A world that can be really changed and multiple servers accommodating other people needs
Change how?
I've seen this a few times and wonder, how does a world change with hundreds or thousands of players exerting their force upon it, sometimes simultaneously? EQ Next, with its voxels boasted such, but no one (any?) ever played that system, unless EQ Next: Landmark (the player creation part that many took part in) showed a bit of that.
Or you looking more at things like politics and nation/area relations?
I'm not poo-pooing the ideas. I'm genuinely curious how it would work with "massive" amounts of players without massive abuse
Individual leaders make those decisions. Appointed or elected. With definite resources (budget and labor). The decision makers may need to be form a coalition or negotiate or bribe others to follow their lead.
Cities have a lot of things going on behind the scenes. In MMORPGs, cities (and organizations) just *are*. The systems that operate behind the scenes *could* be abstracted and allow individual players to take those specific roles within that society and make the decisions to affect the world. The game would need an election system to put players (or NPCs) into the leadership positions, a labor point system (to do work), and mechanisms to generate revenue (taxes, trade, licenses, etc.) With these 3 systems, it would be possible to do all manner of communal activities.
This expands on the concept of role-playing, and also provides mechanisms for building more 'complete' game worlds.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Good thread. I don't think I've ever personally said the genre needs something new and innovative, but I'll throw my copper in the pot...
I think, first and foremost, your (OP) signature says much. WoW brought a lot of people to the genre by following and simplifying a bunch of the basic tenets they got from EQ design. They streamlined it and made it more masses friendly by stripping a lot of what made this genre relatively small and obscure. Pain trains to zones gone. Random wandering badass mobs, largely gone. Factions simplified to good/bad with not much difference other than rewards. Since then, almost all MMO design is not about RPG at all and what was still there has slowly been stripped away to the point that WoW is now mostly quick hit rewards streamed together, not much different than playing any FPS over and over to try for that one little upgrade.
Rather than new and innovative, I'd be down for old and innovative. Instead of forking off EQ and running down this path, fork off UO, AC, SWG. Make it initially classless. Gain skills as you use them. Make certain points gated so that to unlock and continue down that path, other paths will become unavailable. For instance, combat: want to continue to improve your archery? Then your 2H melee weapon skills will not be able to rise beyond this point. You can still use them, just not as effectively as someone who chose to continue down that line. Same with crafting. Add exploring skills like tracking and foraging. "Life" skills like begging, research, pickpocket. Keep them all in one big pile though. Explorers, crafters, or combatants can be as specialized as they want or as relatively balanced as they want. As you pass skill gates your class forms itself. Be the world's greatest begging, baking, bounty hunter. Let races have profound advantages and disadvantages. Not just racial abilities. Want a challenge? Use a race that is not inherently better at the skills you want to use. Ogre picking pockets. Gnome with a halberd.
Get rid of balancing. You balance yourself by picking skills. Be memorable or just be another one of those guys.
Drops can be whatever and are generated when created from a random pool of potential stats.
Make a PvP system along the lines of the bounty system in SWG. Also tie it into factions so that in certain parts of the world as soon as an NPC sees you, you have a bounty on you in that area. Make factions see saw. You can't be good with everyone. Raising one faction will lower or raise others to a lesser degree based on their relationships in the world.
Give the world some simple dynamics, like Kithicor. Relatively low difficulty at day, high difficulty at night. Same dynamic with wars, rampaging mobs of mobs, high level monsters that may or may not attack just wandering about. Looking at you, Sergeant Slate...
Politics to let you decide to help keep order or assist the uprising. Get bounties on your head based on that. Get bounties created on NPC leaders to have impromptu raids. Wait for the bounty to rise for greater rewards or try to hit it early for lower rewards, but before anyone else did. Somebody else raids before you get to? Put a bounty on their ass.
Random, relatively epic quests that you come across naturally. Similar to holocrons, but just random ass drops or a strange mark on something you crafted or world spawn items to find. Nothing to really look up because it is different every time. or as every time as can be programmed... This is where more specific drops may come from.
That's what I hoped would happen when I was rotating the pre-2004 generation games around and wishing they could all make one big baby.
Long ass post. Sorry.
TL;DR: Old and innovative. Also, bring back disco and stay off my lawn.
