Let me ask you this. How knowable should the character progression system be in a mmoRPG? Should item X only drop from MOB_2001? Should a mage know that in order to get the fireball spell, he must run a specific series of quests? Should players be able to go to a website and research where they can get items and spells?
Progression is important in a RPG, but should the journey matter as much or even more than the progression? A lot of players don't care about the story and just want to rush through progression. What if rushing wasn't the way to get the best character the fastest?
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Or, in other words - give us tons and tons of skills.
Which, when taken too far, leads to feature bloat.
Skill - Shooting pool while standing on head and balancing a beer on LEFT foot (10/100) Shooting pool while standing on head and balancing a beer on RIGHT foot (10/100)
There's always a middle road, naturally. But the line between where players feel there's too little complexity (solely for complexity's sake) and too much is a tightrope.
Imagine the op's original example: regional running skills. Okay, sorta reasonable.
Now imagine it in a game that's a decade old, and has literally hundreds of regions... With new ones getting added every expansion. Think the dev team will bother trying to keep up? Will the players bother keeping up?
Imagine every new region released affecting a dozen "core" skills. From a player's viewpoint, every new region means traveling to it and running, climbing, swimming, trudging... keeping your skills "caught up", a dozen or more times for each and every new region, over the entire lifetime of the game release(s).
Full-time skill upkeep. Infinite reps. Zzzzzzzzz.
New players? Sorry guys, you'll just never catch up, even if you live online. Want to buy our Skill Booster Steroids Pack, available in the online store?
Well, you have to read the OP more carefully, since he has some poor choices of words in this respect, but especially in his examples it gets obvious that he actually wanted to suggest one running skill per region TYPE, not per world region per se.
I.e. if you have already trained your running in area A of type DESERT, the new area B of type DESERT wont offer you a new challenge, you'll already be maxed out.
Swimming would then be swimming in ice water, swimming in warm water, swimming in salt water, and swimming in a salt sea, etc. Not swimming in region A, B, or C.
And so on.
And as always there is always a general skill. Even if you havent trained yet running in a DESERT, a maxed general skill will already help you.
Its pretty much like its common for fighting. So you have a general skill for slashing weapons, and a special skill for swords. Maybe you leveled on axe, so the new sword isnt handled too well just yet. But then you have an already maxed slashing weapons skill, that help.
Or, in other words - give us tons and tons of skills.
Which, when taken too far, leads to feature bloat.
Skill - Shooting pool while standing on head and balancing a beer on LEFT foot (10/100) Shooting pool while standing on head and balancing a beer on RIGHT foot (10/100)
There's always a middle road, naturally. But the line between where players feel there's too little complexity (solely for complexity's sake) and too much is a tightrope.
Imagine the op's original example: regional running skills. Okay, sorta reasonable.
Now imagine it in a game that's a decade old, and has literally hundreds of regions... With new ones getting added every expansion. Think the dev team will bother trying to keep up? Will the players bother keeping up?
Imagine every new region released affecting a dozen "core" skills. From a player's viewpoint, every new region means traveling to it and running, climbing, swimming, trudging... keeping your skills "caught up", a dozen or more times for each and every new region, over the entire lifetime of the game release(s).
Full-time skill upkeep. Infinite reps. Zzzzzzzzz.
New players? Sorry guys, you'll just never catch up, even if you live online. Want to buy our Skill Booster Steroids Pack, available in the online store?
Sure, there are things to consider, obviously having character development for the sake of character development is missing the point, but the idea is for long term development.
While I can see your point to an extent, the "new player" argument and the "it's fun the first time, but a hassle after that" are very similar arguments that resulted in overly simplistic systems today.
The new player argument is one that is used as a means to justify removing travel conditions and implementing solo ability. It is what also results in the "race to end game" mentality because the new player feels like that if they play the game as it was designed, they will miss out on something, or... they view playing the game as secondary to catching up to their friends.
There are solutions to those problems, but reducing content for the new player I don't think is the appropriate resolution.
As for the latter issue, this one I never understood. I have seen it with the travel argument, People say "Well, I don't mind having to travel around a couple of times, but after that... it is such a hassle!" Thing is, that is the point. The travel system isn't meant to be a feature that provides immense enjoyment in the process of, it is a game play element that is meant to be an obstacle in play. This is what makes all the tools created to deal with it of use and desire.
So, in the same manner, my example of multiple skills per zone is that it creates a constant need to progress. This is something that end game in most games runs into. That vast amount of skills, abilities and content the player had to conquer to get to the end of the current content no longer exists and so gimmicks are introduced to keep the player busy (dailies, long mundane grinds, dungeon speed runs for tokens, etc...).
With a system as I mention, it will mean constant new obstacles in development for existing players, in the same vein as what they experienced in release. It isn't the "end game" that these games are about, rather it is the journey, the process of improving in play. If one sees character development as a hassle, then one shouldn't be playing a character development game.
One thing about new players though. The nice thing about the per zone system is that the player does not have to do every zone as the progress. EQ is huge these days and players aren't forced to do every zone as they progress up the levels. In the same way, this style of system means the player only has to progress in the zones they choose to develop in. Those that that do not, well.. if the game is designed correctly, old zones will still have meaning for high level players, so there will always be content for the player who missed some zones on their journey through the game.
So while I agree some things have to be considered in the long term, I personally don't agree with your reasons. Character development isn't a race, it is a process of play and viewing it as a hassle is missing the point, just as viewing the need as a new player to race to the end game is. Those perceptions are a common expectation of games today, which hopefully Pantheon steers clear of.
Well, you have to read the OP more carefully, since he has some poor choices of words in this respect, but especially in his examples it gets obvious that he actually wanted to suggest one running skill per region TYPE, not per world region per se.
I.e. if you have already trained your running in area A of type DESERT, the new area B of type DESERT wont offer you a new challenge, you'll already be maxed out.
Swimming would then be swimming in ice water, swimming in warm water, swimming in salt water, and swimming in a salt sea, etc. Not swimming in region A, B, or C.
And so on.
And as always there is always a general skill. Even if you havent trained yet running in a DESERT, a maxed general skill will already help you.
Its pretty much like its common for fighting. So you have a general skill for slashing weapons, and a special skill for swords. Maybe you leveled on axe, so the new sword isnt handled too well just yet. But then you have an already maxed slashing weapons skill, that help.
He was correct in what I was suggesting. My design is to avoid the problem with skills reaching the apex of their usefulness in advancement. If you have running in the desert as a skill and use it for all deserts, you end up with a skill that has a shelf life as you can only make a character run so fast in the game.
Yet, if you segregate running ability on a zone per zone basis, you never run out of a skill improvement. As I said "What if zones had skills?".
So, running in a specific zones desert environment may not be the same in another zones desert environment because not all deserts are exactly alike, not all zones are exactly alike.
My title was appropriate, but opened the doors for some confusion. When I say "environment based character development", I mean the immediate surroundings, not exactly "environmental" character development. Maybe the use of elements in my discussion created confusion.
The point is that by having each zone contain its own development requirements, you end up creating layers of content with each area released. The poster you responded to was worried it would become bloated, but... I think it avoids the bloat he is worried about because it doesn't have a linear development requirement. That is, since it is not connected specifically to the character (ie having tons of skills applied generally everywhere), there is no required progression to meet as a new player comes in. That is, the zone skills are only relevant to the zones a player will be in, unlike a massive skill system with linear progression will require a new player to complete before they can progress.
