I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
That's why I like exploring with a low level character. It takes a lot of skill and knowing your aggro ranged is increased and that you can be oneshoted by any mob in the area to me is exciting. Going across a dangerous land just to make it to the next waypoint so if you die you won't have to start again from far away. Add to it a goal like getting a rare pet that usually can't be gotten until you reach a much higher level and it's a golden experience.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I am already playing Ark Survival Evolved. There are hundreds of explore games now usually server based like Minecraft. Many are pvp but a lot, like Ark, added pve later and now are highly pve based.
If there was a Fantasy version of Eve Online, I'd marry it.
I'd probably have my conciousness transferred into it.
I already built such a game with such a feature implemented. But if you read my disclaimer, I don't legally have to have the feature working, but I can still sell it to people.
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
It was good for a bit of underhand piracy too - you put up a contract for someone to ship something somewhere, making sure to put the penalty clause for failure fairly high and the reward attractive enough for for a novice pilot. "Can't fail with this!" thinks novice pilot...
The player(s) who put the trading contract up would then ambush the player en-route, destroy the ship, scoop the cargo and any decent modules that survived the explosion. The penalty clause kicked in and it was easy money for the pirates.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
It was good for a bit of underhand piracy too - you put up a contract for someone to ship something somewhere, making sure to put the penalty clause for failure fairly high and the reward attractive enough for for a novice pilot. "Can't fail with this!" thinks novice pilot...
The player(s) who put the trading contract up would then ambush the player en-route, destroy the ship, scoop the cargo and any decent modules that survived the explosion. The penalty clause kicked in and it was easy money for the pirates.
Gads! lol Only if there's a Justice system so that this victim and associates can go after said "ambushers". Which should apply to all non-warred attackers. Otherwise you have a world that will quickly break down for all except hardcore PvPers.
EVE is a different animal. They don't have the character and they don't have the detailed dungeons and world like an MMO is expected to have. And all the costs that goes along with that. That's a big difference in the bottom line, and allows EVE to be successful and keep their lower numbers happy.
And there's a huge psychological affect that goes along with characters. In EVE, your ship is attacked. In an MMORPG, "YOU" are attacked. Maybe not for some hardcore PvPers, I don't know, but for the average player, that's the case. That matters in keeping the player base happy, and not...leaving.
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
This kind of how I designed it. Different materials, abilities, weapon, armor and housing being regional. You would learn say general building skills while learning viking stype buildings. You would have to learn desert style building to build that type.
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
This kind of how I designed it. Different materials, abilities, weapon, armor and housing being regional. You would learn say general building skills while learning viking stype buildings. You would have to learn desert style building to build that type.
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
I like your ideas here. It makes for a richer and deeper world. If you have caravans for transporting Mats, that makes them more valuable in other terrains where they aren't available. That adds to trade, offers more ways for players to make money, and adds that much more interest to the game.
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
This kind of how I designed it. Different materials, abilities, weapon, armor and housing being regional. You would learn say general building skills while learning viking stype buildings. You would have to learn desert style building to build that type.
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
I like your ideas here. It makes for a richer and deeper world. If you have caravans for transporting Mats, that makes them more valuable in other terrains where they aren't available. That adds to trade, offers more ways for players to make money, and adds that much more interest to the game.
Yes. Exactly that.
I also want players to monster hunt. With procedural quest and viral spawning you could hunt monsters by the quest they draw out.
For example maybe the local human's complain about a dragon. You get quest related to a dragon and their minions. You search the local area and find a cave with said dragon. You now have a raid level event. Without defeating the dragon and minions it will start to raid the local towns.
This would all be happening by the system not developers. Viral spawning it there to make NPCs actors along with players. This helps make exploring more interesting because things change. I would likely have to make a whole seperate post for that idea lol.
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
This kind of how I designed it. Different materials, abilities, weapon, armor and housing being regional. You would learn say general building skills while learning viking stype buildings. You would have to learn desert style building to build that type.
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
I like your ideas here. It makes for a richer and deeper world. If you have caravans for transporting Mats, that makes them more valuable in other terrains where they aren't available. That adds to trade, offers more ways for players to make money, and adds that much more interest to the game.
Yes. Exactly that.
I also want players to monster hunt. With procedural quest and viral spawning you could hunt monsters by the quest they draw out.
