General: Column: MMOWTF: The GAME

Stradden · December 2006

Dan Fortier returns this week with his column, MMOWTF. This time out, in an article titled "The GAME", Dan takes a sarcastic look at designing his own MMORPG.

Im sick of playing other peoples crappy online games. Everyone should be able to play one game that gives them exactly what they want. Whether you prefer instant gratification or a rewarding grind we should be able have the best part of all games in a single package. I decided the only way to make this a reality was do it myself. Thats right you heard me, Im making my own game and it will appeal to everyone. Its known simply as The Greatest All-Player MMO Evah (The GAME) and Im giving you, my biggest fans and critics, a sneak peak!

You can read this article here.

the420kid · December 2006

I would like to be apart of your beta testing process for this mama jama

JackDonkey · December 2006

long ago in the days of single player someone said, I want a game where
you can rob cars, shoot people, and race around town, in those days you
had games like the driver, crazy taxi, and shooting games.
Someone went ahead and made the crazy idea and it's been the best
single player game around for a long time now, and you can fly now too
i quite enjoy just flying around and under bridges while I wait for my
pizza to get done cooking.

BlazinBlades · December 2006

This is just another WOW clone. Bring it on down now.

Jumper2k · December 2006

Can't wait for this game

Anofalye · December 2006

*giggles*

As long as the BEST groupers are groupers, I would love almost ANY game!

I dunno what is so hard for designers to grasp, peoples who want to be good at grouping, well duh, breaking news, they are groupers. Peoples who want to be good at soloing, eh, another breaking news, they are soloers! Quite simple eh? When someone who isn't grouping ask to be the best at grouping, this is like a kid asking for illogical stuff, you may grant it to them and see the results as SoE experience first hand with FoH, or you may teach them that peoples who are the best at grouping, well they group. Not play baseball, raid or vote democrat/republican, but they freaking group.

But seems to be too hard for most designers to get it. Designers are prolly peoples who fail at learning how to program anyway. So it can be safely assumed that designers are either lazy (and stop programming), stupid, downright lame or any combinaison of these!

That is quite simple, really. Yet, some peoples think that FOREIGN activities deserve better rewards, while in fact they deserve weakers rewards; from a grouping point of view. I agree that soloers doesn't deserve to be better at grouping then a grouper, however not only soloers, every non-groupers. Simple...really...BEST GROUPERS have to be GROUPERS, and nothing else but grouping can be asked from someone who just want to become the best at grouping. Offering alternate paths is cool, enforcing them is wrong (See Saga of Ryzom for referrence about this wrong logic pattern).

PS: I am a GD myself, so I can self-trash all GDs with impunity! I know first hand!

raykor · December 2006

Remember kids...CRACK IS WHACK...

Jade6 · December 2006

Trouble with genres is that scifi is idealized future, and fantasy is idealized past, so there's not much room for else.

Darkz0r · December 2006

Hehe, cool article. ;o

Looks like I will be able to kill mob X for one week...then, if the item that I needed does not drop, I can just use the seemless interface and generate it !

No more frustrations.

Myrten0881 · December 2006

Can i play the Ba'Be"Cue Po'Cair race? they would have to be cool... heat resistant and sharp! that would be cool...

Distortion0 · December 2006

Vapor!!!

But seriously, not all cars are designed for the road. Sometimes they take a concept and throw a bunch of cool features onto a 'concept car'. They'll then break these features up and slowly apply them to existing cars in mass production. This editorial could really be onto something. We really just need more skill based games though.

daetheven · December 2006

id like to be a gm in this game and fly around in a giant waffle iron with a big picture of scooby doo on it or something that might look like him, oh and can it be a neon orange with neon green dots all over it?

cthornett · December 2006

Strangely enough this game, particularly the areas, sound a lot like a text-based MUD I used to play at uni - most of the weird stuff was attributed to the mad Scandinavians. I reckon the answer is to just employ more of the nutters.

boognish75 · December 2006

Originally posted by daetheven
id like to be a gm in this game and fly around in a giant waffle iron with a big picture of scooby doo on it or something that might look like him, oh and can it be a neon orange with neon green dots all over it?

to be able todo tis you may need heat resitance and squish resists, and if not you can just filter it out anyway,

jbartley · December 2006

This was the best laugh I've had yet today. This sounds just like my kids' view on what their life should be like.

delateur · December 2006

I'm not sure if this was designed to be a laugh, or a sarcastic jab at the demands of the player base and just how unappealing such a game would be if it were actually created... Perhaps it is a bit of both? Either way, it did make me think about the idea of frustration and how it contributes to MMOGs. I realized that in some games, when things are just too darned easy, even the most interesting gameplay becomes repetitive, because there is simply no challenge. I am reminded of CoV and how, try as I might, I haven't reached 50 yet, but rather have extreme altitis that will take a character into the high 20s to high 30s, where they will then be parked to make way for a new alt. It is not because the gameplay is boring. I actually enjoy mob fighting very much in CoV, for all archetypes except the Dominator, which is, in my opinion, utterly broken for solo play (only due to their inability to solo elite bosses with purple triangles efficiently), but works quite nicely on teams. There comes a point not very long after you get single origin enhancements at 22+ where things start to become a lot easier. The risks are there, but they are far fewer and are easier to compensate for. In one way, this is great, because you do feel as though you are becoming stronger as you advance, rather than just having a fancier looking rat hunter beating down fancier looking rats that always seem to hurt you just as much as when you were level one. On the other hand, the grind starts to stand out more. Fights aren't as challenging, therefore they are less immersive, and the time to level stretches out as you advance, making each battle much less epic and thus easily dismissed as just another obstacle on the way to the next level.

One thing I would enjoy seeing more of, in CoV and all MMOGs, is something to break up the grind. I think the formula of becoming stronger as you level and having battles be trivial most of the time, with a few epic battles here and there to keep you on your toes is a good formula as you advance, while when you're starting out, you should feel a bit more fragile, but not completely outmatched. CoV does this well. What games really need is more immersive content. CoV has moved in that direction, but there is still a long way to go. Cutscenes are used infrequently at best in standard MMOG gameplay, and is usually reserved for epic battle introductions. I'd love to see more random cutscenes, added for humor, to enrich the story a bit, or just to break up the monotony of killing over and over again. The reason the "gimme" attitude exists is due in large part, I believe, to the desire to finish the game because it is so monotonous. All sense of wonder at what might happen next is removed in MMOGs because they degrade so quickly into a 90+% grindfest with the remaining 10% being not all that amazing (crafting, poorly balanced PvP (or PvP at all, for us carebears), socializing in uninteresting places trying to think of creative ways to make rude gestures with emotes not intended for that purpose, etc.).

So, Dan, I'm sad to say that I don't want to play The GAME, because it's not what I'm after. While I do like some of the ideas, I must admit my skepticism that even your creative mind has produced enough truly entertaining content (and I'm speaking of actual plotlines that I can take part in, not just varied worlds that are all distinctly different). The next great MMOG that comes along is going to address content as something integral to the playing experience, something that draws you in and welcomes you to the world, that gives you a sense of urgency in your quests and a true feeling of sadness should you fail a mission, not just because of a lost prize, but because we actually cared what happened to these computer generated personalities.

nightbird305 · December 2006

id buy it lol

Reklaw · December 2006

Great artical indeed

Afcourse no such game will be made nor will such game ever excist but i fully got the point and thats that alott of gamers (wich i like to prefure to as wanna-be gamers) would like to see such a game because most of them totaly lost their way's in what gaming should stand for and for me that's fun and entertainment, i do care about getting nice gear but does this take over my game play, not in any way, also i do not get upset when other do get the stuff (they deserve cause of the time spend getting it) i salute them and just wished i had either the patients or time to get me set for such long journy's , but i do not have to have a game that elimenates all that just because i dislike it. Maybe some day i will hookup with the right kind of groups/people to get me that stuff( something to maybe look forward too)"THE GAME" shows how lazy wanna-be gamers become, a game that pleases everyone i think is truly impossible to make, sure its possible to generate a very large player base, but forums like this show that too many people have too many different idea's on gaming.

Vrazule · December 2006

You kind of have to laugh at the whole MMO genre. The developers don't know what the hell they're doing, but they certainly like to make us think they're professionals who have "The Vision".

n2k3156 · December 2006

Man, am I the only one that finds these articles to have a complete lack of anything worthwile to say?

kabana · December 2006

You forgot that it will have the best graphics with no lag-time. Also, a toll-free number to call, or a chat room, and have someone direct you through if you get stuck (...or lonely). You can leave your character afk with a stack of commands while you go to school/work, and return to the benefit of a day of playing. If you come up with an idea or have something in The GAME you want changed, you simply contact the game dev and they will change it for you. The NPC's are real people chatting with you, 24/7, and they speak any language, even made-up ones (like elvish, or klingon). They give you better info if they like you. Real money is worthless. In fact, The GAME and any item you could ever want for THE GAME are completely free. FREE FOREVER.

Well, overall this sounds unrealistic, but really some of the ideas could be used, in some extent. At least understanding what a player's ideal game is can help them build a game that will please more players and frustrate less. Even the free part.

Great article!!!