Well, then he was 100% correct in criticizing that, and I wouldnt want that either.
I dont want the newly added skills with every new item and new location added to the game.
You have a general skill "battle axe". Maybe also a list for "gnomish battleaxe", "elven battleaxe", "crude battleaxe", "stone battleaxe", etc, for different designs of battleaxes. But not a list of skills for every single axe inside the game. Thats just riddiculous.
Same for special areas.
The skilllist should stay static, no matter how many areas and items are in the game.
I also dont see how such a buttload of skills could ever be graphically represented to the player. That would be a huge, ever increasing list.
Oh and in fact I would say one and the same area can have subsections that use a
different type, like one area has grassland and you use the grassland
running skill, another area is a forest and you use the woodland
running skill, and then
theres a road and that uses the hard underground running skill, then theres a sandy beach and you use the sandy ground
running skill, then theres a stony area and you use the stony ground
running skill, etc.
In fact one could use this for more. A grassland is pretty optimal for running, the ground would cushion, preserving your endurance. A hard underground makes you run the fastest, but it would drain more endurance than grassland. A sandy underground would slightly slow you like grassland, but wouldnt cushion. A stony underground will have a chance to wound you if you run over it, especially at night. At day it would cause slight fire damage if its hot. A forest would make running quite hard, you would use more endurance and it would slow you down. And so on.
If you have running in the desert as a skill and use it for all
deserts, you end up with a skill that has a shelf life as you can only
make a character run so fast in the game.
Yet, if you segregate
running ability on a zone per zone basis, you never run out of a skill
improvement. As I said "What if zones had skills?".
I really dont see the point of that. A person that can run fast in the desert .. can run fast in the desert. Geographical location doesnt matter if its the same kind of ground.
I also dont see how such a buttload of skills could ever be graphically represented to the player. That would be a huge, ever increasing list.
It would be a UI of zones, with sub skills listed per zone. How big that list would depend on the number of zones that would contain such development. Not every zone needs this, and how you display it is really just a matter of UI implementation (you easily mangage the view by a searchable database, or clickable show/hide elements, etc..). Point is, it isn't a problem.
I really dont see the point of that. A person that can run fast in the
desert .. can run fast in the desert. Geographical location doesnt
matter if its the same kind of ground.
Not every location is the same. Not all jungles are the same. For instance, soil consistency, moisture, and texture can create a different type of feel to movement through it. The vegetation could be very root like with numerous hazards for running fast. Some beaches are rocky, some are sandy and within that there are different types of elements to them.
The point is that you can reason why running, climbing, surviving, etc... may be different from one specific area to another. For instance, surviving in the Sahara is not the same as surviving in Death Valley. There may be some skills that are transferable as general skills, but each area has its own unique environment and takes different knowledge and skills to survive in.
Don't get hung up on semantics, the idea is to give a means to continue development indefinitely without running into the linear cap issues that a general skill on a character will run into.
Lets say that you have desert running, ice swimming, etc... as you pointed out and you cover the basic elements. Now what? We are back to the problem of them reaching diminishing returns. Where do you go from there? Yet if you have zone based skills that are specific to that zones style and setting, then you never run out of development carrots. You add a new zone and you have a whole new set of carrots to chase.
I think rather than having a different skill for each zone, having a skill penalty modifier for each zone might work out better. Now instead of a skill of 80/100, your skill would show as 80/100(-17), indicating that your skill will be subject to external forces. Having fewer skills would reduce character storage (a minor concern that magnifies when you multiply it by 100,000+ characters) and reduce the display of skills. A skill penalty could also be extended to a special class of 'curses' or 'debuffs'.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think rather than having a different skill for each zone, having a skill penalty modifier for each zone might work out better. Now instead of a skill of 80/100, your skill would show as 80/100(-17), indicating that your skill will be subject to external forces. Having fewer skills would reduce character storage (a minor concern that magnifies when you multiply it by 100,000+ characters) and reduce the display of skills. A skill penalty could also be extended to a special class of 'curses' or 'debuffs'.
The point of the system is to introduce carrots to chase. The problem with games today is their systems are overly simplified (and continue to be streamlined) to where character development is no longer the focus and simple arcade play is. This is why everyone sees the "journey" in most mainstream games as just a formality to get to the real game which they call end game.
Your suggestion would remove the development aspect of play which is the entire point I am getting at.
As for storage requirements, there are ways to deal with that, though I don't see that being an issue with the numerous tech solutions we have today.
I don't really see that maxing out a skill is an incentive. Why would I care if my Swim.SwampOfStickyGoo was only 29/10000? If it impacted my ability to function in that zone, I would be inclined to simply avoid that content, unless absolutely necessary. Negative factors, even perceived negative factors (bad loot, bad XP, difficult/confusing floor plan, etc.), seem to influence MMO player more than 'carrots'. In Vanilla EQ1, few people voluntarily hunted in confusing zones, like Runnyeye (confusing and claustrophobic map), Kedge Keep (underwater) or the original Kerra Isle (miserable XP and loot). Kedge Keep may be the closest to your environmental skill -- it required some means to breathe underwater (and stacks of fish scales).
I'd contend that 'carrots' such as skills per zone are substantially less appealing than new content to a vast majority of players. As such, that I don't see that as a satisfactory avenue for adding additional development aspects to a game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I don't really see that maxing out a skill is an incentive. Why would I care if my Swim.SwampOfStickyGoo was only 29/10000? If it impacted my ability to function in that zone, I would be inclined to simply avoid that content, unless absolutely necessary. Negative factors, even perceived negative factors (bad loot, bad XP, difficult/confusing floor plan, etc.), seem to influence MMO player more than 'carrots'. In Vanilla EQ1, few people voluntarily hunted in confusing zones, like Runnyeye (confusing and claustrophobic map), Kedge Keep (underwater) or the original Kerra Isle (miserable XP and loot). Kedge Keep may be the closest to your environmental skill -- it required some means to breathe underwater (and stacks of fish scales).
I'd contend that 'carrots' such as skills per zone are substantially less appealing than new content to a vast majority of players. As such, that I don't see that as a satisfactory avenue for adding additional development aspects to a game.
Hmm... Wow... you just made the argument for mainstream design: Limited character development, simplistic systems and maps, etc...
Here is the problem. We have been doing it your way for years now, Smedly of SoE even wrote a blog on the topic of how he said that developers can't keep up with content generation. It was an interesting read, but it was also a self fulfilled prophecy (ie his very design philosophy is what led to his very problem).
You see, all that complexity, that difficulty, that depth of play is what keeps people busy rather than having them consume it like locusts only to sit at the end game whining about how there isn't anything to do.
The funny thing is that I remember tons of people in Runnyeye. In fact, my guild lived there for many levels (we even did raids there in our 10-15's), I pulled it as a monk and knew it inside and out. It was an amazing zone with tons of twists, turns, etc... you could get lost easy (I did many times, which added to the experience), happen upon a much higher level mob if you weren't careful (Evil Eyes level 35). It was a brilliant zone.
To each their own, but I have to ask if you like simplicity in systems, plain simple zone design, etc... why would you come to a game that is modeled and known for such? Did you read the tenants, the features and statements made about this game?
It's true that it is very hard to keep up with content generation when you create a game where content can be consumed quickly and easily and doesn't require cooperation and planning. If you can effectively play the game and build up your character by soloing, then why group up? Why cooperate? If there's no reason to cooperate and no reward for socializing, then the in-game community struggles to exist and be relevant, real friendships don't develop, and you don't feel any obligation to log-in and help other people succeed. And when these social bonds don't form, and your experiences aren't shared (and therefore are less memorable), the game becomes less sticky and people feel less attached to an MMO and therefore less compelled to stick around for any significant period of time.
Then if you make soloing not only totally viable, but also as easy as many single player games (because your target audience becomes single player gamers who want an online, persistent experience), then content is consumed even more quickly and MMOs can be 'completed' in weeks or months, not months or years. And if you also allow the perception that the 'end game' is where all the fun is at, then you have a bunch of players trying to get to the 'end game' as quickly as possible. This cascades into people wanting to 'powerlevel' and bypass the low and mid level content of the game. When you allow that to occur (and even support it in some cases), then two things happen:
1. Players end up choosing the less fun but more 'efficient' route, basically whatever route or path gets them to the 'end game' the quickest, even if that route or path is less fun and more repetitive. So you have less happy players rushing through content, with many of them saying 'the heck with this' en route, quitting along the way, not finding a true home in an MMO, and bouncing around from one 'new' MMO to another, never satisfied.
And 2. you spend all of this time, money, and resources creating the low and mid level game, yet that content is rarely experienced and more often skipped over. Then you are creating an expensive MMO, but not creating a sticky environment where people want to stay around (they either quit, bored of power leveling and the repetition that is usually part of that process, or they do reach the 'end game' and either enjoy it or don't, but even if they do, they consume the content before you can launch an expansion and provide more content. And if your playerbase doesn't stick around, but you've built a game around the idea of people sticking around and therefore choose a subscription based revenue model, you're left scrambling, trying to figure out how to get your development costs back, much less turn a profit. So you switch the game's revenue model to F2P and try to monetize a subset of your players as quickly as possible, even though your game, content, and design is contrary to quick monetization (e.g. it was built around players sticking around for a while and paying a recurring sub-fee).
And then it gets even worse. Then the post launch dev team isn't told to keep building content, to create expansions, and to eventually move up the level cap. Instead, you take them away from that task and focus and instead ask them to devote time and energy into creating content (items, consumables, etc.) that people will want to buy in the cash shop, preferably right away, before they get bored and leave. I've even seen situations where developers who come up with items that sell well in the cash shops get recognized and even rewarded for doing so. At this point another nasty decision has to be made: do you try to just offer items in the cash shops that are more cosmetic (e.g. a cute, pink flying dragon that allows you to travel a little faster, but doesn't really make you that much more powerful) because you don't want your players to think the game is 'pay to win'? If so, you may avoid offending some of your players, but by definition you're creating items to be sold that really don't help the player all that much. So then the players who don't mind paying real money for in-game items aren't all that satisfied, and you don't make nearly as much money doing F2P.
Or, you do embrace 'pay to win' and create items that you can purchase for real life money that do indeed make your character more powerful. Then you do monetize a little better from those who like pay-to-win, but at the same time alienate the people who were interested in your game who don't like pay-to-win, who want to earn their items and be rewarded for how they play IN the game, regardless of whether they are financially well off in real life or not. The players who enjoy MMOs because you can create an online persona that can be very different than who you are in RL are turned off. The people who perhaps don't have a lot of disposable income, or who aren't very social in RL, or respected, or recognized, who want to escape into an MMO and its virtual world and be recognized for in-game accomplishments, who want to hide to whatever degree they wish who they are in RL and become somebody different, something more... they find themselves in an alternate reality that isn't really that different than RL -- the people who have the RL money and are willing to spend it, they're the ones recognized, rewarded, and acknowledged. The real world prevails within the virtual world and the virtual world ceases to be a place you can escape into. Sure, the setting is fantasy or science fiction, but the interactions, the rewards, the accomplishments resemble RL.
What a mess, eh?
--
-------------------------------------------------------------- Brad McQuaid CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc. www.pantheonmmo.com --------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, its a mess. But honestly the entire video game industry has become the equivalent of the mid 90's music industry. The focus is 100% on $$$ and quite literally nothing else. The word monetize is one of the few things that's starting to make me believe true evil actually exists.
I remember sitting around a couple years after EQ (sometime near DAOC coming out) having discussions with friends, and we 100% imagined that 10 years from then, the market would have diverged into a lot of MMO's that tailor to specific tastes or subsets. How wrong we were... and well... we all know what happened next.
I'm not a fan of the word hate, but in this case i use it knowingly. I hate what Blizzard did to this genre. They used their standard formula of making a (well made) faceroll game that appeals to the masses, and it sold like hot cakes, and everyone thought *that* was what an MMO was. And while vanilla did bear some strong resemblance to what an MMO should be, it was 2 giant steps in the wrong direction. Now, we have a situation where 80% or more of what is defined as the MMORPG playerbase is people who really have no (excuse my language) fucking clue what the ideas and the inspiration behind this genre was. They have been taught to believe that its about an RPG just simply having an online presence.
They don't understand, nor do they want to understand that this genre was founded upon this grand idea of a massive world, where you could interact with other human beings, where you could band together to have adventures and make memories. Where when you logged out, things still happened even though you weren't there. It wasn't solely about the pixels. It was about friendship and adventure and loss and strife. Almost as if it were a living, breathing D&D game. Where instead of having to imagine the dragon in the dungeon, it was there, on your screen, in front of you, for real. It was a place for societies unwanted, cast out people could find a home. Could make friends with people who weren't going to prejudge them. It was a place where you could be recognized for your skill, your friendliness, your loyalty.
Yet instead of asking us why, and letting us explain why it matters, why things were different. We're pigeonholed into the "rose colored glasses" and "not getting with the times" and "the genre has left you in the dust old man" mentality. Now i know its normal for the younger generations to assume they're smarter than older generations (we all did it). But this seems something more, something more... sinister. Its almost like it has turned into a meme. I post on some forums of this website and i feel like i somehow wandered into /b/ on 4chan.
This is why i am so hopeful for this project. I've seen countless instances where some developer came along and said they would do this, or do that, and they never, NEVER stuck to their guns. They always made concessions in the sake of "monetization". They always let a publisher bend them over a barrel. It wasn't until the idea of crowdfunding came long that i had any hope for the genre again. The first people that came along that made me believe they wouldn't kowtow to the almighty dollar was Mark Jacobs and the crew behind Camelot Unchained, and now you Brad, and the Pantheon crew.
We all know (or at least we should) that we may have only 50-100k people who play the game. We obviously hope for more, but I am realistic. We are now a niche of a bloated, dying, husk of a genre that used to once be great. That used to be what i thought was the future of gaming (EQ quite literally ruined single player games for me, to this day i haven't been able to finish a single player game. Even really great ones).
All we can do is stick to our guns. You make the game YOU want to make, and we'll support you, and hope that maybe some other people wander in and pull the wool from their eyes... "see the light" so to speak. The game can be profitable with a small playerbase. You guys may not make money hand over fist, you may not have a 50 person team... but you'll have job security, and be doing something you love, for people who love it too. We're all glad to wait for quality over quantity. We aren't content locusts looking for the next field of crops to devastate. We're looking for a home.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Hmm... Wow... you just made the argument for mainstream design: Limited character development, simplistic systems and maps, etc...
