To me, this seems the most like a sandbox than any other definition. It makes more sense that in a vast world, you wouldn't be "the hero". You could help shape the world, but still be just a person. You could get well known and popular by doing heroic things and eventually become a local hero maybe.
I think I'd much rather play a game where I'm not the hero. Reminds me of the original MMOs like UO and EQ. Nobody gave a fark who you were until you helped them out of a bind.
When I first got on the internet back in the late 90s my whole reason was to play a tavern keeper in UO after reading about it in Next Gen magazine. While I never did get around to playing UO, there has always been a part of me that wanted to play an ordinary shopkeeper in an MMO, so yeah, given the right MMO I wouldn't mind being an ordinary character.
I just wish we could get away from MMO's that have preset stories.. I just want to be whatever character I play, (good or bad) and I I don't want to see a slew of NPC's with ? over their heads.. The only thing I would happy with are turn in rewards for faction, xp and coin only, and then maybe epic type questlines similar to what EQ1 did..
every game is structured nowdays i think so everyone, no matter how geared is ordinary, because its only a matter of time / cash to get what you want, asal
Originally posted by madazz In UO you were normal. Everyone had the same capabilities and no one was the Avatar or hero.
That is why U6 is a much better game than UO. Instead of doing the mundane (mostly being griefed by PKers), in U6, you actually get to deal with one of the best story lines in RPG history.
The laws of relativity apply even to MMOs. No one wants to "play" ordinary. Even the ones that respond that way I think really just want everyone else to be ordinary so they, relatively speaking, have the opportunity to be extra-ordinary. The ideal situation that would serve all players is one where everyone "believed" they were extraordinary while also "believing" all other non NPCs were ordinary. To turn this conversation a little more philosophical, Achievement seems to be huge part of the genre for most here. Also Achievement seems to only be measurable as a ratio to the success and achievement of other "real" players in the game. Meaning that a given accomplishment is only meaningful if other people haven't achieved the same.
This of course creates a huge almost paradoxical design issue. As a game designer you want to create achievements that only a small number of people can accomplish but doing so leaves a large number (the players that didn't accomplish it) without a feeling of accomplishment. One solution (if we could design it) would be to have people accomplish different things in parallel. However without specific mechanics to prevent cross accomplishment, players will simply "try" to accomplish everything. Those players that accomplish nothing won't get any of the achievement out of the game that we would want them to. It would leave them with very little reason to stay and play. They would feel largely the same way hardcores feel today where everyone is hero so no one is special.
The argument for opportunity being enough misses the point. Opportunity encompasses actual ability. If a player doesn't have the ability to accomplish something they for all practical purposes they haven't the opportunity to do so either. Players that can't "keep up" (be it for any reason: time ,raw ability, to far behind, etc) find the game just as devoid of achievement in a practical sense. The result is essentially the same no matter how offensive you find this concept. Players won't play.
What we are left with is this. We need to somehow make all players "feel" they are accomplishing something, or abandon MMOs that are based solely on accomplishment. Modern MMOs seems to be focusing less on meaningful accomplishment and more on active "fun", giving credence to this concept that we have lost "something". The third option where we simply ignore the "feelings" of the bottom 90% doesn't work for the long term.
*Note* most of my points are made from the perspective of game design, where I am trying to maximize the enjoyment of a player base. These may and will seemingly be counter intuitive to those players who are trying to maximize their own personal sense of enjoyment.
When I read the books I read I don't do it to know how many meals Slappy the Cook made for the armies that fought the great evil. Unless that is, Slappy the Cook rose to greatness and vanquished the great evil with a mighty turkey leg or something. I can be mundane and read about and see and hear mundane things every single day of my life.
So no, I wouldn't play a game where I was stuck in mediocrity. Now if there was a way that through my actions I could rise up to become a hero then heck yeah. And by that I mean where my rise is not scripted, it happens organically, that would be cool.
Although, I don't see how it could happen unless every character you came in contact with in said game was an actual player.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
What I mean is that your character story would not portray you as the hero saving the mmo world. There may well be an all-encompassing threat and you may well be a foot soldier or archer in the army or a sailor in the navy that fights it. You would see everything that happens but the npc's would not be hailing you once victory is achieved, rather you might get a pat on the back from a fellow soldier and a ration of rum.
Given the massively part of mmo's this would strike me as slightly more credible than most 'every-player-the-hero' stories.
There is already a game published like that - GW2. That is what the whole story is about (going through your PS - especially from the Human perspective in the game) and people are complaining that they want to b e a Hero (like Hercules).
What? I've had npc's standing around applauding me and hailing me as some kind of super human (well, little furry thing) during the GW2 story.
It is about an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. This is especially true in the Human PS line. Really listen to it, it is pretty interesting.
In the introduction to the human who was raised in nobility, the avatar says something like,
"The little people look up to me and revere me, they rely on me for their safety, I must honor that responsibilty"
That's a paraphrase, but the gist is about the hokiest 'I'm the hero" story of all time.
I agree with the OP; GW2 is about the worst example which could be used.
IMO, EQ did it best - vanilla WoW a close second. In both of those games early on - you could simply look a character and separate the wheat from the chaff. EQ made me feel like an absolute nobody for years. It took years to earn your status as 'uber' in that game.
I believe that's what the OP wants.
Rather than having everyone in Nord congratulate me for being the hero of the tutorial.
I think one needs to define what "ordinary" is in terms of the question.....
"Ordinary" in terms of some guy who does nothing but run around fixing the plumbing on the Death Star until it gets blown up..... yeah probably not too appealing.
"Ordinary" in terms of one of the hundreds of nameless G.I.'s who landed in the first wave at Omaha Beach and contributed thier bit to help breach the Atlantic Wall......yeah I'll take that over most "story-driven" MMO's any day.
In fact, one of my favorate MMO's was WWII Online.....and I also enjoyed playing PlanetSide 2 for a bit.
What I really don't like is those MMO's who cast you as "The One".....The chosen super-hero predestined (and pre-scripted) to save the Universe (tm).
It's all just too cartoonish, over the top and plastic to be enjoyable for me.
Being put in the role of a highly-trained, highly skilled or naturaly talented individual among many other such individuals who CAN (but isn't scripted or hard-coded) participate and contribute some part (even if very small) to something significant going on in the world is where it's at for me.
For example taking out the crew of an 88 that was holding up your side's tank column attack on an objective in WWII Online felt way more fun and more of an accomplishment then, for example, playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, saving the whole Universe from baddies (by hitting the write combination of keys in a mission over and over again, until you got it right).
The laws of relativity apply even to MMOs. No one wants to "play" ordinary. Even the ones that respond that way I think really just want everyone else to be ordinary so they, relatively speaking, have the opportunity to be extra-ordinary. The ideal situation that would serve all players is one where everyone "believed" they were extraordinary while also "believing" all other non NPCs were ordinary. To turn this conversation a little more philosophical, Achievement seems to be huge part of the genre for most here. Also Achievement seems to only be measurable as a ratio to the success and achievement of other "real" players in the game. Meaning that a given accomplishment is only meaningful if other people haven't achieved the same..........
Softball, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, football, etc...... All seem to be pretty successfull game designs that a ton of people enjoy participating in, even for those who aren't particularly skilled at them or who don't play on championship teams.
As a game designer, you don't have to resort to appeals to the players ego by pinning a gold medal on the players chest (regardless of what they actualy did) if the gameplay itself is fun and engaging enough.
Of course everyone wants to do well and everyone wants the opportunity to "win" but most players can handle loss fairly well.....especialy if there isn't some permanent barrier precluding the future opportunity for experiencing a win and if the gameplay itself was fun.
I think part of the problem here is that MMO designers still largely treat the MMO as single-player games with other folks around......and they also tend to provide fairly limited, narrow (and frankly uninteresting) gameplay options. Then they rely on dolling out rewards/achievements to players in a Pavlovian fashion to keep the player "engaged".
If we look at Softball as analogy.....if the game were all about hitting home-runs then anyone who wasn't a powerfull hitter probably wouldn't enjoy it for long.....but the game isn't all about that....contact hitting is important, as is on base percentage, as is speed on the base's, as is pitching, catching, throwing, coaching, figuring out line-ups, etc. There are so many different and diverse skills involved in a game that almost everyone can find something interesting that is within thier skillset to do.
You're pretty much a grunt in LOTRO. You can't be Frodo so you're some guy in the burbs being as heroic as you can while the real heroes go do their thing. Always appreciated how Turbine made it work.
Comments
To me, this seems the most like a sandbox than any other definition. It makes more sense that in a vast world, you wouldn't be "the hero". You could help shape the world, but still be just a person. You could get well known and popular by doing heroic things and eventually become a local hero maybe.
I think I'd much rather play a game where I'm not the hero. Reminds me of the original MMOs like UO and EQ. Nobody gave a fark who you were until you helped them out of a bind.
I dont think the OP is suggesting your character be THAT ordinary..
It depends on the story. It has to be interesting and make the game fun.
In that regard, MMOs can learn a lot from SP games. Look at Bioshock .. you don't exactly play a "hero". It is more a personal story.
seems to be a common misconception brought on by poor wording in the OP specifically the title which is all many read.
I would of phrased it "Would you play an MMO where your character isn't portrayed as the center of the universe?" heh.
When I first got on the internet back in the late 90s my whole reason was to play a tavern keeper in UO after reading about it in Next Gen magazine. While I never did get around to playing UO, there has always been a part of me that wanted to play an ordinary shopkeeper in an MMO, so yeah, given the right MMO I wouldn't mind being an ordinary character.
In that case, the question is moot .. there is very few MMO which cast you as the center of the universe.
In WOW, there are tons of heroes.
In STO, there are many captains.
In Marvel Heroes, there are many heroes.
every game is structured nowdays i think so everyone, no matter how geared is ordinary, because its only a matter of time / cash to get what you want, asal
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
Years of sedentary lifestyles; how active is the average gamer in middle age going to be, really?
/ib4 "I jog sixty miles every day and bench 700!"
That is why U6 is a much better game than UO. Instead of doing the mundane (mostly being griefed by PKers), in U6, you actually get to deal with one of the best story lines in RPG history.
The laws of relativity apply even to MMOs. No one wants to "play" ordinary. Even the ones that respond that way I think really just want everyone else to be ordinary so they, relatively speaking, have the opportunity to be extra-ordinary. The ideal situation that would serve all players is one where everyone "believed" they were extraordinary while also "believing" all other non NPCs were ordinary. To turn this conversation a little more philosophical, Achievement seems to be huge part of the genre for most here. Also Achievement seems to only be measurable as a ratio to the success and achievement of other "real" players in the game. Meaning that a given accomplishment is only meaningful if other people haven't achieved the same.
This of course creates a huge almost paradoxical design issue. As a game designer you want to create achievements that only a small number of people can accomplish but doing so leaves a large number (the players that didn't accomplish it) without a feeling of accomplishment. One solution (if we could design it) would be to have people accomplish different things in parallel. However without specific mechanics to prevent cross accomplishment, players will simply "try" to accomplish everything. Those players that accomplish nothing won't get any of the achievement out of the game that we would want them to. It would leave them with very little reason to stay and play. They would feel largely the same way hardcores feel today where everyone is hero so no one is special.
The argument for opportunity being enough misses the point. Opportunity encompasses actual ability. If a player doesn't have the ability to accomplish something they for all practical purposes they haven't the opportunity to do so either. Players that can't "keep up" (be it for any reason: time ,raw ability, to far behind, etc) find the game just as devoid of achievement in a practical sense. The result is essentially the same no matter how offensive you find this concept. Players won't play.
What we are left with is this. We need to somehow make all players "feel" they are accomplishing something, or abandon MMOs that are based solely on accomplishment. Modern MMOs seems to be focusing less on meaningful accomplishment and more on active "fun", giving credence to this concept that we have lost "something". The third option where we simply ignore the "feelings" of the bottom 90% doesn't work for the long term.
*Note* most of my points are made from the perspective of game design, where I am trying to maximize the enjoyment of a player base. These may and will seemingly be counter intuitive to those players who are trying to maximize their own personal sense of enjoyment.
All depends on the gameplay.
Although if gameplay quality is equal, I slightly prefer heroism.
With equal gameplay, it's slightly more fun to defeat villains and save people than do menial labor as a dirty peasant.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If I had a pound for every time this has been posted... I'd probably have a tenner.
