A MMO does not have to innovate that much, they just have to drop the idiotic class restrictions a levels. Use skill to determine character advancement instead. Why that is so difficult for a developer in implement is beyond me. Why I pretty much only play Eve much anymore.
So do you believe that the an innovation would be just to correct the problems/mistakes of the other games that tried to innovate the genre with the classless systems?
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Freedom, the ability to do what you want when you want, the the limitless possibilites of the world. A true sandbox game is what is desired, it will be awhile before we see this, but when we do we will have the game that lets us play as we want to. Hopefully we get to see this as soon as possible!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
We need to participate in forums such as this and others. We need to let developers know that we are here, and we are ready, willing, and able to play an immersive MMORPG as opposed to a linear/commercialized MMORPG.
We must not subscribe to MMORPGs that are neither creative nor innovative. I am not currently subscribed to any MMORPG because my subscription tells developers that this is the kind of MMORPG. In truth, hundreds of thousands of people are subscribed to MMORPGs as a hold-me-over until something "new" (innovative) or "better" (creative) is released.
It is through (a) communication as we are doing here and (b) not subscribing to MMORPGs that limit, control, and undermine FREEDOM in MMORPGs. My very purpose for playing MMORPG is to feel FREE in an astonishing, bizarre world. It is like developing your own unique character, unlike anyone else's, in a world of options, varied content, and diverse features. Innovation could bring greater and deeper levels of immersion in MMORPGs.
Freedom itself is not boring, lack of content can be, but so can repeating the same raid/instance over and over again becomes incrediable boring! There needs to be freedom in the game, wich connect and flows with the content provided, also as stated before User Created Content would be great to see, so a lack of content would not happen, it may not all be professional but it there would be fun to be had and lands to explore!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Freedom itself is not boring, lack of content can be, but so can repeating the same raid/instance over and over again becomes incrediable boring! There needs to be freedom in the game, wich connect and flows with the content provided, also as stated before User Created Content would be great to see, so a lack of content would not happen, it may not all be professional but it there would be fun to be had and lands to explore!
I think that is exactly right.
To keep a game "fresh," user-generated content, within certain limitations, is one way to do that. Imagine being able to design, through Questing, not only the physical appearance but the attributes of your breastplate?
One flaw of many of today's MMORPGs, in my view, is the abundance of artificial Questing. Artificial Questing is really not a Quest at all. This is not the kind of content when we mean "options." It is nice to have it as an option, but we need more varied content that contributes to the development, and advancement, of a character. We have all done these linear so-called Quests a thousands times, and now it is time to get innovative and redefine the MMORPG experience with greater and different options.
EDIT
My fear is this sense of being so overwhelmed.
Commercialized/Linear gamers "honestly" do not want innovation;
They want us to do the same old Quests in basically the same old Games.
We want, expect, desire, and we better start demanding more.
its simple a flexible game client one thats attractive to casuals, pve freaks, and hardcore pvpers alike.
the only way to achive this is imo an improved model of blizzard WoW server version, lemme explain:
One client being able to suit for all categories by 3 (or 4 )server types
_PVP servers -having limited need to get involved in pve process with no rulesets , advancing skillbased and by numbers of killed opponents, Killing with no boundries or penalties -no red ,no grey no whatsorever plain bad ass the strongest survive.Be in guild or solo doesnt matter .Advanced Crafting ingedients drop from players (i.e. capturred souls form players)
_PVE Servers -having lvl or skill based advancement , with lots of lore and story telling(no cutscenes or shit like that ) , challenging intelligent quests , and challenging group PVM encounters in wich drops are hardly gained ingerdients for high end crafting made by players again ...NO MONSTER LOOT GEAR!!
_Casual Servers (pvp/pve)
for both sides PVE or PVP make it a bit bit easy as pie for the ppl who have limited time to play but still wish to accomplish somin
and on top of that the MMO of my dreams shouldnt be a playground for any racist ,politic or religious harrassment ..now i know many of youll say its in most EULA's but be honest who does enforce it realy ? I seen only one company in my MMO existence that enforced that policy .