For example maybe the local human's complain about a dragon. You get quest related to a dragon and their minions. You search the local area and find a cave with said dragon. You now have a raid level event. Without defeating the dragon and minions it will start to raid the local towns.
This would all be happening by the system not developers. Viral spawning it there to make NPCs actors along with players. This helps make exploring more interesting because things change. I would likely have to make a whole seperate post for that idea lol.
Yeah, I'm going by the general definition of your words to understand what you mean because current gaming terms aren't in my dictionary. But I'm sure I understand that. And yes, that's the sort of thing I want to see in a world.
I'm assuming you'll have some sort of design for wandering monsters. So that Dragon can move from far away wilderness to a closer to civilization wilderness, and "discover", or sense in some way, the easy meat supply (and maybe gems and gold) of the civilization nearby. UO did this, in a simple form, where their wondering MOBs could detect things they "desired" based on their own list. Bears didn't care about gold, but they did want food (Human meat byproducts included, lol). Orcs and trolls and other "intelligent" MOBs had a longer list.
I'd prefer that MOBs actually discover these things and add the location to their "knowledge bank", and have enough AI to start repeat trips to centralized areas rich in their "wants list".
This can add a whole bunch of life to a world.
Imagine a Dragon moving to your vicinity and raiding your cattle and milk maids, and before you can take care of it, a bigger Dragon moves in because he's played out the deer from his area too. Now you might have a fight between the Dragons for dominance of the area.
The players might hope to catch each Dragon in a wounded state, and then raid their hoards. And on top of that, if their hoards have items in them that are clues to where they came from, there might be lost hoard remnants there to seek out in a quest of the player's making. Or knowledge of rare resources, once they figure out where the Dragons came from.
I don't know if you can add these things to your MOBs (AI, Wants List, Knowledge Bank), but if you can you can get a whole lot of extra action for the players to encounter in their gaming World. Because this same sort of thing can be happening with every other MOB, too. It might be Dragons, Troll, Giants, Gryphons, Goblins, anything.
I also want players to monster hunt. With procedural quest and viral spawning you could hunt monsters by the quest they draw out.
For example maybe the local human's complain about a dragon. You get quest related to a dragon and their minions. You search the local area and find a cave with said dragon. You now have a raid level event. Without defeating the dragon and minions it will start to raid the local towns.
LotRO has something like that, just not for a full raid but a simple party (and after a few level cap raises now even for solo). Rare bosses spawn in general areas for the hunting party - and everyone else there atm. Could be used for trolling too, since they one-shotted innocent players who were just questing in the area. Especially Morrafn, who spawned in place of the same boss, just as level 60 instead of the normal 25, when a hunting party with the quest were present. Giving a nasty surprise to players around level 25 and on the task to beat it on that level (looks the same, name is the same, so if they overlook the level number it is hard to notice the catch)
The "discover" thing was typified for me by LotRO. I was really looking
forward to getting to the Barrow Downs (loved that bit in the book)
only to find it was overrun with players dashing from Barrow to Barrow
in the hopes of grabbing a mob to kill. There would be as many as 4 to 8
players in each Barrow camping spawn spots. So much for the
mysterious, abandoned, terrifying Barrow Downs! Then I discovered that
it was located within spitting distance in Bree... what an anticlimax.
Yep, it was a popular farming place for Bree and Shire reputation... but besides that it is a well-made implementation of the original, you can find all the notable spots from the books. Actually that's why your spitting distance part was a bit odd, LotRO is really good with geography, only the scale is shorter for gameplay reasons (game world is still large, on foot takes several hours to cross it from one end to the other). And the Barrow-downs is indeed next to Bree, bordered by the two main Roads, and the Old Forest in the west (which has a really great feel in the game, after the revamp, almost as good as it was originally after the launch).
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
This kind of how I designed it. Different materials, abilities, weapon, armor and housing being regional. You would learn say general building skills while learning viking stype buildings. You would have to learn desert style building to build that type.
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
I like your ideas here. It makes for a richer and deeper world. If you have caravans for transporting Mats, that makes them more valuable in other terrains where they aren't available. That adds to trade, offers more ways for players to make money, and adds that much more interest to the game.
Yes. Exactly that.
I also want players to monster hunt. With procedural quest and viral spawning you could hunt monsters by the quest they draw out.