There are two MMO's in development that I would consider "new and innovative":
Seed - [by Klang] Dual Universe - [by NovaQuark]
Seed will be a single-shard game (using SpatialOS) that's a Dwarf Fortress/RimWorld/Sims mashup. Players don't have avatars, they control a "small family of characters" in the game world. However, the player's characters never leave the game world, they are active 24/7 ! Emphasis is on co-operative play, with large settlements consisting of (hopefully) hundreds of players...
Dual Universe is also single-shard, a "pure" sandbox where players build everything. The game is completely voxel-based, has gorgeous gfx and everything is editable ! The plan is that anything built by players (e.g. structures, vehicles, etc) never leaves the game world, only player avatars are transient.
Both these games rely on distributed cloud-based processing to make them possible, and I believe that tech has huge future possibilities for changing online gaming.
I would like to see the world more alive, things happen whenever the player is there or not pretty much how GW2 works but expand on the idea and do events on larger scale.
For an example, players go to a ruined castle kill of the orcs there and the ruin are emty, after some time goblins start to live in there and the longer they live there more they will become, when a certain number are reached goblins are sending out raid patrols and raiding nearby villages, goblins can lose the battle and retreat or they win and raze the villages, here comes the players in, they can help defend the villages or if they are razed rebuild them.
Or a necromancer apears and starting to raise dead so players either dont do anything and the army of the dead grows or players set out killing of the undead and finally kill the necromancer, the event system can be endless what happens in the world, and if a region are not that well populated with players the evil can grown so much that alot of players have to go there to clear it out, start rebuilding.
Have a proper eco system where animals migrate or can be killed off, yes UO dabbled with this and it didn't worked out well but you can make so the animals just respawn somewhere else so the players have to go look for them.
Rework quest systems.
Quest: are as quest should be, big and long, have a great story and parts of it you need a group, but only here is the thing if a group finish it killing the dragon at the end the quest are no more, others who haven't gotten to the end get rewards depends how long they gotten on the quest chain, devs can put in weekly quests during downtime.
Tasks: This are simple assignments but important nonetheless, here we having building tasks, help a town grow by being a crafter building houses, bridges ect, as an adventures killing off local monsters.
Players gets involved how the world progress by doing tasks and they can trigger world events.
Kingdoms goes to war and players joins a side to support and pvp areas opens up in border zones where pvp are allowed, territories can be lost and won and more you fight for sead kingdom better reputation you get better gear, mounts, land titles.
Handling levels?, well there are no levels only skills and how to obtain skills are by using them when a skill gets to a specific rank you have to go to a guild trainer so you learn new skills.
You have to be a member in NPC guilds to get access to the training so you unlock new skills, they also give out tasks for you to do gain reputation.
Several different faction to join and gain reputation to gain specific faction fluff, gear, mounts, rare tasks to preform ect.
Houses are important not only a personal cottage but also owning your own tavern, farm ect.
What are really needed in today's MMORPGs are living breathing world that feels natural and fluid not staled monsters waiting to be killed.
Just some things top of my head I would like to see in a MMORPG.
Innovative doesn't necessarily have to be new. When I think of what I consider to be a great mmo, I look for a simply great gamplay experience, strong crafting, strong economy, a great treasure hunt, and a variety of pvp options. Sort of a mashing up of D2, WoW, and SWG. The great gameplay of wow (although a bit more mmoarpg focused), with Diablo's treasure hunt (non-binding in most cases), and SWG's large open world, crafting, and economy.
Now none of these ideas are new, however it would be innovative to combine them appropriately. No one's done it yet...that's for sure. There are certainly some areas that are at odds with each other. I think all of these challenges can be worked through though.
Consider why have SWG's large world if you have boss runs ala D2? How about instead of D2's instant-join lobby system, the instanced
dungeons are scattered through a large open world, and each instance
could have a hefty requirement to earn a direct portal to it.
How does SWG style crafting work with D2 boss runs and phat lootz? Dungeon runs don't just have to be about final product loot. Crafting
components and other various treasure hunting based itemization can
provide just as much motivation to run through an instance. With a
follower subsystem and other various subsystems, a treasure hunt (and
crafting) doesn't just have to be about BIS gear.
How does raiding fit into the picture? There's no reason raiding can't be in a treasure hunt game. Heck I'd thoroughly enjoy raiding for randomized loot drops. Raiding doesn't have to be about progression
What if I don't like RNG affecting my progression? There's no reason a progression system can't be in place. Heck, make it BOP for all I care. But don't make it the "end-game". BOP progression gear should be so that a player can get to a place to start treasure hunting for the best gear, which in most cases should be BOA so as to be trade-able yet take the item out of circulation when equipped.
Devs just need to think outside the box, think how to make an amazing and deep game (with a strong mobile component), how to control the economy and create desire/motivation to play, and how they can appropriately profit from it (sales from cash shop and taxing player transactions). That's the next true innovation in gaming imo.
You start with a setting that plays realistic,the way you would expect it to be no matter you have realistic looking creatures like Wolves and Bears or Fantasy looking creatures. Atlas is a great template to start with and so happens they used both realistic and Fantasy with bears and Wolves/Tigers and even Elementals and Gorgons/Cyclops etcetc. So then the BIGGEST thing missing and what SHOULD be the very next step ,the ECO system and again Atlas delivers that template.Aggressive creatures attacking docile creatures,weather effects with resources based on the climate/region.OPEN world design,so wherever you go ANY and all players can also go,so it feels like a real world and not some 1980's 20x20 grid instance.
So that is the base core template and imo a near perfect one to start your game build.So then you begin to add in the LIFE ideas,you know how you expect your character would survive,live in a world.Well guess what,Atlas does it again,you need to eat,drink,build travel,discover,learn.
So there you have what is imo if not perfect,the BEST starting template for a game.Anything less is just a weak game design,if you want to do even more then GREAT.
So what follows after is the settings and how the character is going to progress.learn,customisation,combat and all the factors that go into it ,maybe climate,terrain etc etc.FLUFF with all the effects,animations and any other content idea you can think of like maybe collections is your thing or maybe you like puzzles to solve,the ideas are endless in what to add AFTER you at least start with a good template.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
New and Innovative means nothing to most MMO companies now, as all they do is copy and paste from earlier works, and, change nothing really towards the game itself, take Cryptic and STO, for the last 6 years, the company has shoved out the door, their premier artists, and developers for 3rd rated Dev., and cut the staff of their art department to almost nothing, while coping and pasting the old content of STO over and over again and calling it new and innovating, but, then you have Funcom, WHERE their premier game, AO, came out with the most innovative handling of implants and symbiote tech structure to date, and, though the game is almost 20 years old, NO ONE has dared to tackle that sort of innovation towards todays game, WHY, because 10-19 year olds aren't smart enough, or, have the attention span to get into what they called "laddering tech" , its a shame to see several potential dated techs go no where, while companies clearly are copy and pasting "old content" to save money and time, and its worse when these companies are boasting new and innovative when its not.
Hmmmm, "Innovative". I feel like the the popular games are less innovative than their predecessors. They do less, offer less and require less. Maybe that's a good thing.
Me, I want options. Maybe I want to roll up a crafter, or a diplomat, or explorer. Maybe I want my boobs to jiggle while wearing high heels and wielding an aircraft wing as a weapon... Maybe I want my character to be more grounded. Maybe I want to kill using traps and ambushes. Maybe I want to kill with spells. Maybe I just want to fish, or rearrange the furniture in my house, or pick daisies. Maybe I want to take part in an epic story or a not so epic one.
Somedays when I log in I just want to clear my quest log. Somedays I want to do crafting writs ad nauseum. Somedays I want to experiment with different builds and skills, maybe min-max a bit better. Somedays I just enjoy mindless gathering.
I want a game that lets me do it all. THAT would be innovative.
Hmmmm, "Innovative". I feel like the the popular games are less innovative than their predecessors. They do less, offer less and require less. Maybe that's a good thing.
Me, I want options. Maybe I want to roll up a crafter, or a diplomat, or explorer. Maybe I want my boobs to jiggle while wearing high heels and wielding an aircraft wing as a weapon... Maybe I want my character to be more grounded. Maybe I want to kill using traps and ambushes. Maybe I want to kill with spells. Maybe I just want to fish, or rearrange the furniture in my house, or pick daisies. Maybe I want to take part in an epic story or a not so epic one.
