I would like to see NPC's moving out of their little environment that was set-up for them. It would be exciting if we were able to encounter something that we were not expecting to see in that area.
Maybe a scout from a particular group of NPC's was patrolling or maybe an army of NPC's was trying to invade another's area.
We could just happen to run across them as they are making their way to their destination and perhaps be allowed to join up with them or be attacked by them, etc.
Personally, i think the same thing holding back mmo development is what is holding back the entire industry, which i think is the huge costs of development. Huge costs forcing developers to sell millions of copies to break even, forcing them to appeal to the widest audience possible, and the mmo genre is one of the biggest offenders. I think the most important innovations will be improvements in the tools used to design and make games. The most exciting games coming out seem to often be small indie games, not the multi milion dollar games.
Originally posted by ForumPvP This genre needs to die and born again and start from the basics and core elements which are now missing. Next step will be the search of those core elements,these GW2 and SWTOR´s etc helps in that because its so easy to notice what is missing and why MMORPG´s are dying. Like basic P&P session,DM doesnt tell to players what they have to do next ,it goes the way that player does whatever he wants.But in todays MMO´s ,these things doesnt ask anything ,these scripts and stories and limited character customisations and actions forces players to play like game commands them. By some weird powers from other dimension Blizzard might have given birth accidentally to something good with their phasing system,now imagine that in real time,when player does something which makes changes in the world then it changes for eveybody in the server,something unpredictable happens,like in P&P games happens all the time.
I agree, it needs to die. But as long as there are profits to be made from Cash Shops, Disposable MMOs are going to be all there is to play. Of course, it's possible the pendulum could swing the other way and developers would realize that Cash Shops don't make tons of money if people only play for a month.
Your idea may have some merit and I think all devs fantasize about just such content, but how could this actually be implemented. Please don't respond with the unhelpful: 'it's their job to figure this out" crap. Let's be productive and brain storm!
GW2 did make me laugh when i was just running around watching my xp bar move up but I wasn't doing anything. I'm guessing pretty soon they will just have you hit "ctrl auto" to let the game play itself, pretty much what they did but i still have to move my mouse around a little, what a pain
GW2 didn't change everything, nor should it be the future of the mmo genre. Sure, I enjoy GW2 alot, I rated it a 10/10. But I still recognize that its sorta the same old except it has a awesome pvp twist to it in WvW. OpenWorldPvP/Sandbox should be the future, I have not come across that quality one yet. GW2 is still number one IMO of the new releases the past 2 years. I'm playing GW2 until a new era of Sandbox mmos come out, an actual quality one. I'm getting more then my money's worth in GW2.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
It's increasingly clear that good PVP and a good PVE campaign in one single game is barely possible and never practical.
PVP is most of what justifies the existence of the mmorpg genre. It is ONLY the PVP people who need the first "m" in mmorpg, the "m" for "massively."
What a game needs for PVP appeal is a single pool of players to make PVP play available almost 24/7 for the people who are all about PVP. But putting them all on the same server is likely to be really bad for most of the rest of the players. A great example right now is Star Wars and the merges they are doing. They're consolidating servers to increase PVP appeal and it's making for a lot of unhappy PVE/story/morpg players.
PUG grouping for PVE/co-op story mode is the only other thing that kind of justifies the "massively" part of the MMORPG genre, but then again, that's just the way things are done once people are already inside the MMO model. Non-MMO online gaming has always had other ways to group up with random available people from a pool of available players.
So all over, the PVE players are everywhere being asked to accept 2nd tier priority status. Some of them want to be single players. Others want multiplayer, but all they need is one "m" multiplayer, not two "m" "massively multiplayer."
An MORPG is what RPG fans really want, not an MMORPG. "MMO's" are now a different sort of established genre.
The business side of things wants all of them to show up to the same game and pay monthly fees to the tune of $120 a year. Again, Star Wars is the perfect example because they stopped making KOTOR games to make TOR and are trying to draw in all the former KOTOR players. Competition says those days are fading fast.