For example maybe the local human's complain about a dragon. You get quest related to a dragon and their minions. You search the local area and find a cave with said dragon. You now have a raid level event. Without defeating the dragon and minions it will start to raid the local towns.
This would all be happening by the system not developers. Viral spawning it there to make NPCs actors along with players. This helps make exploring more interesting because things change. I would likely have to make a whole seperate post for that idea lol.
Yeah, I'm going by the general definition of your words to understand what you mean because current gaming terms aren't in my dictionary. But I'm sure I understand that. And yes, that's the sort of thing I want to see in a world.
I'm assuming you'll have some sort of design for wandering monsters. So that Dragon can move from far away wilderness to a closer to civilization wilderness, and "discover", or sense in some way, the easy meat supply (and maybe gems and gold) of the civilization nearby. UO did this, in a simple form, where their wondering MOBs could detect things they "desired" based on their own list. Bears didn't care about gold, but they did want food (Human meat byproducts included, lol). Orcs and trolls and other "intelligent" MOBs had a longer list.
I'd prefer that MOBs actually discover these things and add the location to their "knowledge bank", and have enough AI to start repeat trips to centralized areas rich in their "wants list".
This can add a whole bunch of life to a world.
Imagine a Dragon moving to your vicinity and raiding your cattle and milk maids, and before you can take care of it, a bigger Dragon moves in because he's played out the deer from his area too. Now you might have a fight between the Dragons for dominance of the area.
The players might hope to catch each Dragon in a wounded state, and then raid their hoards. And on top of that, if their hoards have items in them that are clues to where they came from, there might be lost hoard remnants there to seek out in a quest of the player's making. Or knowledge of rare resources, once they figure out where the Dragons came from.
I don't know if you can add these things to your MOBs (AI, Wants List, Knowledge Bank), but if you can you can get a whole lot of extra action for the players to encounter in their gaming World. Because this same sort of thing can be happening with every other MOB, too. It might be Dragons, Troll, Giants, Gryphons, Goblins, anything.
This all sounds so wondrous, I drooled on my keyboard. But are these devs the same ones whose AI mobs have trouble negotiating terrain (getting stuck) or imbecilic guards who hear/see their buddies die and wonder, "Did I just gear something?"
I'd love to see this come to fruition, but I think it is a ways off.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Gads! lol Only if there's a Justice system so that this victim and associates can go after said "ambushers"...
Nothing to stop people doing that, or even paying for a Kill Contract to get revenge.
That stuff doesn't work, and I'll explain why. PKers (Player Killers for anyone newer and doesn't know) know that they can get their character killed sometimes, and lose their loot. So they develop every angle to gain the advantage. They send out scouts who don't do the fighting, chat on their guild forums, and look for targets they can kill and loot. They use numbers, surprise, and any tactic they can. If they don't have the numbers they post a message on their forums or chat rooms to see if anyone can help out for a few minutes. Of course, if it's a newbie or a character that's not built for pure PvP they don't usually need help.
In general, they set themselves up for wins, and by that strategy they win a lot more than they lose. And so they loot a lot more than they lose to looting. And by that means, they are "winning the wars" even if they lose a battle here or there.
They also hide their PKer characters until they need them, playing on a non-PK character in the meanwhile.
So those kinds of ideas just don't work. What a game needs is a Justice system that allows players to overcome that strategy. And there's a definite need to put an extra punishment on the "criminal" who's a constant, repeat offender.
If you don't have this, you have a game the devolves into purely a hardcore PvP game. And you lose a lot more players than you keep for this one reason alone.
I'd love exploration but it is probably so difficult to do.
The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
I love that concept. Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
This kind of how I designed it. Different materials, abilities, weapon, armor and housing being regional. You would learn say general building skills while learning viking stype buildings. You would have to learn desert style building to build that type.
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
I like your ideas here. It makes for a richer and deeper world. If you have caravans for transporting Mats, that makes them more valuable in other terrains where they aren't available. That adds to trade, offers more ways for players to make money, and adds that much more interest to the game.
Yes. Exactly that.
I also want players to monster hunt. With procedural quest and viral spawning you could hunt monsters by the quest they draw out.
For example maybe the local human's complain about a dragon. You get quest related to a dragon and their minions. You search the local area and find a cave with said dragon. You now have a raid level event. Without defeating the dragon and minions it will start to raid the local towns.
This would all be happening by the system not developers. Viral spawning it there to make NPCs actors along with players. This helps make exploring more interesting because things change. I would likely have to make a whole seperate post for that idea lol.
Yeah, I'm going by the general definition of your words to understand what you mean because current gaming terms aren't in my dictionary. But I'm sure I understand that. And yes, that's the sort of thing I want to see in a world.
I'm assuming you'll have some sort of design for wandering monsters. So that Dragon can move from far away wilderness to a closer to civilization wilderness, and "discover", or sense in some way, the easy meat supply (and maybe gems and gold) of the civilization nearby. UO did this, in a simple form, where their wondering MOBs could detect things they "desired" based on their own list. Bears didn't care about gold, but they did want food (Human meat byproducts included, lol). Orcs and trolls and other "intelligent" MOBs had a longer list.
I'd prefer that MOBs actually discover these things and add the location to their "knowledge bank", and have enough AI to start repeat trips to centralized areas rich in their "wants list".
This can add a whole bunch of life to a world.
Imagine a Dragon moving to your vicinity and raiding your cattle and milk maids, and before you can take care of it, a bigger Dragon moves in because he's played out the deer from his area too. Now you might have a fight between the Dragons for dominance of the area.
The players might hope to catch each Dragon in a wounded state, and then raid their hoards. And on top of that, if their hoards have items in them that are clues to where they came from, there might be lost hoard remnants there to seek out in a quest of the player's making. Or knowledge of rare resources, once they figure out where the Dragons came from.
I don't know if you can add these things to your MOBs (AI, Wants List, Knowledge Bank), but if you can you can get a whole lot of extra action for the players to encounter in their gaming World. Because this same sort of thing can be happening with every other MOB, too. It might be Dragons, Troll, Giants, Gryphons, Goblins, anything.
This all sounds so wondrous, I drooled on my keyboard. But are these devs the same ones whose AI mobs have trouble negotiating terrain (getting stuck) or imbecilic guards who hear/see their buddies die and wonder, "Did I just gear something?"
I'd love to see this come to fruition, but I think it is a ways off.
Remember that UO was the first truly massive MMO. There was a lot to learn about, and sometimes the game's mechanics prevented complete solutions. But mostly they did figure things out. More importantly for this discussion, they didn't have much AI and their world was far too small. It was overrun with players, and that meant that most AI was defeated just by the shear weight of players before it had a chance. There was a lot of cool ideas that UO had to remove because of that. It just didn't have a chance to work, and there was nothing they could do about it.
The kinds of AI I'm talking about aren't anything special these days. Mostly they don't get implemented in today's games because they are Themepark games, and this sort of design doesn't fit into a Themepark system. You don't want your polished quests to have their MOBs wander away from their dedicated use in a Themepark, or be replaced by something that doesn't do what the quest expects of them. Plus, Themepark games have those huge power gaps from zone to zone. You can't have a level 60 MOB wandering into a level 10 zone, and every other movement that screws up the pre-designed "paint by numbers" system.
Would seem to be nearly impossible for any MMO to pull off. The world would have to be giant. While there be no fast travel, while making travelling around just annoying. Or you have the same problem every MMO. Nothing is secret and everything has hundreds of players running around it like crazy.
I really love exploring in games like ES/basically any RPG. Even playing civ 5 at the start. Just exploring an unknown map, having no real idea where anything is/anybody is. Love it. But wouldn't even know how it would work in an MMO. To be true exploring, the chance you are the first person to come across anything, would be so low. Even if some MMO could pull it off, having something special to find at each location would be hard to do.
Would seem to be nearly impossible for any MMO to pull off. The world would have to be giant. While there be no fast travel, while making travelling around just annoying. Or you have the same problem every MMO. Nothing is secret and everything has hundreds of players running around it like crazy.
I really love exploring in games like ES/basically any RPG. Even playing civ 5 at the start. Just exploring an unknown map, having no real idea where anything is/anybody is. Love it. But wouldn't even know how it would work in an MMO. To be true exploring, the chance you are the first person to come across anything, would be so low. Even if some MMO could pull it off, having something special to find at each location would be hard to do.
No Mans Sky is actually very close to pulling it off. Multiplayer at the moment, yet the universe is shared by tens of thousands.
