To have a truly unique experience and a Truly Unique Character there will have to be a few requirements in an MMO
My personal requirement
1) Instant travel is rare and getting from one region to another would take a long time[...]
these are just some of the requirements that I think would satisfy any player that is seeking a truly unique experience and won't be horrible for the Casual players.
I would summarize this list to "if the game was a job and not a game".
I fail to see why any casual player would tolerate a game like that.
people tolerated funny stuff 20 years ago when the genre was new and fresh....
Yes.
Those 20 years ago, when the average MMO player was a teenager, and nobody was a casual player.
And nothing at all has changed in those 20 years. No high speed internet explosion, no hoards of WoW clones, no fading of the MMORPG genre. Everything is all the same.
/sarcasm off
Current developers seem to use this as a baseline to make new games. This kind of thinking may be holding back the development of better games.
Yes, people tolerated funny stuff back in 1999. It's not 1999 anymore. Accepting is voting with your wallet.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
No, I want to be that guy that is only guy on server that can craft item X , or a guy to go when you need material Y ,
Or a guy that is specialist for tanking , or crazy guy that only grows cabbage all day, or only guy that uses this special weapons or skills, or only one that can talk to this faction , whatever .... something that sets you apart
A system like this would be impossible for any MMORPG game as it would have to exclude all other players once you unlock a specific ability/skill/recipe to keep it truly unique to you (and block all other players from being able to unlock it).
What if you unlock material X and you only play 1 day per month - the rest of the server would be screwed, as this would be unique to you.
Not possible - MMORPGs are built around inclusiveness principle, give all players a chance at succeeding and progressing, not locking players out just because somebody else got it first.
Think about a player who starts your game 6 months after release on a busy server - all good stuff will be blocked for his character already, again blocking progression and options from players is *BAD*
Well I don't need the only one player to have it but it should have some conditions that make it unique like slay 3000 goblins in 10 minutes. Well our make it unique to only few people. Hell whenever I try to make a unique character I see there are already a million of others who did the same. It's basically making us grind level while there are rarely any uniqueness left. If there are only1000 players that can one a skill and there are20 sick skills them that can be pretty unique too
As unique as the OP wants? Naaaa, because after the first month, no one else would be able to play as the others would have a lock on everything.
There was a dungeon explorer Play by Mail game I've tried twice. Problem was everyone that had come before me had killed the monsters and they didn't respawn. All later players got to do was spend money to wander through the dungeon trying to catch up to where there were still monsters, but being too low level to do anything if they succeeded. Lot of fun there.
You want to be unique? Be the merchant that makes the best X, be the guy that hangs out in low level areas and helps new players. Heck there was someone on LotRO that most knew as the Bunny Lady. Every afternoon she'd host quizzes and give out a rabbit themed prize. If you have to rely on the game to make you unique, you probably wouldn't be anyway.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
If you can, try to get involved with a pen and paper RPG group. That is your best bet for expressing your individuality in a game. It even works if you have to do it online with a tabletop simulator like Roll 20.
This game is the most p2w garbage I have ever had the mispleasure to play. Hands down most corrupt monetization system and toxic community. Nonstop grind. Balance and pvp are complete joke. All weapon attacks are through the roof compared to the standard armor and hit points most players have. I could go on, but I have to get back to playing it... my char has somehow made it to level 33 in this crazy game.
OP what you look for absolutely impossible.What do you mean by unique anyhow?
A developer cannot make a different model.different vertices for every player on a server.So there will end up being 1-3 models and that is it.Armor,again no dev is going to make a unique armor set for each player.Classes we already have multi class game designs so nothing there either.
So then the "crafting "example.You think a developer is going to make enough crafts in a game that perhaps 1/2/3/4/5 million players will all have unique crafts at all levels?Absolutely IMPOSSIBLE.However there is a partial possibility and i will explain...
The closest you'll ever get is to be in the minority,a small group of people that have uncovered game secrets .Using FFXI as an example there were very profitable secrets that lasted a very long time.
