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Craft Your MMO - Part I
Gaming.Rocks2
Member UncommonPosts: 531
What type of game mmorpg.com community wants to play?
I'm not sure exactly when because I didn't register back then and I have lost my accounts a couple of times but about a decade ago I found this website simply by typing www.mmorpg.com to see what happens. What I have always found most interesting is the people here. Their discussions, their feuds, their heart breaks and their joy. And over the years I have read quite different opinions. People defending or attacking a product or an idea. But I must say, I have never came to any conclusion on what do people really want.
Hence I am launching a small experiment. I'm going to break down whatever I have learned from the discussions over the years into different polls to craft an MMO in theory. An MMO that this community wants to play, well at least most of them.
Please try to leave comments too because you would definitely help me on the future stages and what I'm doing wrong. Consider a triple A company is going to create this game.
I'll be keeping track of the results and I have assigned a couple of my staff to create visual presentations so it would be easier to follow.
HaPpy gaming!
***To reduce 'Poll Options' text length, the description are posted here and only the title in the options part.
The Perfect Clone: I love World of Warcraft but it has gotten old (or put your own personal reason). I want a similar experience but anew. I believe there's still the perfect clone to be made that might become a better game than WoW itself.
Next Gen. Theme-Park: I believe theme-parks still have a long way to go and if developers stopped this cloning WoW and start thinking of new ideas on how to bring their game to the next level.
PvE Sandbox: We need a true sandbox that is PvE only. The PvP element turns a game into a an unfriendly environment and opens the door to grievers and cheaters and all sorts of people I really don't want to play with. I want a huge dynamic world with hard PvE challenges with advanced AI.
PvP Sandbox: PvP is the ingredient that would make crafting, city building, group, skills and everything else matter in a game.
PvE/P Sandbox: There can't be one without the other. A game has to cater to both play types. There has to be challenging PvE alongside of meaningful PvP. I want safe zones to play with ease of mind and also danger zones where to have some excitement - PvP shouldn't be forced.
Edit: added paragraphs.
I'm not sure exactly when because I didn't register back then and I have lost my accounts a couple of times but about a decade ago I found this website simply by typing www.mmorpg.com to see what happens. What I have always found most interesting is the people here. Their discussions, their feuds, their heart breaks and their joy. And over the years I have read quite different opinions. People defending or attacking a product or an idea. But I must say, I have never came to any conclusion on what do people really want.
Hence I am launching a small experiment. I'm going to break down whatever I have learned from the discussions over the years into different polls to craft an MMO in theory. An MMO that this community wants to play, well at least most of them.
Please try to leave comments too because you would definitely help me on the future stages and what I'm doing wrong. Consider a triple A company is going to create this game.
I'll be keeping track of the results and I have assigned a couple of my staff to create visual presentations so it would be easier to follow.
HaPpy gaming!
***To reduce 'Poll Options' text length, the description are posted here and only the title in the options part.
The Perfect Clone: I love World of Warcraft but it has gotten old (or put your own personal reason). I want a similar experience but anew. I believe there's still the perfect clone to be made that might become a better game than WoW itself.
Next Gen. Theme-Park: I believe theme-parks still have a long way to go and if developers stopped this cloning WoW and start thinking of new ideas on how to bring their game to the next level.
PvE Sandbox: We need a true sandbox that is PvE only. The PvP element turns a game into a an unfriendly environment and opens the door to grievers and cheaters and all sorts of people I really don't want to play with. I want a huge dynamic world with hard PvE challenges with advanced AI.
PvP Sandbox: PvP is the ingredient that would make crafting, city building, group, skills and everything else matter in a game.
PvE/P Sandbox: There can't be one without the other. A game has to cater to both play types. There has to be challenging PvE alongside of meaningful PvP. I want safe zones to play with ease of mind and also danger zones where to have some excitement - PvP shouldn't be forced.
Edit: added paragraphs.
Gaming Rocks next gen. community for last gen. gamers launching soon.
Comments
I'm not saying pure PvE is better than the mixture of both, I'm just saying don't look at it as a regular mob grind/boss grind - more like something EQN presented at the beginning.
I want good systems and i want to be able to get xp killing stuff when and where i want.I feel designing a game so that every single player follows the exact same path is borderline retarded.Who joins an ONLINE MMO to play exactly like the other guy,it makes no sense.
That is why i don't like labels because even in a Themepark...rides,you can pick and choose what rides you want.There is nothing that says ...oh no you can't ride the roller coaster until you unlock the ferris wheel first.
So no i am sorry but labels don't cut it.
I want deep systems,but nothing so complicated that people are left scratching their head.
I also do not want to see ANY yellow markers or markers of any kind in the game world,it is suppose to be a world ,it is not suppose to look like computer software.I have no problem with quests ,but make it a QUEST not a cheap errand.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Most aren't for anything, the vast majority are only firmly against something.
"We're for 1999. We're against 2015."
"We don't know what we're for, but we know we're against WoW."
One thing I have found though (I think) is that the people on this forum seem to be a somewhat vocal minority. Everyone here often agrees on this type of game, but idea that doesn't seem to be as popular in the rest of the world.
In fact, games are getting more and more dumbed down. Now you don't even have to find the guy with the floating question mark. Just click the name of your quest and your character will walk there by himself!
My game is an open world, no hand-holding, MMO with PvE and meaningful PvP. And I am absolutely banking on the dedicated niche crowd like the folks here to make it successful.
Let's say you play as a wolf. You can hunt, kill and eat a human. But the human would love to kill you too to eat your meat and use your pelt for some crafting task. Your friend plays as a bird. He eats crops of human farmers. But humans can kill him and take his meat and feathers to make arrows. To me that would be the true sandbox experience where PvE and PvP are combined in the most fascinating way.
I'd leave only a few creatures like fish, rabbits, deer and some legendary powerful creatures in the hands of artificial intelligence in a sandbox MMORPG.
* more info, screenshots and videos here
Take Minecraft, for example. I don't know if any of you have ever tried running a Minecraft server before, but let me tell you from experience that players do not enjoy playing on your server if all you do is set it so that they spawn randomly in the wilderness and let them do their thing. But they get just as annoyed if they have to go through a bunch of stuff just to get to the part where they can start doing their thing.
Basically, the ideal spawn area doesn't need to have anything in it, or do anything for them. It just needs to be there and look pretty, and not be too big or complex, but also not too small or simple. It serves as a central meeting place for all the players on the server, so it should provide the atmosphere of a fun hangout area.
<.<
Why? Well.. this could be fun. I have done the similar experiment on other topics and it always has been fun the very least.
@Wizardry I'm not looking for a debate about what's considered sandbox or themepark or redefine the current market. Neither I am advertising a product so there will be no stitching labels together to make a product appealing to all the masses. These are the current definitions in the market for better or worse. It's more in the lines of I'd like you to place an order from the menu. If something doesn't have a name, it cannot be on the menu, can it?
I also don't understand what Sandpark is besides a label created for marketing purposes. If it's a themepark with sandbox elements it is still a themepark. If you're sometimes on a rail and sometimes you're not, it still means you're getting railed.
Besides that I could play anyone of the alternatives as long as it is a fun game and well made. And I think any of the none close alternatives have high potential if done right. Now FFA PvP sandboxes with full loot and high powergaps never really works out well but that isn't really the sandbox or PvP settings fault.
A good new fresh MMO needs to have an interesting and preferably not an overused one, if you for example want to make a fantasy MMO you shouldn't just rip off Forgotten realms/middle earth again because there are a zillion games like that. Dark gritty low fantasy like Conan and GOT would be fine, there are a few MMOs like that but not too many. It is fine that the setting is somewhat familiar but you loose a lot by just making the same game everyone else uses.
As for character and combat mechanics the game will need to feel at least somewhat different from the rest as well1. It needs to stand out instead of just frown in a zillion similar games. You don't have to copy mechanics exactly from other MMOs, if you have little imagination then at least rip off games from other genres or pen and paper mechanics.
And questing is fine in a themepark but don't just add long questchains that usually is pretty boring FEDEX and pest control quests. In that case it is better to have longer more epic quests, put the entire quest into a single epic quest with a more interesting goal instead, same work but more interesting result. EQ2s heritage quests are good examples and TSW also have interesting and fun quests we havn't tired off long ago. Mixing in some DEs in the world as well surely doesn't hurt either.
Give me a game I havn't already played for ages, copy and paste from other games doesn't work anymore and honestly have been working pretty poorly for years. If you make it a sandbox or themepark, and if you focus on PvP or PvE really is far less important.
A PvP focused game has always been able to bring out the worst in humanity, so I'm never a fan of that. However, I'm totally okay with a mostly PvE focused game with a little PvP stuff because that will balance out the different types of players, but I haven't seen this being done right in any MMORPG at all, as either PvP is completely broken or irrelevant.