When I explore I sometimes am the first person to find a solar system, and every time I scan one of its planets, moons, flora, fauna, or mineral I get rewarded for it in multiple ways.
I get to name the planets, moons and systems, so if you play one day you might just land on one of "Kyle's Kingdoms" worlds. If I were to take the inhibitors off you could see me there, or even try to kill me. (Hence I keep the controls on)
There is a quiet brilliance in what they're doing, and I see no reason it couldn't be translated to a larger scale.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Exploring is one of my favourite MMO activities, but with the move towards TMOs (Tiny Multiplayer Online) with their small worlds it is harder to do. One test of a good MMO for exploration is you can go to areas where nothing is happening.
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The main goal for exploration would be to reward those who go off the beaten path. There are huge logistic issues but I'd definitely like to explore stuff other people haven't.
Go delve into this area and keep going, it would be very difficult to do without autogenerated content.
But the way it would work is have a huge map where if you go to the ends of the earth you get very very very rare materials that will make you rich when you port it back to the trading hub.
In EVE, i was in this region where mobs dropped crystal thing that were then refined to mats. I'd buy the mats cheap with buy orders at 50-60% of the cost and then i'd pay someone 25 million to jump-ship it to the trading hub in orders of billions of isk at a time.
It was fantastic way to make money, in a fantasy world, you could go to a remote desert area and get this special desert material that allowed weapons to be made with certain mods and it was the only place those mods could be gotten from.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I have a strong hate / love with the game, most due to how frustratingly obtuse it can be coupled with absolutely shit PC / keyboard control issue.
I find the exploration to be one of the cooler aspects, I've located two systems and one some other schmoo found.
I still was able to visit some of his planets and "claim" credit for some of the flora and fauna on them.
So if NMS is "bad" exploration (which I don't agree with) what would good exploration be like?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Care to buy?
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Caravans and shipping are a great thing in such a fantasy MMO. See how a world can be forged? "Communities" expanded? Politics enhanced?
Once upon a time....
The player(s) who put the trading contract up would then ambush the player en-route, destroy the ship, scoop the cargo and any decent modules that survived the explosion. The penalty clause kicked in and it was easy money for the pirates.
Only if there's a Justice system so that this victim and associates can go after said "ambushers".
Which should apply to all non-warred attackers.
Otherwise you have a world that will quickly break down for all except hardcore PvPers.
EVE is a different animal. They don't have the character and they don't have the detailed dungeons and world like an MMO is expected to have. And all the costs that goes along with that. That's a big difference in the bottom line, and allows EVE to be successful and keep their lower numbers happy.
And there's a huge psychological affect that goes along with characters.
In EVE, your ship is attacked.
In an MMORPG, "YOU" are attacked. Maybe not for some hardcore PvPers, I don't know, but for the average player, that's the case.
That matters in keeping the player base happy, and not...leaving.
Once upon a time....
I also would like valuable materials out there. For example you could find meteorites to get special stones and metals or rare creature types that have special hides. Maybe you want to breed those rare animals. You will need to farm their specializee food locally.
It is complex but I wanted exploration to be for all types of players.
If you have caravans for transporting Mats, that makes them more valuable in other terrains where they aren't available. That adds to trade, offers more ways for players to make money, and adds that much more interest to the game.
Once upon a time....
I also want players to monster hunt. With procedural quest and viral spawning you could hunt monsters by the quest they draw out.
For example maybe the local human's complain about a dragon. You get quest related to a dragon and their minions. You search the local area and find a cave with said dragon. You now have a raid level event. Without defeating the dragon and minions it will start to raid the local towns.
This would all be happening by the system not developers. Viral spawning it there to make NPCs actors along with players. This helps make exploring more interesting because things change. I would likely have to make a whole seperate post for that idea lol.
And yes, that's the sort of thing I want to see in a world.
I'm assuming you'll have some sort of design for wandering monsters. So that Dragon can move from far away wilderness to a closer to civilization wilderness, and "discover", or sense in some way, the easy meat supply (and maybe gems and gold) of the civilization nearby.
UO did this, in a simple form, where their wondering MOBs could detect things they "desired" based on their own list. Bears didn't care about gold, but they did want food (Human meat byproducts included, lol). Orcs and trolls and other "intelligent" MOBs had a longer list.
I'd prefer that MOBs actually discover these things and add the location to their "knowledge bank", and have enough AI to start repeat trips to centralized areas rich in their "wants list".