It's kind of crazy how things are working out with Star Wars. Now the people who only wanted to play KOTOR 3 are going to get it for free, in effect subsidized by the MMO subscribers, and of course they'll be tempted with various pay virtual goodies.
interesting, I like your ideas and hopefully GW2 will led to the death of the quest hub raid end game MMO. I am really curious to see what lies in the future of MMO's.
I get a kick out of it anytime anyone calls a game a WoW clone when WoW was just a polished up EQ1. For me WoW was a step up from EQ1 and now GW2 is now a step up the ladder from WoW. MMO's are a evolution, and I don't expect a major revolution in any give game. Look at it like cars, we didnot go from the model T to the Mercedes S class in one step. There were lots of little inovations along the way.
GW2 borrowed a lot of it's game and consolidated tghe best parts from lots of games, however to me it is the state of the art in MMO design at the moment. I am sure in 5 years it will alos appear dated just as WoW's core gameplay design is showing it's age. The age of the end game raid design is officialy now on it;s way to extinction.
I was talking with a freind on Vent this morning, he was grinding out the dailies in SWTOR while I was running up my guardian in GW2. Him and I would always run those dailies together a month or so ago. We had a system, knew every mob by heart and the only challenge was trying to beat our best time by a few seconds. I remarked to him that after GW2 I could never play SWTOR, LoTRO etc again because I feel their design is outdated now just as WoW made seem EQ1 dated and stale.
I'm still trying to figure out what was wrong (conceptually) with EQ1? It had skill-based progression, Alternate advancement, and could control how much XP I got versus AA. Let alone tons of content but I chalk that up to time. Yes there were limitations in terms of graphics, mechanics, systems but I believe they got the core right. And many of the old faus paux have changed over the expansions making it a bit more accessible while still keeping the challenge.
I dont know about vanilla WoW but WoW today does not 'evolve' what I have in EQ1. If anything it 'devolved' Quests are insanely linear (even up to MoP). The gameplay is simplistic (compared to what I have in EQ1) and there is no real challenge (save maybe some raid content which I dont play - but would argue thats more difficulty than challenge). I would say Vanguard was more a evolution of EQ1 than WoW.
I want an updated EQ, with voice (not voice overs like SWTOR) with the AI elements discussed here in this article. Give me a world to explore and options to explore in it. I like the idea of a time stream but dont see how you could create that for a game without making it phased/instanced for each user. If when we start out our game is based on our decisions, the paths of where to go (what to show) become infinite. How do you play together in a system like that? Not saying its impossible but just a valid question to overcome.
Interesting....I hope you noticed before you bought the game that leveling to 80 is 5-10 percent of the game's content. Leveling content is outnumbered by a bunch of other stuff that are alot more fun. I hope you expected what you saw(hopefully you saw at least) of GW2 gameplay. People have unrealistic expectations or do no research at all, shows alot.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
Originally posted by GettCouped Your idea may have some merit and I think all devs fantasize about just such content, but how could this actually be implemented. Please don't respond with the unhelpful: 'it's their job to figure this out" crap. Let's be productive and brain storm!
Pay me and I'll help.
Looking at: The Repopulation Preordering: None Playing: Random Games
To those who think that hearts are no different that standard quest grinds, are you simply hopping from heart to heart? If that's how you're playing, then yes, it's not going to be a huge leap from the system that WoW popularized. However, the way I and most people I see in the world play is simply wandering into a zone and wandering around. As you explore you'll run into dynamic events and those always count towards whatever the nearest heart is.
While it's still basically quest-based, it is a more fluid and dynamic experience.
That would surely make a solid improvement on the genre..
I also have always enjoyed the wild outdoor adventures the GMs weaved more than the dungeon crawls themselves. The dungeon crawls, in fact, felt way too "gamey" to me, if that even makes sense seeing as we're talking about a "game" to begin with!
