"Come play our new MMO, where we all look the same and wear the same looking clothing. Immerse yourself in a world of clones."
I honestly cannot word a paragraph without it looking like absolute pessimism, so I'll just say "Yes, races make a difference to me." Frankly, race->story->graphics->gameplay. I place game play last, because if the game has at least 2 of the other 3, i can supplement the other 1 or 2 with friendship or whatever.
did he say he would play shitty games that had pretty characters?
Given that what he seems to be arguing for is to remove depth (in terms of races) from games in order to make them better looking and he won't play any game where his character looks sub-par I think it's a reasonable inference.
Originally posted by meddyck Even a limited budget KS game like Camelot Unchained will have lots of races. The idea that having lots of races is what is holding back the genre just isn't true. I bet it's the cut scenes the OP describes that are actually what soak up huge amounts of time and money. Ditch stuff like those but keep multiple races and then you would have the resources to make MMOs better.
The OP sounds a lot to me like a company man asking how can we give players less and make them believe they are getting more.
ie. "everyone in our fantasy/scifi game has to be human but don't worry to make up for it you can choose a red scarf or a purple scarf to wear!"
Sure if you remove most options for a few snazzy graphics it makes the game easier to balance and develop but you also remove all depth
Yes, the more you can customize the better. The problem I have with newer MMOs is that other than looks, races don't play much of a role. I miss the days when if you made a dwarf archer you were hampered somewhat when you were compared to an elven archer, and things like that.
When I read these types of responses I just think of these people still wanting to play MUD's instead of the work of art 3d games we expect to play today.
Anyway, Graphics are just as important as game play to me. I wouldn't play a game with crap graphics today no matter how good the game play is raved about. I didn't build this computer to play dated looking games. I guess it depends on taste as does anything in the world, shiny and new with the latest and greatest polish or old and vintage with rust and tarnish.
I like to have the largest amount of choices possible in an mmorpg, after all the game is about making your own character the way you want so, Yes, it would make a difference on how involved I could get into the game but I could take it a bit further and add in race locked class's/abilities and everything else that goes with that, you should have to pick from the start strengths and weaknesses with your first choice in the game. Race, Class, Gender, pretty much everything with as many choices as possible with race and gender locks is all good with me.
Nothing is worse in a game where everyone can be master of everything.
this is the answer to your particular set of questions. they are not only completely different skill sets they are completely different departments.
This is wrong on two counts.
First, you're thinking too short-term. If you already have your staff in place and need something done by next week, then yes, noting that the artists and programmers are different people is important. But if release is years away and you haven't yet hired most of the employees who will make the game, you can make room to hire more programmers by having fewer artists or vice versa. How many programmers you need and how many artists depends greatly on what you want to do.
Second, the additional work necessary for artists to do in order to make armors for many races can be cut back greatly by clever programming to allow work that artists do once to be reused for many different races. If the textures, geometry, animations, and everything else are completely independent from one race to the next, then many races and many armors per race means massive amounts of work. If the programmers can make it so that an armor created for one race can be worn by all others with only minor tweaks on the part of the artists, then the same number of races and armors is massively less work in total. But that's work that necessarily must be done by programmers rather than artists. As for making artwork shared by many races look good on all of them without much extra work by the artists, well, that's why I said clever programming.
im not a one-character type of player. If i want to make 5 characters of different races to learn the stoiry behind all of them then thats one of the main reasons ill play your game. In GW2 i have 2 Norns, 2 Humans, 1 Sylvari, 1 Asura, and im planning to make another Sylvari and a Charr. In WoW i have Draenei, NIght Elves, Dward, Undead, Blood Elf, Troll, Tauren, Orc, Worgen, Goblin.
Race variety in MMOs dont cripple any mechanics. On the contrary, they allow players like me to support a game for a longer time than the actual content itself. With that said, each race MUST hace their own roots, their own story in the general Lore of the game, their own cultural areas and arquitecture, etc.
Some companies try to offer race variety just for the sake of having more races but they are all very weak, weak lore, no native areas, etc, and even worst all of them share the same leveling path from the beginning to the end. As a result of this they effectively kill the entire purpose of having varied races.
When I read these types of responses I just think of these people still wanting to play MUD's instead of the work of art 3d games we expect to play today.
Anyway, Graphics are just as important as game play to me. I wouldn't play a game with crap graphics today no matter how good the game play is raved about. I didn't build this computer to play dated looking games. I guess it depends on taste as does anything in the world, shiny and new with the latest and greatest polish or old and vintage with rust and tarnish.
I like to have the largest amount of choices possible in an mmorpg, after all the game is about making your own character the way you want so, Yes, it would make a difference on how involved I could get into the game but I could take it a bit further and add in race locked class's/abilities and everything else that goes with that, you should have to pick from the start strengths and weaknesses with your first choice in the game. Race, Class, Gender, pretty much everything with as many choices as possible with race and gender locks is all good with me.
Nothing is worse in a game where everyone can be master of everything.
Yes, I suppose it does come down to a matter of taste. But to each his own. I do believe however, its insanely ignorant of you to equate new with words like "latest and greatest polish" and old with "vintage with rust and tarnish" this is laughable. I take it you havent played a MMO in a LONG time with this logic.
MMORPGs are all about options and choices. The less it has, the weaker the game. And what is the BIGGEST choice made in an MMORPG?
Your CHARACTER.
Without it what is the game?
Without having a tie to that character how long will the game last in terms of holding you?
Have you ever played an MMO where you did not like your character?
If so, how long did you play it compared to MMOs where you LIKED your character?
So, hell yeah I want more races and hell no I don't think its crippling mechanics because of how many other MMOs that have come out in the past with deep gameplay...FF is the way it is because it was made poorly, not because of how many races there are...that's just an excuse you came up with not even knowing that the graphics being created for the armor has nothing to do with those programming the rest of the game. There is a LARGE team of people making these games and they each have a role.
Hello everyone at MMORPG.com, I haven't posted in a while because I've been playing FF14 for the most part. Anyhow, as I was playing, though far better in my personal opinion than WoW, ...
I'm pretty sure this was main reason for this post. :-) And, no, is not even close - imo of course :-) - to wow ....
Comments
"Come play our new MMO, where we all look the same and wear the same looking clothing. Immerse yourself in a world of clones."
I honestly cannot word a paragraph without it looking like absolute pessimism, so I'll just say "Yes, races make a difference to me." Frankly, race->story->graphics->gameplay. I place game play last, because if the game has at least 2 of the other 3, i can supplement the other 1 or 2 with friendship or whatever.
Given that what he seems to be arguing for is to remove depth (in terms of races) from games in order to make them better looking and he won't play any game where his character looks sub-par I think it's a reasonable inference.
The OP sounds a lot to me like a company man asking how can we give players less and make them believe they are getting more.
ie. "everyone in our fantasy/scifi game has to be human but don't worry to make up for it you can choose a red scarf or a purple scarf to wear!"
Sure if you remove most options for a few snazzy graphics it makes the game easier to balance and develop but you also remove all depth
When I read these types of responses I just think of these people still wanting to play MUD's instead of the work of art 3d games we expect to play today.
Anyway, Graphics are just as important as game play to me. I wouldn't play a game with crap graphics today no matter how good the game play is raved about. I didn't build this computer to play dated looking games. I guess it depends on taste as does anything in the world, shiny and new with the latest and greatest polish or old and vintage with rust and tarnish.
I like to have the largest amount of choices possible in an mmorpg, after all the game is about making your own character the way you want so, Yes, it would make a difference on how involved I could get into the game but I could take it a bit further and add in race locked class's/abilities and everything else that goes with that, you should have to pick from the start strengths and weaknesses with your first choice in the game. Race, Class, Gender, pretty much everything with as many choices as possible with race and gender locks is all good with me.
Nothing is worse in a game where everyone can be master of everything.
"Yes, I'd always rather have more options" (who wouldn't) and
"No, crippling is just too extreme a description"
This is wrong on two counts.
First, you're thinking too short-term. If you already have your staff in place and need something done by next week, then yes, noting that the artists and programmers are different people is important. But if release is years away and you haven't yet hired most of the employees who will make the game, you can make room to hire more programmers by having fewer artists or vice versa. How many programmers you need and how many artists depends greatly on what you want to do.
Second, the additional work necessary for artists to do in order to make armors for many races can be cut back greatly by clever programming to allow work that artists do once to be reused for many different races. If the textures, geometry, animations, and everything else are completely independent from one race to the next, then many races and many armors per race means massive amounts of work. If the programmers can make it so that an armor created for one race can be worn by all others with only minor tweaks on the part of the artists, then the same number of races and armors is massively less work in total. But that's work that necessarily must be done by programmers rather than artists. As for making artwork shared by many races look good on all of them without much extra work by the artists, well, that's why I said clever programming.
im not a one-character type of player. If i want to make 5 characters of different races to learn the stoiry behind all of them then thats one of the main reasons ill play your game. In GW2 i have 2 Norns, 2 Humans, 1 Sylvari, 1 Asura, and im planning to make another Sylvari and a Charr. In WoW i have Draenei, NIght Elves, Dward, Undead, Blood Elf, Troll, Tauren, Orc, Worgen, Goblin.
Race variety in MMOs dont cripple any mechanics. On the contrary, they allow players like me to support a game for a longer time than the actual content itself. With that said, each race MUST hace their own roots, their own story in the general Lore of the game, their own cultural areas and arquitecture, etc.
Some companies try to offer race variety just for the sake of having more races but they are all very weak, weak lore, no native areas, etc, and even worst all of them share the same leveling path from the beginning to the end. As a result of this they effectively kill the entire purpose of having varied races.
Yes, I suppose it does come down to a matter of taste. But to each his own. I do believe however, its insanely ignorant of you to equate new with words like "latest and greatest polish" and old with "vintage with rust and tarnish" this is laughable. I take it you havent played a MMO in a LONG time with this logic.
I'm pretty sure this was main reason for this post. :-) And, no, is not even close - imo of course :-) - to wow ....
For the rest have voted yes.