There are a lot of sandbox games out there, and most of them aren't doing quite well at all. So I imagine either the sandbox-loving crowd is very small, or tends to be really really picky, or both. My personal opinion of that is most people actually dislike sandbox, because people don't like to think too much about what they're going to do (that's why themeparks are fairly popular). Also most of the time "You can do whatever you want" translates into "You have no idea what to do".
I don't have a concrete idea of what I want in my "Next Gen. Theme-Park", but overall I want it to be at least dynamic. Say, if too many quests of "Kill 10 boars" were finished in an area, that quest will no longer be available. Instead, quests to "Protect boars" or "Preserve Ecosystem" will pop up, until too much boars show up again. Or it could be a seasonal thing, where "Kill 10 boars" quest will not be available during boar mating season, like once every 2-3 weeks. Or the quest will still be available, but you will be warned of consequences if you do the quest. You get what I mean, dynamic.
Another point I want to mention is make the content recyclable. The main problem with Theme-Parks now is "Quest, move to next area and forget". There is so much resource wasted and it is not a fun experience as time goes on, where new players are starting in dead zones. There should be constant incentive of doing old content, like useful crafting materials (to craft gears/costume/housing item) you can only get in specific area, or better, revise and improve on older contents, or let community write new quest lines and you approve and implement those.
Last but not least, I want it to be open world. It can have loading screens from area to area, and there can be dungeons and raid instances, much like what LOTRO is now, except the outdated graphics. I never play FFXV, so it could be like that too from what I heard. The open area just has to be huge and have pretty nice sky. Other little details such as good crafting system, housing, and action combat could be nice.
To the OP, let me suggest that polling an audience isn't really the way to go about development. This site's population isn't the marketplace, and probably isn't really close to being representative of the marketplace. (A large percentage of the marketplace are contented WoW players. MMORPG.com tends to attract the disenfranchised, disgruntled, and disappointed player). I'd suggest that you work on the game ideas that you are passionate about, rather than trying to figure out a specific niche.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
How many delicate flowers have you met in Counterstrike?
I got a case of beer and a chainsaw waiting for me at home after work.
A game that does not give xp for quests removes the entire linear Themepark idea but it is also not a sandbox because a real Sandbox would give players tools to play in the sandbox and NOBODY is doing that.Well there are MILD like VERY mild versions with Voxels and for example NWO but those are still not a Sandbox because your still VERY limited.
A true Sandbox example would be Unrealtournament,a game but the game can be 100% manipulated with tools and C+ coding.
So basically the OP's menu is just saying ,here pick from these choices at this restaurant while ignoring other restaurants.My choice is "i want a different restaurant because this one doesn't have good food " :P
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Hello again!
I have never said that I am going to gather the best features from different games to assemble a new all perfect one. You are only assuming that is what I'm going to do.
You'll face the very same challenge when comes down to design, advertisement, architecture, game, etc. You can't ignore what your client wants. Yet you can't let them drive the project either.
It's true that I am putting up the options for vote, but still I am designing those options.
You can criticize my design in the process, but right now you are prejudging it.
And about your last comment, how can you predict what someone enjoys more than what they state without excessive psychoanalysis?
We haven't started working on game systems yet. I believe whatever you describe I can put under one of the categories with acceptable logic. PvP doesn't necessary mean combat and we are nowhere near detailing either crafting or combat.
Mendel said:
I am not developing anything hence I don't care about the marketplace. Think of this as a personality test. Instead of one person taking it a small society is and instead of your power animal the outcome is what mmorpg this community wants to play.
Hello @Wizardry
If it already exists it has a label then. I might have been categorized wrong but it must've been categorized.
I don't believe removing XP would disqualify a game from being a Themepark neither I believe you must be able to build everything imaginable in a sandbox. We are talking about a specific genre. MMORPGs started as Sandboxes, doesn't matter if technologically we weren't/aren't advanced to remove all possible limits from a game.
I am not saying not to pick from other restaurants' menus, but when you say it doesn't have a label I'm having a hard time figuring out how it can be listed on any menu
First, "sandbox" originally meant a game in which there was no set path or way to do things. You played as you liked. I don't know where this concept came from of having to be able to build, destroy and manipulate the world.
Second, by your definition, the only "real sandbox" would just be a raw game engine and some art assets. That's not really a game.
Sandbox MMORPG originally has nothing to do with creating and destroying stuff. Just because in a real sandbox you can build and destroy stuff doesn't mean in MMORPG sandbox you should be able to do the same.