I guess what I mean by "gamey" is that they didn't have enough of a context to me, and you could see almost the insides of the system showing, the cog wheels spinning.
That's also my main problem with GW2's dynamic events. Nice change of pace from quest hubs, but to me the whole thing ends up lacking context. The quest hubs have an easier time with context. Maybe that's because they do "progression" better, which is good for stories and stories are good for (or at least a straightforward way of) providing context.
If it changed everything, which it didn't, then this first step in the right direction can still be improved upon quite a bit.
Some of the DE's just seem to repeat themselves over and over. There's certainly room for improvement there, not even mentioning bugged events. The scaling needs to be finetuned so that you don't get one-shot by a mob you were doing fine against two steps ago, just due to stepping into a lower scaled area and suddenly having to deal with a mob that is 5 levels above your level.
The events need to scale better if they affect the world enough to give problems to players entering the area for the first time.
Being pushed back by a strong current is somewhat lame as well, but you can't have everything.
Other than that few, make that no, real complaints about the game.
You keep saying GW2 changed everything. It hasn't. It may have given some new ideas for next generation games to consider (most successful games offer something ) but it has changed nothing at all. Even what it has affected won't be apparent until the next NEXT generation of games.
If it succeeds as a truly long lasting money-making venture for ANet is what will determine if other companies view it as 'the way to go' e.g. a change determining model.
GW2 brought a lot more to the adventure than most point out. Yes the dynamic events weren't all I had hoped for, but the fact that I do not have to run around and back again and around and back again to a bunch of (!) and (?) makes me very happy. The other thing that GW2 changed is a world that feels more alive than any other MMO I have played in the last 7+ years. They put more time into their random NPC voice acted chit-chat than most MMOs put into their entire quest line stories. If you play take the time to listen to the npc conversations through out the zones and cities. A lot of it even gives you some lore.
I would love to see events actually permanately change the world around me. When I adventure in the world and help to liberate a town or rescue prisoners I DO NOT want to see the same prisoners spawn right where I set them free. I know this may take some magic and creativity to accomplish, but it is not impossible to do. I want to feel like my efforts actually made a difference.
I would love to see more MMOs go the path of what Neverwinter is trying to offer the players and hopefully expand on it with the player generated content option.
But, for this gamer, GW2 changed enough to make me feel like there is more than the old and failing themepark option Blizzard keeps rehashing and spewing out to the masses.
I don't think that you asked the right question. I think in order to answer the question "What's next?" properly, we need to find the answer to the question "Who changed?" Did we the player base change? Have we outgrown our 1st love? Is that initial thrill of the genre gone from our hearts like a 1st kiss never to be experienced again? Or is it more like someone came along and smacked our beloved in the head with a "nerf bat" and now, they have suffered trauma with personality changes and they aren't the same person we once fell in love with?
If the real answer is closer to the 1st scenario, then the genre is dead, at least as we know it. But if it's the 2nd, that's easy to fix.
I don't get this article. Sorry. Sounds like you want a linear, prescripted game experience that is best left to solo RPGs. Events triggered by some personal chronology, rather than geagraphy? What?
I've been a fan of GW2 for a long time and have already logged over 330 hours since the game went live. I've been saying for months now that though I love the game and it has indeed ushered in a new era for MMO game design, the game is not perfect and there is much room to improve on the game's design and even the implimentation of the game's intended design.
You are right that time needs to factor into things, but not the way you seem to suggest. There still needs to be a world to explore with towns, villages, farms, orchards, ruins and other PoIs along the way. There should be Dynamic Content tied to locations in the world, or, tied to NPCs that live with in the world. What's missing from GW2, or at least not seen nearly often enough, is NPCs that go about a daily routine, with events that are spawned when certain NPCs happen to converge at the right place at the right time.
There needs to be more branching event chains that interact with the states of other event chains. The Dynamic Events themselves need to be more dynamic, in that the script can branch and change based on other conditions that may or may not exist at the time.