Somedays when I log in I just want to clear my quest log. Somedays I want to do crafting writs ad nauseum. Somedays I want to experiment with different builds and skills, maybe min-max a bit better. Somedays I just enjoy mindless gathering.
I want a game that lets me do it all. THAT would be innovative.
Oh, and game my wife enjoys playing as well!
This got me to thinking. One thing I sorely miss from the old MMORPGs is GMs (Game Moderators). Having a customer service rep in game was such a treat, I notice their absence now.
I agree, though, choice is the big feature lacking these days
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
1. Leveling: The idea that a bar fills up as I kill mobs repeatedly feels a little outdated. Leveling can be made more meaningful. Maybe filling up a bar is only one required aspect to gaining a level. Another aspect could be accomplishing certain milestone quests or defeating certain specific tough mobs/bosses/challenges in order to finally level (your level bar is at the top, but you must complete the milestone to level). Maybe every 10 levels you have to do this milestone, and upon success you gain access to some powerful new game-changing abilities/stats for accomplishing it.
This would make leveling feel more meaningful rather than just a number going up from grinding mobs. It would feel more believable that your character really has grown and become stronger. Also, the idea that level is expressed through a number feels outdated to me. I feel like titles could be a new more interesting way to express "level". ex) Noob Sephiroth19384 has grown to become Journeyman Sephiroth19384 !!!
I've always thought the Dark Souls/Bloodbourne/Sekiro games handles "Levelling" well.
You fight, you gain experience from winning and you evolve in strength (In a sense). The games above do this perfectly. You fight, you learn their fighting style then you handle them easier as time goes by and by utilizing that experience you become a better fighter overall. Recognising similar techniques, stances and styles...
How about a system where "Experience Points" or some variation acts like a currency. Spend it to learn new techniques (Sekiro does this) that will evolve your gameplay in more unique ways.
The only problem I feel this all doesn't address is the feeling of progression. Sometimes the above mentioned methods just doesn't feel like progression for people, especially when they lose repeatedly.
As I read through "The Pub" here, I see a lot posts about how the MMO genre is stale, how it needs a shot of innovation. One such post (I hope you don't mind me using this to kick off another thread, @Pher0cious):
Blizzard's time has passed. Maybe a Witcher MMO
by CD Projekt RED, if they can replicate what blizzard did in 2004. It
can't be a classic mmo formula. It needs to be new and innovative.
leads me to ask, What could be made innovative?
How innovative can combat be made? (It's the number one activity in MMOs today.) How innovative can raiding be made? (End game combat.) How innovative can crafting be made? How innovative can exploration be made?
Or do we just need new and innovative activities?
What specifically do posters imagine when they say "New & Innovative?" Easy words to say/type, but more difficult to pin down exactly what they imagine. I'm curious to see what people mean when they say the phrase, "New and Innovative."
Why is the genre of MMORPGs defined as combat and crafting? What about other aspects of life and society? Like politics or religions? Allow players to take elected roles in the world, with different decisions. The mayor of a town may have to decide to spend their budget on a new wall, or hiring two extra guards. The mayor might also have to negotiate with others (player and NPC representatives) to change the tax rates. The head priest might have decide to budget for special festivals to occasionally bolster the residents' morale, or spend to help individuals in the district.
Not everything that is role-playing can be defined by a sword.
maybe, but that is the reason the bulk of players want to play, combat and gear, if you make a game who the living is the main thing, you will lack players, and this niche of game already exist
now waht could be new and inovative? make real MMORPG and not a single player with coop
A finished game, this does not imply it has to end, but just having a finished game release would be really innovative right now.
Forgot this one on my list. Updated below.
Hitting a launch date/deadline. Actually being transparent with fans. Creating a MMO on budget. Launching the game when its a game and not a glorified tech test. Using crowd funding to make an entire game, not as a pitch meeting to obtain corporate funding.
