I'd like to believe that in the future someone will be able to pull of an openworld content generator. Think minecraft sized exploration combined with an amazing visual engine.
Randomly generated content that is as good as hand-generated content, or at least not all that much worse than hand-generated content, is the holy grail of MMORPG game design.
It's actually a rather stupid thing for an AAA game to even try, as if you try and fail, your whole game is garbage. An indie game could try it on a smaller budget as a way to avoid having to hand-design massive amounts of content.
Generally that is not how major innovations are created. The random generated content engin would be developed without a game attached to it and then after it was made to work well a AAA game would be built on top of the new technology.
And how can you tell if the engine works well if there isn't a game attached? What the engine needs to do would depend very strongly on many intricate details of the game. It would have to be greatly customized for the game that you're trying to make.
For example, you'd have to pick art assets from among the art assets that you have available--and you don't have them all available until the bulk of the game is mostly done. What the engine can do and needs to do depends very strongly on the details of your particular art assets. Mashing a bunch of random artwork together will give you massive amounts of artifacting, including both places where the depth buffer can't tell which of two things is closer due to rounding errors so it flashes between the two erratically, and also holes in the ground that you can see the sky through. You could maybe get away with a lot more of the entire game is off in space and all of the objects are space debris that doesn't interact with any other object in the game.
Originally posted by Scot Random 'zone' generation can be done well, look at Elite. But I am not sure how easy it would be to apply those principles to a MMO.
I haven't played Elite. But how "random" did the zones seem the tenth time you rolled one? The hundredth? The thousandth? From the release date (1984), I'm guessing that the game only had a handful of objects but placed them randomly to create a zone. Seeing the same few objects a huge number of times in a row is going to get awfully repetitive.
I get the idea of walking through something, but there has to be a starting point. You have to at least have an idea to start with so that you have something to walk through.
Instanced or Open? If Open, are zones laid out in a Checkerboard Pattern or using Hexagons? Designed, Procedurally Generated or a Mix? If Designed, does an Open Zone system make sense at all? For that matter, how big will the zones be?
None of this ignores what the OP wants. It is possible to procedurally generate a zone with ruins, fortresses, hidden tunnels, underground rivers and secret caches of stuff for rewards. It's perfectly reasonable to think that later additions can be made so the future content created procedurally will be new. It's also reasonable to think that you could have a main puzzle, that once solved locks the zone for any future changes and builds a fast travel system through that zone. Even better, you could have the player own that zone, perhaps leading to some sort of PvP system for keeping or taking land.
You would run into issues with repetition in the exploration. This is a big issue with Minecraft. Yes, it generates new stuff, but all the new stuff looks like all the old stuff, just in a slightly different layout. You don't want the same fortress popping up in two or three different zones. Something needs to be done to procedurally modify the fortresses in each zone. Some of the traps in the fortress might be the same, but the layouts need to vary somewhat. The developer is still going to be doing work generating new puzzles to add to the system. It's not going to be a build it once and forget it kind of thing.
It may or may not be reasonable to expect that this type of thing would fulfill the needs to players who constantly want new content, but it's not unreasonable to think that a certain kind of content can be generated procedurally. It would be unreasonable to think the developer could start it running and then never update it. Players would just as quickly exhaust the available content, just as they do now. It might be reasonable to think a developer could add new types of content to a system that generates zones procedurally.
I apologize for coming across iritated. If I seem cranky it wasn't intended and definitely wasn't directed at you. I still think you're missing the point here. Yes, that terrain and those things can be generated. I never said content couldn't be generated procedurally. You can definitely minimize repetition and create a realistic environment. It can make for an amazing single player experience. However, it is a massive nightmare to try to do that in a persistent state multiplayer environment.
You're not taking the ongoing multiplayer experience into account.
Have you played GW2? If so, look at the dynamic content and think of how you would change it. Now plug those changes into GW2. How do those changes affect the persistent world? How do those changes affect players that arrive an hour later? a day later? at different steps of the story?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
So then we're looking at either phased content or instanced content, correct?
Not necessarily.
If you have a good way to randomly generate a zone, then you could make it instanced, where you go to the entrance of the random zone generator, it creates a zone for you, and you have your own instanced zone to explore.
Or if a million different random seeds will give you a million substantially different zones, you could make an enormous open world with those million different zones stitched together. Or billion.
Storage space for those million zones actually isn't a problem, as the server would only need to store a million random seeds, not the full data for a million completely built zones. A random seed will likely be 4 or 8 bytes, so even a billion zones wouldn't be much of a burden on server storage. It would only have to load into memory zones that actually have someone in or near them, which is no worse than it would be if it were completely instanced. The client wouldn't have to contain any zones at all, but the server could send a random seed to players as they get close.
The hard part is how to come up with a good way to randomly generate a zone.
Ya think?
So, to recap your post, it wouldn't necessarily be instanced, just instanced. And storage would be only 4 to 8 bytes per zone, because we never plan on having the person return to this zone, alter this zone or share this zone with others.
Guys, walk through these things at least once, not as a one-off single-player snapshot but as a multiplayer persistent environment.
Who says the person can't return to the zone? If you leave an area and then come back a month later, it generates exactly the same zone from the same random seed. If two people come to the same place at the same time, they can see and interact with each other just like in any other open world game. Or five or ten or twenty or fifty or whatever. It doesn't matter if they're grouped; it's an open world and everyone is in the same "instance" of a given zone.
Now, if you want to let players greatly modify the zone, then things get a lot harder. But really, how many MMORPGs let players modify the game world?
Originally posted by Quizzical Originally posted by ScotRandom 'zone' generation can be done well, look at Elite. But I am not sure how easy it would be to apply those principles to a MMO.
I haven't played Elite. But how "random" did the zones seem the tenth time you rolled one? The hundredth? The thousandth? From the release date (1984), I'm guessing that the game only had a handful of objects but placed them randomly to create a zone. Seeing the same few objects a huge number of times in a row is going to get awfully repetitive.
I think for that to work, the developer would have to continually add new objects that could appear in the landscape. What you could add would still be limited by how the system generates the terrain and adds objects. They are doing this kind of thing with TerrainControl on some Minecraft servers. Instead of the usual terrain, there are structures, funky trees and dungeon like things out in the world. It's not real simple though...it takes a month or more to setup a new set of parameters and objects to generate a new zone. So it might be easier, but easier is relative. It could just be a different kind of hard to make procedurally generated content interesting.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by lizardbones Dang, you seem kind of cranky today. I get the idea of walking through something, but there has to be a starting point. You have to at least have an idea to start with so that you have something to walk through. Instanced or Open? If Open, are zones laid out in a Checkerboard Pattern or using Hexagons? Designed, Procedurally Generated or a Mix? If Designed, does an Open Zone system make sense at all? For that matter, how big will the zones be? None of this ignores what the OP wants. It is possible to procedurally generate a zone with ruins, fortresses, hidden tunnels, underground rivers and secret caches of stuff for rewards. It's perfectly reasonable to think that later additions can be made so the future content created procedurally will be new. It's also reasonable to think that you could have a main puzzle, that once solved locks the zone for any future changes and builds a fast travel system through that zone. Even better, you could have the player own that zone, perhaps leading to some sort of PvP system for keeping or taking land. You would run into issues with repetition in the exploration. This is a big issue with Minecraft. Yes, it generates new stuff, but all the new stuff looks like all the old stuff, just in a slightly different layout. You don't want the same fortress popping up in two or three different zones. Something needs to be done to procedurally modify the fortresses in each zone. Some of the traps in the fortress might be the same, but the layouts need to vary somewhat. The developer is still going to be doing work generating new puzzles to add to the system. It's not going to be a build it once and forget it kind of thing. It may or may not be reasonable to expect that this type of thing would fulfill the needs to players who constantly want new content, but it's not unreasonable to think that a certain kind of content can be generated procedurally. It would be unreasonable to think the developer could start it running and then never update it. Players would just as quickly exhaust the available content, just as they do now. It might be reasonable to think a developer could add new types of content to a system that generates zones procedurally.
I apologize for coming across iritated. If I seem cranky it wasn't intended and definitely wasn't directed at you. I still think you're missing the point here. Yes, that terrain and those things can be generated. I never said content couldn't be generated procedurally. Yes, you can avoid repetition and create a realistic environment. Yes, it can make for an amazing single player experience. However, it is a massive nightmare to try to do that in a persistent state multiplayer environment.