Here is the problem. We have been doing it your way for years now, Smedly of SoE even wrote a blog on the topic of how he said that developers can't keep up with content generation. It was an interesting read, but it was also a self fulfilled prophecy (ie his very design philosophy is what led to his very problem).
You see, all that complexity, that difficulty, that depth of play is what keeps people busy rather than having them consume it like locusts only to sit at the end game whining about how there isn't anything to do.
The funny thing is that I remember tons of people in Runnyeye. In fact, my guild lived there for many levels (we even did raids there in our 10-15's), I pulled it as a monk and knew it inside and out. It was an amazing zone with tons of twists, turns, etc... you could get lost easy (I did many times, which added to the experience), happen upon a much higher level mob if you weren't careful (Evil Eyes level 35). It was a brilliant zone.
To each their own, but I have to ask if you like simplicity in systems, plain simple zone design, etc... why would you come to a game that is modeled and known for such? Did you read the tenants, the features and statements made about this game?
I think we will simply have to disagree specifically about adding zone-specific skills adding an incentive for the majority of players. You seem to think it will add viewed as content. I don't agree with that.
This really isn't an issue of complexity nor simplicity, adding 70 new flavors of the Running skill isn't valuable, meaningful content to most players. At best, it is akin to a flagging system or faction grind. And we can see now how many people are in EQ1 doing PoP flagging quests and raids now that all the zones in PoP are opened by level advancement rather than a specific flag. I think your idea is based on an assumption that a large number of players would be working to max out all those skills. If this premise was valid, I'd think that there would be more players looking to do PoP progression raids.
I think this kind of 'content' is more likely to be viewed as an optional grind, and opt out.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Complexity that does not directly contribute to core gameplay is never a good thing.
The secret to great gameplay is simple design that is easy to learn and difficult to master.
I think a lot of deeper and complex systems actually lessen the gameplay experience in many cases.
I have to disagree with you on this. Particularly in MMOs complexity can add depth and realism to the world experience. Having to depend on others to create things may not directly add to the core gameplay, but it strengthens community bonds and creates interdependancy while making the world more immersive. EQs faction system is probably a perfect example. It has absolutely squat to do with the core gameplay of the game, yet it was one of the things that made Norrath feel like a world. If you were a dark elf shadowknight, you shouldn't expect to be able to walk into the high elf city without getting killed or chased out, etc. In your argument this is a needlessly complex system that would detract from the gameplay, however i think most of us can agree that it wasn't. It caused you to have to weigh how you travelled the world, it caused you to be weary of where you were going, should you run up to this NPC or "consider" them first.
There is a place for those types of games. I think a good example of your argument is Dota. Its not needlessly complex but it is "difficult to master". However, i argue that this philosophy doesn't belong in an MMO. MMOs are about complexity.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Complexity that does not directly contribute to core gameplay is never a good thing.
The secret to great gameplay is simple design that is easy to learn and difficult to master.
I think a lot of deeper and complex systems actually lessen the gameplay experience in many cases.
I have to disagree with you on this. Particularly in MMOs complexity can add depth and realism to the world experience. Having to depend on others to create things may not directly add to the core gameplay, but it strengthens community bonds and creates interdependancy while making the world more immersive. EQs faction system is probably a perfect example. It has absolutely squat to do with the core gameplay of the game, yet it was one of the things that made Norrath feel like a world. If you were a dark elf shadowknight, you shouldn't expect to be able to walk into the high elf city without getting killed or chased out, etc. In your argument this is a needlessly complex system that would detract from the gameplay, however i think most of us can agree that it wasn't. It caused you to have to weigh how you travelled the world, it caused you to be weary of where you were going, should you run up to this NPC or "consider" them first.
There is a place for those types of games. I think a good example of your argument is Dota. Its not needlessly complex but it is "difficult to master". However, i argue that this philosophy doesn't belong in an MMO. MMOs are about complexity.
Have to agree with Hrimnir. How little did we know when we first played EQ, and yet despite of this had an amazing time?
Still, even an MMO scales in complexity. There should be something of a simplicity when a player first begins. Then a gradual introduction to the other systems. Once you left the city and that area outside, you were basically graduating preschool and about to get a real education.
Surprisingly, GW2 did just this in the recent expansion with their new mastery system. It's basically zone wide alternate advancements that put a lot of content behind these new abilities.
The reaction from the playerbase? They hate. It gates a lot of content. I blame the negative reception to the players that don't want to play an MMO with others. GW2 seems to have a lot of those players.
For me? I absolutely love it. I'm on board with the OP. I love anything that lets me progress my character once the normal leveling is complete.
I think we will simply have to disagree specifically about adding zone-specific skills adding an incentive for the majority of players. You seem to think it will add viewed as content. I don't agree with that.
This really isn't an issue of complexity nor simplicity, adding 70 new flavors of the Running skill isn't valuable, meaningful content to most players. At best, it is akin to a flagging system or faction grind. And we can see now how many people are in EQ1 doing PoP flagging quests and raids now that all the zones in PoP are opened by level advancement rather than a specific flag. I think your idea is based on an assumption that a large number of players would be working to max out all those skills. If this premise was valid, I'd think that there would be more players looking to do PoP progression raids.
I think this kind of 'content' is more likely to be viewed as an optional grind, and opt out.
This is nothing like PoP. PoP was a flagging system that keyed progression. It required a guild to take down a contested boss in one zone to be able to gain entry into another. This created problems because contested content could be used to block other guilds from progressing and block people from being able to enter the later zones to do the group content that had better exp, better drops, etc...
My suggestion isn't a "keying" system for future content exactly, but that does give me some ideas. At worst, it may require a guild to obtain better skills to beat a given boss, but I made no mention of it stopping people from going to another zone (not a bad idea though if implemented in a way that isn't like PoP). The skills are meant to be a development system for that zone to make succeeding in that development beneficial and useful. Also, my idea is something that can be obtained by a single player or a group through normal play in the zone. So there would be no "gating" by having to be in a large guild and killing a contested mob as it was in PoP.
The only gating as I mentioned would maybe be for being able to handle a given boss in that zone (and even then it doesn't have to be absolutely required, it could just allow more flexibility or a different approach by having those skills). This is no different than having your guild collect resist gear in the game to be able to handle a boss that requires it. The difference is, instead of camping for those items throughout the world, you have to actually spend time in the zone of your target boss.
What this does is give advantage to players who spend time developing in the zone. It gives extra meaning to spending all that time in a given zone. So when someone says "I am a Qeynos" character, as in they spent most of their time there leveling, it means they would likely have extra skills for Black Burrow because of that time, giving true meaning to the difference between a Qeynos and a Freeport character.
Anyway, this is just an idea, it is not written in stone and it obviously can be adjusted, expanded, etc.. to meet various ideas. Running was just an example, it can be anything really that works. The basic point is, zones with skills relevant to progression in that zone.
As for grinding. This is an interesting thing. Grinds MUST exist in any long term development game. This can not be avoided. The trick is in making the grind feel worthy of the time. This is where proper risk/reward comes in. Games today have players do mundane grinds for meaningless rewards. Sure, they have a big powerful flashy reward, top end raiding sets and the like, but what do they use them for? Nothing, because as soon as new content comes out, that gear is worthless and need I say that what point there is to gear if you are already beating the content? That is, grinds are used only to fool people into keeping busy. There is no progression, no development, no proper reward for the risk/effort/time they put in.