Bad example for that is DFO where everything seems to be alowed
Declaredemer one of the things that I think will help with the repeating quest issue is the addition of NPC inntilect / AI, the reason being is that if the people you are receiving the quests from actually have an impct on what you are doing it will feel more natural / real. Another thing that I though was a good idea was the idea of questing and raiding for some of the spells / abilities that you could gain, thats a lot more motivation then just, kill this and here you go take this green sword.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Technology that will allow us to play mmorpgs in real time unlike the current turn-based/fake real time lag fest games on the market...
This means a ping of 0. That is when mmorpgs will be fun and they will make money, unlike now in which soe is tanking, and the only american mmorpg company making money is blizzard.
Technology that will allow us to play mmorpgs in real time unlike the current turn-based/fake real time lag fest games on the market...
This means a ping of 0. That is when mmorpgs will be fun and they will make money, unlike now in which soe is tanking, and the only american mmorpg company making money is blizzard.
Technology that will allow us to play mmorpgs in real time unlike the current turn-based/fake real time lag fest games on the market...
This means a ping of 0. That is when mmorpgs will be fun and they will make money, unlike now in which soe is tanking, and the only american mmorpg company making money is blizzard.
That is really not possible, because even pinging a server or website in your own network will have a ping of 1 or 2 if your internet is fast, but pinging outside your network to anything over several miles away you are looking at a minimum of a 30ms ping, this is even with fiberoptic, so if you are looking for this, it will not happen anytime in the near future, plus a good connection of 100ms ping in an mmo is fine because thats on the faster side, so not many other are gonna be pining faster then you so it really doesn't matter.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
a combination of skill and level based games. Where the point of leveling is to get exp to put towards certain skills and the point of the displayed levels determans what dungeons I can or cannot enter. Sort of like Asheron's Call just with better graphics.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
I never played AC, but many people say it is one of thee greatest mmos, and the idea of using xp to put in your skills is good, but it would have to have a good system to keep players balanced as well as make it possible for other people who want to be crafters or other non fighting type a chance to play how they want to play.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
What other kind of innovations or ideas do you think would help the mmo genre? Also what do you think should be done to make mmos more immersive?
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
What other kind of innovations or ideas do you think would help the mmo genre? Also what do you think should be done to make mmos more immersive?
Step one: abandon the WoW-model. Step-out of WoW's long and dark shadow. Think of WoW outside of the shadow, not within it to pick-and-choose which features to copy-and-paste.
Step two: listen to the gaming community. Abandon the reverence for technology. Think in terms of "innovation" and not "better graphics or payment schemes." Leave the discussion of those items off the table, and exclusive focus on new ideas; those who try to think of new idea within the shadow of WoW must be excluded. Must be excluded. It is that bad now.
Step three: Focus less on "process" and more on "art." When considering which ideas can be implemented, discard the "process-oriented" development approach for the "art approach." Encourage new ideas. Attempt to create a bizarre and astonishing world with an interactive environment, not a sterile and "polish" world with a fixed environment.
Step four: Design tools to allow players to be "innovative." This will create an evolving, and ever changing, world. It will encourage new, and fresh, ideas, items, building-styles, character-features, and even Quests. Empower the player in simple and limited ways.
Step five: Let's move to China super-growth, and India super-growth. How can we make the game accessible to all kinds of gamers and what areas must be compromised to make the world, game, and its features appealing to all? Unfortunately, this is the most difficult and risky step. Why? People will think in terms of the WoW-shadow or WoW-market and not opening new --perhaps even larger-- markets.
What is Missing? Immersion.
How do We Get It? Innovation.
How Do We Innovate? Abandon the WoW-model of copy-and-paste.
What Else? Use creativity to incrementally improve some features (making environments more interactive, e.g.) and break-through tools (player-empowerment; user-generated content).
I think almso tany person on this fourm will agree with the conclusion that people are tired of and fed up with the WoW Clones that are popping up everywhere, and also getting rid of the whole idea of grind to level till you can grind gear in end-game. So all these things seem to be get away from the Wow model, I am not saying that WoW is a bad game, I am just stating that many people are getting bored with what it has to offer, and the many other games that copy most of its mechanics.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
In previews for AoC you saw smiths hammering swords and other craftsmen working. What did we get in-game? the same retard standing with a dazed look on his face: or seeing other characters with the same plodding gate. You telling me they couldn't make the AI as active as the combat AI? let them interact.