You're not taking the ongoing player experience into account.
No offense taken, truly. It's all good. :-) You did change your avatar though and it has thrown me off a couple times.
The multiplayer experience would be handled in the choice between making instanced zones or open zones.
If the content is instanced, it's pretty easy. It would be a lot like current dungeons and raids work now. Players would go to the entrance, or queue up and go.
If open zones are the choice, then as players move through the area, new zones are added at the edge of existing zones. As the puzzles are completed, zones gain a fast travel system, so that players aren't walking through 100 "cleared" zones to get to new territory. Maybe give players the ability to own the generated zones and fight over ownership of zones.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If the content is instanced, it's pretty easy. It would be a lot like current dungeons and raids work now. Players would go to the entrance, or queue up and go.
That's how this part of the conversation started. I presented that it would require phased or instanced content to do what the OP wanted. Quizzical then went on about procedurally generated terrain. There's a lot more to world building and game design - especially, one with features the OP is suggesting - than the randomized content and the map it all sits on.
If open zones are the choice, then as players move through the area, new zones are added at the edge of existing zones. As the puzzles are completed, zones gain a fast travel system, so that players aren't walking through 100 "cleared" zones to get to new territory. Maybe give players the ability to own the generated zones and fight over ownership of zones.
But at that point, aren't you getting into a disjointed patch of levels in some puzzle game and moving further away from the OP's interest in exploring a world?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The reason Minecraft works is not because each and every seed and world is all that different from each and every other world and seed.
There is a VERY finite number of biomes, a very finite number of mobs/NPCs, and very well defined/structured "rules" in terms of geographical layout.
You could make 100 or 1000 worlds using the same seed or even radically different seeds and the variation in your world wouldn't be as severe as many think it would be.
What makes the experience infinite is how you the player is allowed to interact with it.
It's like legos - the answer to "how to keep people playing legos" isn't just "add more pieces" it really comes down to how much you can do with those pieces in the first place.
That is why Minecraft works.
The keys to making it work in the MMO space are:
1) Giving players reason to work together
2) Giving players reason to continue to populate an area instead of just using/destroying what's there and moving on to the next area
3) Give players reason to compete with each other over resources
4) Give players reason to explore for additional resources and spread out
5) Create interdependance so spreading out TOO far is discouraged
6) Very limited "fast travel" options
You could then in theory create a world the COULD potentially expand infinitly by generating new geography as players expand outward (and meshing/stitching together biomes)
but keep the expansion controlled by creating reason to stop marching outwards and build, reason to stay and defend what you've built, obstacles to overcome before you can expand further. etc.
Exploration is not the answer. You will never be able to create enough interesting landscape for players to explore. Now you can procedurally create some terrain, but that will be big generic empty places .. not fun to explore at all.
The best alternative is probably something like an infinitely generated dungeon with more and more challenging mobs and bosses.
The layout will still feel generic, but the gameplay is not to "see" new places, but to fight harder and harder mobs. Something which is found to have long lasting gaming value.
Exploration is not the answer. You will never be able to create enough interesting landscape for players to explore. Now you can procedurally create some terrain, but that will be big generic empty places .. not fun to explore at all.
Why does most exploration happen IRL (and I'm thinking of back in the day like "Age of Exploration" discovering America and shit)?
1. To make money.
2. To get away from bad people.
Most explorers despite what history may say didn't have that glimmer in their eye and that love/desire to simply reach out and touch the unknown.
Most explorers saught new trade routes, new sources of exploitable indeginuous peoples, and new resources.
Or they were people fleeing from oppression and injustice that packed up and left seeking some distance and a space to call their own.
That's how you make it "work" in a MMO - especially with procedurally generated landscape/content.
It gives people reason to explore, reason to stop and set up shop, reason to defend their camp, reason to attack the other guys camp, and then reason to get away from all of that and find a new place.
Exploration is not the answer. You will never be able to create enough interesting landscape for players to explore. Now you can procedurally create some terrain, but that will be big generic empty places .. not fun to explore at all.
Why does most exploration happen IRL (and I'm thinking of back in the day like "Age of Exploration" discovering America and shit)?
