Am I like the only one that actually understands what he is talking about here?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
Why are you going to bash on "third-world" countries? I know people that go to school with me that come from those countries that have a better grasp of English than you do, and aren't nearly as arrogant. It seems like almost every person from brazil that is on forums thinks they're $%#!ing awesome or something.
-------- "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt: Front: UNO Chemistry Club Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Am I like the only one that actually understands what he is talking about here?
If he would stop changing his story and take the time to string together some coherent thoughts, i'd be happy to respond to him. He seems to be saying something different in every post he makes.
MMORPGs nowadays are linear games where the players are presented with a scripted path, whose main goal was pre-determined by the developers with huge focus on combat and acquirement of more power. The core design decisions addapted to its limited scope creating this hard idea that MMORPGs are about power (consubstantiated in level progression and gear and sometimes other factors of power).
Your argument is getting muddled.
You began by talking about progression and how varying playing times effected in-game progression. You also expresses dissatisfaction with how some current MMO's stifle your progression and how you believe it's because they're catering to the casual crowd.
Now you've switched your tune and are trying to garner a discussion of current MMO design and vertical/horizontal progression?
You need to get your thesis straight before trying to have a productive discussion about anything.
Actually umm no, he started this thread stating his dissatisfaction with how every MMORPG out there has been thrown into a linear, level based progressive path which did NOT foster enjoyment of the game at your own pace. Every game out there, under its current design is based off of that bell curve idea (time played = higher power), and as a result of this they do not allow people to just play and enjoy (no matter how much time they play it). Right now, and everyone can agree on it, the more time you play an MMORPG, the higher level/more skilled/more powerful you become. And in turn, the less you play the opposite is true. This in itself causes the imbalance he is talking about. MMORPGs today are ALL based off of the time played mechanic. Everything, all content in them, is based off the concept of time played.
What the OP is trying to discuss here is WHY this is true, and WHY do we NOT have an MMORPG out there that doesn't start off on the time played model (play it any amount of time you like, everyone still remains on equal footing). There would be no Hardcore/Casual conflict at all.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
Am I like the only one that actually understands what he is talking about here?
If he would stop changing his story and take the time to string together some coherent thoughts, i'd be happy to respond to him. He seems to be saying something different in every post he makes.
Is it every post? I could have sworn it was every other sentence.
MMO design has indeed changed over the years. Vertical and horizontal progression are good water markers for charting the change. What he fails to see is that the way MMO's where and the way they are now have changed for very good reason.
Along with changing to a more vertical system of progression, MMO's have also come out of the niche genre from which they spawned and into a mainstream popularity in which they have enjoyed great success. MMO's changed because they had to. It was a natural progression on their part and a move to drawn in a larger, more casual crowd.
It sounds like the argument he's making is basically this.
"MMO's have changed over the years and I don't like it. Why can't we go back to the UO days? I hate carebears. The end."
What the OP is trying to discuss here is WHY this is true, and WHY do we NOT have an MMORPG out there that doesn't start off on the time played model (play it any amount of time you like, everyone still remains on equal footing). There would be no Hardcore/Casual conflict at all.
This is an interesting question but what exactly is being purposed?
Take out any sort of progression all together? A game like that hasn't been created because it couldn't work. People like to progress in any game they're playing, even if its at a slow pace. Taking out any and all progression isn't the answer. Take out levels, skills, gear, money, items....everything that can be used to progress?
MMO design has indeed changed over the years. Vertical and horizontal progression are good water markers for charting the change. What he fails to see is that the way MMO's where and the way they are now have changed for very good reason.
Along with changing to a more vertical system of progression, MMO's have also come out of the niche genre from which they spawned and into a mainstream popularity in which they have enjoyed great success. MMO's changed because they had to. It was a natural progression on their part and a move to drawn in a larger, more casual crowd.
Your probably right on the why the model changed to the time played scale, and that is money. By moving the MMORPG genre into a competative, level based game play style it created a rather nice carrot on a stick to keep the player base interested, involved, addicted, AND paying the monthly sub fees. I dont think any game company out there would be willing to dump funds into the development of a game that didn't have the current crack effect we currently have out there.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
What the OP is trying to discuss here is WHY this is true, and WHY do we NOT have an MMORPG out there that doesn't start off on the time played model (play it any amount of time you like, everyone still remains on equal footing). There would be no Hardcore/Casual conflict at all.
This is an interesting question but what exactly is being purposed?
Take out any sort of progression all together? A game like that hasn't been created because it couldn't work. People like to progress in any game they're playing, even if its at a slow pace. Taking out any and all progression isn't the answer. Take out levels, skills, gear, money, items....everything that can be used to progress?
MMO design has indeed changed over the years. Vertical and horizontal progression are good water markers for charting the change. What he fails to see is that the way MMO's where and the way they are now have changed for very good reason.
Along with changing to a more vertical system of progression, MMO's have also come out of the niche genre from which they spawned and into a mainstream popularity in which they have enjoyed great success. MMO's changed because they had to. It was a natural progression on their part and a move to drawn in a larger, more casual crowd.
Your probably right on the why the model changed to the time played scale, and that is money. By moving the MMORPG genre into a competative, level based game play style it created a rather nice carrot on a stick to keep the player base interested, involved, addicted, AND paying the monthly sub fees. I dont think any game company out there would be willing to dump funds into the development of a game that didn't have the current crack effect we currently have out there.
What the OP is trying to discuss here is WHY this is true, and WHY do we NOT have an MMORPG out there that doesn't start off on the time played model (play it any amount of time you like, everyone still remains on equal footing). There would be no Hardcore/Casual conflict at all.
This is an interesting question but what exactly is being purposed?
Take out any sort of progression all together? A game like that hasn't been created because it couldn't work. People like to progress in any game they're playing, even if its at a slow pace. Taking out any and all progression isn't the answer. Take out levels, skills, gear, money, items....everything that can be used to progress?
Why don't we all go back to playing Tetris then?
I agree, thats why in my earlier post that I didnt see a way that could work. Finding a tool that can help to level the playing field might help. Take for example the auto-mentoring system I mentioned in CoH. Lets say we moved that into WoW for our example.
We have 5 friends in the game - 2 of them play a LOT, and have multiple level 80 characters - the other 3 only play when they can, family takes up too much time to play as much for them so they are all around level 35. So obviously they cann't all do everything together when they are all on, unless those high level guys have low level atls waiting around. And they can't all do the cool stuff those level 80 guys want to show off to their friends. So we move in the auto-mentoring system. With it, those three level 35 character could join their level 80 friends in a level 80 instance for the day, have fun together, and at the end go back to being level 35 again. They may not have all the cool toys on them, and may not be 100% as productive as the level 80s, but the idea is that he COULD join them in what they are doing and not have to worry about pushing to level, or how much time they play just to keep up with their friends.
The idea isn't to completely redesign a game to eliminate the progression, but to add tools that allow it to not stand in the way of enjoying the game no matter how much time you play compared to others. That way those that are casual and those that play hardcore (time wise) can still enjoy the game together.
And, what the OP was saying in the original post is that the games out there now are trying to control this by imposing caps in order to slow the progression of the hardcore players to allow the casual to catch up. Thats the problem he is having, and rightly so IMO. There has to be a better way of doing it than the way they are right now (one instance a week, one quest a day, one encounter a week). Understand?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
I'll take your poorly worded challenge. When MMO's are launched, they're released with a certain amount of content in them. A finite amount of MMO content that is designed to take their target audience a certain amount of time to complete. I think we can all accept this as fact. With that in mind, MMO developers also recognize progression and leveling by the general population will occur at a somewhat predictable rate. This can be diagrammed best by using a graphical model. Let's use the bell curve.
Now, in my graphical model the X axis would time spent playing. The Y axis would be percentage of the total player population.
A great majority of the people that play MMOs and generate much of the revenue that MMO companies lust for, are generated by the casual, "everyday" audience. This audience ( the audience that most MMO games are designed for) progress through the content very naturally and take many months to go through it all. In our model, this is resented by the large bulge in the middle. This is the "general population." This is where the largest percentage of their population lies and this is the crowd they're looking to please.