In previews for AoC you saw smiths hammering swords and other craftsmen working. What did we get in-game? the same retard standing with a dazed look on his face: or seeing other characters with the same plodding gate. You telling me they couldn't make the AI as active as the combat AI? let them interact.
That is one of the things that people want to see now is the NPCs acting like they have some sort of inteiligents, not just stand there. It would be nice to see them acting a bit more real, lol
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
So what other kinds of innovations would you like to see implimented into MMOs? Anything from certain systems, or ideas. Or it could even be a suggestion of a certain gameplay element, voice your opion, I am sure more people then just me would like to know!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
From a PvP standpoint, I would like to see a world that has many 8 or so factions and one of them wins total victory, and the server is restarted again from scratch, a kind of random world built from a preset chunk of dungeons, resource nodes, cities, and areas, with developers adding new content before the next server refresh. The randomness of each match means you can't just go to some website and check maps and dungeons and whatnot, but you have to work together and explore the area, get the resources then decide on leaders and build defenses and war machines. The world would be totally destructable since it is refreshed and rebuilt with every match, so building defenses, researching one thing instead of another (as a realm), ordering NPCs to patrol certain areas, and managing your territory will be crucial to victory.
At character creation, people would see a list of occupations, truly your main role for your realm, and get to decide what to do - a wide variety of things like Cartographer, Alchemist, Diplomat, Spy, Warrior, etc., not just the same old stuff. The abilities each role has would be vastly different from each other, although they would also have a choice of a secondary, generic role with standard abilities like basic combat. If you want to be a Cartographer for example, you would get info on which realms need one the most, and which ones can't take any more, thus giving you the chance to make a big difference there and fulfill your role. Your realm would have its map slowly filled in once the Cartographers got out in the world and did what they signed up to do, and you would have no idea what or where the enemy was until the Scouts, Spies, and Diplomats told you - some of that info would be done automatically by the computer and the player itself could write tons of info on ingame bulletin boards also. Other explorers or adventurers could fine magical trinkets and whatnot in their quests that benefit the whole realm, and these quests are one-time quests, that are deep and involving and complex. Once your realm completely searched it's own area and got all the quests done and set up resource/crafting places, then it would focus on realm vs realm strategy.
The leveling and resource-gathering could be tweaked to have 2-month games or 6-months games, or anywhere in-between. This gives people who enjoy PvP something to strive for and be proud of, knowing they are only going to spend a set amount of time and just have fun contributing to their team and trying to win. The other thing is, once another realm finds yours, and decides to attack in mass, you could be defeated, and your game is over, so you better stop what you are doing and come defend. A website would of course keep track of all the matches and provide accolades, history of matches and players, and statistics of all kinds. Then in the next match, you can try your hand being an elite Archer, or try to be the King, or an Engineer, instead of just another combat unit with typical combat skills.
I'm a hardcore advocate for Player-Creation and have mentioned it in one form or another in practically all of my post in the Developers Corner. Five Levels of Collaborative Creation: Asset Creation, Entity Assembly, Customization, StoryTelling, and Crafting.
There is nothing wrong with instancing in and of itself. The problem lies in how instancing is used. There are two major uses of instancing.
1) Instancing simply to prevent lag
This is the worst use of instancing and is usually a sign of a poorly designed game system. Being presented with a list of a dozen zone instances simply because the game is crowded that night is not immersive. Player: "Hey guys meet me in "area" outside the city." Friend: "There are 4 versions of "area" which one are you in?" Total immersion killer.
2) Instancing to provide a party centric view of content
This is a very good use of instancing. Walking into a non-instanced area only to find out that 4 other groups are there doing the same thing as you and having to stand around for long periods of time while you wait for things to respawn is not immersive. It feels like you are standing in line at an amusement park. Having certain areas instanced per party gives the game a more immersive feel.
Changing servers is not instancing. Some games have load screens when you travel or when you enter certain areas because you are actually moving to a different server when you cross a boundry. Nothing wrong with that as long as those boundaries are minimized so you don't spend alot of time waiting at a load screen. To keep immersion intact during these transitions you can show something other than a dull loading screen. The original WoW did a very nice marching ant travel animation on the world map when you switched servers from one continent to another.
Before I criticize a man, I walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he's a mile away and barefoot.
So it seems many of the people here feel that one of the best ways to keep a game immersive is to get rid of loading screens, or limit them to only absolutley nessicary things, also I do get the point of instancing off some places to allow for less crowded use of said place, I am really liking these ideas, keep them comming!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
So if I am correct I am seeing that the only kind of instancing should be done for things like raids and dungeons, am I correct? ANd just from my personal view point I think that PvP should be open world, not really instanced, I like the fun of attacking and be attacked whenever.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Comments
So do you believe that the an innovation would be just to correct the problems/mistakes of the other games that tried to innovate the genre with the classless systems?
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
freedom.
Freedom, the ability to do what you want when you want, the the limitless possibilites of the world. A true sandbox game is what is desired, it will be awhile before we see this, but when we do we will have the game that lets us play as we want to. Hopefully we get to see this as soon as possible!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Freedom without content is boring
Freedom.
We need to participate in forums such as this and others. We need to let developers know that we are here, and we are ready, willing, and able to play an immersive MMORPG as opposed to a linear/commercialized MMORPG.
We must not subscribe to MMORPGs that are neither creative nor innovative. I am not currently subscribed to any MMORPG because my subscription tells developers that this is the kind of MMORPG. In truth, hundreds of thousands of people are subscribed to MMORPGs as a hold-me-over until something "new" (innovative) or "better" (creative) is released.
It is through (a) communication as we are doing here and (b) not subscribing to MMORPGs that limit, control, and undermine FREEDOM in MMORPGs. My very purpose for playing MMORPG is to feel FREE in an astonishing, bizarre world. It is like developing your own unique character, unlike anyone else's, in a world of options, varied content, and diverse features. Innovation could bring greater and deeper levels of immersion in MMORPGs.
Freedom itself is not boring, lack of content can be, but so can repeating the same raid/instance over and over again becomes incrediable boring! There needs to be freedom in the game, wich connect and flows with the content provided, also as stated before User Created Content would be great to see, so a lack of content would not happen, it may not all be professional but it there would be fun to be had and lands to explore!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
I think that is exactly right.
To keep a game "fresh," user-generated content, within certain limitations, is one way to do that. Imagine being able to design, through Questing, not only the physical appearance but the attributes of your breastplate?
One flaw of many of today's MMORPGs, in my view, is the abundance of artificial Questing. Artificial Questing is really not a Quest at all. This is not the kind of content when we mean "options." It is nice to have it as an option, but we need more varied content that contributes to the development, and advancement, of a character. We have all done these linear so-called Quests a thousands times, and now it is time to get innovative and redefine the MMORPG experience with greater and different options.
EDIT
My fear is this sense of being so overwhelmed.
Commercialized/Linear gamers "honestly" do not want innovation;
They want us to do the same old Quests in basically the same old Games.
We want, expect, desire, and we better start demanding more.
its simple a flexible game client one thats attractive to casuals, pve freaks, and hardcore pvpers alike.
the only way to achive this is imo an improved model of blizzard WoW server version, lemme explain:
One client being able to suit for all categories by 3 (or 4 )server types
_PVP servers -having limited need to get involved in pve process with no rulesets , advancing skillbased and by numbers of killed opponents, Killing with no boundries or penalties -no red ,no grey no whatsorever plain bad ass the strongest survive.Be in guild or solo doesnt matter .Advanced Crafting ingedients drop from players (i.e. capturred souls form players)
_PVE Servers -having lvl or skill based advancement , with lots of lore and story telling(no cutscenes or shit like that ) , challenging intelligent quests , and challenging group PVM encounters in wich drops are hardly gained ingerdients for high end crafting made by players again ...NO MONSTER LOOT GEAR!!
_Casual Servers (pvp/pve)
for both sides PVE or PVP make it a bit bit easy as pie for the ppl who have limited time to play but still wish to accomplish somin
and on top of that the MMO of my dreams shouldnt be a playground for any racist ,politic or religious harrassment ..now i know many of youll say its in most EULA's but be honest who does enforce it realy ? I seen only one company in my MMO existence that enforced that policy .
Bad example for that is DFO where everything seems to be alowed
Declaredemer one of the things that I think will help with the repeating quest issue is the addition of NPC inntilect / AI, the reason being is that if the people you are receiving the quests from actually have an impct on what you are doing it will feel more natural / real. Another thing that I though was a good idea was the idea of questing and raiding for some of the spells / abilities that you could gain, thats a lot more motivation then just, kill this and here you go take this green sword.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Technology that will allow us to play mmorpgs in real time unlike the current turn-based/fake real time lag fest games on the market...
This means a ping of 0. That is when mmorpgs will be fun and they will make money, unlike now in which soe is tanking, and the only american mmorpg company making money is blizzard.
World wide ping 0 wont happen the next 20 yrs
That is really not possible, because even pinging a server or website in your own network will have a ping of 1 or 2 if your internet is fast, but pinging outside your network to anything over several miles away you are looking at a minimum of a 30ms ping, this is even with fiberoptic, so if you are looking for this, it will not happen anytime in the near future, plus a good connection of 100ms ping in an mmo is fine because thats on the faster side, so not many other are gonna be pining faster then you so it really doesn't matter.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
a combination of skill and level based games. Where the point of leveling is to get exp to put towards certain skills and the point of the displayed levels determans what dungeons I can or cannot enter. Sort of like Asheron's Call just with better graphics.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
I never played AC, but many people say it is one of thee greatest mmos, and the idea of using xp to put in your skills is good, but it would have to have a good system to keep players balanced as well as make it possible for other people who want to be crafters or other non fighting type a chance to play how they want to play.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
What other kind of innovations or ideas do you think would help the mmo genre? Also what do you think should be done to make mmos more immersive?
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
Step one: abandon the WoW-model. Step-out of WoW's long and dark shadow. Think of WoW outside of the shadow, not within it to pick-and-choose which features to copy-and-paste.
Step two: listen to the gaming community. Abandon the reverence for technology. Think in terms of "innovation" and not "better graphics or payment schemes." Leave the discussion of those items off the table, and exclusive focus on new ideas; those who try to think of new idea within the shadow of WoW must be excluded. Must be excluded. It is that bad now.
Step three: Focus less on "process" and more on "art." When considering which ideas can be implemented, discard the "process-oriented" development approach for the "art approach." Encourage new ideas. Attempt to create a bizarre and astonishing world with an interactive environment, not a sterile and "polish" world with a fixed environment.
Step four: Design tools to allow players to be "innovative." This will create an evolving, and ever changing, world. It will encourage new, and fresh, ideas, items, building-styles, character-features, and even Quests. Empower the player in simple and limited ways.
Step five: Let's move to China super-growth, and India super-growth. How can we make the game accessible to all kinds of gamers and what areas must be compromised to make the world, game, and its features appealing to all? Unfortunately, this is the most difficult and risky step. Why? People will think in terms of the WoW-shadow or WoW-market and not opening new --perhaps even larger-- markets.
What is Missing? Immersion.
How do We Get It? Innovation.
How Do We Innovate? Abandon the WoW-model of copy-and-paste.
What Else? Use creativity to incrementally improve some features (making environments more interactive, e.g.) and break-through tools (player-empowerment; user-generated content).
I think almso tany person on this fourm will agree with the conclusion that people are tired of and fed up with the WoW Clones that are popping up everywhere, and also getting rid of the whole idea of grind to level till you can grind gear in end-game. So all these things seem to be get away from the Wow model, I am not saying that WoW is a bad game, I am just stating that many people are getting bored with what it has to offer, and the many other games that copy most of its mechanics.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
In previews for AoC you saw smiths hammering swords and other craftsmen working. What did we get in-game? the same retard standing with a dazed look on his face: or seeing other characters with the same plodding gate. You telling me they couldn't make the AI as active as the combat AI? let them interact.
That is one of the things that people want to see now is the NPCs acting like they have some sort of inteiligents, not just stand there. It would be nice to see them acting a bit more real, lol
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
So what other kinds of innovations would you like to see implimented into MMOs? Anything from certain systems, or ideas. Or it could even be a suggestion of a certain gameplay element, voice your opion, I am sure more people then just me would like to know!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
From a PvP standpoint, I would like to see a world that has many 8 or so factions and one of them wins total victory, and the server is restarted again from scratch, a kind of random world built from a preset chunk of dungeons, resource nodes, cities, and areas, with developers adding new content before the next server refresh. The randomness of each match means you can't just go to some website and check maps and dungeons and whatnot, but you have to work together and explore the area, get the resources then decide on leaders and build defenses and war machines. The world would be totally destructable since it is refreshed and rebuilt with every match, so building defenses, researching one thing instead of another (as a realm), ordering NPCs to patrol certain areas, and managing your territory will be crucial to victory.
At character creation, people would see a list of occupations, truly your main role for your realm, and get to decide what to do - a wide variety of things like Cartographer, Alchemist, Diplomat, Spy, Warrior, etc., not just the same old stuff. The abilities each role has would be vastly different from each other, although they would also have a choice of a secondary, generic role with standard abilities like basic combat. If you want to be a Cartographer for example, you would get info on which realms need one the most, and which ones can't take any more, thus giving you the chance to make a big difference there and fulfill your role. Your realm would have its map slowly filled in once the Cartographers got out in the world and did what they signed up to do, and you would have no idea what or where the enemy was until the Scouts, Spies, and Diplomats told you - some of that info would be done automatically by the computer and the player itself could write tons of info on ingame bulletin boards also. Other explorers or adventurers could fine magical trinkets and whatnot in their quests that benefit the whole realm, and these quests are one-time quests, that are deep and involving and complex. Once your realm completely searched it's own area and got all the quests done and set up resource/crafting places, then it would focus on realm vs realm strategy.
The leveling and resource-gathering could be tweaked to have 2-month games or 6-months games, or anywhere in-between. This gives people who enjoy PvP something to strive for and be proud of, knowing they are only going to spend a set amount of time and just have fun contributing to their team and trying to win. The other thing is, once another realm finds yours, and decides to attack in mass, you could be defeated, and your game is over, so you better stop what you are doing and come defend. A website would of course keep track of all the matches and provide accolades, history of matches and players, and statistics of all kinds. Then in the next match, you can try your hand being an elite Archer, or try to be the King, or an Engineer, instead of just another combat unit with typical combat skills.
MMORPGs are virtual skinner boxes.
http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/skinner.html
I'm a hardcore advocate for Player-Creation and have mentioned it in one form or another in practically all of my post in the Developers Corner. Five Levels of Collaborative Creation: Asset Creation, Entity Assembly, Customization, StoryTelling, and Crafting.
There is nothing wrong with instancing in and of itself. The problem lies in how instancing is used. There are two major uses of instancing.
1) Instancing simply to prevent lag
This is the worst use of instancing and is usually a sign of a poorly designed game system. Being presented with a list of a dozen zone instances simply because the game is crowded that night is not immersive. Player: "Hey guys meet me in "area" outside the city." Friend: "There are 4 versions of "area" which one are you in?" Total immersion killer.
2) Instancing to provide a party centric view of content
This is a very good use of instancing. Walking into a non-instanced area only to find out that 4 other groups are there doing the same thing as you and having to stand around for long periods of time while you wait for things to respawn is not immersive. It feels like you are standing in line at an amusement park. Having certain areas instanced per party gives the game a more immersive feel.
Changing servers is not instancing. Some games have load screens when you travel or when you enter certain areas because you are actually moving to a different server when you cross a boundry. Nothing wrong with that as long as those boundaries are minimized so you don't spend alot of time waiting at a load screen. To keep immersion intact during these transitions you can show something other than a dull loading screen. The original WoW did a very nice marching ant travel animation on the world map when you switched servers from one continent to another.
That way, if he gets angry, he's a mile away and barefoot.
So it seems many of the people here feel that one of the best ways to keep a game immersive is to get rid of loading screens, or limit them to only absolutley nessicary things, also I do get the point of instancing off some places to allow for less crowded use of said place, I am really liking these ideas, keep them comming!
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
So if I am correct I am seeing that the only kind of instancing should be done for things like raids and dungeons, am I correct? ANd just from my personal view point I think that PvP should be open world, not really instanced, I like the fun of attacking and be attacked whenever.
"He's the quintessential Darkfall troll: never played the game or read up on it but speaks of it like DF raped his wife and murdered his children." - Einstein-DF
