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Is it time to Segregate the Masses?
Soltek
Member Posts: 29
People have been playing mmo's for over 30 years now and what started out as like minded people playing with each other has become a collision of unlike minded people playing together in a game that trys to keep everyone happy in order to gain the most customers.
The problem with trying to keep everyone happy is that it creates mediocre game play, nether type of player really gets what they want in a game just some of it.
Most differences I see people have come down to game pace. I've seen games go from taking a long time to do something before progressing on to the next thing, to doing something fast repeatedly before moving on to the next thing. However the actual game pace is set by how fast the developers can come up with new content. People that like to play for hours each day prefer progressing slowly though the content giving the illusion that it's more difficult, while people that want to be able to play on and off for short periods of time prefer to go fast repeating the content giving them the illusion that they are progressing faster.
Many older game elements used time to gauge how good of a player you are, knowledge and skill equaled less down time. Many element have been dropped in order to speed things up, widening the gap in differences of opinions. Time is the ultimate hardship of an mmorpg. The better you play the faster you progress. The faster you can go the more you feel your getting done, releasing those endorphins into your brain.
It doesn't make sense to me to put a lot of work into a niche game when it takes the same amount of work to make a game that the majority would play. But over time I have seen that majority getting more and more broken up into many separate minority groups making it more difficult for developers.
The latest answer to this problem is to have the players create the game the way they want it. The problem I see with this is you still have the majority making the decisions, and the game becomes more about battling over what the rules should be then playing the actual content.
Why is it that games will have separate worlds for PvP, PvE and not separate worlds for some of the other big differences that people have. Like solo play vs group play, sandbox play vs theme park play, fast travel vs slow, death penalties, full loot and the list goes on. Remember most of these elements come down to game pace.
Why not create an mmo where one could customize his own world by turning on and off hundreds of different game elements that people seem to disagree on, and invite like minded people to come play in there world. No longer would a developer have to make these decisions based off of what the majority wants in there game. If people don't want to come play in your world that will be your problem not the developers. Why not let people recreate there own version of EQ, UO, or Wow and invite like minded people to come play with them?
It would still be the developers job to come up with a beautiful graphical world with fun and interesting content for players to explore with hundreds of game play elements that can be customized.
Image being able to choose from thousands of instances of growing worlds with different rules to play in.
Are you the type of player that likes to move quickly through a game or are you the type that likes to take your time. Wouldn't it be nice to be in a world where theres only people that like the same type of game play as you? Where everyone has to play by the same rules no mater what difficulty you choose. Wouldn't it be nice to have a choice but still be able to play the same game?
Granted there would probably be as many instances as there are guilds in todays games, the player base for each instance would be smaller and there would have to be a price to pay to create these instances. Choosing one could be difficult.
The first mmo developers had to overcome some big obstacle but that's what it took to do something that was never done before. I'm simply suggesting they take everything that's been done before and make it customizable by the player, which as far as I know has never been done before.
If you use your imagination anything is possible and you can have your cake and eat it to.
Here are some of the game elements that I personally would like to be able to customize.
PvP- some zones, all zones, no zones.
PvP full loot- On, Off
Mob difficulty- Solo, Some Group, All Group
Death Penalty- None, Experience lose, Items stay on corpse, Start over
Map click Travel- On, Off
Portal Travel- On, Off
Experience gain- Fast, Medium, Slow
Class Types needed for group content- 3, 4, 5, 6
Class ability Limits- None, Hybrid, Class specific
Max Group size- 4, 5, 6, 7
Raids- On, Off
Max Raid Size- 10, 20, 30, 40, Unlimited
Loot drop rate- 100%, 50%, 10%, 1%
Player Types Allowed- All, Subscription Only, Invitation only (Assuming the game has both free to play and subscription based models.)
If I took the time I could think of a lot more but just these could create completely different game play from being able to solo everything in a few weeks to taking a lot of people working together years.
What other game play elements would you like to be able to tweek?
Comments
OP you stole my idea!
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/424832/page/2
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Islands of Kesmai on Compuserve at a whopping 6.00 per hour. The guys who programmed it also did Dungeons of Kesmai in 1980 which was a 6 player game, not an MMO but still it was one of the first multiplayer games around.
Choice of words..... phrasing.
But sadly it won't be time until it's profitable.
I think the issue is maintanence of the code/rule set. But to some extent, this is already happening with private servers.
I do agree it is a good idea. I like to play solo ... and I can do that in MMOs just because if I ignore people, no one can bother me. However, if some of you band together, and want to play a social game, or a slow game, or what-not, i don't see why not.
To some extent, it is also done in instanced games. You hit "quit" when you meet a group you don't like ... though it will be much easier if you can pre-specify what kind of group do you like. That is, also, to some extent, done in games like D3 (you can choose a type of game to match into) but not enough.
Works of art are made as works of art. People buy them because they like art...
Well sorry OP but your not really up to date with how games are played and designed.
The Pace:Has ZERO to do with anything about content because it is all linear questing content.They can simply move the destinations further apart to create time,that again has nothing to do with a difficult or not argument.
I happen to come from the one true well there area couple others,mmorpg "FFXI" that was SLOW and very difficult.First of all you did not xp doing quests as quests offered no experience as they shouldn't.What you had to fight in a GROUP was creatures far tougher than you were,unlike doing linear quests that have you fight with your eyes closed it's so easy.
In FFXi if anyone screwed up it could cost the group,if someone dies they hone point and you have to wait for them or try minus a group member.Unlike Raids you only have ONE TANK,he dies your group likely dies,usually one healer,it dies your tank likely dies and so does your group.Also unlike other games,you can't simply outrun and the mob gives up,you need to hit a zone line because the creature will chase you endlessly and grab adds along the way.Also like many other games,those mobs in FFXI might stop and cast a killing blow nuke on your ass while running.
Questing mobs aside from few occasions are usually solo mobs,so it is SUPER easy mode when compared to grouping in FFXI for your xp.So NO you are wrong ,there is most certainly a DISTINCT difference in difficulty attaining your xp.Also the way it was designed with a sub class gave it the longevity,it again had nothing to do with content.Being that the game was all about group killing for xp,you also had a MYRIAD of CHOICE,unlike linear questing that has you follow the EXACT same path as the guy before you and after you.
Personal customization is not the answer,we need the developer to make the content and design the game,they just need to put in some effort.Things like changing the difficulty of a mob is imo down right retarded,it removes the identity and character of a creature in the game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If basic MMO principles no longer work, junk them.
It is not like much of the population play games for the community anyway.
Pretty much all art in our society is designed also to make money. One does not negate the other. Games are no different.
To the OP: Shards and Life Is Feudal and I believe Shroud of the Avatar will have something like you want. I wish more games would make special ruleset servers (especially servers with an older version of the games on them and P2P only servers) but I guess they feel it isn't worth their time especially since if you don't get many people on the server to start with it becomes a vicious cycle of people not wanting to join a low population server.
I think that a game made for love will always have the potential to be better than a game made for money.
With people genuinely invested and excited about the project, you get gold. Otherwise, it's just like the rest of us in most of our horrid jobs: what do I have to do to not get fired and not make things harder for the people I like here, get a paycheque and browse mmorpg.com without getting caught
But you know what it's like when you truly are proud of something, building a fence for your grandma say - that fence is gonna be the Shaq of all fences.
I think that money can assemble you an awesome creative team, but creativity on demand just isn't the same. It's not an (in-coming cliché) "organic" process.
Yeh. And who says they are not already making games that *they* love. People here may not like certain games, but that does not mean that the devs do not love them.
Ah, yes. But how do you decipher which were a labor of love and which were not? Surely most if not all developers will proclaim they were passionate about the game they made.
Now, you could say "well the better game, of course" but that's subjective isn't it?
I would say WoW devs were, and still are, passionate about the game. Others would laugh in my face for saying that.
Just like modern art where it's up to the individual to decide if they stuck a cigarette in an iced cream cone to make an actual statement, or to take yuppies for a ride and make money. It's up to you to decide for yourself which games are a labor of love and which are taking you for a ride.
I will say, from what I do know about the game industry, it seems like anyone without any real passion for it would be absolutely friggen nuts to want to do it. I think some people have this idea that every single person involved in game development is rich or even really well off which is soooo far from true. And the job security seems to really suck, so you don't do it because you aren't passionate about making games.
I think it depends on how you define "art."
Graphic design, advertising, commercial "art" involve making money.
In my definition, art is never made for any other purpose than expression. It is not made with a message or a goal in mind (because the word for that is propaganda). Art just expresses beauty (and also depending on your definition, maybe pain, sorrow, or some other emotion, which in some way relates to beauty or the longing for it).
Said more eloquently and succinctly:
“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
Francis of AssisiHe who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
If you define "social" as hit the LFD button, wait and queue, run a dungeon treating each others like NPCs, and quit whenever you dislike someone .. then yeah, a majority still plays MMOs socially.
20% of the population is largely introverted. Getting away from people is how we recharge so we can stand being around the other 80%. Ask someone if they like having a phone. Introverts can't stand the things.
You are misusing the concept of being introverted. Introverted people are NOT asocial. The popular description of them recharging by not being around other people is also a gross simplification.
You cant simplify the world that much and link solo MMO play with introverts, it simply wont hold up under scrutiny.
I am pretty sure that you would find that many introverts actually are quite comftable socializing through MMO's while they are locked up in a room "rechargeing".
Isn't this just custom server rule sets and modding?
Pretty much what games like Minecraft do with mods and custom servers.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/The reality of it all is that we already have 200 games on the list that are single player games with others around you. And about 10 MMOs that sold there soul and went F2P.......All we need is at least one mmo to fill the long awaited gap for over half the players here.
Archage almost filled that gap, but sold out there fans to make money from the beginning !
Exactly. The basics of a mmorpg (massively multiplayer) is getting a massive amount of players together. For every ruleset you split up the player base into two, and even a handful of rulesets will make a game with half a million players have trouble keeping population up on each server, that is a high enough population that it will be a massive world for players.
If you continue that thought for fun, that would mean a game world for every player, costing a fortune to make because of all the different rulesets to handle
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
Because different rule sets complicate the management of the game immensely, which means the cost rises dramatically.
All existing features and items (and all new ones) have to be balanced and evaluated under each separate rule set. The game code for each rule set has to be kept separate and have its own version control.
When patches are applied, great care has to be taken to apply the right patch to the right server. This appears to be difficult enough with current single version games, imagine the chaos if a company had multiple versions of the same game ?
Over time, each separate rule set will become a different game requiring a full development/support team, but with each game only having a fraction of the player base that a single version would have had. So higher costs per player but most probably the same number of total players at best.