While I agree with both of you wholeheartedly, that's more about "business innovation" rather than game innovation. Business innovations is about all this genre has seen in the past few years
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
As I read through "The Pub" here, I see a lot posts about how the MMO genre is stale, how it needs a shot of innovation. One such post (I hope you don't mind me using this to kick off another thread, @Pher0cious):
Blizzard's time has passed. Maybe a Witcher MMO
by CD Projekt RED, if they can replicate what blizzard did in 2004. It
can't be a classic mmo formula. It needs to be new and innovative.
leads me to ask, What could be made innovative?
How innovative can combat be made? (It's the number one activity in MMOs today.) How innovative can raiding be made? (End game combat.) How innovative can crafting be made? How innovative can exploration be made?
Or do we just need new and innovative activities?
What specifically do posters imagine when they say "New & Innovative?" Easy words to say/type, but more difficult to pin down exactly what they imagine. I'm curious to see what people mean when they say the phrase, "New and Innovative."
Why is the genre of MMORPGs defined as combat and crafting? What about other aspects of life and society? Like politics or religions? Allow players to take elected roles in the world, with different decisions. The mayor of a town may have to decide to spend their budget on a new wall, or hiring two extra guards. The mayor might also have to negotiate with others (player and NPC representatives) to change the tax rates. The head priest might have decide to budget for special festivals to occasionally bolster the residents' morale, or spend to help individuals in the district.
Not everything that is role-playing can be defined by a sword.
maybe, but that is the reason the bulk of players want to play, combat and gear, if you make a game who the living is the main thing, you will lack players, and this niche of game already exist
now waht could be new and inovative? make real MMORPG and not a single player with coop
I think the idea is to add these sorts of things to the game play, not replace combat and gear. And that would go a long way towards getting away from the SP with Coop.
I just wonder when will they stop using old le old stats system . Moa power moa moa
It made all expansion packs being pain in *** with more and more power gap add .
i prefer something that i and my friends come up in our own PnP game. The system is there are more than 100 type of monsters and you have to learn how to deal with them . Each time character level up , he can put stats to learn about a monster
When you know nothing about a monster , it's hard to kill it , and it can kill you by deal extra DPS . But when you learn all about it , you can even solo it , get unique drop from it or tame it
To be short , it's a system where even if there are more content add , you don't have to make player character more powerful by raise it stats , player can start to learn how to deal with new monsters from start .
Comments
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think, first and foremost, your (OP) signature says much. WoW brought a lot of people to the genre by following and simplifying a bunch of the basic tenets they got from EQ design. They streamlined it and made it more masses friendly by stripping a lot of what made this genre relatively small and obscure. Pain trains to zones gone. Random wandering badass mobs, largely gone. Factions simplified to good/bad with not much difference other than rewards. Since then, almost all MMO design is not about RPG at all and what was still there has slowly been stripped away to the point that WoW is now mostly quick hit rewards streamed together, not much different than playing any FPS over and over to try for that one little upgrade.
Rather than new and innovative, I'd be down for old and innovative. Instead of forking off EQ and running down this path, fork off UO, AC, SWG. Make it initially classless. Gain skills as you use them. Make certain points gated so that to unlock and continue down that path, other paths will become unavailable. For instance, combat: want to continue to improve your archery? Then your 2H melee weapon skills will not be able to rise beyond this point. You can still use them, just not as effectively as someone who chose to continue down that line. Same with crafting. Add exploring skills like tracking and foraging. "Life" skills like begging, research, pickpocket. Keep them all in one big pile though. Explorers, crafters, or combatants can be as specialized as they want or as relatively balanced as they want. As you pass skill gates your class forms itself. Be the world's greatest begging, baking, bounty hunter. Let races have profound advantages and disadvantages. Not just racial abilities. Want a challenge? Use a race that is not inherently better at the skills you want to use. Ogre picking pockets. Gnome with a halberd.
Get rid of balancing. You balance yourself by picking skills. Be memorable or just be another one of those guys.
Drops can be whatever and are generated when created from a random pool of potential stats.
Make a PvP system along the lines of the bounty system in SWG. Also tie it into factions so that in certain parts of the world as soon as an NPC sees you, you have a bounty on you in that area. Make factions see saw. You can't be good with everyone. Raising one faction will lower or raise others to a lesser degree based on their relationships in the world.
Give the world some simple dynamics, like Kithicor. Relatively low difficulty at day, high difficulty at night. Same dynamic with wars, rampaging mobs of mobs, high level monsters that may or may not attack just wandering about. Looking at you, Sergeant Slate...
