Missing Flavour from modern MMOs

Malachi1975

I've been playing MMOs since EQs inception, so I have a decent database of knowledge from which to draw. Before the advent of the MMO I was playing PnP RPGs like D&D, MegaTraveller, Mechwarrior, Champions, and Shadowrun to name a few. I've been trying to think where the depth loss has occured in the transition from Pen and Paper to the computer versions of these games. I came to one realisation that has been missing from pretty much ALL the MMOs out there that I have played ( I only say pretty much because I am not 100% sure I am forgetting something ).

Any of you who played PnP RPGs would remember the concept of the Advantages/Disadvantages system. Something that further allowed you to make your character unique. It would be nice to see something like this implemented broadly into the nextgen of MMOs. It's something that would allow one tank to be, play, and act different than the next. So on and so forth.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the system it was basically a way to "buy" extra skill points, attribute points/power points for your character at the expense of adding certain weaknesses. A good example would be Iceman. You shoot him with freeze rays all day long if you wanted and he would probably thank you. But hit him with a straight off the black market rack Flamethrower and he was in a world of hurt. Why? Because he bought the advantage "immune to cold attacks" at the cost of the disadvantage "vulnerable to heat based attacks"

The closest I have seen in a couple games now is a racial hatred system. Your character gets bonus "x" for fighting mob "z" but he/she may become a bit enraged and out of control. I just think adding something like this would breath a little more life into the gasping games we call MMOs now. You'd really be able to flesh out your character and give yourself a different play experience each time through. In any way, I am starting to think the only way to give a little more "oomf" to the nextgen of MMOs is to go back to their roots and draw upon what we KNOW worked. I think the modern PC RPGs are getting too far away from those roots and ending up more and more as cookiee cutter clones of each other without so much as even a different flavour of vanilla added.

Just my 2/100s of a dollar for the day.

Jenuviel

I loved advantages and disadvantages in the Hero/Champions pen and paper games, but I don't really think that's what's missing from MMOs. What's missing is being one of the heroes and participating in a planned story. Dungeons and Dragons, Hero, GURPs, Paranoia, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill, Rifts- they were all just books full of rules; the fun of the games came right from the minds of the game masters. At least for me, the game masters I played with usually went to great pains to include elements in the story that would appeal to me as a player, puzzles that would challenge us as a group, and the flexibility to react when we went in a direction he or she had never anticipated (which happened weekly).

As far as rules systems went, Champions was definitely my favorite, but the people and the stories made the difference. The best and worst part of every MMO I've played has been the people. Despite that, MMOs aren't designed to really capture the imaginations of their players, they're designed to keep them busy. I don't know what it'll take in terms of technology, innovation, or anything else to move the industry back towards the "campaign" ideal of tabletop rpgs, or even if it's possible. I suppose D&D Online sort of moved in that direction, but code can't replace a game master, at least not yet. Until it can, or until the MMO industry is able to grow humans in a lab, we'll all just be killing time rather than advancing a story. Really, though, I don't think the genre will ever capture the charm or joy of tabletop gaming; there's one "M" too many in MMORPGs for there to be any heroes.

Malachi1975

I completely agree with you. Without the presence of a GOOD Game Master MMOs will never match their PnP counterparts. But I was just thinking that the Advant/Disadvant system would be an easy-to-implement system that would bring them a step closer.

I guess we can only dream...

Dedeko

the problem is, we have grown up and come to expect more from MMO's. But we get the same product as when we were'nt grown up.

Xenduli

What is missing is that with a PnP RPG they are designed with a dozen or so heroes in mind. With a current mmorpg there are typically 3000 other like-minded "heroes" all with their own agenda, the game designers have to trick the player that they are unique in some way rather than randomPaladin#232. They have also got to balance that up with some degree of fairness. So whilst in your PnP RPG you may have gone on a quest for some legendary artefact, in a mmorpg you can't let one person be almighty and so you have to the other 2999 players a chance. A PnP RPG ruleset cannot be transplated wholesale into a MMORPG, DDO comes close obviously (even that has changes) and isn't what most people would call a MMORPG.

Also I think as consumers we are spoilt for choice, there are literally hundreds of mmorpgs out there. Whilst we expect more we are also exposed to more, whichever world(s) you chose have fun!

Kaos&Light

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Originally posted by Xenduli
What is missing is that with a PnP RPG they are designed with a dozen or so heroes in mind. With a current mmorpg there are typically 3000 other like-minded "heroes" all with their own agenda, the game designers have to trick the player that they are unique in some way rather than randomPaladin#232. They have also got to balance that up with some degree of fairness. So whilst in your PnP RPG you may have gone on a quest for some legendary artefact, in a mmorpg you can't let one person be almighty and so you have to the other 2999 players a chance. A PnP RPG ruleset cannot be transplated wholesale into a MMORPG, DDO comes close obviously (even that has changes) and isn't what most people would call a MMORPG.Also I think as consumers we are spoilt for choice, there are literally hundreds of mmorpgs out there. Whilst we expect more we are also exposed to more, whichever world(s) you chose have fun!

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Meh. I find the choices lacking in differentiation for the most part, so I hardly feel spoilt. A few different backstories, maybe a genre-shift, but for the most part the games pretty much play the same.