MMO companies realize this and plan their content releases accordingly, often taking many months before they think about adding anything new. The casual audience doesn't need new content every two weeks. The casual audience doesn't stay up and play for 16 hours a day to power through content. The casual audience is also the target audience for these games. Let me sum it up for you because you're probably lost at this point. You really don't seem like the brightest of bulbs.
You're attempting to speak for the hardcore crowd. The crowd that you represent is a very small, niche portion of any given MMO population. You're a small percentage and therefore have a small say in how things are done. No one cares that you powered through all the content and now have nothing to do. The game wasn't designed for that and a lot of games never, ever,ever will be. Designing a game to keep up with the hardcore, power leveling crowd is impossible and would certainly sacrifice quality for quantity. Attempting to come down on the "carebear" crowd like we're some sort of disease accomplishes nothing. It shows a lack of foresight on your part, as well as a profound ignorance to how MMOs are made and operated.
In closing, no one cares about your hardcore philosophy towards MMO games. They aren't made for you and aren't created to always give you fresh content. They're made for us and we're having a great time with them. Don't like it? Leave and play something else. Coming to the forums and pretending like you have any idea what you're talking about makes you look like a fool.
I will address a few points.
When a MMORPG is launched the content is finite, all games content is finite.
The thing is, the time frame, in wich the content can be, lets says, experienced (I prefer this expression, rather than chewed, like the conotion you gave) is different from player to player and the longevity of the game, regardless of its characteristic of being finite, dont necessarily have to be fully experienced by every player, in the same order, at the same pace, for the same ammount of time spent.
MMORPGs are virtual persistant worlds, ever changing, ever evolving, living breath worlds. There is no such thing as an Static MMORPG.
What does it have to do with the finity of the content and character progression for that matter?
Content doesnt have to be played linearly, by everyone single player, as following a path, doing the same quests, killing the same monsters, nice and pretty, happy happy, untill the content miraculously ends.
NO.
You can have content with Organic Characteristics.
Content that is Driven by the Players, Constructed, Mantained, Destroyed by the players.
Some might start thinking about items, buildings, organizations, territories, but it goes way beyond that.
The word content itself has a negative conotation. Because it implies limitations, "beating the content", "chew the content", "skip throw the content", "the new expansion will add more content".
An MMORPG can be made with a finite content that lasts for years. And what character progression has to do with that?
You can have a character progression that last for years as well.
And then you come with another terms... "Hardcore" , "Casual crowd".
You are thinking on terms of people following a line with different speeds reaching an end.
MMORPGs are not that. There is no lines, there is no end, its an endless organic cycle where everything nets together and interrelates.
You say progression and "leveling" by the general population will occur at a predictable rating. Thats because everyone is following the developers script. True MMORPGs dont have such a script.
Remove the linear scripted content progression and see what happens: neither what you call "casual" or "hardcore" target audience will ever be able to finish the content, because you remove the entire concept of "End Game".
It will bring back the enjoyment of playing games for just playing, instead of rushing through the "content" to reach "end game".
You give back the joy of following a unique non scripted path and being rewarded by your exploration and discoveries knowing for certain that many will not come across such discovery as you did...
Overwhelming feeling of freedom "oh, there is so many possibilities what should I do next?".
If it wasnt for the games design decisions being as limited as they are, from combat gameplay, to main/extreme focus on combat, progressing through the scripted linear path, we would actually bring back the "Live the game feeling".
We would have communities instead of claustrophobic automatons rushing through the "Content" so they can enjoy the "End Game".
Games are being in such a way that people actually try to skip most of it just so they can reach the "end content", and everything is considered "pointless". That is because the vertical power progression: "Nothing below the level cap matters, because I dont want to get owned".
Its easy to talk about the "casual " target audience when all the games available on the market are clones of each others steaming from subscription based games or free to play games. Whose game mechanics and core elements regarding time and effort spent, power and character progress are different based its economic model wich will define many design decisions. Its a falacy to conclude that an existing "casual" target audience for actual games would prevent future games with different ideas such as the one exposed on my main topic to be be successfull.
What I think is that you cant really talk about target audience in this situation. We are yet to see a MMORPG on the roots of its original concept being made with today's technologies and AAA title production value. Your target audience theory will disolve into thin air that day.
In MMORPGs, you and other players have a living breathing world to live in. It presents you with a persistant environment, wich is always there, 24 hours per day, for players to progress/evolve within. Its not stale, both the world and the characters within are constantly progressing, changing, evolving.
I just want to correct one thing.
For the vast majority of MMORPGs, the world doesn't progress, or change, just the player characters.
In an MMORPG, unlike a single player game, the world is static.
The Mobs never die permanently, they respawn. The Princess is never saved for good, the quest is still available for the next player to do.
you make a level, and get new gear, but the world doesn't change one bit. Unless of course an expansion is added, but then that expansion doesn't change.
In games like EVE the world does change, as players take over territory, and the boundary lines change in the world, but in most MMORPGs, there is no progress for the world.
As for the concept, I agree.
All players in a Pay to Play game are exactly equal, because characters are measured in hours played, and content completed.
All 20th level characters did roughly the SAME amount of quests, the SAME amount of Mob killing. Doesn't matter whether you did it in 1 week, or 1 year, you did the SAME content.
If you base characters on content completed, they are all equal, and most players will do the content in roughly the same amount of hours. DOesn't really matter if you do those hours in 10 hour days, or 1 hour a week.
50 hours is 50 hours. 200 hours is still 200 hours, and so on.
Unlimited progression causes it to be almost impossible for a game to provide balanced challenges for players.
Difficulty balancing is not easy. Blizzard screwed up WOTLK, despite having some pretty set-in-stone caps to work with.
So a suggestion to remove power caps is effectively a suggestion for worse difficulty balancing. For more than in a normal game you'll run into challenges which are way too easy or way too difficult.
There are measures a game can take to try to make unlimited progression work, but they're not without their own disadvantages, and still don't ensure you'll get difficulty balanced just right.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This persistent world may be true but it is done on the lowest scale possible,witch is why this genre still has tons of room to grow,IF the developers will put out the effort.
To be a TRUE persistent world,we would need aging and decay ,a destructible world.The technology is already there in PhysX engine and shown to us many years ago in the Red Faction game.This would true allow for an ever evolving world,but the effort would be huge as they would need to make tons of animations and models for each aspect.
I think what i could accept,is if a game gives us this little by little,allowing them over time to make new models and animations to allow the world to grow and change.Trying to make a world this interactive and complete a sort of Age of Empires type of world only better with the PhysX engine would take MANY years.After all if the support is there then they have our 15 bucks a month to play with and further develop the game,heck i would pay 20 bucks even,players were paying that years ago on the T.E.N gaming platform.
I think they also allow for realistic aging like players would get a lot smarter,so their crafting improves,their intelligence improves but their dexterity and hand eye co ordination falls off a bit.We could have a marriage system and children/offspring[in case of animalistic models] that inherit abilities from their parents.all realistic stuff.This is all how a realistic persistent world SHOULD evolve as time goes by.
The longevity of such a system far outweighs,the present day one,because as of now,there really is nothing we change in a game besides our gear/levels and Auction house,that shows how far we are from having a real persistent world.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I'm not exactly sure what the OP is saying as he seems to jump from one subject to another. However, from what I can gather from the OP is that he wants an online game with no levels, no limits, no progression. A sort of Call of Duty Online with the world the size of WoW's. And to be honest, I would personally find it incredibly boring. Everyone needs some form of progression in their entertainment (books, plays, musicals, movies, films, etc). Entertainment without progression is like spending 2 hours watching a 1970's french black and white movie about a woman who just sits in her kitchen, smoking thin cigarettes and looking angrily at the clock on the wall. It's pointless and it's incredibly boring after the first 100 kills.
Originally posted by Wizardry
This persistent world may be true but it is done on the lowest scale possible,witch is why this genre still has tons of room to grow,IF the developers will put out the effort. To be a TRUE persistent world,we would need aging and decay ,a destructible world.The technology is already there in PhysX engine and shown to us many years ago in the Red Faction game.This would true allow for an ever evolving world,but the effort would be huge as they would need to make tons of animations and models for each aspect. I think what i could accept,is if a game gives us this little by little,allowing them over time to make new models and animations to allow the world to grow and change.Trying to make a world this interactive and complete a sort of Age of Empires type of world only better with the PhysX engine would take MANY years.After all if the support is there then they have our 15 bucks a month to play with and further develop the game,heck i would pay 20 bucks even,players were paying that years ago on the T.E.N gaming platform. I think they also allow for realistic aging like players would get a lot smarter,so their crafting improves,their intelligence improves but their dexterity and hand eye co ordination falls off a bit.We could have a marriage system and children/offspring[in case of animalistic models] that inherit abilities from their parents.all realistic stuff.This is all how a realistic persistent world SHOULD evolve as time goes by. The longevity of such a system far outweighs,the present day one,because as of now,there really is nothing we change in a game besides our gear/levels and Auction house,that shows how far we are from having a real persistent world.
The concept of changing things over time in an MMO is something I've been thinking a lot about recently....
Just for the sake of discussion, let's imagine a barren landscape that has just enough activities and content to keep a player going for some arbitrary amount of time (no fluff stuff that no one will see, just the stuff thats needed). So, lets assume a number of towns, each with quests to go into dungeons (not necessarily to give xp, just to forward people to them). Throw in an interesting backstory for that world and add player housing and crafting. Lots of forests everywhere (which will soon change).
Now, every couple of patches you start adding new (but relatively small) additions and replacements here and there: a new shop that wasn't available before, a new set of quests (perhaps which give no xp, but good incentives nonetheless), a huge expansive forest that was in at launch is partly torn down to make way for a town ..... perhaps a number of patches later you introduce lore which states that a church got burned out, but a local business man has rebuilt the church into a bar. The church model is kept but the inside is remodeled. Another patch later, a mine that was used for harvesting Gold changes in appearance because there was a landslide which uncovered the entrance to a new dungeon. Local governments could change hands, altering how certain groups of npcs and players are viewed by the authorities (which starts to introduce faction based rewards and loyalties). Certain items could be suddenly considered as contraband, and SWG style random stop searches are being performed.
What this means is that instead of having everything in the world completely designed and static, a small amount of things could be "swapped out", added or even removed with different patches (of course with an appropriate background story to justify the changes).
It sounds complicated, but in actual fact it isn't. As a concept, relatively small but frequent changes are easier to manage and control than huge major ones. Monumental changes can have profound positive AND negative impacts on both the game and the playerbase and maybe even have unforeseen consequences that the devs didn't anticipate. However with relatively small changes such impacts can be somewhat controlled and perhaps anticipated in advance.
Unfortunately, MMO's never seem to be in a position whereby they can do things like this because they are often too busy fixing the mountain of bugs with their product, or playing "catch up" because they launched with a sub-standard product in the first place.
I like your approach to having updates that effect the world, Tarka. It sort of side steps programing in decay into the game (which seems challenging - I'm no programmer), but refreshes older areas to encourage people to revisit previously traversed ground.
On the topic of lateral progression versus a vertical level rise, that's a topic i've been toying at myself. Yes, I'm another buffoon with a "brain child" MMOG in their head. (Very fledgling ideas.) I feel that a virtual world that was across the board a more level playing feild is possible... meaning that the mobs are consistant in their damage/xp across all "zones"... rather than how WoW has that path of steadily increasing zones of difficulty that are instant death to lower level alts.
Coupling this with breaking "levels" down to apply in various skill sets and stats so that each time you "ding" you're given what would basically amount to a free point to assign into either their stats (which would probably be grouped together and need to have a group "max" so players do not just max out all their base stats and wind up exactly like everyone else in that regard - leave room for thinking things through in your build) or alternatively to apply it as toward your profession/magic/melee skills as a sort of bonus point.
This would mean that for example your basic taylor quests at the beginnign when you're low in points on that skill bar award more xp than that same quest would after you've progressed further in that profession (down to min 1 point perhaps) while the "advanced" tayloring quests require you to seek out rarer materials or to make a higher armor grade item for the quest giver. Completion of said Taylor quest awards some XP directly to your profression stats, but also gives you general experience toward your experience bar.
Players could focus on leveling their stats first... affecting their physical traits and thus their PvE and PvP abilities, focus on unlocking and learning weapons skills or martial arts skills (again for PvE or PvP) ... or could focus on professions. They would in all cases be directly leveling the task they're focusing on... but they would also have the option of sneaking in points of approvement on another area they may not want to grind on at that moment, all be it at a lower rate than there main activity. Crafters increasing their weapons skills would be an example. Crafting away when their guild isn't around, but still making some headway on their stats in other areas.
My main complaint against games nowadays is the combat oriented vertical progression.
In essence, its Power vs Balance. If I have power, I have progression. If I have balance, I dont have progression.
Balance being an impossibility due to players time and effort spent being different.
One player plays all day, while another one just one hour per day.
This is a natural limit to balance.
To counter that, developers create artificial power limits, and since power is the essence of progression, or its most strong facet in combat oriented vertical progression games, we end up with progression caps to artificially limit a naturally unexistant balance.
Its impossible to have both power and balance. And if you make the balance a core element in your design, you will have to limit power progression. Some players consider the power over others rate in MMORPGs a vital element of their entertainment/satisfaction/needs. In games where such power progression is awarded with time and effort spent, those players who invest more time and effort will evaluate it more than those who dont do it. In free to play games, where the companies main profit comes from cash shop, selling power progression shortcuts is their way to go, therefore their designs focus tend to shift more on power than in balance. In games where power progression shortcuts are not sold in cash shops, the design decisions not necessarily weight heavier on the power progression. There seems to be an feeling that in subscription based games, the balance is the core element in the design, even though there is power progression, it is artificially limited with "classes", "levels", "requisites", so eventually the power progression stops, in detriment to a chronological balance bootleneck.
This goes against the essence of MMORPGs, wich are persistant worlds where multiple characters live and progress, and the world never stops for those who logged off, the world and the other characters doesnt wait/stop.
So a chronological balance bottleneck, such as a power progression level cap, like in WOW, for example, is a aberration mechanic to the genre.
Eventually the comunities will realize the power vs balance design of games yet in development and see them for what they are and be able to choose their games based on their preferences for either power or balance.
In another note, your public audience might never not know if your game is structured on balance or power, for example, WOW.
The power progression in WOW dont come from levels, the balance come from levels, wich are reachable very easily, with the chronological balance bootleneck, the power progression from WOW, comes from a different concept: gear.
While some are led to believe the game is structured in balance based on some hypocrital and mainly marketing gimicks, the real factors of power progression comes from gear, wich is not chronologically balanced artificially like the levels. The player power is the consecution of their time and effort spent in the acquisition of power derived from gear. Those who spent proportionally less time and effort (the paradigm of impossible balance) acquire less power derived from gear.
So, with the example of WOW, a solution/alternative should be fool your player base that prefers balance (casual players) into believing your game is structured into balance, while in reality satisfying your player base that prefers power (hardcore players) with a system in place that only show its true face after the period of time only that player base will spent on the game to discover.
Off course, some people might try to spoil your strategy on the communications nets, but that wont come close to preventing your game market strategy from causing the desired effects.
We dont see in interviews questions being asked or answered regarding "power progression, balance and the ammount of time where power progression is chronologically artificially limited or not" Thats the core question developers dont talk about that takes weeks or months for players to discover from first hand experiences.
"How many hours of power progression do I have untill I reach artificial caps?"
If people knew the answer for this, be they casual or hardcore players, they wouldnt bother playing.
Casual players want a power progression cap at maximum of lets say... 200 hours or less. Hardcore players want no power progression caps, or a power progression cap that lasts for 500-1000 hours.
MMORPGs, by their original concepts and definition, never stop. So those games games where power progression caps are reached in less than 200 hours... wich means... 2-3 weeks are not living up to the genre. In MMORPGs you are supposed to live in the living breathing organic persistant world where characters progress/evolve regardless of your presence and the whole experience lasts for months or years, definatelly not 2-3 weeks.
Those 2-3 weeks of time and effort spent required to reach the artificially (chronological balance bootleneck, to the point where others can start catching up) created power progression cap are just there for the sake of balancing up the players who spent less time and effort: the players who were logged off from the virtual persistant world that supposedly never stops/waits for them.
As long as the games remain being linear with strict focus on combat for progression PLAYERS WONT ADDAPT TO A DIFFERENT CONCEPT THAN
The concept of vertical progression: power progression... wich means "power over others"
For we to start discussing horizontal progression of characters in the "living breathing virtual organic persistant world", the MMORPGs have to start being more of that and less of "linear combat oriented games".
Once we restart making MMORPGs as they were meant to be, we will be able to surpass this "balance vs vertical progression" paradigm. Untill them, its just games of mindless rushing of "content" in a repetitive grind to for more vertical power (or reach "level cap" in those games with a cap) and be able to play "end game" or "pvp".
Noone wants to PVP untill they are sure they have the maximum possible power over others, because they can. Noone cares about the journey, because there is no journey, when you only have combat combat for more power, more power, it doesnt matter what you are doing now, it matters once you reach the cap.
My short term solution would be to remove the cap, or make it extenuatingly unreachable (over 1000 hours), then people would calm the fuck down. If you make it so everyone can reach it in 100 hours, everyone will rush those 100 hours, but if you make a thousand... people will addapt to it. That is what Free to Play games present, they have this design, but offer shortcuts in their cash shops. People dont quit because they reach level cap and get bored, they never get satisfied in F2P games (unless they spend a lot of money), but they do rage quit offended by the cash shop practices. In subscription based games, people reach the power progression cap in their first subscription month, then they quit, bored.
I prefer the time when "balance" didnt existed. Like when there wasnt levels, classes, races. Everyone could do everything whenever they wanted, so we didnt had to have progression caps, people could reach a cap in one branch of power, but there was dozens of branches, everything you learned would help and be usefull and people wouldnt get bored after one month, because in one month they barelly reached a fraction of their maximum power progression. Thats was the golden age of MMORPGs.
"Bob" is a paying customer, just like "Elitist Scum." And there are likely more Bobs than Elitist Scums.
This world takes all kinds, and while I don't feel that people who play more than Bob should face a progression cap due to his attempt at not giving his life to an MMO, I also think that Bob shouldn't feel left in the dust when he gets his chance to play. Bob's 15$ a month gives him just as much say in the world as Elitist Scum, Johnny Carebear, or Tough Guy OP.
If said MMO is something like WoW, which caters to all kinds, then the simple fix is for Bob to keep playing and Elitist Scum or whomever to head somewhere nice and niche, where his minority clusters. While Bob could move on to greener pastures himself if he can't keep up, businesses don't want him to.
MMOs for the most part, are little more than business ventures first, games second nowadays. They will naturally cater to the majority. The whole genre is a joke on so many levels at the moment, I don't even see the point of this topic.
Not to worry, OP. A game like SWTOR should grab lots of people like Bob and bring them happiness at their own pace, while you can continue to suckle the teet of whatever beast feeds you at the moment. At least you have something. Some people are scouring the lands for a nice teet.
Like the power progression in WOW is based on time and effort spent to get better gear ends up pleasing Elitist Scam and the level cap is just an ilusion to please Bobs?
KEEPING UP WITH THE VIRTUAL WORLD is an intrinsic characteristic of MMORPGs that players have to deal with, SIMPLY BECAUSE THE WORLD DOESNT STOP FOR YOU.
Keeping up with the virtual world is only really a concern for powergamers in shallow level-based MMOs. You either keep pace with the group or you get 'left behind.' Luckily, casual gamers and 'carebears' don't experience such capslock-inducing rage-posting anxiety because their concern is simply whether or not they themselves are having fun. They don't gauge their fun against the perceived fun of the guy next to them.
Exactly. In fact, the whine-factor represents a failure in the hardcore mentality. Those of us who are only playing the game to have fun and are not in a mindless competition against others just point and laugh at the hardcore losers who can't handle being behind anyone else.
At least it's entertaining for those of us with a healthy outlook.
I think the solution is found in Everquest -- Advanced Achievements. If applied to all skills and with enough of them, you could technically keep progressing even after hitting a level cap. The only problem becomes you can only have so many things to do, ever. Think about it in real life terms.
The world is the ultimate sandbox, but for most people they will never achieve anything greater than say, middle class. That is just the nature of the world. You can't possibly know everything, or do everything, or hold a job at everything. The same is true with MMOs, you can't or shouldn't be able to infinitely advance in everything, even if you have the time. At the some point you just won't get any better then what you are.
You could be a Doctor, then you can specialize in heart surgery, after 10 years you might take a few classes on brains as well, but you will never be as good a brain surgeon as you are a heart surgeon. It's the unfortunate nature of the world we live in.
Now I understand the desire to want to progress in different means -- why should combat progress you, why can't you simply be a trusted advisor or eventually the ruler of your own land? In some games you can, but they sacrifice a lot of other things to get there. We are all hoping, I think, one day games will allow us to fully realize what it is we want to do in them.
An Assassin who kills kings, a Smith who crafts the finest wares, a dungeon runner who kills beasts of epic tales, or maybe the lowly serving wench. The builder of great buildings, the writer of epic stories, or the Conqueror who leads his army into foreign lands. Sounds nice on paper, but like the world, there are only so many finite possibilities and trying to create a game that allows for every single possible option. Not only would it take too long to develop, too much money, and too many things to cover -- but without the dangling of the carrot most people wouldn't even bother playing.
People need goals, it drives and motivates them, giving them endless freedom is akin to playing Sims Online.
Originally posted by Midare I like your approach to having updates that effect the world, Tarka. It sort of side steps programing in decay into the game (which seems challenging - I'm no programmer), but refreshes older areas to encourage people to revisit previously traversed ground.
This is mostly only a problem if the game is developed with the static mindset. Meaning quests that rely on the world to be static, which typically means that the quests themselves are static.
An aspect that could be approached is developing the MMO world in a manner where pretty much everything is considered dynamic. Take for example NPC towns. It would be possible to program code into the system that would say, track the volume and type of player behavior in particular towns. For example, if a lot of mobs are killed around the town, the spawns lessen and/or become weaker. If particular vendors are frequented a lot, it might 'attract' (spawn more) NPC vendors in the town and they might change their available inventory or prices. On the flip side, if players don't frequent a town much in a very spawn heavy area, there is potential for the town to be over-run and destroyed.
On the topic of lateral progression versus a vertical level rise, that's a topic i've been toying at myself. Yes, I'm another buffoon with a "brain child" MMOG in their head. (Very fledgling ideas.) I feel that a virtual world that was across the board a more level playing feild is possible... meaning that the mobs are consistant in their damage/xp across all "zones"... rather than how WoW has that path of steadily increasing zones of difficulty that are instant death to lower level alts.
I think character progression should be a little less vertical, but it needs to be there. I think SWG did a fairly good job of keeping things somewhat horizontal, but still gave a sense of character progression having an impact. If advancing your character has virtually no impact on gameplay, then it can get rather boring.
Coupling this with breaking "levels" down to apply in various skill sets and stats so that each time you "ding" you're given what would basically amount to a free point to assign into either their stats (which would probably be grouped together and need to have a group "max" so players do not just max out all their base stats and wind up exactly like everyone else in that regard - leave room for thinking things through in your build) or alternatively to apply it as toward your profession/magic/melee skills as a sort of bonus point.This would mean that for example your basic taylor quests at the beginnign when you're low in points on that skill bar award more xp than that same quest would after you've progressed further in that profession (down to min 1 point perhaps) while the "advanced" tayloring quests require you to seek out rarer materials or to make a higher armor grade item for the quest giver. Completion of said Taylor quest awards some XP directly to your profression stats, but also gives you general experience toward your experience bar.
Players could focus on leveling their stats first... affecting their physical traits and thus their PvE and PvP abilities, focus on unlocking and learning weapons skills or martial arts skills (again for PvE or PvP) ... or could focus on professions. They would in all cases be directly leveling the task they're focusing on... but they would also have the option of sneaking in points of approvement on another area they may not want to grind on at that moment, all be it at a lower rate than there main activity. Crafters increasing their weapons skills would be an example. Crafting away when their guild isn't around, but still making some headway on their stats in other areas.
Personally, I think pooling everything into one XP bar and then letting people pick anything is a lackluster system. I'm a big advocate of raising skills by directly using those skills. Meaning if your character uses a melee weapon, their melee skill increases, if they use magic, their magic skill increases. Kind of like UO / SWG did with their systems. This allows players to create pure support builds by actually playing their role, rather than having to mindlessly grind quests/mobs to even get to a position where they can do what they want.
Though I do agree that there needs to be some total cap, or otherwise some disincentive to being a jack of all trades, perhaps through making each additional skill exponentially harder to raise if you have decent amount already.
The argument about people not being able to learn anything holds in REAL LIFE. In the settings were MMORPGs take place its questionable.
But its an exageration to counter an argument for infinite progression. Its not about infinite progression, its about MMORPGs taking 2-3 weeks to reach level cap wich simply shreds the insides of the genre. Akin to static single player games.
I dont want a power progression that last forever, or that takes 20 years to reach level cap. That is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is counter arguing that as if it was the point.
Instead of defining a cap that can be reached in 2 weeks wich breaks the genre nature, instead of a cap that blends with what the MMORPGs genre is about (living breathing world, organic, persistant, always changing, always evolving, etc... read other posts) takes atleast around 6 months to a year to reach (180 - 360 days playing around 5 hours per day.... taking 900 hours-1800 hours).
Regardless of how many exact hours I use as an example, the essence of the idea is that people dont think about it as if they could manage it, as if it was their right to reach level cap, their right to experience end game, they whole point is that people dont rush it anymore, so they experience the world without that anxiety and certainty of having to reach level cap "oh my god, how come I didnt reached level cap in two weeks yet durr". For example, if it is to rush a 900 hours investment to reach end game, people wont do it. Because it will be stupid. Thats just changing the design, you change peoples behaviour. Think about it.
The whole point is making players not think that its possible to reach a cap, thats a world, the world is yours, its massivelly huge, you live on it, you are free to do what you want, here are the tools, have fun. Just live the game, enjoy the experience as you make it as you shape the way you want to play and your own goals. And if people come with the linear brainwashed mentality that they "have to reach level cap to play end game" and try to do it, it will be like hitting their heads against the wall due to the cheer stupidity of rushing 900-1800 hours.
Just stop making games focused on combat for power progression and removing the linear "follow the script" nature of "progression, threadmill, levels, content, quests" and you will see people doing their stuff at their own time, eliminate those concepts of everyone is a hero, balanced happy happy and the problem vanishes.
So what that someone plays 16 hours per day while you just play 2 hours. He spends more time than you, he progress while you are logged off, the world doesnt stop, face it, if your time and effort spent are not balanced, your powers wont be balanced either.
People cant see that because most of the games they know are combat oriented themeparks whose only goal is follow the scripted path and reach end game to pvp.
Change the game design, solve the problem of capping progression (static) in dinamic worlds.
People dont understand how the current games design are the problem.
They think its normal to play focused on combat, following the script
"first you start killing rats at level 1, then do the quest 1, then you kill wolfs at level 2 and do the quest 2, untill after 2-3 weeks you reach the end game and you can pvp, isnt it an amazing MMORPG?!"
And they, they suddenly dont realize how progression, the core element of MMORPGs has been bypassed/countered/destroyed/nerfed for the sake of a "balance" we dont need. What we need is a total different game design and the balance problem goes away without sacrificing the progression, because peoples behaviour and notions will change.
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Am I like the only one that actually understands what he is talking about here?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
Why are you going to bash on "third-world" countries? I know people that go to school with me that come from those countries that have a better grasp of English than you do, and aren't nearly as arrogant. It seems like almost every person from brazil that is on forums thinks they're $%#!ing awesome or something.
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If he would stop changing his story and take the time to string together some coherent thoughts, i'd be happy to respond to him. He seems to be saying something different in every post he makes.
Your argument is getting muddled.
You began by talking about progression and how varying playing times effected in-game progression. You also expresses dissatisfaction with how some current MMO's stifle your progression and how you believe it's because they're catering to the casual crowd.
Now you've switched your tune and are trying to garner a discussion of current MMO design and vertical/horizontal progression?
You need to get your thesis straight before trying to have a productive discussion about anything.
Actually umm no, he started this thread stating his dissatisfaction with how every MMORPG out there has been thrown into a linear, level based progressive path which did NOT foster enjoyment of the game at your own pace. Every game out there, under its current design is based off of that bell curve idea (time played = higher power), and as a result of this they do not allow people to just play and enjoy (no matter how much time they play it). Right now, and everyone can agree on it, the more time you play an MMORPG, the higher level/more skilled/more powerful you become. And in turn, the less you play the opposite is true. This in itself causes the imbalance he is talking about. MMORPGs today are ALL based off of the time played mechanic. Everything, all content in them, is based off the concept of time played.
What the OP is trying to discuss here is WHY this is true, and WHY do we NOT have an MMORPG out there that doesn't start off on the time played model (play it any amount of time you like, everyone still remains on equal footing). There would be no Hardcore/Casual conflict at all.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
If he would stop changing his story and take the time to string together some coherent thoughts, i'd be happy to respond to him. He seems to be saying something different in every post he makes.
Is it every post? I could have sworn it was every other sentence.
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Actually no.
MMO design has indeed changed over the years. Vertical and horizontal progression are good water markers for charting the change. What he fails to see is that the way MMO's where and the way they are now have changed for very good reason.
Along with changing to a more vertical system of progression, MMO's have also come out of the niche genre from which they spawned and into a mainstream popularity in which they have enjoyed great success. MMO's changed because they had to. It was a natural progression on their part and a move to drawn in a larger, more casual crowd.
It sounds like the argument he's making is basically this.
"MMO's have changed over the years and I don't like it. Why can't we go back to the UO days? I hate carebears. The end."
Is that about right Interesting?
Im talking about progression, it doesnt need to be about vertical progression. There is horizontal progression.
Hmmm, now that is a very interesting concept right there. You might just have a valid argument afterall.
Very interesting concept! Some day MMOs will latch on to that and catch up to where UO's been since the turn of the century.
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This is an interesting question but what exactly is being purposed?
Take out any sort of progression all together? A game like that hasn't been created because it couldn't work. People like to progress in any game they're playing, even if its at a slow pace. Taking out any and all progression isn't the answer. Take out levels, skills, gear, money, items....everything that can be used to progress?
Why don't we all go back to playing Tetris then?
MMO design has indeed changed over the years. Vertical and horizontal progression are good water markers for charting the change. What he fails to see is that the way MMO's where and the way they are now have changed for very good reason.
Along with changing to a more vertical system of progression, MMO's have also come out of the niche genre from which they spawned and into a mainstream popularity in which they have enjoyed great success. MMO's changed because they had to. It was a natural progression on their part and a move to drawn in a larger, more casual crowd.
Your probably right on the why the model changed to the time played scale, and that is money. By moving the MMORPG genre into a competative, level based game play style it created a rather nice carrot on a stick to keep the player base interested, involved, addicted, AND paying the monthly sub fees. I dont think any game company out there would be willing to dump funds into the development of a game that didn't have the current crack effect we currently have out there.
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
This is an interesting question but what exactly is being purposed?
Take out any sort of progression all together? A game like that hasn't been created because it couldn't work. People like to progress in any game they're playing, even if its at a slow pace. Taking out any and all progression isn't the answer. Take out levels, skills, gear, money, items....everything that can be used to progress?
Why don't we all go back to playing Tetris then?
-100% agree
MMO design has indeed changed over the years. Vertical and horizontal progression are good water markers for charting the change. What he fails to see is that the way MMO's where and the way they are now have changed for very good reason.
Along with changing to a more vertical system of progression, MMO's have also come out of the niche genre from which they spawned and into a mainstream popularity in which they have enjoyed great success. MMO's changed because they had to. It was a natural progression on their part and a move to drawn in a larger, more casual crowd.
Your probably right on the why the model changed to the time played scale, and that is money. By moving the MMORPG genre into a competative, level based game play style it created a rather nice carrot on a stick to keep the player base interested, involved, addicted, AND paying the monthly sub fees. I dont think any game company out there would be willing to dump funds into the development of a game that didn't have the current crack effect we currently have out there.
The root of all evil.
The almighty dollar.
This is an interesting question but what exactly is being purposed?
Take out any sort of progression all together? A game like that hasn't been created because it couldn't work. People like to progress in any game they're playing, even if its at a slow pace. Taking out any and all progression isn't the answer. Take out levels, skills, gear, money, items....everything that can be used to progress?
Why don't we all go back to playing Tetris then?