This can add a whole bunch of life to a world.
Imagine a Dragon moving to your vicinity and raiding your cattle and milk maids, and before you can take care of it, a bigger Dragon moves in because he's played out the deer from his area too. Now you might have a fight between the Dragons for dominance of the area.
The players might hope to catch each Dragon in a wounded state, and then raid their hoards.
And on top of that, if their hoards have items in them that are clues to where they came from, there might be lost hoard remnants there to seek out in a quest of the player's making. Or knowledge of rare resources, once they figure out where the Dragons came from.
I don't know if you can add these things to your MOBs (AI, Wants List, Knowledge Bank), but if you can you can get a whole lot of extra action for the players to encounter in their gaming World. Because this same sort of thing can be happening with every other MOB, too.
It might be Dragons, Troll, Giants, Gryphons, Goblins, anything.
Once upon a time....
Especially Morrafn, who spawned in place of the same boss, just as level 60 instead of the normal 25, when a hunting party with the quest were present.
Giving a nasty surprise to players around level 25 and on the task to beat it on that level
Yep, it was a popular farming place for Bree and Shire reputation... but besides that it is a well-made implementation of the original, you can find all the notable spots from the books.
Actually that's why your spitting distance part was a bit odd, LotRO is really good with geography, only the scale is shorter for gameplay reasons (game world is still large, on foot takes several hours to cross it from one end to the other).
And the Barrow-downs is indeed next to Bree, bordered by the two main Roads, and the Old Forest in the west (which has a really great feel in the game, after the revamp, almost as good as it was originally after the launch).
VG
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
PKers (Player Killers for anyone newer and doesn't know) know that they can get their character killed sometimes, and lose their loot. So they develop every angle to gain the advantage.
They send out scouts who don't do the fighting, chat on their guild forums, and look for targets they can kill and loot. They use numbers, surprise, and any tactic they can. If they don't have the numbers they post a message on their forums or chat rooms to see if anyone can help out for a few minutes.
Of course, if it's a newbie or a character that's not built for pure PvP they don't usually need help.
In general, they set themselves up for wins, and by that strategy they win a lot more than they lose. And so they loot a lot more than they lose to looting. And by that means, they are "winning the wars" even if they lose a battle here or there.
They also hide their PKer characters until they need them, playing on a non-PK character in the meanwhile.
So those kinds of ideas just don't work.
What a game needs is a Justice system that allows players to overcome that strategy. And there's a definite need to put an extra punishment on the "criminal" who's a constant, repeat offender.
If you don't have this, you have a game the devolves into purely a hardcore PvP game. And you lose a lot more players than you keep for this one reason alone.
Once upon a time....
More importantly for this discussion, they didn't have much AI and their world was far too small. It was overrun with players, and that meant that most AI was defeated just by the shear weight of players before it had a chance.
There was a lot of cool ideas that UO had to remove because of that. It just didn't have a chance to work, and there was nothing they could do about it.
The kinds of AI I'm talking about aren't anything special these days. Mostly they don't get implemented in today's games because they are Themepark games, and this sort of design doesn't fit into a Themepark system. You don't want your polished quests to have their MOBs wander away from their dedicated use in a Themepark, or be replaced by something that doesn't do what the quest expects of them.
Plus, Themepark games have those huge power gaps from zone to zone. You can't have a level 60 MOB wandering into a level 10 zone, and every other movement that screws up the pre-designed "paint by numbers" system.
Once upon a time....
I really love exploring in games like ES/basically any RPG. Even playing civ 5 at the start. Just exploring an unknown map, having no real idea where anything is/anybody is. Love it. But wouldn't even know how it would work in an MMO. To be true exploring, the chance you are the first person to come across anything, would be so low. Even if some MMO could pull it off, having something special to find at each location would be hard to do.
When I explore I sometimes am the first person to find a solar system, and every time I scan one of its planets, moons, flora, fauna, or mineral I get rewarded for it in multiple ways.
I get to name the planets, moons and systems, so if you play one day you might just land on one of "Kyle's Kingdoms" worlds. If I were to take the inhibitors off you could see me there, or even try to kill me. (Hence I keep the controls on)
There is a quiet brilliance in what they're doing, and I see no reason it couldn't be translated to a larger scale.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon