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Cartography, Exploration, & Religion in MMOs?
Niall18
Member Posts: 31
There are few things in the world of MMORPGs that would generally get me excited, but when I think of systems or mechanics like cartography, exploration, and religion imputed into an MMORPG CORRECTLY mind you; I cant help but get excited.
And what I want to ask you guys why you think these systems haven't been implemented into MMORPGs today. And before you bring up games like Gw2 saying theres exploration I would really like you to check out my Full Post explaining just what exactly I mean but Cartography, Exploration, & Religion in MMOs.
But really, Why don't we see mechanics like Religion in MMOs? Would it not create depth?
Check out my Blog for MMO News, Rants & Fun!
Comments
Exploration - Your definition may differ, but there's exploration in pretty much any game.
Cartography = Map Making... The world's are too small to even bother. When you can run from one end of a zone to the other in 5 minutes or less, what the hell do you need a map for? Most in-game maps go pretty much unused by the end of the first week of play for most people, short of needing to know where a specific spot is once in awhile. Just assume that someone besides you has lived in whatever land you're in, and has already done your work for you, so you start the game with a map you might have bought from a shop (just like in real life).
Religion - Good luck buddy. While it makes for interesting mechanics in some of the older games, in this day and age even the smell of religion will cost a company sales revenue. Lacking the hated trinity, it makes even less sense anyways. Back in the day when things were more dungeons & dragons-ish, religion made sense, especially when you had the choice in games at least in spirit to play an 'evil' character. Although that scenario is subjective since everyone now is a hero no matter how many innocent mobs they run up and murder *shrugs*.
I think he meant exploration without GPS like Christopher Columbus when he went to America. Exploration requires that everything isn't mapped out and there isn't a marker on a map showing you exactly where to go or an arrow pointing you in the right direction.
I'm not a big fan of religion in games, but it doesn't bother me. I prefer the racial prejudices that build the conflicts in these worlds. You don't see them today much because every race is good in it's own way. In Warcraft 3 orcs became a morally good race in many facets. In Warcraft 2 they were more like a mindless evil primitive race that were fairly easy to see as the bad guys. In Everquest there were many different factions you could earn reputation for and they each had their own language that others could understand. You could learn the others language by chatting with them.
Because they are not exciting to many?
For example .. back when i was playing the first might & magic, i use graph paper to make my own map. Cartography to me .. is easy mode but tedious and no fun.
I don't want cartography in my games .. give me a auto-map any day. Making maps is not why i play games.
I don't know about your definition of exploration, but "a really inefficient way to find out what is on the wiki" isn't mine.
I hope you are supporting the Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Kickstarter it has everything you speak of.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
cool. i didnt realize that Pantheon was going to have map making and religion options as part of their gameplay. could you give me a link to those aspects of their game?
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Cartography and exploration would be cool until the map was posted online then it would just become a nuissance because you could quite easily figure out where you were.
Religion has a place in fantasy games if implemented properly, but it is something people on all sides get very touchy about if it comes close at all to real life religions so I can understand why companies stay away from it even if I kind of wish they would include it more.
EQ2 actually still has religion as a factor in gameplay. it's not a huge one, but one can acquire a 'deity pet' that provides an overall buff which is supposedly good in raids. they also have occasional rare spawns of an avatar of one of the gods as kind of an overland raid boss i believe.
a few decades or so ago when i played DnD the question wasn't religion or not, it was typically how much can you get away with. i still have a copy of that rare Deities & Demigods with the Cthulu, Moorcock, et al., pantheons in it. very cool at the time
still is to this nerd.
but ya, more folks might take issue with religion being present at all in a game than what kind anymore. for instance last i saw both clerics and paladins in DnD were no longer required to have a religion with a god who was worshiped, but could instead dedicate themselves to a general principle or force. which honestly i thought was pretty neat. but it certainly shows a shift in the understanding of the role of religion even in gaming.
p.s. im still hoping that our Pantheon commentator will provide a link to these purported features. it'd be neat to see how they plan on working that out.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I gotta tell you man, these posts that pop up based unstudied premises really kill me. I mean we on on the internet for goodness' sakes. You don't have to be old and have played a ton of MMORPG's to google, you just have to be interested in being correct before you go saying things that clearly are not true in the name of promoting something that you clearly probably shouldn't be put in charge of promoting.
Everquest, the first big one, the old one, required cartography, rewarded exploration, AND had religion integrated into it from the very beginning.
During the first days there were no maps to that game. The ONLY way to know where you were going, where you had been, and where others had been was to break out the graph paper and make your own maps. It was part of the romance of that game.
Exploration was rewarded simply because of the way that things dropped. No one ever knew what was going to drop in every place after so many kills and so the only way to figure this stuff out was to explore, talk to just about every npc in the game, if you could, and kill EVERYTHING.
I mean seriously, who would have ever thought that Sir Lucan, the leader of the Freeport Militia was actually holding a piece of a weapon that you really needed?
And religion was done PERFECTLY, allowing those "Sunday Only" types to worship in their own way as much as the devout did in theirs, with very little to actually quantify whether any of it had any real meaning or not until you actually started to run into these entities.
So really, how could you not know this before beginning this thread? And what is it that you are trying to sell by introducing these lies that such things have never been done before without even taking the time to look up the creations of the past to see if what you were saying was even true?
Everquest and TESO have deities. Elder Scrolls is absolutely rave with them. Since they are similar to the Forgotten Realms gods I've been learning their lore by leaps.
I remember FFXI had a church in Juno but I haven't seen any reference to religion or occult in ARR. But I'm not very far in either.
We have been speaking to the team about including things like mapmaking as they are in a stage right now to take on feedback, and as far as religion the entire game is about warring gods and religion. Let me try to find some feedback about that right now
Here is my question on the Kickstarter forum, its about two days ago. So just look down the forum list its there, you can find the dev posts in blue on the kickstarter. The answer to my question dealing with religions and followers is in orange below
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1588672538/pantheon-rise-of-the-fallen/comments
@VRI have you guys considered a world story in the background, and active story that affects the world that deals with gods gaining more power depending on worshippers? Meaning he more players that align with a certain/god/pantheon/godking the more powerful he becomes? So lets say Oranthel was choosable as a god of worship by the players. Enough players rally under Oranthel the story changes and he regains his godhood perhaps?
My answer was given by Salim Grant the Director of Development
Creator Visionary Realms, Inc. 2 days ago
Added Shamanistic abilities to the dwarf. It's not reflected on the update page as the edit timer has run out there, but it is reflected on the main kickstarter page.
@Andrea - We're still aiming to have the stretch goals in for launch if we can get the funding, so in light of that, we're going to reveal some information about the races and classes in the stretch goals before the KS is over. That info isn't likely to be as fleshed out as the confirmed races and classes, but it will be enough to give you an idea of where they're at. Adding them to a chart won't be hard either.
@Maquiame the combos are based mainly on the race's homeworld and the associated culture and deity, so we're taking the lore into consideration with this initial list.
Also @Maquiame - the struggle for power and followers for the godkings and gods is definitely a huge part of the story. Expect this story to sway back and forth as power grows and diminishes - this will be a big part of the evolving story line and game updates.
@Sebastian - several of us have played FFXI (and most other MMOs) from launch onward.
I've been asking about a Cartography skill, so trust me it might be happening, but I just want to make a special point. In classic games like EQ players actually made maps on their own. While Cartography was not an in game skill per se, Good maps were something that players traded outside of the game as well as created their own. I can guarantee you there will be some sort of website dedicated to things like that for Pantheon.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
It's a bit strange, but I agree with narius
on the first line I mean, not the "give me a auto-map any day" part.
As much as I like exploration, it seems the majority of the playerbase doesn't really care about it.
LotRO could be a perfect example, it had a map system OP detailed in the post (btw. mmo-elitist, really? lol ), with an empty parchment as a start, and while the player explored the world, s/he "mapped" it on the go. Personally, I loved it.
Then Turbine changed it a few updates ago into a "full map" feature, so right at lvl1 you can see the map of the whole world - guess what, there were only a handful of objecting voices... sadly a big chunk of players even welcomed it.
Add to that the newest trend of auto-pathing everywhere, the worst implementation I saw so far even auto-pathed you to mobs, so at the usual, primitive "kill 10 xxx" quest the player didn't need to do anything besides click on the big path button, and his/her character walked to the nearest 'xxx' mob... pathetic. Seems the exploration slowly becomes extinct from mmos, alongside the rpg part. Those parts are not action-y enough for the diablo-offsprings since there's no loot in them...
edit: I forgot, regarding PoI's I agree with iridescence "Cartography and exploration would be cool until the map was posted online". With the example of (again) LotRO, there are many exploration deeds in game. It's great fun to find their locations. However, for the impatient ones the web is full with complete lists of their coordinates. Same goes for the datacrons in TOR, or the lore honey pieces in TSW.
great, thanks for the info and links, much appreciated.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Exactly. And combined with the all too common nownownownownownownownow mentality so many games/communities have going, I long ago judged the wikis part of the problem instead of simply nice and convenient sources of info. If the info is available, peer pressure will take care of the rest and we have much of the exploration already dead. I'm no internet nazi, but sometimes I think it would be nice if there was a solution to this.
Another example is WOW ... map guiding add-ons become so popular that WOW has to add in the feature.
There is really nothing you can do when your preference is in the minority. Personally, again, i feel cartography is an easy mode tedious chore, and i am glad i don't have to make maps in my games.
For those who like to make maps, just turn off the mini-map and make your own map, you can still do that .. devs are not going to take the automap feature away just because a niche of players don't like it.
Well.. ever heard of a compromise? There are options such as account specific maps, bonuses given for exploring in dangerous areas, map resets and certain variations of fog of war if you are not over level. I do agree that you and others who want everything now don't necessarily like them, but
1. Doesn't mean every game should give all maps ready at the start
2. Many of the guiding features could still be kept in place. Just that pin pointing everything exactly makes everything feel like a fetching job. Making the player think even a bit should be obviously a positive.
3. The way most games implement them now kills exploration almost completely (imo)
Try out Second Life.
I personally think it's a steaming pile of you know what and played for maybe 5 minutes because friends did. The FBI, even really investigated the game, for people running gangs and selling drugs on there.
There are real life churches in there, exploration, and anything you can think of (yes even that).
Maybe check it out?
Why hasn't this been done more in MMOs? Second Life.
"What tastes like purple?"
Yes, i heard of them .. but why should i tolerate them in entertainment products? It is not politics .. and it is not like i have to play the same game that you play.
I don't compromise in my entertainment. If a game (or movie, or novel, or whatever entertainment) does not cater to me, i do not play it .. it is that simple. And so far, i have more entertainment than i have time, so the policy is working pretty well.
Games like WoW revolve around religion. "The Light" is a reference to it even with the NPCs address a player, "Light be with you", for example. So it's alive and well in gaming to this day -- as well as the loved Holy Trinity system.
Holy paladins and Holy priests are the epitome of the concept, even.
Case in point (the lyrics clearly defines it, the whole theme is about "The Light" intertwined with the spells Holy paladins use, then defining the guild beyond the literal name)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmATs7KazMQ
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Check out No Man's Sky..
http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/7/5186774/exploration-sim-no-mans-sky-coming-from-hello-games
All three of these are tackled in some fashion in most MUDs.
Due to the ease of adding new rooms/areas to a MUD (since at the most basic level it's only additional text), you can have huge worlds available on one game. This lends itself to the old school style of breaking out graph paper to draw out areas, but in the modern day there are now MUD clients that have mappers in them as well as standalone cartography apps.
In the same vein, exploration is a theme of many MUDs. Few MUDs give out detailed maps of their areas, allowing players to figure it out themselves. If you explore a MUD, you will generally have some sort of advantage over someone who hasn't (either knowledge of good places to hack and slash, or help for quests/gear/roleplay/geographic reasons).
It's very common for MUDs, especially the RP-required fantasy ones, to have some sort of religion present. These generally cover all sorts of alignments/domains, similar to how Forgotten Realms deities work if you're familiar with those (this also comes with the added flavor that your character can be evil). Each game generally has their own take on the religious systems, and it's usually a substantial point for conflict in roleplay-enforced MUDs.
A lot of people want nothing to do with games that have no graphics, but as a player of both modern games/MMOs and MUDs, I can say that the majority of MUDs have greater depth than your typical MMO. It can be a little awkward to get into and find a game you'd like, so if you want, just PM me and I can help you get started.
Extremely more, yet at the expense of pretty graphics.
MuDs remind me of my switch from BASIC to DOS then to Windows 3.11, and how the latter I did kicking and screaming as it was a huge jump from the commandline. But after 20 odd years, doing even *BSD or *Nix commands for servers, I don't want to return to it anymore. At the time it served it's purpose, but now it feels so incomplete, as the visual aspects would be lost.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Yeh .. i wont play a game without graphics.
Depth is not the only factor to enjoyment. Case in point, chess has lots of depth but not that many people will enjoy nothing but chess.
I agree those concepts would add a new flavor and i am for it,again if done CORRECTLY.
You should realize that a lot of games are actually using ancient religion and beliefs to form their spells and abilities and creatures in games.FFXI for example is all about various religions and ancient beliefs/mythology,almost nothing is made up out of thin air.
Cartography is great but again that takes that little bit extra to incorporate the system into each players game,devs are more about cutting corners than showing effort.
I look back on some of the things Vanguard was doing,the game took flak yet showed more EFFORT than most every game today.
Exploration,well this topic leaves me shaking my head and why?Well seems msot every game is handing out rewards or titles just for entering a new area,like you have made some unbelievable discovery or something.I could see if it actually took some exploration and discovery and was tough to get there but not the case,just some VERY lame gimmick to make players feel like they have some accomplishment.
Let's hope somewhere down the road we will find a really good developer that has heart set into a game and not just a business,hope is maybe a big word.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
They put plenty of effort into things that matter to me .. like good combat.