I agree, thats why in my earlier post that I didnt see a way that could work. Finding a tool that can help to level the playing field might help. Take for example the auto-mentoring system I mentioned in CoH. Lets say we moved that into WoW for our example.
We have 5 friends in the game - 2 of them play a LOT, and have multiple level 80 characters - the other 3 only play when they can, family takes up too much time to play as much for them so they are all around level 35. So obviously they cann't all do everything together when they are all on, unless those high level guys have low level atls waiting around. And they can't all do the cool stuff those level 80 guys want to show off to their friends. So we move in the auto-mentoring system. With it, those three level 35 character could join their level 80 friends in a level 80 instance for the day, have fun together, and at the end go back to being level 35 again. They may not have all the cool toys on them, and may not be 100% as productive as the level 80s, but the idea is that he COULD join them in what they are doing and not have to worry about pushing to level, or how much time they play just to keep up with their friends.
The idea isn't to completely redesign a game to eliminate the progression, but to add tools that allow it to not stand in the way of enjoying the game no matter how much time you play compared to others. That way those that are casual and those that play hardcore (time wise) can still enjoy the game together.
And, what the OP was saying in the original post is that the games out there now are trying to control this by imposing caps in order to slow the progression of the hardcore players to allow the casual to catch up. Thats the problem he is having, and rightly so IMO. There has to be a better way of doing it than the way they are right now (one instance a week, one quest a day, one encounter a week). Understand?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
I will address a few points.
When a MMORPG is launched the content is finite, all games content is finite.
The thing is, the time frame, in wich the content can be, lets says, experienced (I prefer this expression, rather than chewed, like the conotion you gave) is different from player to player and the longevity of the game, regardless of its characteristic of being finite, dont necessarily have to be fully experienced by every player, in the same order, at the same pace, for the same ammount of time spent.
MMORPGs are virtual persistant worlds, ever changing, ever evolving, living breath worlds. There is no such thing as an Static MMORPG.
What does it have to do with the finity of the content and character progression for that matter?
Content doesnt have to be played linearly, by everyone single player, as following a path, doing the same quests, killing the same monsters, nice and pretty, happy happy, untill the content miraculously ends.
NO.
You can have content with Organic Characteristics.
Content that is Driven by the Players, Constructed, Mantained, Destroyed by the players.
Some might start thinking about items, buildings, organizations, territories, but it goes way beyond that.
The word content itself has a negative conotation. Because it implies limitations, "beating the content", "chew the content", "skip throw the content", "the new expansion will add more content".
An MMORPG can be made with a finite content that lasts for years. And what character progression has to do with that?
You can have a character progression that last for years as well.
And then you come with another terms... "Hardcore" , "Casual crowd".
You are thinking on terms of people following a line with different speeds reaching an end.
MMORPGs are not that. There is no lines, there is no end, its an endless organic cycle where everything nets together and interrelates.
You say progression and "leveling" by the general population will occur at a predictable rating. Thats because everyone is following the developers script. True MMORPGs dont have such a script.
Remove the linear scripted content progression and see what happens: neither what you call "casual" or "hardcore" target audience will ever be able to finish the content, because you remove the entire concept of "End Game".
It will bring back the enjoyment of playing games for just playing, instead of rushing through the "content" to reach "end game".
You give back the joy of following a unique non scripted path and being rewarded by your exploration and discoveries knowing for certain that many will not come across such discovery as you did...
Overwhelming feeling of freedom "oh, there is so many possibilities what should I do next?".
If it wasnt for the games design decisions being as limited as they are, from combat gameplay, to main/extreme focus on combat, progressing through the scripted linear path, we would actually bring back the "Live the game feeling".
We would have communities instead of claustrophobic automatons rushing through the "Content" so they can enjoy the "End Game".
Games are being in such a way that people actually try to skip most of it just so they can reach the "end content", and everything is considered "pointless". That is because the vertical power progression: "Nothing below the level cap matters, because I dont want to get owned".
Its easy to talk about the "casual " target audience when all the games available on the market are clones of each others steaming from subscription based games or free to play games. Whose game mechanics and core elements regarding time and effort spent, power and character progress are different based its economic model wich will define many design decisions. Its a falacy to conclude that an existing "casual" target audience for actual games would prevent future games with different ideas such as the one exposed on my main topic to be be successfull.
What I think is that you cant really talk about target audience in this situation. We are yet to see a MMORPG on the roots of its original concept being made with today's technologies and AAA title production value. Your target audience theory will disolve into thin air that day.
I ignored all your hoaxed personal attacks.
I just want to correct one thing.
For the vast majority of MMORPGs, the world doesn't progress, or change, just the player characters.
In an MMORPG, unlike a single player game, the world is static.
The Mobs never die permanently, they respawn. The Princess is never saved for good, the quest is still available for the next player to do.
you make a level, and get new gear, but the world doesn't change one bit. Unless of course an expansion is added, but then that expansion doesn't change.
In games like EVE the world does change, as players take over territory, and the boundary lines change in the world, but in most MMORPGs, there is no progress for the world.
As for the concept, I agree.
All players in a Pay to Play game are exactly equal, because characters are measured in hours played, and content completed.
All 20th level characters did roughly the SAME amount of quests, the SAME amount of Mob killing. Doesn't matter whether you did it in 1 week, or 1 year, you did the SAME content.
If you base characters on content completed, they are all equal, and most players will do the content in roughly the same amount of hours. DOesn't really matter if you do those hours in 10 hour days, or 1 hour a week.
50 hours is 50 hours. 200 hours is still 200 hours, and so on.
Unlimited progression causes it to be almost impossible for a game to provide balanced challenges for players.
Difficulty balancing is not easy. Blizzard screwed up WOTLK, despite having some pretty set-in-stone caps to work with.
So a suggestion to remove power caps is effectively a suggestion for worse difficulty balancing. For more than in a normal game you'll run into challenges which are way too easy or way too difficult.
There are measures a game can take to try to make unlimited progression work, but they're not without their own disadvantages, and still don't ensure you'll get difficulty balanced just right.
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This persistent world may be true but it is done on the lowest scale possible,witch is why this genre still has tons of room to grow,IF the developers will put out the effort.
To be a TRUE persistent world,we would need aging and decay ,a destructible world.The technology is already there in PhysX engine and shown to us many years ago in the Red Faction game.This would true allow for an ever evolving world,but the effort would be huge as they would need to make tons of animations and models for each aspect.
I think what i could accept,is if a game gives us this little by little,allowing them over time to make new models and animations to allow the world to grow and change.Trying to make a world this interactive and complete a sort of Age of Empires type of world only better with the PhysX engine would take MANY years.After all if the support is there then they have our 15 bucks a month to play with and further develop the game,heck i would pay 20 bucks even,players were paying that years ago on the T.E.N gaming platform.
I think they also allow for realistic aging like players would get a lot smarter,so their crafting improves,their intelligence improves but their dexterity and hand eye co ordination falls off a bit.We could have a marriage system and children/offspring[in case of animalistic models] that inherit abilities from their parents.all realistic stuff.This is all how a realistic persistent world SHOULD evolve as time goes by.
The longevity of such a system far outweighs,the present day one,because as of now,there really is nothing we change in a game besides our gear/levels and Auction house,that shows how far we are from having a real persistent world.
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I'm not exactly sure what the OP is saying as he seems to jump from one subject to another. However, from what I can gather from the OP is that he wants an online game with no levels, no limits, no progression. A sort of Call of Duty Online with the world the size of WoW's. And to be honest, I would personally find it incredibly boring. Everyone needs some form of progression in their entertainment (books, plays, musicals, movies, films, etc). Entertainment without progression is like spending 2 hours watching a 1970's french black and white movie about a woman who just sits in her kitchen, smoking thin cigarettes and looking angrily at the clock on the wall. It's pointless and it's incredibly boring after the first 100 kills.
The concept of changing things over time in an MMO is something I've been thinking a lot about recently....
Just for the sake of discussion, let's imagine a barren landscape that has just enough activities and content to keep a player going for some arbitrary amount of time (no fluff stuff that no one will see, just the stuff thats needed). So, lets assume a number of towns, each with quests to go into dungeons (not necessarily to give xp, just to forward people to them). Throw in an interesting backstory for that world and add player housing and crafting. Lots of forests everywhere (which will soon change).