In my example, players will gain benefit to their effort. They will be able to see a return of their effort in the zone, maybe gain some advantage in some mob fights, or allow them to explore an area they could not before, a slippery cliff face that requires ice traversal knowledge which is obtained through playing in the various icy areas in the zone, ie (you get better at moving on ice (34). This gives individual accomplishments in the zone meaning as well. It differentiates players along another level of play. In EQ, it was not uncommon for people to be proud of their accomplishments and being able to display the result of such through a gear item or special ability, this would be another layer of that goal based play.
You don't gave to gate content like that, but I don't see how that is anything like PoP being that nobody can be refused such through contested content because it is an individual skill that improves by simple play (and would be improved simply by grouping in the zone). In fact, it should be an exciting goal for the player to get a skill up, to finally be able to make it through and into another area of the zone (without slipping off into a ravine for instance). It is the risk/reward of such play that keeps game players interested in progressing, continuing to chase that carrot to get better, to excel, to see what is around the next corner.
I honestly question those who see such elements as "bad" for a game. In fact, I see such as falling into modern habits of wanting to rush to max, seeing any form of effort based game play as an obstruction. I mean, I don't know how someone can say they like character development games and then think that continued character development is bad thing. It is like someone going to a bakery and claiming they don't like bread.
Complexity that does not directly contribute to core gameplay is never a good thing.
The secret to great gameplay is simple design that is easy to learn and difficult to master.
I think a lot of deeper and complex systems actually lessen the gameplay experience in many cases.
I have to disagree with you on this. Particularly in MMOs complexity can add depth and realism to the world experience. Having to depend on others to create things may not directly add to the core gameplay, but it strengthens community bonds and creates interdependancy while making the world more immersive. EQs faction system is probably a perfect example. It has absolutely squat to do with the core gameplay of the game, yet it was one of the things that made Norrath feel like a world. If you were a dark elf shadowknight, you shouldn't expect to be able to walk into the high elf city without getting killed or chased out, etc. In your argument this is a needlessly complex system that would detract from the gameplay, however i think most of us can agree that it wasn't. It caused you to have to weigh how you travelled the world, it caused you to be weary of where you were going, should you run up to this NPC or "consider" them first.
There is a place for those types of games. I think a good example of your argument is Dota. Its not needlessly complex but it is "difficult to master". However, i argue that this philosophy doesn't belong in an MMO. MMOs are about complexity.
Exactly, we the more there is to do, the more layers of progression, the more reason there is to continue playing. Heck, they even market off this in the mainstream games, but they do it with useless and lazy development substitutes with things like "achievements". I have seen people obsess over that crap, yet it is nothing other than log on how many of this and that you have killed, how many quests you have done, how many zones you have discovered, how many widgets you have completed. I mean, its all useless carrots of no real point or meaning in play.
The more layers of character development and interaction in the game, the more longevity it has, the more depth.
His argument I have heard before many times. It is the same argument I heard from people who didn't like EQ, who saw its long levels, difficult content, and all its conditions of play as "getting in the way" of their fast track to end game where they claimed it was the entire point of the game. Some people just don't care for character development systems. They see it as a negative, not an enjoyment. Carrots to them are just a nasty lukewarm mushy vegetable they must consume to be able to leave the table.
"But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have
acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for
people like you."
Sorry, I had to. On the other hand, I agree with the OP. There needs to be balance in everything, and I would want skills to cross over moderately to similar environments. 100/100 Snow running in Foreverfrost would translate to 50/100 Snow running in the Ice Mountains. However, would this lead to terrain specialization where people would tend to stick to their starting environment?
@Aradune ; I am looking forward to Pantheon and I hope it will bring back the mmorpg magic with modern technology and systems.
There is one thing I can't really agree on, and that is that it is solo play that has led to the "content consumption" style of mmorpgs we have today - Themepark. I think it is more a question of having re-usable game systems over consumption game design, more than it is a question of players playing solo or grouping. Consumption game design would be stuff like personal/me-hero developer written static content, cutscenes, quest-driven, developer controlled progression path aka railroading.
What I am saying is yes grouping and all kinds of player interactions should be encouraged as it builds stories and experiences shared between players and therefore makes it meaningful experiences. But grouping can't carry a game alone, there has to be something to do as one character - Solo play does not have to be consumable story-driven content, it can be re-usable systems in many variations. In my opinion it is just a matter of making solo play systems that works with the game but doesn't go against the idea of player interaction.
At least my observations from lame number of eq days /played is that, most players need varying amount of relaxing time "alone" (which means not having the pressure of being relied upon constantly), and not many people are so social that they spend all their time in inter-dependency.
So my points are these.. There should be stuff to do for players as a character alone, not necessary much adventuring but more roles that has some kind of interaction with other players than the ole group-n-kill.. such as meaningful crafting, diplomacy or player driven services such as trading alliances, transport of goods, player tasks from powerful players for new/lowbies etc. Such things are re-usable systems that don't require as much of a constant content creation pipeline because they are not consumed like story-driven content.
What I am saying is yes grouping and all kinds of player interactions should be encouraged as it builds stories and experiences shared between players and therefore makes it meaningful experiences. But grouping can't carry a game alone, there has to be something to do as one character - Solo play does not have to be consumable story-driven content, it can be re-usable systems in many variations. In my opinion it is just a matter of making solo play systems that works with the game but doesn't go against the idea of player interaction.
At least my observations from lame number of eq days /played is that, most players need varying amount of relaxing time "alone" (which means not having the pressure of being relied upon constantly), and not many people are so social that they spend all their time in inter-dependency.
EQ at its peak had 550k active subs and its decay in numbers had nothing to do with soloing.
That said, EQ did have soloing, it just wasn't catered to. Those who really wanted to be able to solo played classes that had the best tools to achieve such. I doubt Pantheon will be much different in that it to will have some classes that are quite capable of soloing, the thing is, as has been said, soloing is not Pantheons design focus. If people end up soling, great... not the point though.
It really comes down to this. This game as Brad and the Pantheon site says, is targeted for a specific style of play, a specific type of player. If a player thinks soloing is key, that is must be required, and feels that grouping is too time intensive or does not meet their needs, then all I can say is.. you are in luck! You can blindfold yourself and randomly throw a rock in any direction and will likely hit a game that completely caters to that solo style of play.
On the other hand, a game that is in the spirit of EQ/Vanguard, that attends to all of the focuses and style of play that it was... well... it does not exist today. It is for that reason and for those people that this game is being made.
Comments
Progression is important in a RPG, but should the journey matter as much or even more than the progression? A lot of players don't care about the story and just want to rush through progression. What if rushing wasn't the way to get the best character the fastest?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Skill -
Shooting pool while standing on head and balancing a beer on LEFT foot (10/100)
Shooting pool while standing on head and balancing a beer on RIGHT foot (10/100)
There's always a middle road, naturally. But the line between where players feel there's too little complexity (solely for complexity's sake) and too much is a tightrope.
Imagine the op's original example: regional running skills. Okay, sorta reasonable.
Now imagine it in a game that's a decade old, and has literally hundreds of regions... With new ones getting added every expansion. Think the dev team will bother trying to keep up? Will the players bother keeping up?
