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WANTED: Your top 3 suggestions for improving MMO's?
Aetherial
Member Posts: 103
Elikal, and I both have threads going that say very much the same thing about the problem with MMO's.
So, quick input is requested. Briefly describe 3 things you would like to see change in MMO's
My 3
1) No more scripted progression of completing senseless quests, dumbed down to the point, where I don't even know *why* I am doing it... I just do it, like EVERY other player... solo.
2) Bring back a serious death penalty. As I said before, this makes teamwork and cooperation the path of least resistance and brings back the "MMO" into the "RPG". Right now, all we have is cookie-cutter RPG's
3) Simply, make things more difficult. Make players have to think about how to progress in a dungeon, or where to position themselves in a fight, how to manage aggro, how to pull MOB's and "break" a spawn. These are basic skills in a difficult MMO that can take months to master... and you always have to evolve your tactics. These days I feel like I can complete any quest my level without dieing, ever, if I really wanted to be careful.
... what would be your top 3?
Comments
1. Add more content for small groups and solo players.
2.Improof loot reward for small groups and soloers.
3.Instant traveling to places you allredy visit.
This is actually easy for me, since a game out there already has most of the focal points I want in an mmorpg. It's more a matter of what I would change within that game.
the game is FFXI - I would make the game more solo friendly, give the quests an xp reward, and get rid of the whole menu/console control system with a modern mmorpg control system with controllers being able to be mapped to it.
the reason I bring up this game, is the atmosphere, story content, sheer character depth, job system, crafting system, and community. housing, the actual challenge and danger of leveling up, mobs chasing you through the whole zone and not just 20 yards and stopping.
1) Crafting, crafting that matters comparable to 'epics' if for some forsaken reason your game goes down that path.
2) No epics. Sure armor/weapons can have some nifty tricks in them but there's no reason to add everything under the sun in one piece.
3) small group content when you have to choose your team. Large group content when teams are large, like battle grounds if for soem forsaken reason you just have to add those.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
1. Create meaningful player interaction by getting back to the persistent world, and the many varied trades of Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. Real players carrying out real tasks like forging armor, weapons, items, food, etc...
2. Now that you are interacting with other players in the persistent world in a meaningful way. Reduce the emphasis on raids and mass grouping. Fantasy and Sci-Fi literature, and films always are predicated on loners, or a small band of adventurers beating the odds against evil. Not thirty or fourty mad-men dashing into a cave looting and killing. I mean, who is more evil anyway? The monsters in their cave, or the thirty lunatics rampaging into it non-stop every day.
3. Create "Hard-Core Role-Playing" servers. Within these servers you must eat, sleep (not real time of course), and utilize services to get healed if you do not possess sufficient healing magic or salves yourself. Health will not just regenerate very quickly over time. Player character healers, food venders, and those who craft bandages, salves, potions, etc... will naturally be in high demand.
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1) Randomised quests/dungeons/encounters. Keep the game fresh.
2) Do away with number stats completely. No more theorycrafting, please!!
3) Crafted items that have a personal touch and actually require skill to produce instead of hitting a 'Make' button.
1) Skills not levels. Use a sword to increase your sword skill, not DING! Hey, I can use a sword.
2) Crafting that matters and a player economy to go with it. The one thing SWG did very well.
3) No more "heroic raids". There is nothing heroic about 40 guys running in and cutting up some random monster that happens to be in some cave/castle. I dont consider anything about 40-1 odds being "heroic".
Thalos Vipav
Star Wars Galaxies: R.I.P.
I have to diagree with your second change to a point. the thing is that we differ in opinions on it m8, it's not the MMO thats missing, it's the RPG... People don't role play in MMOs today, instead of character progression it's all about grinding to max level the raiding or pvping nothing more, nothing less.
my 3 would be as follows:
1. Avoid the nonsense by the so called majority that there isn't enough PvP or Raiding, there's too much of it these days.
2. bring meaningful crafting, decay and experimentaion (chances that average mats could make something good) back. if the trend continues and things remain level based and a grind to end game then at least give those people another option other than raid or pvp.
3. This is the most important i think... BRING BACK THE RPG ELEMENT!!!!.. people role play still which is good but thats not what i mean, i mean actual reasons to get to know your character, customise your character and progress your character, story is a good way of doing some of this.
1. reinvent the leveling progression system
2. reinvent the skill progression system
3. Live events teams for mmos
I only have one point: interactive objects.
The more players can interact with the world around them the better, especially if the interaction leaves a permanent mark be that on items or other players. Designers needs to think purpose beyond scencery into the objects they place in the world. In theory it is not that difficult to do as you can mostly mimick functions from the real world, but it might be technically challenging.
1. stop making fantasy games, the genre is done to death and you can pack more visually into sci-fi.
2. use reflex systems instead of sequencing systems, nothing gets boring faster than target mob and ... 4,2,1,4,5,2,4,2,1,3,4,5,2,4 etc. MAKE me dodge attacks, MAKE me go for the throat, Make me THINK!