The problem is that any kind of unique knowledge will be had by data miners.So you'll never be unique longer than a few days and only unique to the masses maybe 1 year tops.
I doubt there will ever be another FFXI,too complex,too deep,would take too much time and money to design it,so you'll never have even a remote opportunity to be unique more than a day or two. and be joined by data miners.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You want to be unique? Be the merchant that makes the best X, be the guy that hangs out in low level areas and helps new players. Heck there was someone on LotRO that most knew as the Bunny Lady. Every afternoon she'd host quizzes and give out a rabbit themed prize. If you have to rely on the game to make you unique, you probably wouldn't be anyway.
This.
Game itself will never make you unique in an MMORPG, since there's no Sword of a Thousand Truths tucked away on a pendrive, only as a joke...
An item/skill/etc. could be ultra rare, down to even the dozens in numbers, but devs won't make something for just a single one player, in a massively game...
You can be dead sure if you've got a nice-looking loot, can crafting something powerful, can do an epic attack move, etc. there will be other characters in the game who have got/can do the same.
The only exception is maybe doing something as "world first", but that doesn't make you unique either, just a no-lifer
No, in an MMORPG the community makes you unique, as Nebless wrote. Make useful mods, help others, do tour guides for lowbies, organise events, etc. Doing so will make you truly unique.
I can even give you some examples, let's take TSW, I haven't played it since years (cursed Funcom...) but still have great memories:
Urbos (and his team), he made amazing RP investigation events,
Agartha Christie, provided everyone an easy Agartha access,
Nine Swords and Katelin, lots of community events, they started Cabal Pride,
heck, even Miz was unique and the guy did nothing just danced in Agartha for hours - every day...
LotRO is filled with unique players as well, especially the RP servers, like the Lonely Mountain Band with Weatherstock (RIP Tinki),
the Order of Mathom and their weekly market for dressing up new players with gear,
or Ponso and his fun fishing events, Kiralynn's horse races,
Kandral, who has khuzdul language lessons in the game for fellow dwarrows...
Similar deeds make you more unique than any in-game mechanic or item ever could.
As there are so many people playing the hero you either have to have a lot of grinding paired with huge power creep, or a system where it is possible to find rare unique items which are very powerful.
You cant have 5000 unique characters on a server because then again no one is really unique at all. So you need to only give it to a small player base which mostly are the ones playing way more than normal people.
As said you can be unique by doing something special, but this also requires a lot of time and dedication.
You want to be unique? Be the merchant that makes the best X, be the guy that hangs out in low level areas and helps new players. Heck there was someone on LotRO that most knew as the Bunny Lady. Every afternoon she'd host quizzes and give out a rabbit themed prize. If you have to rely on the game to make you unique, you probably wouldn't be anyway.
This.
Game itself will never make you unique in an MMORPG, since there's no Sword of a Thousand Truths tucked away on a pendrive, only as a joke...
An item/skill/etc. could be ultra rare, down to even the dozens in numbers, but devs won't make something for just a single one player, in a massively game...
You can be dead sure if you've got a nice-looking loot, can crafting something powerful, can do an epic attack move, etc. there will be other characters in the game who have got/can do the same.
The only exception is maybe doing something as "world first", but that doesn't make you unique either, just a no-lifer
No, in an MMORPG the community makes you unique, as Nebless wrote. Make useful mods, help others, do tour guides for lowbies, organise events, etc. Doing so will make you truly unique.
I can even give you some examples, let's take TSW, I haven't played it since years (cursed Funcom...) but still have great memories:
Urbos (and his team), he made amazing RP investigation events,
Agartha Christie, provided everyone an easy Agartha access,
Nine Swords and Katelin, lots of community events, they started Cabal Pride,
heck, even Miz was unique and the guy did nothing just danced in Agartha for hours - every day...