Politics to let you decide to help keep order or assist the uprising. Get bounties on your head based on that. Get bounties created on NPC leaders to have impromptu raids. Wait for the bounty to rise for greater rewards or try to hit it early for lower rewards, but before anyone else did. Somebody else raids before you get to? Put a bounty on their ass.
Random, relatively epic quests that you come across naturally. Similar to holocrons, but just random ass drops or a strange mark on something you crafted or world spawn items to find. Nothing to really look up because it is different every time. or as every time as can be programmed... This is where more specific drops may come from.
That's what I hoped would happen when I was rotating the pre-2004 generation games around and wishing they could all make one big baby.
Long ass post. Sorry.
TL;DR:
Old and innovative. Also, bring back disco and stay off my lawn.
Seed - [by Klang]
Dual Universe - [by NovaQuark]
Seed will be a single-shard game (using SpatialOS) that's a Dwarf Fortress/RimWorld/Sims mashup. Players don't have avatars, they control a "small family of characters" in the game world. However, the player's characters never leave the game world, they are active 24/7 ! Emphasis is on co-operative play, with large settlements consisting of (hopefully) hundreds of players...
Dual Universe is also single-shard, a "pure" sandbox where players build everything. The game is completely voxel-based, has gorgeous gfx and everything is editable ! The plan is that anything built by players (e.g. structures, vehicles, etc) never leaves the game world, only player avatars are transient.
Both these games rely on distributed cloud-based processing to make them possible, and I believe that tech has huge future possibilities for changing online gaming.
Atlas is a great template to start with and so happens they used both realistic and Fantasy with bears and Wolves/Tigers and even Elementals and Gorgons/Cyclops etcetc.
So then the BIGGEST thing missing and what SHOULD be the very next step ,the ECO system and again Atlas delivers that template.Aggressive creatures attacking docile creatures,weather effects with resources based on the climate/region.OPEN world design,so wherever you go ANY and all players can also go,so it feels like a real world and not some 1980's 20x20 grid instance.
So that is the base core template and imo a near perfect one to start your game build.So then you begin to add in the LIFE ideas,you know how you expect your character would survive,live in a world.Well guess what,Atlas does it again,you need to eat,drink,build travel,discover,learn.
So there you have what is imo if not perfect,the BEST starting template for a game.Anything less is just a weak game design,if you want to do even more then GREAT.
So what follows after is the settings and how the character is going to progress.learn,customisation,combat and all the factors that go into it ,maybe climate,terrain etc etc.FLUFF with all the effects,animations and any other content idea you can think of like maybe collections is your thing or maybe you like puzzles to solve,the ideas are endless in what to add AFTER you at least start with a good template.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Me, I want options. Maybe I want to roll up a crafter, or a diplomat, or explorer. Maybe I want my boobs to jiggle while wearing high heels and wielding an aircraft wing as a weapon... Maybe I want my character to be more grounded. Maybe I want to kill using traps and ambushes. Maybe I want to kill with spells. Maybe I just want to fish, or rearrange the furniture in my house, or pick daisies. Maybe I want to take part in an epic story or a not so epic one.
Somedays when I log in I just want to clear my quest log. Somedays I want to do crafting writs ad nauseum. Somedays I want to experiment with different builds and skills, maybe min-max a bit better. Somedays I just enjoy mindless gathering.
I want a game that lets me do it all. THAT would be innovative.
Oh, and game my wife enjoys playing as well!
TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO,
I agree, though, choice is the big feature lacking these days
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
You fight, you gain experience from winning and you evolve in strength (In a sense). The games above do this perfectly. You fight, you learn their fighting style then you handle them easier as time goes by and by utilizing that experience you become a better fighter overall. Recognising similar techniques, stances and styles...
How about a system where "Experience Points" or some variation acts like a currency. Spend it to learn new techniques (Sekiro does this) that will evolve your gameplay in more unique ways.
The only problem I feel this all doesn't address is the feeling of progression. Sometimes the above mentioned methods just doesn't feel like progression for people, especially when they lose repeatedly.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
And that would go a long way towards getting away from the SP with Coop.
Once upon a time....