There also needs to be even more Dynamic Events off the beaten paqth that are triggered by character actions, or even just the arrival of player charcters; or, better yet, events chains that actually play out in out of the way places, whether or not players are around.
One problem with GW2 has been the number of broken events in the world. Why DEs aren't built with more state checks to autocorrect for events getting snagged is beyond me. I'm still loving the game, but the percentage of stuck event in some zones is having a very detrimental effect on the way people are able to play the game and the stcuk events seem to be training people to not bother with events that lack some clear sign, from a distance, that they are actually progressing.
Future games will need to feature more events. More events allows for more conditional events. Branching event chains that can interct with other event chains and also are altered based on some daily schedule of NPCs in the world is the future that GW2 points towards, but does not (yet) achieve.
Complex Systems are prone to "breaking down", so robust "error correction" is also going to be a necassary programming evolution for games centered around dynamic content. There needs to be programming for each event to correctly detect a "stuck" state and fix it.
The more complex the interactions, the less predictable the world becomes, which is great for players, but a bit scary for developers, who are used to always having fairly fine control over a game's content and the ways that content forces players to play. The eventual evolution is going to be an extremely dynamic world that will more often than not rpoduce events that even surprise the developers.
Comments
I would like to see NPC's moving out of their little environment that was set-up for them. It would be exciting if we were able to encounter something that we were not expecting to see in that area.
Maybe a scout from a particular group of NPC's was patrolling or maybe an army of NPC's was trying to invade another's area.
We could just happen to run across them as they are making their way to their destination and perhaps be allowed to join up with them or be attacked by them, etc.
I agree, it needs to die. But as long as there are profits to be made from Cash Shops, Disposable MMOs are going to be all there is to play. Of course, it's possible the pendulum could swing the other way and developers would realize that Cash Shops don't make tons of money if people only play for a month.
Hi Mark,
Have been following you since the first article, each one impresses me even more.
It seems the new era of MMO,or of the entire online games, is about to begin !
Now, the question is: Who is the one to open the gate of this new era?
GW 2 or Firefall ? Or others?
GW2 did make me laugh when i was just running around watching my xp bar move up but I wasn't doing anything. I'm guessing pretty soon they will just have you hit "ctrl auto" to let the game play itself, pretty much what they did but i still have to move my mouse around a little, what a pain
Peace
Lascer
Dynamic storytelling engines.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4928778#4928778
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
It's increasingly clear that good PVP and a good PVE campaign in one single game is barely possible and never practical.
PVP is most of what justifies the existence of the mmorpg genre. It is ONLY the PVP people who need the first "m" in mmorpg, the "m" for "massively."
What a game needs for PVP appeal is a single pool of players to make PVP play available almost 24/7 for the people who are all about PVP. But putting them all on the same server is likely to be really bad for most of the rest of the players. A great example right now is Star Wars and the merges they are doing. They're consolidating servers to increase PVP appeal and it's making for a lot of unhappy PVE/story/morpg players.
PUG grouping for PVE/co-op story mode is the only other thing that kind of justifies the "massively" part of the MMORPG genre, but then again, that's just the way things are done once people are already inside the MMO model. Non-MMO online gaming has always had other ways to group up with random available people from a pool of available players.
So all over, the PVE players are everywhere being asked to accept 2nd tier priority status. Some of them want to be single players. Others want multiplayer, but all they need is one "m" multiplayer, not two "m" "massively multiplayer."
An MORPG is what RPG fans really want, not an MMORPG. "MMO's" are now a different sort of established genre.
The business side of things wants all of them to show up to the same game and pay monthly fees to the tune of $120 a year. Again, Star Wars is the perfect example because they stopped making KOTOR games to make TOR and are trying to draw in all the former KOTOR players. Competition says those days are fading fast.