Imagine every new region released affecting a dozen "core" skills. From a player's viewpoint, every new region means traveling to it and running, climbing, swimming, trudging... keeping your skills "caught up", a dozen or more times for each and every new region, over the entire lifetime of the game release(s).
Full-time skill upkeep. Infinite reps. Zzzzzzzzz.
New players? Sorry guys, you'll just never catch up, even if you live online. Want to buy our Skill Booster Steroids Pack, available in the online store?
I.e. if you have already trained your running in area A of type DESERT, the new area B of type DESERT wont offer you a new challenge, you'll already be maxed out.
Swimming would then be swimming in ice water, swimming in warm water, swimming in salt water, and swimming in a salt sea, etc. Not swimming in region A, B, or C.
And so on.
And as always there is always a general skill. Even if you havent trained yet running in a DESERT, a maxed general skill will already help you.
Its pretty much like its common for fighting. So you have a general skill for slashing weapons, and a special skill for swords. Maybe you leveled on axe, so the new sword isnt handled too well just yet. But then you have an already maxed slashing weapons skill, that help.
While I can see your point to an extent, the "new player" argument and the "it's fun the first time, but a hassle after that" are very similar arguments that resulted in overly simplistic systems today.
The new player argument is one that is used as a means to justify removing travel conditions and implementing solo ability. It is what also results in the "race to end game" mentality because the new player feels like that if they play the game as it was designed, they will miss out on something, or... they view playing the game as secondary to catching up to their friends.
There are solutions to those problems, but reducing content for the new player I don't think is the appropriate resolution.
As for the latter issue, this one I never understood. I have seen it with the travel argument, People say "Well, I don't mind having to travel around a couple of times, but after that... it is such a hassle!" Thing is, that is the point. The travel system isn't meant to be a feature that provides immense enjoyment in the process of, it is a game play element that is meant to be an obstacle in play. This is what makes all the tools created to deal with it of use and desire.
So, in the same manner, my example of multiple skills per zone is that it creates a constant need to progress. This is something that end game in most games runs into. That vast amount of skills, abilities and content the player had to conquer to get to the end of the current content no longer exists and so gimmicks are introduced to keep the player busy (dailies, long mundane grinds, dungeon speed runs for tokens, etc...).
With a system as I mention, it will mean constant new obstacles in development for existing players, in the same vein as what they experienced in release. It isn't the "end game" that these games are about, rather it is the journey, the process of improving in play. If one sees character development as a hassle, then one shouldn't be playing a character development game.
One thing about new players though. The nice thing about the per zone system is that the player does not have to do every zone as the progress. EQ is huge these days and players aren't forced to do every zone as they progress up the levels. In the same way, this style of system means the player only has to progress in the zones they choose to develop in. Those that that do not, well.. if the game is designed correctly, old zones will still have meaning for high level players, so there will always be content for the player who missed some zones on their journey through the game.
So while I agree some things have to be considered in the long term, I personally don't agree with your reasons. Character development isn't a race, it is a process of play and viewing it as a hassle is missing the point, just as viewing the need as a new player to race to the end game is. Those perceptions are a common expectation of games today, which hopefully Pantheon steers clear of.
Yet, if you segregate running ability on a zone per zone basis, you never run out of a skill improvement. As I said "What if zones had skills?".
So, running in a specific zones desert environment may not be the same in another zones desert environment because not all deserts are exactly alike, not all zones are exactly alike.
My title was appropriate, but opened the doors for some confusion. When I say "environment based character development", I mean the immediate surroundings, not exactly "environmental" character development. Maybe the use of elements in my discussion created confusion.
The point is that by having each zone contain its own development requirements, you end up creating layers of content with each area released. The poster you responded to was worried it would become bloated, but... I think it avoids the bloat he is worried about because it doesn't have a linear development requirement. That is, since it is not connected specifically to the character (ie having tons of skills applied generally everywhere), there is no required progression to meet as a new player comes in. That is, the zone skills are only relevant to the zones a player will be in, unlike a massive skill system with linear progression will require a new player to complete before they can progress.
Well, then he was 100% correct in criticizing that, and I wouldnt want that either.
I dont want the newly added skills with every new item and new location added to the game.
You have a general skill "battle axe". Maybe also a list for "gnomish battleaxe", "elven battleaxe", "crude battleaxe", "stone battleaxe", etc, for different designs of battleaxes. But not a list of skills for every single axe inside the game. Thats just riddiculous.
Same for special areas.
The skilllist should stay static, no matter how many areas and items are in the game.
I also dont see how such a buttload of skills could ever be graphically represented to the player. That would be a huge, ever increasing list.
Oh and in fact I would say one and the same area can have subsections that use a different type, like one area has grassland and you use the grassland running skill, another area is a forest and you use the woodland running skill, and then theres a road and that uses the hard underground running skill, then theres a sandy beach and you use the sandy ground running skill, then theres a stony area and you use the stony ground running skill, etc.
In fact one could use this for more. A grassland is pretty optimal for running, the ground would cushion, preserving your endurance. A hard underground makes you run the fastest, but it would drain more endurance than grassland. A sandy underground would slightly slow you like grassland, but wouldnt cushion. A stony underground will have a chance to wound you if you run over it, especially at night. At day it would cause slight fire damage if its hot. A forest would make running quite hard, you would use more endurance and it would slow you down. And so on.
I really dont see the point of that. A person that can run fast in the desert .. can run fast in the desert. Geographical location doesnt matter if its the same kind of ground.
Not every location is the same. Not all jungles are the same. For instance, soil consistency, moisture, and texture can create a different type of feel to movement through it. The vegetation could be very root like with numerous hazards for running fast. Some beaches are rocky, some are sandy and within that there are different types of elements to them.
The point is that you can reason why running, climbing, surviving, etc... may be different from one specific area to another. For instance, surviving in the Sahara is not the same as surviving in Death Valley. There may be some skills that are transferable as general skills, but each area has its own unique environment and takes different knowledge and skills to survive in.
Don't get hung up on semantics, the idea is to give a means to continue development indefinitely without running into the linear cap issues that a general skill on a character will run into.
Lets say that you have desert running, ice swimming, etc... as you pointed out and you cover the basic elements. Now what? We are back to the problem of them reaching diminishing returns. Where do you go from there? Yet if you have zone based skills that are specific to that zones style and setting, then you never run out of development carrots. You add a new zone and you have a whole new set of carrots to chase.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The point of the system is to introduce carrots to chase. The problem with games today is their systems are overly simplified (and continue to be streamlined) to where character development is no longer the focus and simple arcade play is. This is why everyone sees the "journey" in most mainstream games as just a formality to get to the real game which they call end game.
Your suggestion would remove the development aspect of play which is the entire point I am getting at.
As for storage requirements, there are ways to deal with that, though I don't see that being an issue with the numerous tech solutions we have today.
I'd contend that 'carrots' such as skills per zone are substantially less appealing than new content to a vast majority of players. As such, that I don't see that as a satisfactory avenue for adding additional development aspects to a game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Here is the problem. We have been doing it your way for years now, Smedly of SoE even wrote a blog on the topic of how he said that developers can't keep up with content generation. It was an interesting read, but it was also a self fulfilled prophecy (ie his very design philosophy is what led to his very problem).
You see, all that complexity, that difficulty, that depth of play is what keeps people busy rather than having them consume it like locusts only to sit at the end game whining about how there isn't anything to do.