1. To make money.
2. To get away from bad people.
Most explorers despite what history may say didn't have that glimmer in their eye and that love/desire to simply reach out and touch the unknown.
Most explorers saught new trade routes, new sources of exploitable indeginuous peoples, and new resources.
Or they were people fleeing from oppression and injustice that packed up and left seeking some distance and a space to call their own.
That's how you make it "work" in a MMO - especially with procedurally generated landscape/content.
It gives people reason to explore, reason to stop and set up shop, reason to defend their camp, reason to attack the other guys camp, and then reason to get away from all of that and find a new place.
The "exploring to make money" idea would not be very different than an infintie dungeon, except for the combat part. In fact, it would be more fun to throw in combat. Looking at generic landscape is not fun at all, even if there is a random treasure chest every 2 miles.
The "escape" from bad people idea is difficult in a MMO. In a MMO, you don't want to run away. You want to confront and defeat the bad people. So i doubt that will work.
The "exploring to make money" idea would not be very different than an infintie dungeon, except for the combat part. In fact, it would be more fun to throw in combat. Looking at generic landscape is not fun at all, even if there is a random treasure chest every 2 miles.
The "escape" from bad people idea is difficult in a MMO. In a MMO, you don't want to run away. You want to confront and defeat the bad people. So i doubt that will work.
Why does exploration need to be about combat? Why not make combat something that happens when you aren't able to get around mobs without fighting them on the way to where you're going? Why not make the good loot from exploration something that is found laying on the ground, rather than dropped by mobs?
Like raiding and any other forms of content that utilyze multipel groups of individuals a zone such as this would never work because it would never see action. The massive data bears out that players do not like group content unless it rewarded items greater then any other form of content.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
The "exploring to make money" idea would not be very different than an infintie dungeon, except for the combat part. In fact, it would be more fun to throw in combat. Looking at generic landscape is not fun at all, even if there is a random treasure chest every 2 miles.
The "escape" from bad people idea is difficult in a MMO. In a MMO, you don't want to run away. You want to confront and defeat the bad people. So i doubt that will work.
Why does exploration need to be about combat? Why not make combat something that happens when you aren't able to get around mobs without fighting them on the way to where you're going? Why not make the good loot from exploration something that is found laying on the ground, rather than dropped by mobs?
Because just looking at stuff .. unless you dump nice art resource into .. is boring.
Now .. making avoid mob a gameplay element is fine (essentially stealth). But again stealth is not exploration. Either combat or stealth is fine with me, although i think both are better down in dungeons because there will be walls, and other terrain features to enhance either combat or steath mechanics.
The "exploring to make money" idea would not be very different than an infintie dungeon, except for the combat part. In fact, it would be more fun to throw in combat. Looking at generic landscape is not fun at all, even if there is a random treasure chest every 2 miles.
The "escape" from bad people idea is difficult in a MMO. In a MMO, you don't want to run away. You want to confront and defeat the bad people. So i doubt that will work.
Why does exploration need to be about combat? Why not make combat something that happens when you aren't able to get around mobs without fighting them on the way to where you're going? Why not make the good loot from exploration something that is found laying on the ground, rather than dropped by mobs?
I was more thinking the "good loot" is the mountain full of precious metals you find and then have to build your camp and dig your mining shafts/tunnels and then defend them from raiders and clear out the monsters you find in the dark caverns so you can keep gathering your minerals to create better weapons and armor and fortify your camp into a fort into a walled city etc. etc. etc.
The good loot is IN the ground, after all
The "treasure" is what you use to make the stuff you need.
The reason to fight is to keep your control of the treasures.
The reason to "escape" for the bad people is find additional sources of resources instead of having to fight to take over one someone else has already claimed.
But because you can't just teleport around all across the world you can really only explore out so far before you're "off the map" enough if you get into a tight spot you have no chance of making it work - and no one to trade with even if you are successful.
The "civilized world" expands as far as their are players willing to find something versus those more interested in fighting over and/or working with what's already established.
I was more thinking the "good loot" is the mountain full of precious metals you find and then have to build your camp and dig your mining shafts/tunnels and then defend them from raiders and clear out the monsters you find in the dark caverns so you can keep gathering your minerals to create better weapons and armor and fortify your camp into a fort into a walled city etc. etc. etc.
The good loot is IN the ground, after all
The "treasure" is what you use to make the stuff you need.
The reason to fight is to keep your control of the treasures.
The reason to "escape" for the bad people is find additional sources of resources instead of having to fight to take over one someone else has already claimed.
But because you can't just teleport around all across the world you can really only explore out so far before you're "off the map" enough if you get into a tight spot you have no chance of making it work - and no one to trade with even if you are successful.
The "civilized world" expands as far as their are players willing to find something versus those more interested in fighting over and/or working with what's already established.
I want to subscribe to your newsletter, sir.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I was more thinking the "good loot" is the mountain full of precious metals you find and then have to build your camp and dig your mining shafts/tunnels and then defend them from raiders and clear out the monsters you find in the dark caverns so you can keep gathering your minerals to create better weapons and armor and fortify your camp into a fort into a walled city etc. etc. etc.
The good loot is IN the ground, after all
The "treasure" is what you use to make the stuff you need.
The reason to fight is to keep your control of the treasures.
The reason to "escape" for the bad people is find additional sources of resources instead of having to fight to take over one someone else has already claimed.
But because you can't just teleport around all across the world you can really only explore out so far before you're "off the map" enough if you get into a tight spot you have no chance of making it work - and no one to trade with even if you are successful.
The "civilized world" expands as far as their are players willing to find something versus those more interested in fighting over and/or working with what's already established.
Then teh fun gameplay is to set up camp and defend it. The "exploring and finding it" part is just filler, and non-fun. Why not just skip the exploring, and go to the defending part?
And who say you cannot teleport? It is a game. Anything can happen. I bet (at least for me) it will be more fun to add a button to say "hit this and you will be teleport to teh new depsoite, and now you job is to set up camp and defend".
You only have X amount of time to "get ready" and defend yourself before the night comes and the world gets a whole lot more dangerous.
Would work in a MMO too - used to be that way in the classic MMOs.
You could spend the day exploring and pushing the boundries of the "known game world" but you don't stop and set up camp or find a safe place to hide/log out before night comes you are in real DANGER and if you're "off the grid" a death means going allll the way back to where you started your exploration adventure.
These kinds of mechanics WORK and could be put into a MMO environment.
Ultimately, I think that in order to make random content work, you need a lot of stuff to be player-generated. The trick is to do this without giving players ways to unbalance things.
Suppose that you had a highly versatile character-creation system, both in graphics and in function. And then part of the terms of services agreement is that the game can take your character and use it for monsters that you fight out in the game world. If you can get players to make a huge variety of characters, then now you've got a huge variety of monsters for players to go fight. While it could be disturbing to fight your doppleganger, imagine if there were multiple servers and characters created on one server could only appear as monsters on other servers.
Now, a company may need to filter this somewhat, and not stick everything that players create into the game world. But a ten second look at what a player has done for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down is a lot faster than the half an hour that it took the player to create and customize his character.
Then teh fun gameplay is to set up camp and defend it. The "exploring and finding it" part is just filler, and non-fun. Why not just skip the exploring, and go to the defending part?
And who say you cannot teleport? It is a game. Anything can happen. I bet (at least for me) it will be more fun to add a button to say "hit this and you will be teleport to teh new depsoite, and now you job is to set up camp and defend".
You ever played Minecraft?
One of the best parts is digging through a wall and all of a sudden "BAM" a wide open cavern FILLED with monsters and precious metals.
Securing it from danger and building the neccessary utility to fully explore and mine out the area is a hell of a lot of fun too.
But in a MMO, the resources wouldn't be "one and done" as they are in Minecraft.
They'd be more like resources nodes are in MMOs - they respawn.
Hell a big part of the gameplay could be creating the tools/facilities and then STAFFING them with players/NPCs in order to gather resources at the highest possible rate.
Like if a particular resource area has a gather rate of 10 unit per minute you'd need the facilities, tools, and personel to gather at 10 units per minute which would require skill levels of X and / or level Y in that Trade etc. etc.
And you'd have reason to defend your investment into the area and continue to build it up.
That right there serves as a limiting factors to the exploration elements, and creates "content" just by giving you, the player, resources to gather and the tools to gather them and build infrastructure to maintain them and increase efficiency.