It's kind of crazy how things are working out with Star Wars. Now the people who only wanted to play KOTOR 3 are going to get it for free, in effect subsidized by the MMO subscribers, and of course they'll be tempted with various pay virtual goodies.
I'm still trying to figure out what was wrong (conceptually) with EQ1? It had skill-based progression, Alternate advancement, and could control how much XP I got versus AA. Let alone tons of content but I chalk that up to time. Yes there were limitations in terms of graphics, mechanics, systems but I believe they got the core right. And many of the old faus paux have changed over the expansions making it a bit more accessible while still keeping the challenge.
I dont know about vanilla WoW but WoW today does not 'evolve' what I have in EQ1. If anything it 'devolved' Quests are insanely linear (even up to MoP). The gameplay is simplistic (compared to what I have in EQ1) and there is no real challenge (save maybe some raid content which I dont play - but would argue thats more difficulty than challenge). I would say Vanguard was more a evolution of EQ1 than WoW.
I want an updated EQ, with voice (not voice overs like SWTOR) with the AI elements discussed here in this article. Give me a world to explore and options to explore in it. I like the idea of a time stream but dont see how you could create that for a game without making it phased/instanced for each user. If when we start out our game is based on our decisions, the paths of where to go (what to show) become infinite. How do you play together in a system like that? Not saying its impossible but just a valid question to overcome.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
Pay me and I'll help.
Looking at: The Repopulation
Preordering: None
Playing: Random Games
To those who think that hearts are no different that standard quest grinds, are you simply hopping from heart to heart? If that's how you're playing, then yes, it's not going to be a huge leap from the system that WoW popularized. However, the way I and most people I see in the world play is simply wandering into a zone and wandering around. As you explore you'll run into dynamic events and those always count towards whatever the nearest heart is.
While it's still basically quest-based, it is a more fluid and dynamic experience.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
GW2 didn't change anything, and showcased that their system made for a laughably worthless and easy experience that was about as rewarding as:
'Kill 10 mobs, gain 49 levels and go pvp since it's all we have in the game!!"
when it all came down to it..
That would surely make a solid improvement on the genre..
I also have always enjoyed the wild outdoor adventures the GMs weaved more than the dungeon crawls themselves. The dungeon crawls, in fact, felt way too "gamey" to me, if that even makes sense seeing as we're talking about a "game" to begin with!
I guess what I mean by "gamey" is that they didn't have enough of a context to me, and you could see almost the insides of the system showing, the cog wheels spinning.
That's also my main problem with GW2's dynamic events. Nice change of pace from quest hubs, but to me the whole thing ends up lacking context. The quest hubs have an easier time with context. Maybe that's because they do "progression" better, which is good for stories and stories are good for (or at least a straightforward way of) providing context.
If it changed everything, which it didn't, then this first step in the right direction can still be improved upon quite a bit.
Some of the DE's just seem to repeat themselves over and over. There's certainly room for improvement there, not even mentioning bugged events. The scaling needs to be finetuned so that you don't get one-shot by a mob you were doing fine against two steps ago, just due to stepping into a lower scaled area and suddenly having to deal with a mob that is 5 levels above your level.
The events need to scale better if they affect the world enough to give problems to players entering the area for the first time.
Being pushed back by a strong current is somewhat lame as well, but you can't have everything.
Other than that few, make that no, real complaints about the game.
You keep saying GW2 changed everything. It hasn't. It may have given some new ideas for next generation games to consider (most successful games offer something ) but it has changed nothing at all. Even what it has affected won't be apparent until the next NEXT generation of games.
If it succeeds as a truly long lasting money-making venture for ANet is what will determine if other companies view it as 'the way to go' e.g. a change determining model.
Personally I think the MMO genre should just give up and die.