Now, every couple of patches you start adding new (but relatively small) additions and replacements here and there: a new shop that wasn't available before, a new set of quests (perhaps which give no xp, but good incentives nonetheless), a huge expansive forest that was in at launch is partly torn down to make way for a town ..... perhaps a number of patches later you introduce lore which states that a church got burned out, but a local business man has rebuilt the church into a bar. The church model is kept but the inside is remodeled. Another patch later, a mine that was used for harvesting Gold changes in appearance because there was a landslide which uncovered the entrance to a new dungeon. Local governments could change hands, altering how certain groups of npcs and players are viewed by the authorities (which starts to introduce faction based rewards and loyalties). Certain items could be suddenly considered as contraband, and SWG style random stop searches are being performed.
What this means is that instead of having everything in the world completely designed and static, a small amount of things could be "swapped out", added or even removed with different patches (of course with an appropriate background story to justify the changes).
It sounds complicated, but in actual fact it isn't. As a concept, relatively small but frequent changes are easier to manage and control than huge major ones. Monumental changes can have profound positive AND negative impacts on both the game and the playerbase and maybe even have unforeseen consequences that the devs didn't anticipate. However with relatively small changes such impacts can be somewhat controlled and perhaps anticipated in advance.
Unfortunately, MMO's never seem to be in a position whereby they can do things like this because they are often too busy fixing the mountain of bugs with their product, or playing "catch up" because they launched with a sub-standard product in the first place.
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I like your approach to having updates that effect the world, Tarka. It sort of side steps programing in decay into the game (which seems challenging - I'm no programmer), but refreshes older areas to encourage people to revisit previously traversed ground.
On the topic of lateral progression versus a vertical level rise, that's a topic i've been toying at myself. Yes, I'm another buffoon with a "brain child" MMOG in their head. (Very fledgling ideas.) I feel that a virtual world that was across the board a more level playing feild is possible... meaning that the mobs are consistant in their damage/xp across all "zones"... rather than how WoW has that path of steadily increasing zones of difficulty that are instant death to lower level alts.
Coupling this with breaking "levels" down to apply in various skill sets and stats so that each time you "ding" you're given what would basically amount to a free point to assign into either their stats (which would probably be grouped together and need to have a group "max" so players do not just max out all their base stats and wind up exactly like everyone else in that regard - leave room for thinking things through in your build) or alternatively to apply it as toward your profession/magic/melee skills as a sort of bonus point.
This would mean that for example your basic taylor quests at the beginnign when you're low in points on that skill bar award more xp than that same quest would after you've progressed further in that profession (down to min 1 point perhaps) while the "advanced" tayloring quests require you to seek out rarer materials or to make a higher armor grade item for the quest giver. Completion of said Taylor quest awards some XP directly to your profression stats, but also gives you general experience toward your experience bar.
Players could focus on leveling their stats first... affecting their physical traits and thus their PvE and PvP abilities, focus on unlocking and learning weapons skills or martial arts skills (again for PvE or PvP) ... or could focus on professions. They would in all cases be directly leveling the task they're focusing on... but they would also have the option of sneaking in points of approvement on another area they may not want to grind on at that moment, all be it at a lower rate than there main activity. Crafters increasing their weapons skills would be an example. Crafting away when their guild isn't around, but still making some headway on their stats in other areas.
My main complaint against games nowadays is the combat oriented vertical progression.
In essence, its Power vs Balance. If I have power, I have progression. If I have balance, I dont have progression.
Balance being an impossibility due to players time and effort spent being different.
One player plays all day, while another one just one hour per day.
This is a natural limit to balance.
To counter that, developers create artificial power limits, and since power is the essence of progression, or its most strong facet in combat oriented vertical progression games, we end up with progression caps to artificially limit a naturally unexistant balance.
Its impossible to have both power and balance. And if you make the balance a core element in your design, you will have to limit power progression. Some players consider the power over others rate in MMORPGs a vital element of their entertainment/satisfaction/needs. In games where such power progression is awarded with time and effort spent, those players who invest more time and effort will evaluate it more than those who dont do it. In free to play games, where the companies main profit comes from cash shop, selling power progression shortcuts is their way to go, therefore their designs focus tend to shift more on power than in balance. In games where power progression shortcuts are not sold in cash shops, the design decisions not necessarily weight heavier on the power progression. There seems to be an feeling that in subscription based games, the balance is the core element in the design, even though there is power progression, it is artificially limited with "classes", "levels", "requisites", so eventually the power progression stops, in detriment to a chronological balance bootleneck.
This goes against the essence of MMORPGs, wich are persistant worlds where multiple characters live and progress, and the world never stops for those who logged off, the world and the other characters doesnt wait/stop.
So a chronological balance bottleneck, such as a power progression level cap, like in WOW, for example, is a aberration mechanic to the genre.
Eventually the comunities will realize the power vs balance design of games yet in development and see them for what they are and be able to choose their games based on their preferences for either power or balance.
In another note, your public audience might never not know if your game is structured on balance or power, for example, WOW.
The power progression in WOW dont come from levels, the balance come from levels, wich are reachable very easily, with the chronological balance bootleneck, the power progression from WOW, comes from a different concept: gear.
While some are led to believe the game is structured in balance based on some hypocrital and mainly marketing gimicks, the real factors of power progression comes from gear, wich is not chronologically balanced artificially like the levels. The player power is the consecution of their time and effort spent in the acquisition of power derived from gear. Those who spent proportionally less time and effort (the paradigm of impossible balance) acquire less power derived from gear.
So, with the example of WOW, a solution/alternative should be fool your player base that prefers balance (casual players) into believing your game is structured into balance, while in reality satisfying your player base that prefers power (hardcore players) with a system in place that only show its true face after the period of time only that player base will spent on the game to discover.
Off course, some people might try to spoil your strategy on the communications nets, but that wont come close to preventing your game market strategy from causing the desired effects.
We dont see in interviews questions being asked or answered regarding "power progression, balance and the ammount of time where power progression is chronologically artificially limited or not" Thats the core question developers dont talk about that takes weeks or months for players to discover from first hand experiences.
"How many hours of power progression do I have untill I reach artificial caps?"
If people knew the answer for this, be they casual or hardcore players, they wouldnt bother playing.
Casual players want a power progression cap at maximum of lets say... 200 hours or less. Hardcore players want no power progression caps, or a power progression cap that lasts for 500-1000 hours.
MMORPGs, by their original concepts and definition, never stop. So those games games where power progression caps are reached in less than 200 hours... wich means... 2-3 weeks are not living up to the genre. In MMORPGs you are supposed to live in the living breathing organic persistant world where characters progress/evolve regardless of your presence and the whole experience lasts for months or years, definatelly not 2-3 weeks.
Those 2-3 weeks of time and effort spent required to reach the artificially (chronological balance bootleneck, to the point where others can start catching up) created power progression cap are just there for the sake of balancing up the players who spent less time and effort: the players who were logged off from the virtual persistant world that supposedly never stops/waits for them.
As long as the games remain being linear with strict focus on combat for progression PLAYERS WONT ADDAPT TO A DIFFERENT CONCEPT THAN
The concept of vertical progression: power progression... wich means "power over others"
For we to start discussing horizontal progression of characters in the "living breathing virtual organic persistant world", the MMORPGs have to start being more of that and less of "linear combat oriented games".
Once we restart making MMORPGs as they were meant to be, we will be able to surpass this "balance vs vertical progression" paradigm. Untill them, its just games of mindless rushing of "content" in a repetitive grind to for more vertical power (or reach "level cap" in those games with a cap) and be able to play "end game" or "pvp".
Noone wants to PVP untill they are sure they have the maximum possible power over others, because they can. Noone cares about the journey, because there is no journey, when you only have combat combat for more power, more power, it doesnt matter what you are doing now, it matters once you reach the cap.
My short term solution would be to remove the cap, or make it extenuatingly unreachable (over 1000 hours), then people would calm the fuck down. If you make it so everyone can reach it in 100 hours, everyone will rush those 100 hours, but if you make a thousand... people will addapt to it. That is what Free to Play games present, they have this design, but offer shortcuts in their cash shops. People dont quit because they reach level cap and get bored, they never get satisfied in F2P games (unless they spend a lot of money), but they do rage quit offended by the cash shop practices. In subscription based games, people reach the power progression cap in their first subscription month, then they quit, bored.