I haven't read through the posts, saw the thread and posted the reply =P
When I read the books I read I don't do it to know how many meals Slappy the Cook made for the armies that fought the great evil. Unless that is, Slappy the Cook rose to greatness and vanquished the great evil with a mighty turkey leg or something. I can be mundane and read about and see and hear mundane things every single day of my life.
So no, I wouldn't play a game where I was stuck in mediocrity. Now if there was a way that through my actions I could rise up to become a hero then heck yeah. And by that I mean where my rise is not scripted, it happens organically, that would be cool.
Although, I don't see how it could happen unless every character you came in contact with in said game was an actual player.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
depends on the game and setting
If I could be the ordinary guy in a sci fi game set in fictional planets in the future or a steam punk fantasy setting then hecks ya.
Playing: TSW, D&D NW, Defiance (more the tv show than game >.> ) LotRO, DCUO
In the introduction to the human who was raised in nobility, the avatar says something like,
"The little people look up to me and revere me, they rely on me for their safety, I must honor that responsibilty"
That's a paraphrase, but the gist is about the hokiest 'I'm the hero" story of all time.
I agree with the OP; GW2 is about the worst example which could be used.
IMO, EQ did it best - vanilla WoW a close second. In both of those games early on - you could simply look a character and separate the wheat from the chaff. EQ made me feel like an absolute nobody for years. It took years to earn your status as 'uber' in that game.
I believe that's what the OP wants.
Rather than having everyone in Nord congratulate me for being the hero of the tutorial.
I think one needs to define what "ordinary" is in terms of the question.....
"Ordinary" in terms of some guy who does nothing but run around fixing the plumbing on the Death Star until it gets blown up..... yeah probably not too appealing.
"Ordinary" in terms of one of the hundreds of nameless G.I.'s who landed in the first wave at Omaha Beach and contributed thier bit to help breach the Atlantic Wall......yeah I'll take that over most "story-driven" MMO's any day.
In fact, one of my favorate MMO's was WWII Online.....and I also enjoyed playing PlanetSide 2 for a bit.
What I really don't like is those MMO's who cast you as "The One".....The chosen super-hero predestined (and pre-scripted) to save the Universe (tm).
It's all just too cartoonish, over the top and plastic to be enjoyable for me.
Being put in the role of a highly-trained, highly skilled or naturaly talented individual among many other such individuals who CAN (but isn't scripted or hard-coded) participate and contribute some part (even if very small) to something significant going on in the world is where it's at for me.
For example taking out the crew of an 88 that was holding up your side's tank column attack on an objective in WWII Online felt way more fun and more of an accomplishment then, for example, playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, saving the whole Universe from baddies (by hitting the write combination of keys in a mission over and over again, until you got it right).
Softball, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, football, etc...... All seem to be pretty successfull game designs that a ton of people enjoy participating in, even for those who aren't particularly skilled at them or who don't play on championship teams.
As a game designer, you don't have to resort to appeals to the players ego by pinning a gold medal on the players chest (regardless of what they actualy did) if the gameplay itself is fun and engaging enough.
Of course everyone wants to do well and everyone wants the opportunity to "win" but most players can handle loss fairly well.....especialy if there isn't some permanent barrier precluding the future opportunity for experiencing a win and if the gameplay itself was fun.
I think part of the problem here is that MMO designers still largely treat the MMO as single-player games with other folks around......and they also tend to provide fairly limited, narrow (and frankly uninteresting) gameplay options. Then they rely on dolling out rewards/achievements to players in a Pavlovian fashion to keep the player "engaged".
If we look at Softball as analogy.....if the game were all about hitting home-runs then anyone who wasn't a powerfull hitter probably wouldn't enjoy it for long.....but the game isn't all about that....contact hitting is important, as is on base percentage, as is speed on the base's, as is pitching, catching, throwing, coaching, figuring out line-ups, etc. There are so many different and diverse skills involved in a game that almost everyone can find something interesting that is within thier skillset to do.
You're pretty much a grunt in LOTRO. You can't be Frodo so you're some guy in the burbs being as heroic as you can while the real heroes go do their thing. Always appreciated how Turbine made it work.