GW2 brought a lot more to the adventure than most point out. Yes the dynamic events weren't all I had hoped for, but the fact that I do not have to run around and back again and around and back again to a bunch of (!) and (?) makes me very happy. The other thing that GW2 changed is a world that feels more alive than any other MMO I have played in the last 7+ years. They put more time into their random NPC voice acted chit-chat than most MMOs put into their entire quest line stories. If you play take the time to listen to the npc conversations through out the zones and cities. A lot of it even gives you some lore.
I would love to see events actually permanately change the world around me. When I adventure in the world and help to liberate a town or rescue prisoners I DO NOT want to see the same prisoners spawn right where I set them free. I know this may take some magic and creativity to accomplish, but it is not impossible to do. I want to feel like my efforts actually made a difference.
I would love to see more MMOs go the path of what Neverwinter is trying to offer the players and hopefully expand on it with the player generated content option.
But, for this gamer, GW2 changed enough to make me feel like there is more than the old and failing themepark option Blizzard keeps rehashing and spewing out to the masses.
I don't think that you asked the right question. I think in order to answer the question "What's next?" properly, we need to find the answer to the question "Who changed?" Did we the player base change? Have we outgrown our 1st love? Is that initial thrill of the genre gone from our hearts like a 1st kiss never to be experienced again? Or is it more like someone came along and smacked our beloved in the head with a "nerf bat" and now, they have suffered trauma with personality changes and they aren't the same person we once fell in love with?
If the real answer is closer to the 1st scenario, then the genre is dead, at least as we know it. But if it's the 2nd, that's easy to fix.
I don't get this article. Sorry. Sounds like you want a linear, prescripted game experience that is best left to solo RPGs. Events triggered by some personal chronology, rather than geagraphy? What?
I've been a fan of GW2 for a long time and have already logged over 330 hours since the game went live. I've been saying for months now that though I love the game and it has indeed ushered in a new era for MMO game design, the game is not perfect and there is much room to improve on the game's design and even the implimentation of the game's intended design.
You are right that time needs to factor into things, but not the way you seem to suggest. There still needs to be a world to explore with towns, villages, farms, orchards, ruins and other PoIs along the way. There should be Dynamic Content tied to locations in the world, or, tied to NPCs that live with in the world. What's missing from GW2, or at least not seen nearly often enough, is NPCs that go about a daily routine, with events that are spawned when certain NPCs happen to converge at the right place at the right time.
There needs to be more branching event chains that interact with the states of other event chains. The Dynamic Events themselves need to be more dynamic, in that the script can branch and change based on other conditions that may or may not exist at the time.
There also needs to be even more Dynamic Events off the beaten paqth that are triggered by character actions, or even just the arrival of player charcters; or, better yet, events chains that actually play out in out of the way places, whether or not players are around.
One problem with GW2 has been the number of broken events in the world. Why DEs aren't built with more state checks to autocorrect for events getting snagged is beyond me. I'm still loving the game, but the percentage of stuck event in some zones is having a very detrimental effect on the way people are able to play the game and the stcuk events seem to be training people to not bother with events that lack some clear sign, from a distance, that they are actually progressing.
Future games will need to feature more events. More events allows for more conditional events. Branching event chains that can interct with other event chains and also are altered based on some daily schedule of NPCs in the world is the future that GW2 points towards, but does not (yet) achieve.
Complex Systems are prone to "breaking down", so robust "error correction" is also going to be a necassary programming evolution for games centered around dynamic content. There needs to be programming for each event to correctly detect a "stuck" state and fix it.
The more complex the interactions, the less predictable the world becomes, which is great for players, but a bit scary for developers, who are used to always having fairly fine control over a game's content and the ways that content forces players to play. The eventual evolution is going to be an extremely dynamic world that will more often than not rpoduce events that even surprise the developers.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I love your posts Ref !
In case anyone was curious, one of our designers describes a little bit of what Firefall is trying to do to advance dynamic events:
http://www.firefallthegame.com/2012/09/27/developer-blog-creating-dynamic-world-events/
- Mark Kern
Follow me on <a href="https://twitter.com/grummz">Twitter: @Grummz<;/a>