I prefer the time when "balance" didnt existed. Like when there wasnt levels, classes, races. Everyone could do everything whenever they wanted, so we didnt had to have progression caps, people could reach a cap in one branch of power, but there was dozens of branches, everything you learned would help and be usefull and people wouldnt get bored after one month, because in one month they barelly reached a fraction of their maximum power progression. Thats was the golden age of MMORPGs.
"Bob" is a paying customer, just like "Elitist Scum." And there are likely more Bobs than Elitist Scums.
This world takes all kinds, and while I don't feel that people who play more than Bob should face a progression cap due to his attempt at not giving his life to an MMO, I also think that Bob shouldn't feel left in the dust when he gets his chance to play. Bob's 15$ a month gives him just as much say in the world as Elitist Scum, Johnny Carebear, or Tough Guy OP.
If said MMO is something like WoW, which caters to all kinds, then the simple fix is for Bob to keep playing and Elitist Scum or whomever to head somewhere nice and niche, where his minority clusters. While Bob could move on to greener pastures himself if he can't keep up, businesses don't want him to.
MMOs for the most part, are little more than business ventures first, games second nowadays. They will naturally cater to the majority. The whole genre is a joke on so many levels at the moment, I don't even see the point of this topic.
Not to worry, OP. A game like SWTOR should grab lots of people like Bob and bring them happiness at their own pace, while you can continue to suckle the teet of whatever beast feeds you at the moment. At least you have something. Some people are scouring the lands for a nice teet.
Like the power progression in WOW is based on time and effort spent to get better gear ends up pleasing Elitist Scam and the level cap is just an ilusion to please Bobs?
WOW is formed majorly of Bobs afterall ?
Keeping up with the virtual world is only really a concern for powergamers in shallow level-based MMOs. You either keep pace with the group or you get 'left behind.' Luckily, casual gamers and 'carebears' don't experience such capslock-inducing rage-posting anxiety because their concern is simply whether or not they themselves are having fun. They don't gauge their fun against the perceived fun of the guy next to them.
Exactly. In fact, the whine-factor represents a failure in the hardcore mentality. Those of us who are only playing the game to have fun and are not in a mindless competition against others just point and laugh at the hardcore losers who can't handle being behind anyone else.
At least it's entertaining for those of us with a healthy outlook.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I think the solution is found in Everquest -- Advanced Achievements. If applied to all skills and with enough of them, you could technically keep progressing even after hitting a level cap. The only problem becomes you can only have so many things to do, ever. Think about it in real life terms.
The world is the ultimate sandbox, but for most people they will never achieve anything greater than say, middle class. That is just the nature of the world. You can't possibly know everything, or do everything, or hold a job at everything. The same is true with MMOs, you can't or shouldn't be able to infinitely advance in everything, even if you have the time. At the some point you just won't get any better then what you are.
You could be a Doctor, then you can specialize in heart surgery, after 10 years you might take a few classes on brains as well, but you will never be as good a brain surgeon as you are a heart surgeon. It's the unfortunate nature of the world we live in.
Now I understand the desire to want to progress in different means -- why should combat progress you, why can't you simply be a trusted advisor or eventually the ruler of your own land? In some games you can, but they sacrifice a lot of other things to get there. We are all hoping, I think, one day games will allow us to fully realize what it is we want to do in them.
An Assassin who kills kings, a Smith who crafts the finest wares, a dungeon runner who kills beasts of epic tales, or maybe the lowly serving wench. The builder of great buildings, the writer of epic stories, or the Conqueror who leads his army into foreign lands. Sounds nice on paper, but like the world, there are only so many finite possibilities and trying to create a game that allows for every single possible option. Not only would it take too long to develop, too much money, and too many things to cover -- but without the dangling of the carrot most people wouldn't even bother playing.
People need goals, it drives and motivates them, giving them endless freedom is akin to playing Sims Online.
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
This is mostly only a problem if the game is developed with the static mindset. Meaning quests that rely on the world to be static, which typically means that the quests themselves are static.
An aspect that could be approached is developing the MMO world in a manner where pretty much everything is considered dynamic. Take for example NPC towns. It would be possible to program code into the system that would say, track the volume and type of player behavior in particular towns. For example, if a lot of mobs are killed around the town, the spawns lessen and/or become weaker. If particular vendors are frequented a lot, it might 'attract' (spawn more) NPC vendors in the town and they might change their available inventory or prices. On the flip side, if players don't frequent a town much in a very spawn heavy area, there is potential for the town to be over-run and destroyed.
I think character progression should be a little less vertical, but it needs to be there. I think SWG did a fairly good job of keeping things somewhat horizontal, but still gave a sense of character progression having an impact. If advancing your character has virtually no impact on gameplay, then it can get rather boring.
Personally, I think pooling everything into one XP bar and then letting people pick anything is a lackluster system. I'm a big advocate of raising skills by directly using those skills. Meaning if your character uses a melee weapon, their melee skill increases, if they use magic, their magic skill increases. Kind of like UO / SWG did with their systems. This allows players to create pure support builds by actually playing their role, rather than having to mindlessly grind quests/mobs to even get to a position where they can do what they want.
Though I do agree that there needs to be some total cap, or otherwise some disincentive to being a jack of all trades, perhaps through making each additional skill exponentially harder to raise if you have decent amount already.
The argument about people not being able to learn anything holds in REAL LIFE. In the settings were MMORPGs take place its questionable.
But its an exageration to counter an argument for infinite progression. Its not about infinite progression, its about MMORPGs taking 2-3 weeks to reach level cap wich simply shreds the insides of the genre. Akin to static single player games.
I dont want a power progression that last forever, or that takes 20 years to reach level cap. That is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is counter arguing that as if it was the point.
Instead of defining a cap that can be reached in 2 weeks wich breaks the genre nature, instead of a cap that blends with what the MMORPGs genre is about (living breathing world, organic, persistant, always changing, always evolving, etc... read other posts) takes atleast around 6 months to a year to reach (180 - 360 days playing around 5 hours per day.... taking 900 hours-1800 hours).
Regardless of how many exact hours I use as an example, the essence of the idea is that people dont think about it as if they could manage it, as if it was their right to reach level cap, their right to experience end game, they whole point is that people dont rush it anymore, so they experience the world without that anxiety and certainty of having to reach level cap "oh my god, how come I didnt reached level cap in two weeks yet durr". For example, if it is to rush a 900 hours investment to reach end game, people wont do it. Because it will be stupid. Thats just changing the design, you change peoples behaviour. Think about it.
The whole point is making players not think that its possible to reach a cap, thats a world, the world is yours, its massivelly huge, you live on it, you are free to do what you want, here are the tools, have fun. Just live the game, enjoy the experience as you make it as you shape the way you want to play and your own goals. And if people come with the linear brainwashed mentality that they "have to reach level cap to play end game" and try to do it, it will be like hitting their heads against the wall due to the cheer stupidity of rushing 900-1800 hours.
Just stop making games focused on combat for power progression and removing the linear "follow the script" nature of "progression, threadmill, levels, content, quests" and you will see people doing their stuff at their own time, eliminate those concepts of everyone is a hero, balanced happy happy and the problem vanishes.
So what that someone plays 16 hours per day while you just play 2 hours. He spends more time than you, he progress while you are logged off, the world doesnt stop, face it, if your time and effort spent are not balanced, your powers wont be balanced either.
People cant see that because most of the games they know are combat oriented themeparks whose only goal is follow the scripted path and reach end game to pvp.
Change the game design, solve the problem of capping progression (static) in dinamic worlds.
People dont understand how the current games design are the problem.
They think its normal to play focused on combat, following the script
"first you start killing rats at level 1, then do the quest 1, then you kill wolfs at level 2 and do the quest 2, untill after 2-3 weeks you reach the end game and you can pvp, isnt it an amazing MMORPG?!"
And they, they suddenly dont realize how progression, the core element of MMORPGs has been bypassed/countered/destroyed/nerfed for the sake of a "balance" we dont need. What we need is a total different game design and the balance problem goes away without sacrificing the progression, because peoples behaviour and notions will change.