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LAME, LAME, FAIL, FAIL: The often imitated but never innovative MMO
UnleadedRev
Member UncommonPosts: 568
Here is the recipe for "Lame, Lame, Fail, Fail...ARE YOU LISTENING MMO PUBLISHERS AND DEVELOPERS AND DESIGNERS?
1) Play four weeks to level cap and then grind for gear:
WoW created this model and although most can deal with this in WoW, once it is imitated in another MMO, it becomes LAME.
2) Grinding for tokens:
Another WoW innovation, that is imitated in almost every new MMO these days. Once again, just because such a feature was created by WoW does not mean your game should imitate it...because if it does, then that feature is now LAME.
3) The NERF bat:
Yeah...yeah, we all know some degree of nerfing must be done to ensure game balance, but OMG...seven years after launch WoW is still swinging the nasty NERF bat, pissing off players, but yet at the same time, these players will indeed for the most part create a new character and avoid the NERFed class, and then are happy. This makes money...lots of money for Blizzard/WoW, because most players do enjoy leveling in WoW. However, swing the NERF bat in other MMOs, for example Age of Conan...where after every single NERF patch, there is a massive Rage Quit. HEY DEVS and DESIGNERS! Get game and class balance correct from teh get go, ensure mas beta testing with GOOD beta testers who want to solve problems for you and not just get a sneak peek for a leg up on the rest of us. OTHERWISE...just as what happened in Warhammer Online and now Age of Conan...your game will be branded as FAIL.
4) I thought Asia was a hot bed for innovation? Yet...why does almost every Asian MMO look like the same old "Cutesy Tootsey Anime style with exagerrated weapons, flambouyand fighting styles that peg the CHEESE METER? They all look the SAME. AND....yes..I know..WoW created some cutesy tootsey anime style pets to please its Asian audience, but think about it....why is it that even the recent article on this very site, claimed the differences between East and West were paramount in game design, but WoW appeased to the Asian audience without crossing the line? Once again....if I see one more cutesy tootsey "Panda" wearing a "Viet Cong" hat in any MMO I will SCREAM "LAME"!
5) Grinding....
ok....yeah, the original Everquest turned grinding into a MMO main stay until the launch of the anti-grind revolution of 2009....but really? As a recent "MMORPG.COM" article recently cited, how Asians or rather "Eastern" markets love the grind and western markets hate the grind...well, ok...if you want to imitate a Chinese Gold Farmer or worst...an underpaid Chinese slave labor in a Bejing factory thats your business...but for the rest of us and the world for that matter..GRINDING IS LAME.
6) The Epic MMO fail recipe:
If your newly released MMO has any of the following features, it is EPIC FAIL -
1) No anti-cheat or LAME (Punk Buster) anti-cheat program (APB) your MMO is FAIL.
2) If it takes 4 weeks or less to hit level cap your MMO is FAIL.
3) If it takes 4 weeks or less to reach level cap, and then players must grind for gear, your MMO is FAIL.
4) If your graphics suck, your MMO is FAIL, unless its WoW (a game feature - backwards compatability), it is FAIL.
5) If your MMO does not achieve class balance in less than 3 years your MMO is FAIL, unless its WoW (business model - piss off players so they roll new toons and play longer makes money).
6) If you charge $14+ a monthon your subscription, but its yet another lame WoW clone or worse an Eastern MMO, then your MMO is FAIL.
7) If you require players to grind the same dungeon over and over or the same PvP field over and over your MMO is FAIL, unless its WoW for prveiously cited busines model reasons.
8) If you imitate WoW and make yet another WoW clone your MMO is EPIC FAIL.
9) If you cannot seem to get player registration or BETA access/registration correct (Final Fantasy XXXXXXXXXXX), your MMO is FAIL.
10) If you make a design checklist and you find that you imitated 4 or more WOW game features instead of INNOVATING your MMO is FAIL.
Tada.........
Comments
Developer's Corner is over that way -->
Please provide a link for the successful MMO that you have developed/published. I would be interested in seeing your gaming innovations in action!
I really hope this post is sarcasm, if not, this post is FAIL.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
After having read through the points, all that is left is a single player console game.
Ah...nothing like a large dose of stupid to help the Sunday roast go down. lol
So unless your MMO is WoW it's lame and fails?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Tokens is actually a very solid design.
If an item I want has a 25% chance of dropping, I'm expected to make about 4 runs to get it. But it's a chance. It's not guaranteed. Some players will go 15 runs and not see the item drop, and vent their frustrations towards the developer.
Tokens solve this problem by giving permanent progress with each kill of that boss. So a similar token item can cost 6 tokens, and now we've guaranteed players will have it after 6 boss kills.
As for Nerfing, the only bad nerf is an over-nerf. And while your playerbase will even accuse under-nerfs of being over-nerfs, what really matters is the longterm balance of the game. Balance makes player decisions matter. In an unbalanced game you can say "be Class X and you'll always win" or "spam Ability Y and you'll always win." In a balanced game it's "Play skillfully and make the right decisions and you'll win -- unless you're outplayed."
Nerfs are often the most sensible path towards good balance. Just don't over-nerf, because that hurts balance.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In my opinion, if it takes me longer than 4 weeks to get to max level, the game is fail.
I used to play MMO's for 18 hours a day, every day, and after 2-4 weeks I'd give up, usually whenever I'd reach a point where leveling began to slow down to a be 1 day per level, after the game gave me 1 level every 30 minutes, and the first 10 in 2 hours.
I'm sorry, but I hate this type of design. It bores me to death. I'd rather gain a level every 10-30 minutes and have 1000 levels than to gain 1 level a day. The only game I ever reached max on was DAoC and UO... and that's only because I played for so long, enjoying other parts of the games, and in DAoC I went through mental suffering renaming the game "Dark Age of Task Dungeons".
I've played just about every MMORPG on the market, and I own probably 5-8 characters in every game, ALL level 15-30, but none above level 30.
Lol, people reroll a new class simply because they class got hit by the nerf bat? That's what I call longterm commitment to your character.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
so basically you want to play a sandbox game?
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
I agree, tokens indeed do solve some RNG and class issues, however I am able to understand the OP... to an extent. Simply copying the design just doesn't make for much good in my opinion.
What I have been thinking of has been linking crafting with these token drops. You would need a high end crafter to turn your tokens into something wearable; I think that could be an interesting and immersive concept, and while at it's core it's pretty much exactly the same thing, it wouldn't seem like it's simply a "copy and paste" feature.
FFXIV uses rune stones that you trade to an NPC along with several high end crafted items to have the item made... The game is still boring as hell though.
My theme song.
Sure, a concept like that will not fix a game's other issues. Anyway, I have been thinking, wouldn't it still be a cool feature to be able to, say, kill an outdoor dragon boss from which your guild's skinners and other such people would collect matherials like, say, it's skin and teeth, which would be used to craft some kind of unique items. It sounds fun to me on paper, but I suppose it would mostly suit a more open game, something like Darkfall or the ideal which MO was supposed to be.
Good lost lol
Nice job!
But DCUO follows: 2, 3, and 7.
Think DCUO will fail?
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
A very nice design. It's cool to see how many MMOs are starting to figure out all the stuff that Origin Systems figured out and solved a decade ago. I figure it will take 3 or 4 more years, but eventually modern MMOs will catch up to where Ultima Online was at the turn of the century.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre