange gear is already a sort of "cosmetic" gear. In fact, I sometime run low level flashpoints like black talon just to get some of the nicer gear.

 

This BH gear looks way more epic to me compared to the level 50 war hero set, IMO. The only sad thing is that it does not come in full set.

 

http://www.torhead.com/item/f0DMo5I/black-talon-hunters-body-armor#dropped-by

 

I mean, if a gear is very well designed, I don't mind "grinding" for it. To me, how my character looks far surpass how power he is.

 

Even my Jedi Consular is still wearing a level 11 Jedi Initiate Vestment because it looks epic to me.

 

So in summary, SWTOR has some capabilities to overcome those things I mentioned but unfortunately it is not it.

 

What I think SWTOR can do is to implement the TV-series story idea I mentioned. Keep churning out epic-story and epic companions. This is what made us endeared to Bioware games in the first place. Bioware should start becoming like Bioware and not like Blizzard. They are differemt companies with different culture and skills and they should leverage on their strength.