I'd love an ever-changing, ever-expanding world. Even if I couldn't impact change that much myself, just the idea of a game world changing in some way makes the explorer in me happy. At this point, I want my MMO experience to be as unpredictable as possible!
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Ultimately, I think that in order to make random content work, you need a lot of stuff to be player-generated. The trick is to do this without giving players ways to unbalance things.
Yeah, that's really what it comes down to.
Random generated without player made means repeatable missions and such like we've seen in SWG, EvE, and they do get super boring for most people after a time.
But the answer to longevity IS always going to be "other people" but the big problem I think is that most if not all sandboxes have really only explored the possibilities of giving us access to "other people" by poking them with a sharp stick or shooting at them.
Cooperative sandbox elements are of PARAMOUNT importance, and that aspect of sandbox has been VASTLY underdeveloped.
I'm all for exploration, but going somewhere just for xp or hopping around in the air on blocks to do puzzles is not my idea of exploration. There were plenty of places to explore in games like Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, and Dark Age of Camelot, that was part of the fun, roaming about and seeing areas off the beaten path you hadn't seen before, I didn't need a reward for finding it, the reward was finding those wonderful places.
Most of the time in the MMO world these days if you see another players it's all about "what can this person do for me?"
the next step of evolution in this genre is going to be a game where people start thinking "OK, what can we do for each other?"
But how do you get there?
I think exploration and discovery only goes so far - you have to have reason to work together and build together - and unless you are the rare couple % of people that want to climb the mountain just because it's there, people need reason to climb it.
Originally posted by Tayah I'm all for exploration, but going somewhere just for xp or hopping around in the air on blocks to do puzzles is not my idea of exploration. There were plenty of places to explore in games like Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, and Dark Age of Camelot, that was part of the fun, roaming about and seeing areas off the beaten path you hadn't seen before, I didn't need a reward for finding it, the reward was finding those wonderful places.
Well, back then worlds were built not just zones.
MMOs designed with zones will always be checklists to complete when talking about "exploration."
Comments
And how can you tell if the engine works well if there isn't a game attached? What the engine needs to do would depend very strongly on many intricate details of the game. It would have to be greatly customized for the game that you're trying to make.
For example, you'd have to pick art assets from among the art assets that you have available--and you don't have them all available until the bulk of the game is mostly done. What the engine can do and needs to do depends very strongly on the details of your particular art assets. Mashing a bunch of random artwork together will give you massive amounts of artifacting, including both places where the depth buffer can't tell which of two things is closer due to rounding errors so it flashes between the two erratically, and also holes in the ground that you can see the sky through. You could maybe get away with a lot more of the entire game is off in space and all of the objects are space debris that doesn't interact with any other object in the game.
I haven't played Elite. But how "random" did the zones seem the tenth time you rolled one? The hundredth? The thousandth? From the release date (1984), I'm guessing that the game only had a handful of objects but placed them randomly to create a zone. Seeing the same few objects a huge number of times in a row is going to get awfully repetitive.
I apologize for coming across iritated. If I seem cranky it wasn't intended and definitely wasn't directed at you. I still think you're missing the point here. Yes, that terrain and those things can be generated. I never said content couldn't be generated procedurally. You can definitely minimize repetition and create a realistic environment. It can make for an amazing single player experience. However, it is a massive nightmare to try to do that in a persistent state multiplayer environment.
You're not taking the ongoing multiplayer experience into account.
Have you played GW2? If so, look at the dynamic content and think of how you would change it. Now plug those changes into GW2. How do those changes affect the persistent world? How do those changes affect players that arrive an hour later? a day later? at different steps of the story?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Who says the person can't return to the zone? If you leave an area and then come back a month later, it generates exactly the same zone from the same random seed. If two people come to the same place at the same time, they can see and interact with each other just like in any other open world game. Or five or ten or twenty or fifty or whatever. It doesn't matter if they're grouped; it's an open world and everyone is in the same "instance" of a given zone.
Now, if you want to let players greatly modify the zone, then things get a lot harder. But really, how many MMORPGs let players modify the game world?
I think for that to work, the developer would have to continually add new objects that could appear in the landscape. What you could add would still be limited by how the system generates the terrain and adds objects. They are doing this kind of thing with TerrainControl on some Minecraft servers. Instead of the usual terrain, there are structures, funky trees and dungeon like things out in the world. It's not real simple though...it takes a month or more to setup a new set of parameters and objects to generate a new zone. So it might be easier, but easier is relative. It could just be a different kind of hard to make procedurally generated content interesting.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You're not taking the ongoing player experience into account.
No offense taken, truly. It's all good. :-) You did change your avatar though and it has thrown me off a couple times.
The multiplayer experience would be handled in the choice between making instanced zones or open zones.
If the content is instanced, it's pretty easy. It would be a lot like current dungeons and raids work now. Players would go to the entrance, or queue up and go.
If open zones are the choice, then as players move through the area, new zones are added at the edge of existing zones. As the puzzles are completed, zones gain a fast travel system, so that players aren't walking through 100 "cleared" zones to get to new territory. Maybe give players the ability to own the generated zones and fight over ownership of zones.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The reason Minecraft works is not because each and every seed and world is all that different from each and every other world and seed.
There is a VERY finite number of biomes, a very finite number of mobs/NPCs, and very well defined/structured "rules" in terms of geographical layout.
You could make 100 or 1000 worlds using the same seed or even radically different seeds and the variation in your world wouldn't be as severe as many think it would be.
What makes the experience infinite is how you the player is allowed to interact with it.
It's like legos - the answer to "how to keep people playing legos" isn't just "add more pieces" it really comes down to how much you can do with those pieces in the first place.
That is why Minecraft works.
The keys to making it work in the MMO space are:
1) Giving players reason to work together
2) Giving players reason to continue to populate an area instead of just using/destroying what's there and moving on to the next area
3) Give players reason to compete with each other over resources
4) Give players reason to explore for additional resources and spread out
5) Create interdependance so spreading out TOO far is discouraged
6) Very limited "fast travel" options
You could then in theory create a world the COULD potentially expand infinitly by generating new geography as players expand outward (and meshing/stitching together biomes)
but keep the expansion controlled by creating reason to stop marching outwards and build, reason to stay and defend what you've built, obstacles to overcome before you can expand further. etc.
Exploration is not the answer. You will never be able to create enough interesting landscape for players to explore. Now you can procedurally create some terrain, but that will be big generic empty places .. not fun to explore at all.
The best alternative is probably something like an infinitely generated dungeon with more and more challenging mobs and bosses.
The layout will still feel generic, but the gameplay is not to "see" new places, but to fight harder and harder mobs. Something which is found to have long lasting gaming value.
Why does most exploration happen IRL (and I'm thinking of back in the day like "Age of Exploration" discovering America and shit)?
1. To make money.
2. To get away from bad people.
Most explorers despite what history may say didn't have that glimmer in their eye and that love/desire to simply reach out and touch the unknown.
Most explorers saught new trade routes, new sources of exploitable indeginuous peoples, and new resources.
Or they were people fleeing from oppression and injustice that packed up and left seeking some distance and a space to call their own.
That's how you make it "work" in a MMO - especially with procedurally generated landscape/content.
It gives people reason to explore, reason to stop and set up shop, reason to defend their camp, reason to attack the other guys camp, and then reason to get away from all of that and find a new place.
The "exploring to make money" idea would not be very different than an infintie dungeon, except for the combat part. In fact, it would be more fun to throw in combat. Looking at generic landscape is not fun at all, even if there is a random treasure chest every 2 miles.
The "escape" from bad people idea is difficult in a MMO. In a MMO, you don't want to run away. You want to confront and defeat the bad people. So i doubt that will work.
Why does exploration need to be about combat? Why not make combat something that happens when you aren't able to get around mobs without fighting them on the way to where you're going? Why not make the good loot from exploration something that is found laying on the ground, rather than dropped by mobs?
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Because just looking at stuff .. unless you dump nice art resource into .. is boring.
Now .. making avoid mob a gameplay element is fine (essentially stealth). But again stealth is not exploration. Either combat or stealth is fine with me, although i think both are better down in dungeons because there will be walls, and other terrain features to enhance either combat or steath mechanics.