The funny thing is that I remember tons of people in Runnyeye. In fact, my guild lived there for many levels (we even did raids there in our 10-15's), I pulled it as a monk and knew it inside and out. It was an amazing zone with tons of twists, turns, etc... you could get lost easy (I did many times, which added to the experience), happen upon a much higher level mob if you weren't careful (Evil Eyes level 35). It was a brilliant zone.
To each their own, but I have to ask if you like simplicity in systems, plain simple zone design, etc... why would you come to a game that is modeled and known for such? Did you read the tenants, the features and statements made about this game?
Then if you make soloing not only totally viable, but also as easy as many single player games (because your target audience becomes single player gamers who want an online, persistent experience), then content is consumed even more quickly and MMOs can be 'completed' in weeks or months, not months or years. And if you also allow the perception that the 'end game' is where all the fun is at, then you have a bunch of players trying to get to the 'end game' as quickly as possible. This cascades into people wanting to 'powerlevel' and bypass the low and mid level content of the game. When you allow that to occur (and even support it in some cases), then two things happen:
1. Players end up choosing the less fun but more 'efficient' route, basically whatever route or path gets them to the 'end game' the quickest, even if that route or path is less fun and more repetitive. So you have less happy players rushing through content, with many of them saying 'the heck with this' en route, quitting along the way, not finding a true home in an MMO, and bouncing around from one 'new' MMO to another, never satisfied.
And 2. you spend all of this time, money, and resources creating the low and mid level game, yet that content is rarely experienced and more often skipped over. Then you are creating an expensive MMO, but not creating a sticky environment where people want to stay around (they either quit, bored of power leveling and the repetition that is usually part of that process, or they do reach the 'end game' and either enjoy it or don't, but even if they do, they consume the content before you can launch an expansion and provide more content. And if your playerbase doesn't stick around, but you've built a game around the idea of people sticking around and therefore choose a subscription based revenue model, you're left scrambling, trying to figure out how to get your development costs back, much less turn a profit. So you switch the game's revenue model to F2P and try to monetize a subset of your players as quickly as possible, even though your game, content, and design is contrary to quick monetization (e.g. it was built around players sticking around for a while and paying a recurring sub-fee).
And then it gets even worse. Then the post launch dev team isn't told to keep building content, to create expansions, and to eventually move up the level cap. Instead, you take them away from that task and focus and instead ask them to devote time and energy into creating content (items, consumables, etc.) that people will want to buy in the cash shop, preferably right away, before they get bored and leave. I've even seen situations where developers who come up with items that sell well in the cash shops get recognized and even rewarded for doing so. At this point another nasty decision has to be made: do you try to just offer items in the cash shops that are more cosmetic (e.g. a cute, pink flying dragon that allows you to travel a little faster, but doesn't really make you that much more powerful) because you don't want your players to think the game is 'pay to win'? If so, you may avoid offending some of your players, but by definition you're creating items to be sold that really don't help the player all that much. So then the players who don't mind paying real money for in-game items aren't all that satisfied, and you don't make nearly as much money doing F2P.
Or, you do embrace 'pay to win' and create items that you can purchase for real life money that do indeed make your character more powerful. Then you do monetize a little better from those who like pay-to-win, but at the same time alienate the people who were interested in your game who don't like pay-to-win, who want to earn their items and be rewarded for how they play IN the game, regardless of whether they are financially well off in real life or not. The players who enjoy MMOs because you can create an online persona that can be very different than who you are in RL are turned off. The people who perhaps don't have a lot of disposable income, or who aren't very social in RL, or respected, or recognized, who want to escape into an MMO and its virtual world and be recognized for in-game accomplishments, who want to hide to whatever degree they wish who they are in RL and become somebody different, something more... they find themselves in an alternate reality that isn't really that different than RL -- the people who have the RL money and are willing to spend it, they're the ones recognized, rewarded, and acknowledged. The real world prevails within the virtual world and the virtual world ceases to be a place you can escape into. Sure, the setting is fantasy or science fiction, but the interactions, the rewards, the accomplishments resemble RL.
What a mess, eh?
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Brad McQuaid
CCO, Visionary Realms, Inc.
www.pantheonmmo.com
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I remember sitting around a couple years after EQ (sometime near DAOC coming out) having discussions with friends, and we 100% imagined that 10 years from then, the market would have diverged into a lot of MMO's that tailor to specific tastes or subsets. How wrong we were... and well... we all know what happened next.
I'm not a fan of the word hate, but in this case i use it knowingly. I hate what Blizzard did to this genre. They used their standard formula of making a (well made) faceroll game that appeals to the masses, and it sold like hot cakes, and everyone thought *that* was what an MMO was. And while vanilla did bear some strong resemblance to what an MMO should be, it was 2 giant steps in the wrong direction. Now, we have a situation where 80% or more of what is defined as the MMORPG playerbase is people who really have no (excuse my language) fucking clue what the ideas and the inspiration behind this genre was. They have been taught to believe that its about an RPG just simply having an online presence.
They don't understand, nor do they want to understand that this genre was founded upon this grand idea of a massive world, where you could interact with other human beings, where you could band together to have adventures and make memories. Where when you logged out, things still happened even though you weren't there. It wasn't solely about the pixels. It was about friendship and adventure and loss and strife. Almost as if it were a living, breathing D&D game. Where instead of having to imagine the dragon in the dungeon, it was there, on your screen, in front of you, for real. It was a place for societies unwanted, cast out people could find a home. Could make friends with people who weren't going to prejudge them. It was a place where you could be recognized for your skill, your friendliness, your loyalty.
Yet instead of asking us why, and letting us explain why it matters, why things were different. We're pigeonholed into the "rose colored glasses" and "not getting with the times" and "the genre has left you in the dust old man" mentality. Now i know its normal for the younger generations to assume they're smarter than older generations (we all did it). But this seems something more, something more... sinister. Its almost like it has turned into a meme. I post on some forums of this website and i feel like i somehow wandered into /b/ on 4chan.
This is why i am so hopeful for this project. I've seen countless instances where some developer came along and said they would do this, or do that, and they never, NEVER stuck to their guns. They always made concessions in the sake of "monetization". They always let a publisher bend them over a barrel. It wasn't until the idea of crowdfunding came long that i had any hope for the genre again. The first people that came along that made me believe they wouldn't kowtow to the almighty dollar was Mark Jacobs and the crew behind Camelot Unchained, and now you Brad, and the Pantheon crew.
We all know (or at least we should) that we may have only 50-100k people who play the game. We obviously hope for more, but I am realistic. We are now a niche of a bloated, dying, husk of a genre that used to once be great. That used to be what i thought was the future of gaming (EQ quite literally ruined single player games for me, to this day i haven't been able to finish a single player game. Even really great ones).
All we can do is stick to our guns. You make the game YOU want to make, and we'll support you, and hope that maybe some other people wander in and pull the wool from their eyes... "see the light" so to speak. The game can be profitable with a small playerbase. You guys may not make money hand over fist, you may not have a 50 person team... but you'll have job security, and be doing something you love, for people who love it too. We're all glad to wait for quality over quantity. We aren't content locusts looking for the next field of crops to devastate. We're looking for a home.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Yery well said. I have nothing to add.