3. not just the death penalty thing but make a hard core server in every game where there is no fast travel, no global chat, no guides that can help online. make it so there are respawn points you hit like in offline games and then if you die you respawn @ ;that point and lose everything you did since you tagged it, have completely random quests so there can be no guides, rename skills and stats so even if someone does look up a guide on how to make a cookie cutter build its all fubar'd because the names and descriptions are all wrong (it will at least encourage them to think).
and as a side note i think a terrible mistake was made LONG ago, companies need to prosecute ANYONE who cheats in online games. not simply ban accounts but actually hit kids with felonies for using ce's. no i dont care about the consequences, i want a playing field that is balanced. plus spending 5 years in juvie/prison for wire fraud will make little timmy all the better human AND keep him out of my games. the TOS should be there for a reason besides covering the companies asses.
1 - Go back to roots.
2 - Give players more freedom and let them "create" their own world.
3 - Create living virtual worlds than another theme park.....
Strength back to the character vs gear.
Focus on more non combat skills (crafting, fishing, housing, etc.) instead of them being a after thought.
Variety, which touches the linear nature of current mmo. There is a complete lack of variety in mmos in every aspect. Gear is all gotten from the same places, run the same raid or instance over and over and over. You are hand fed quest after quest after quest, if you just feel like grinding you are missing out. End game always leads to raiding or pvp.
Interesting perspective... I understand your reasons for saying the RPG element is missing. I think I just assumed it was there by default (i.e. I am playing a dwarf/warrior/elf/wizard... etc.). You are correct though that there is no depth to the "RPG" side of things.
I think the MMO is missing because, unless you go to instanced PvP, or you participate in end game raiding, there is very little need to group in modern day MMO's... thus people solo most of their way and I don't feel there is an MMO atmosphere anymore.
I am surprised someone took that long to mention the end game... it would have been my number 4. The ONLY reason it was not one of my top ones was because I can sometimes have a good, long run in a game where I did have fun, until the end game (WoW).
Agreed with cheaters. Companies could be doing so much more.
I don't think combat needs to be twitch to make it interesting. I will use EQ as an example...
There was an autoattack, but you other abilities you had to use at the right time. You either ran out of mana and had a long med time (inefficient) or pulled too much aggro, or didn't have the ability needed when it was ready (like taunt!).
You also had to consider a lot of strategy in how to deal with multiple MOBS, how to pull from a group, where to position yourself, what order to kill things, how long to delay killing things (to "stagger" the spawn) etc.
There was more thought in combat in EQ than there was in any MMO I have seen since.
From old EQ:
1) Corpse runs (yes sorry)
2) No minimap, no map, no GPS.
3) Weight (for character, weapons and loot, afecting a stamina bar, walking speed and fallilng damage)
Even I was afraid to put on corpse runs.
I have to admit though, as much as I hated them, I really think they need to be there. It makes it soooo much more tense when you are deep in a dungeon and you that, if you wipe, you have to go through it all again to retrieve your corpse.
I obviously agree with 2. Number 3 also is an "immersion" issue.
Here are my top three:
1) Make me think. I don't want to play a master with god-like powers able to destroy 5 mobs my level. I want a challenge. Perhaps that challenge is through RvR or super-intelligent mobs (Personally, I've never seen super-intelligent mobs in a MMO and RvR was done best in Planetside but still could be greatly improved.)
2) Make the environment immersive. No more NPCs standing at attention at exactly the same place every second of gameplay. Let them move around. And what about some weather changes - and having that weather affect my abilities? For example in a snowy environment perhaps my dexterity goes down. I want immersive.
3) I prefer a skill based progression where, for example, the more I use a certain weapon the more proficient I get with it.
Honorable mention - crafting that creates weapons, armor, etc. that is at least somewhat better than the stuff the drops off the nearby beatles, rats, or spiders... (LOL).
1.) First of all, MMOs *MUST* be virtual, persistant WORLDS. WoW has tons of quality and is a great game, but it is a shitty MMO because it doesn't contain any real MMO elements. Think about it: if WoW's multiplayer aspect was like Diablo 2 (except 40 players max instead of 8), it would essentially still be the same. Clearly there isn't any reason WoW should be an MMO instead of a cooperative game. The same goes for WAR. WAR could very well be a multiplayer action game. I'm having fun with WAR but it feels like they threw the MMO 'stuff' on top of an action-RvR game and it just gets in the way. A persistant world means that the world is virtually real. It is a living and breathing entity - not a theme park. Not only does this add so much value to roleplayers, crafters, explorers, etc., but it also provides context and meaning for PvP. PvP for the sake of PvP is fun but can get boring depending on how the game works. PvP with a point (a more immersive experience) can be so much more fulfilling. I think developers are missing the magic of the MMO - the very reason we all love the genre so much - and are exploiting the term 'MMO'.