I was more thinking the "good loot" is the mountain full of precious metals you find and then have to build your camp and dig your mining shafts/tunnels and then defend them from raiders and clear out the monsters you find in the dark caverns so you can keep gathering your minerals to create better weapons and armor and fortify your camp into a fort into a walled city etc. etc. etc.
The good loot is IN the ground, after all
The "treasure" is what you use to make the stuff you need.
The reason to fight is to keep your control of the treasures.
The reason to "escape" for the bad people is find additional sources of resources instead of having to fight to take over one someone else has already claimed.
But because you can't just teleport around all across the world you can really only explore out so far before you're "off the map" enough if you get into a tight spot you have no chance of making it work - and no one to trade with even if you are successful.
The "civilized world" expands as far as their are players willing to find something versus those more interested in fighting over and/or working with what's already established.
I want to subscribe to your newsletter, sir.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Then teh fun gameplay is to set up camp and defend it. The "exploring and finding it" part is just filler, and non-fun. Why not just skip the exploring, and go to the defending part?
And who say you cannot teleport? It is a game. Anything can happen. I bet (at least for me) it will be more fun to add a button to say "hit this and you will be teleport to teh new depsoite, and now you job is to set up camp and defend".
Oh and another reason why Minecraft works?
Night and day.
You only have X amount of time to "get ready" and defend yourself before the night comes and the world gets a whole lot more dangerous.
Would work in a MMO too - used to be that way in the classic MMOs.
You could spend the day exploring and pushing the boundries of the "known game world" but you don't stop and set up camp or find a safe place to hide/log out before night comes you are in real DANGER and if you're "off the grid" a death means going allll the way back to where you started your exploration adventure.
These kinds of mechanics WORK and could be put into a MMO environment.
Ultimately, I think that in order to make random content work, you need a lot of stuff to be player-generated. The trick is to do this without giving players ways to unbalance things.
Suppose that you had a highly versatile character-creation system, both in graphics and in function. And then part of the terms of services agreement is that the game can take your character and use it for monsters that you fight out in the game world. If you can get players to make a huge variety of characters, then now you've got a huge variety of monsters for players to go fight. While it could be disturbing to fight your doppleganger, imagine if there were multiple servers and characters created on one server could only appear as monsters on other servers.
Now, a company may need to filter this somewhat, and not stick everything that players create into the game world. But a ten second look at what a player has done for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down is a lot faster than the half an hour that it took the player to create and customize his character.
You ever played Minecraft?
One of the best parts is digging through a wall and all of a sudden "BAM" a wide open cavern FILLED with monsters and precious metals.
Securing it from danger and building the neccessary utility to fully explore and mine out the area is a hell of a lot of fun too.
But in a MMO, the resources wouldn't be "one and done" as they are in Minecraft.
They'd be more like resources nodes are in MMOs - they respawn.
Hell a big part of the gameplay could be creating the tools/facilities and then STAFFING them with players/NPCs in order to gather resources at the highest possible rate.
Like if a particular resource area has a gather rate of 10 unit per minute you'd need the facilities, tools, and personel to gather at 10 units per minute which would require skill levels of X and / or level Y in that Trade etc. etc.
And you'd have reason to defend your investment into the area and continue to build it up.
That right there serves as a limiting factors to the exploration elements, and creates "content" just by giving you, the player, resources to gather and the tools to gather them and build infrastructure to maintain them and increase efficiency.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
Yeah, that's really what it comes down to.
Random generated without player made means repeatable missions and such like we've seen in SWG, EvE, and they do get super boring for most people after a time.
But the answer to longevity IS always going to be "other people" but the big problem I think is that most if not all sandboxes have really only explored the possibilities of giving us access to "other people" by poking them with a sharp stick or shooting at them.
Cooperative sandbox elements are of PARAMOUNT importance, and that aspect of sandbox has been VASTLY underdeveloped.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
Most of the time in the MMO world these days if you see another players it's all about "what can this person do for me?"
the next step of evolution in this genre is going to be a game where people start thinking "OK, what can we do for each other?"
But how do you get there?
I think exploration and discovery only goes so far - you have to have reason to work together and build together - and unless you are the rare couple % of people that want to climb the mountain just because it's there, people need reason to climb it.
Well, back then worlds were built not just zones.
MMOs designed with zones will always be checklists to complete when talking about "exploration."