This really isn't an issue of complexity nor simplicity, adding 70 new flavors of the Running skill isn't valuable, meaningful content to most players. At best, it is akin to a flagging system or faction grind. And we can see now how many people are in EQ1 doing PoP flagging quests and raids now that all the zones in PoP are opened by level advancement rather than a specific flag. I think your idea is based on an assumption that a large number of players would be working to max out all those skills. If this premise was valid, I'd think that there would be more players looking to do PoP progression raids.
I think this kind of 'content' is more likely to be viewed as an optional grind, and opt out.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
There is a place for those types of games. I think a good example of your argument is Dota. Its not needlessly complex but it is "difficult to master". However, i argue that this philosophy doesn't belong in an MMO. MMOs are about complexity.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The board game Go is a great example of simple leading to complex.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Still, even an MMO scales in complexity. There should be something of a simplicity when a player first begins. Then a gradual introduction to the other systems. Once you left the city and that area outside, you were basically graduating preschool and about to get a real education.
The reaction from the playerbase? They hate. It gates a lot of content. I blame the negative reception to the players that don't want to play an MMO with others. GW2 seems to have a lot of those players.
For me? I absolutely love it. I'm on board with the OP. I love anything that lets me progress my character once the normal leveling is complete.
My suggestion isn't a "keying" system for future content exactly, but that does give me some ideas. At worst, it may require a guild to obtain better skills to beat a given boss, but I made no mention of it stopping people from going to another zone (not a bad idea though if implemented in a way that isn't like PoP). The skills are meant to be a development system for that zone to make succeeding in that development beneficial and useful. Also, my idea is something that can be obtained by a single player or a group through normal play in the zone. So there would be no "gating" by having to be in a large guild and killing a contested mob as it was in PoP.
The only gating as I mentioned would maybe be for being able to handle a given boss in that zone (and even then it doesn't have to be absolutely required, it could just allow more flexibility or a different approach by having those skills). This is no different than having your guild collect resist gear in the game to be able to handle a boss that requires it. The difference is, instead of camping for those items throughout the world, you have to actually spend time in the zone of your target boss.
What this does is give advantage to players who spend time developing in the zone. It gives extra meaning to spending all that time in a given zone. So when someone says "I am a Qeynos" character, as in they spent most of their time there leveling, it means they would likely have extra skills for Black Burrow because of that time, giving true meaning to the difference between a Qeynos and a Freeport character.
Anyway, this is just an idea, it is not written in stone and it obviously can be adjusted, expanded, etc.. to meet various ideas. Running was just an example, it can be anything really that works. The basic point is, zones with skills relevant to progression in that zone.
As for grinding. This is an interesting thing. Grinds MUST exist in any long term development game. This can not be avoided. The trick is in making the grind feel worthy of the time. This is where proper risk/reward comes in. Games today have players do mundane grinds for meaningless rewards. Sure, they have a big powerful flashy reward, top end raiding sets and the like, but what do they use them for? Nothing, because as soon as new content comes out, that gear is worthless and need I say that what point there is to gear if you are already beating the content? That is, grinds are used only to fool people into keeping busy. There is no progression, no development, no proper reward for the risk/effort/time they put in.
In my example, players will gain benefit to their effort. They will be able to see a return of their effort in the zone, maybe gain some advantage in some mob fights, or allow them to explore an area they could not before, a slippery cliff face that requires ice traversal knowledge which is obtained through playing in the various icy areas in the zone, ie (you get better at moving on ice (34). This gives individual accomplishments in the zone meaning as well. It differentiates players along another level of play. In EQ, it was not uncommon for people to be proud of their accomplishments and being able to display the result of such through a gear item or special ability, this would be another layer of that goal based play.
You don't gave to gate content like that, but I don't see how that is anything like PoP being that nobody can be refused such through contested content because it is an individual skill that improves by simple play (and would be improved simply by grouping in the zone). In fact, it should be an exciting goal for the player to get a skill up, to finally be able to make it through and into another area of the zone (without slipping off into a ravine for instance). It is the risk/reward of such play that keeps game players interested in progressing, continuing to chase that carrot to get better, to excel, to see what is around the next corner.
I honestly question those who see such elements as "bad" for a game. In fact, I see such as falling into modern habits of wanting to rush to max, seeing any form of effort based game play as an obstruction. I mean, I don't know how someone can say they like character development games and then think that continued character development is bad thing. It is like someone going to a bakery and claiming they don't like bread.
The more layers of character development and interaction in the game, the more longevity it has, the more depth.
His argument I have heard before many times. It is the same argument I heard from people who didn't like EQ, who saw its long levels, difficult content, and all its conditions of play as "getting in the way" of their fast track to end game where they claimed it was the entire point of the game. Some people just don't care for character development systems. They see it as a negative, not an enjoyment. Carrots to them are just a nasty lukewarm mushy vegetable they must consume to be able to leave the table.
Sorry, I had to. On the other hand, I agree with the OP. There needs to be balance in everything, and I would want skills to cross over moderately to similar environments. 100/100 Snow running in Foreverfrost would translate to 50/100 Snow running in the Ice Mountains. However, would this lead to terrain specialization where people would tend to stick to their starting environment?
I am looking forward to Pantheon and I hope it will bring back the mmorpg magic with modern technology and systems.
There is one thing I can't really agree on, and that is that it is solo play that has led to the "content consumption" style of mmorpgs we have today - Themepark. I think it is more a question of having re-usable game systems over consumption game design, more than it is a question of players playing solo or grouping.
Consumption game design would be stuff like personal/me-hero developer written static content, cutscenes, quest-driven, developer controlled progression path aka railroading.
What I am saying is yes grouping and all kinds of player interactions should be encouraged as it builds stories and experiences shared between players and therefore makes it meaningful experiences. But grouping can't carry a game alone, there has to be something to do as one character - Solo play does not have to be consumable story-driven content, it can be re-usable systems in many variations. In my opinion it is just a matter of making solo play systems that works with the game but doesn't go against the idea of player interaction.
At least my observations from lame number of eq days /played is that, most players need varying amount of relaxing time "alone" (which means not having the pressure of being relied upon constantly), and not many people are so social that they spend all their time in inter-dependency.
So my points are these.. There should be stuff to do for players as a character alone, not necessary much adventuring but more roles that has some kind of interaction with other players than the ole group-n-kill.. such as meaningful crafting, diplomacy or player driven services such as trading alliances, transport of goods, player tasks from powerful players for new/lowbies etc. Such things are re-usable systems that don't require as much of a constant content creation pipeline because they are not consumed like story-driven content.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
That said, EQ did have soloing, it just wasn't catered to. Those who really wanted to be able to solo played classes that had the best tools to achieve such. I doubt Pantheon will be much different in that it to will have some classes that are quite capable of soloing, the thing is, as has been said, soloing is not Pantheons design focus. If people end up soling, great... not the point though.
It really comes down to this. This game as Brad and the Pantheon site says, is targeted for a specific style of play, a specific type of player. If a player thinks soloing is key, that is must be required, and feels that grouping is too time intensive or does not meet their needs, then all I can say is.. you are in luck! You can blindfold yourself and randomly throw a rock in any direction and will likely hit a game that completely caters to that solo style of play.
On the other hand, a game that is in the spirit of EQ/Vanguard, that attends to all of the focuses and style of play that it was... well... it does not exist today. It is for that reason and for those people that this game is being made.