2.) Like many have said, there needs to be meaningful non-combat activities (like crafting). This goes hand-in-hand with the persistant world bit. People should be allowed to immerse themselves in a virtual world made up of player-controlled characters. Not all characters wish to fight. A game solely based on raiding or PvP cannot capture the very essence of an MMO world becaue they become more like non-MMO games (like I've said: WoW = Diablo, WAR = FPS). There is nothing inherently wrong with the games other than the fact that they should not be branded as MMOs. Basically, it is much better to be known as a good player in your own field rather than be a run-of-the-mill clone of every other character, doing the same exact thing everyone else does. MMOs should be about guided freedom (a thin line...Second Life is one extreme and WoW is the other).
3.) Focus on community! This includes many things, such as player interdependency. If I can play the game all by myself, why the hell am I playing an MMO? The whole point of MMOs is to play WITH a massive amount of other people. Start thinking of things that we can do with (or against) each other! RvR in WAR is a good start (although DAoC also did it), but theres no world to provide context and meaning to the RvR (it is essentially an FPS with MMO elements thrown in to annoy you). Soloing shouldn't be outlawed though. You should be able to basically do whatever you want, but you should NOT under any circumstance be a superhero. If you are a crafter, you can run around and gather materials or craft by yourself if you want, but it might be quicker and easier if you find some fighter to help get you through dangerous lands. If you are a fighter, you should not also expect to be a healer. It's hard to allow people to play by themselves when they want, but I believe it can be done while also mainting player interdependency.
There is a lot more I could have added, but these are three basics. I really wish I could suggest more advanced things, but MMOs have become so crappy that they aren't even MMOs anymore, so I have to suggest these basic, trivial things that every fan of real MMOs knows like the back of his hands. I would like to add a fourth though. I think it is relevant given the development of SW:TOR.
4.) Single player stories don't work in an MMO. Sure, the story might be awesome, but it has no place being in an MMO. First of all, there is a single player apsect to it which, again, why the hell does the game need to be made as an MMO if it is just a single player game at heart? The main problem with just trying to throw a single player story into an MMO is that you assume all players participate and are the heroes. This violates all MMO philosophy because you have created a themepark and destroyed the virtual world. WoW has a great story, but it sucks as an MMO story. How is it possible that I have killed *insert your preferred boss here* a hundred times - and so has everyone else? Making players the heroes is BAD unless done correctly. An MMO story needs to be more like various events that occur. Players contribute and possibly a few players actually make more significant contributions. An extreme example is each boss in a raid is only killable once. This makes much more sense in terms of an MMO story. STOP trying to make ALL the players HEROES because you have made NO ONE a hero and everyone a passanger on your money train instead of providing us with a good damn game. Besides trying to force a single player game into an MMO, it has been more enjoyable, in my experience, to create my own context in MMOs with other players. Maybe you could throw in some good MMO story elements, but make the game ultimately depend upon the players (which is why we all starting playing MMOs, no?).
______________________
Give a man some fun and you entertain him for a day. Teach a man to make fun and you entertain him for a lifetime.
1. No more quests.
2. Players can change the game world.
3. Players can take and hold territory.
1. Make sure you have the best up to date graphics and show an open world those graphics.
2. Skill based progression instead of lvling. Eve did a great job with this.
3. No more fantasy games. Thats why im waiting on World of darkness MMO and Earthrise.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
Sadly I think a lot of developers share this view. They think sticking a bunch of characters in a fantasy-type environment and allowing them to cast spells and wield swords somehow constitues an RPG.
What they forget is that the point of an RPG is that a player feels like their character is an individual - not a cookie cutter clone with the same gear and 'spec' as 100 other people on the server.
hmm how do I limit it to only 3? Ok I'll try.
1) Remove levels and classes, use a skill system.
2) Remove the loot based systems, make crafting complex and make the economy completely driven by crafting.
3) Include features for social interaction... Like entertainers in SWG. Make people actually need each other, and make them interact. This solo movement is retarded.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
Skill system instead of levels.
Only resource loots, so crafting is useful.
PvP that has long-term economic consequences for the game world.
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1.)Dynamic skill trees. Meaning you pick a class with a few basic skills that represent what he is capable of doing, use those skills over and over again to make them better. Once you get a skill to a certain strength (or level if you have to use the word) it opens up a few new skills that are similar or related. The catch being you can only pick one skill from all that have opened up. You could make it possible to pick a second skill by increasing the parent skill to another X level. This same trend happens with the new skills you just unlocked. Now you need to use them to get more powerful and continue to open new skills.
2.)Combat experience that doesnt come from killing. Example: If i am a scout and i can successfully sneak into a room and get a count on how many enemies there are and where they are standing, then sneak back out successfully then that would reward some exp. And as such mark the enemie's locations on my group's mini map.
3.)Player skills outmatch player gear. Sure getting new epic gear is great, but with the way it is in new mmos it doesnt matter how good you are at the game. The only thing that matters is if you have the 10 hours a day to farm and raid for gear. Because once you have that gear you dont even have to think to kill anyone in pvp or pve. Just close your eyes and hit the 1 or 2 magic buttons on your keyboard and you win. I have some examples as to what could be done with gear but they are way too long for me to type here right now. And im tired of ranting.