LotRO is filled with unique players as well, especially the RP servers, like the Lonely Mountain Band with Weatherstock (RIP Tinki),
the Order of Mathom and their weekly market for dressing up new players with gear,
or Ponso and his fun fishing events, Kiralynn's horse races,
Kandral, who has khuzdul language lessons in the game for fellow dwarrows...
Similar deeds make you more unique than any in-game mechanic or item ever could.
A RL mate of mine was a tourguide in Orgrimmar, WoW. A tuxedo wearing orc with a cane who would give ten minute tours using macro’s with tons of lore at various places for the price of a single gold. It was awesome.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
MMORPGs should be a social game. It's "Massively Multiplayer."
Uniqueness can come in the form of groups, and that's even better than individual uniqueness. These games need players like Lahnmir's friend (posted just above this post). They give these games that extra social environment that brings them to life.
A Sandbox World is best for this. Lower Power Gaps so players aren't divided and a World built accordingly.
Like Lahnmir's friend, UO (the best Sandbox MMORPG ever made), had a good number of these types. And they gave a lot of life to that game.
The best example of the difference here would be today's Auction Houses compared to UO's. UO's was run entirely by Players. They built the large houses and designed them for the purpose. They organized it, advertised it, worked together, and maintained order. These Auctions were a thing to witness. They were a special social event. They were pretty cool.
UO also had player owned NPC Merchants for the more common sales.
The Auction Houses sold large bulk quantities at Auction, Rare items (this was a fascinating thing in UO as some of them were one of a kind), the best gear, etc.
And if I may say, screw the RMTers! for taking great game play away from us normal players.
Damn...I have been roaming this site since 2004. Played every MMO there is... Looking for something ... never finding it.
Finally I gave up on subscriptions , and than on MMOs all together
But lately I got again started looking for it.
So I sit down and made a list of what I am looking for in MMO.
Sandbox , crafting , complexity ... etc
And than it downed on me. What I was looking all these years for. One single thing:
MMO where you can be unique as a character !
Not just another lvl 80 warrior with set of raid gear , with cool looking cosmetics and skills you can change on the fly to adapt to any party.
No, I want to be that guy that is only guy on server that can craft item X , or a guy to go when you need material Y ,
Or a guy that is specialist for tanking , or crazy guy that only grows cabbage all day, or only guy that uses this special weapons or skills, or only one that can talk to this faction , whatever .... something that sets you apart
What ever it is. I guess that the game has to be sandbox and skill based , have pretty wide range of activities and not be on the rails(themepark) - otherwise everyone is the same.
So what do you say people , can you suggest MMO that is even remotely close to this ?
shroud of the avatar! You will be unique.
This is largely true. There are no classes. You can learn any skill and passive in the game you wish. Skills advance through use, and can be forgotten over time by focusing on other skills. The more skills you try to learn at once the slower they develop, and vice versa. Spell casting is more difficult the heavier the armour you wear, but there are passives that mitigate that penalty.
There are limitations. Only humans are available to play. Learning opposing types of magic, such as fire and water, is more difficult. Mounts have not been implemented yet, but an item is available that functions much the same.
There is room for a fair amount of diversity.
Crafting is a multi-stage process for most things often involving multiple skills and workstations, even those as simple as an arrow. Once made items can be enchanted, which I have no direct experience in myself as of yet.
Combat has optional variants. One can use skill bars in the traditional manner.
Alternatively, one can construct a "deck" of abilities, as though they were cards rather than icons. The greater the development of an ability the more cards representing it you get. Any space left empty on the skill bar will then be periodically randomly filled with one of the cards when you are in combat.
Copies of the same spell on the bar can be melded to create a stronger version of that ability that will activate when you press the key related to that stack.
There are some abilities that can only be accessed by stacking specific sets of cards together, that generally meld in a strong ability combing the effects of each card in the stack. This provides extra synergies one can build his character toward.
One can also choose if abilities function a click for standard effect, or if the associated button or key can be held down and charged to produce a range of effects from light to heavy, such as to use quick and slow attacks of varying intensity and cost. This makes combat somewhat unique compared to other MMORPGs.
However, SotA doesn't have many of the features the OP desires.
Ultime Online was the first thing that popped in my head, but it is just too dated...If you can find something like that, then you are in business.
On of the private servers for Legends of Aria was working at doing just that when I was playing the game. That was awhile ago now, so they may have a good deal done of that by now. To play on private servers one must purchase LoA, though.
A lot of times mmorpgs penalize uniqueness. Want to play a troll mage with stats allocated to charisma and armed with a crossbow? You would be fairly unique. You would also be gimp. The farther you move away from the predetermined best choices, the greater you are penalized.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Ultime Online was the first thing that popped in my head, but it is just too dated...If you can find something like that, then you are in business.
On of the private servers for Legends of Aria was working at doing just that when I was playing the game. That was awhile ago now, so they may have a good deal done of that by now. To play on private servers one must purchase LoA, though.
The game is still a mess as of less than a month ago. Instead of finishing the game people had already paid for, they decided it would be a good idea to put out a DLC and charge more money instead of delivering the game we had already paid for.
Ultime Online was the first thing that popped in my head, but it is just too dated...If you can find something like that, then you are in business.
On of the private servers for Legends of Aria was working at doing just that when I was playing the game. That was awhile ago now, so they may have a good deal done of that by now. To play on private servers one must purchase LoA, though.
The game is still a mess as of less than a month ago. Instead of finishing the game people had already paid for, they decided it would be a good idea to put out a DLC and charge more money instead of delivering the game we had already paid for.
Don't give this company/game a nickle.
Private servers don't necessarily have identical content or rules to the official servers, making the game somewhat different from the norm. Not having personally played on the private server inspired by UO, I don't know if they even use the latest DLC. They did have many of their own customization plans specific to their server. I have no idea how many of those plans have come to fruition.
The server I did play on, a fully PvE server based in NA I can't recall the name of right now, had their own set of rules different from that on official servers, so may also not use content from the DLC. It performed somewhat better for me than the official servers as well, likely due to a lower population, but even with that it wasn't all that great. I haven't played for some time so it may be better. I doubt it though.
I don't think the company behind it is good at all, but the world isn't drowning in games with similarity to UO either so some may be inclined to overlook some things just to play something similar but recent.
Other than the crafting side, City Of Heroes allows you to make a pretty distinctive character, with 12 classes and 60-80 powerset combos for each. But I think you want to have a PnP uniqueness in a computer game where by defintion anything you want has to have been coded into the game. The only way I can see that is by some sort of chinese menu power creation system where you adjust your powers with modifiers and by combining X powers times Y modifiers and Z different powers for each character, your character might be the only one with a particular combination of powers. I am unaware of a game like that however.
A lot of times mmorpgs penalize uniqueness. Want to play a troll mage with stats allocated to charisma and armed with a crossbow? You would be fairly unique. You would also be gimp. The farther you move away from the predetermined best choices, the greater you are penalized.
I'm reminded of a story in the Conan books by Robert E. Howard. A large Ape had been a servant for a powerful mage. The mage died, and the Ape decided to take over as the new owner of the tower(?). He wears the mages red robe and sits on his throne. But when he does battle with Conan, he's still an Ape.
I'm reminded of a story in the Conan books by Robert E. Howard. A large Ape had been a servant for a powerful mage. The mage died, and the Ape decided to take over as the new owner of the tower(?). He wears the mages red robe and sits on his throne. But when he does battle with Conan, he's still an Ape.
Actually... nope
When Conan kills Thak, he says himself he killed a man and not an animal, and he will count this kill among the chiefs. A great short novel, a few correction if you don't mind:
Nabonidus (the Red Priest) wasn't dead, Thak just knocked him out and tried to mimic him. They find him below the house in the sewer.
He helps Conan and Murilo to kill Thak, but after that he tries to double-cross them and as a result, "The mage died" as you said.
You want it where only a single player can achieve a particular task in a massively multiplayer game? Im all for limitations to some extent but that's too extreme.
One game where you can be fairly unique would be UO. Im not sure about Tramhell, but pre-Tramhell there would be people who specialized in certain dungeons, or obtaining certain pets/mounts/items. They would have builds that specialized in it. You had the same for treasure hunters too. Not anyone could do the high end ones so you'd have to find someone. They could make a pretty penny doing so! It was a lot of work specializing that field though in my opinion.
I would break down uniqueness into several different factors -- appearance, abilities and actions.
Appearance is strictly determined by unique combinations of clothing styles and colors. These combine to create a specific look. It's generally a pain for developers because it requires so many art assets and in a really mixed crowd, the need for graphics memory limits the effective 'uniqueness'.
Abilities might be the frequently implemented approach, but requires a lot of balance and long-term planning to ensure that one specific ability doesn't out-perform all others. That generally equates to a lot of work for the developers. Games that try to provide 'Uniqueness' via abilities usually end up with a single "best build" that everyone soon copies (essentially destroying the concept of Uniqueness).
Actions would include nuances and movement habits. Ideally, these would be under the player control, via some kind of customizable emote and character animation. I am unaware of any game system that allows the player to build the various animated movements and intersperse dialog. It could be used to distinguish groups (guilds) for ritual responses, greetings and secret handshakes.
The most unique aspect is (and is going to remain) the role-playing aspects, almost always implemented via a chat/text interface and some canned emotes. The choice of what to say and when to say it determines the individuality of the pixelated personality you may encounter in a game. It is essentially the easiest way for a developer to provide uniqueness, while avoiding those sticky questions like "What is role-playing" that tend to divide us.
Just some thoughts.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I'm reminded of a story in the Conan books by Robert E. Howard. A large Ape had been a servant for a powerful mage. The mage died, and the Ape decided to take over as the new owner of the tower(?). He wears the mages red robe and sits on his throne. But when he does battle with Conan, he's still an Ape.
Actually... nope
When Conan kills Thak, he says himself he killed a man and not an animal, and he will count this kill among the chiefs. A great short novel, a few correction if you don't mind:
Nabonidus (the Red Priest) wasn't dead, Thak just knocked him out and tried to mimic him. They find him below the house in the sewer.
He helps Conan and Murilo to kill Thak, but after that he tries to double-cross them and as a result, "The mage died" as you said.
Haha, that comic book took some liberties, I think. My memory of that long ago read story may not be complete, but I'm certain that THAT isn't correct to the original story.
Thanks for chiming in, though, I wasn't aware of the comic and I'm always interested in Conan stuff.
Damn...I have been roaming this site since 2004. Played every MMO there is... Looking for something ... never finding it.
Finally I gave up on subscriptions , and than on MMOs all together
But lately I got again started looking for it.
So I sit down and made a list of what I am looking for in MMO.
Sandbox , crafting , complexity ... etc
And than it downed on me. What I was looking all these years for. One single thing:
MMO where you can be unique as a character !
Not just another lvl 80 warrior with set of raid gear , with cool looking cosmetics and skills you can change on the fly to adapt to any party.
No, I want to be that guy that is only guy on server that can craft item X , or a guy to go when you need material Y ,
Or a guy that is specialist for tanking , or crazy guy that only grows cabbage all day, or only guy that uses this special weapons or skills, or only one that can talk to this faction , whatever .... something that sets you apart
What ever it is. I guess that the game has to be sandbox and skill based , have pretty wide range of activities and not be on the rails(themepark) - otherwise everyone is the same.
So what do you say people , can you suggest MMO that is even remotely close to this ?
Call me wen you find that game or pm me plz cuz i gave up
Comments
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
As unique as the OP wants? Naaaa, because after the first month, no one else would be able to play as the others would have a lock on everything.
There was a dungeon explorer Play by Mail game I've tried twice. Problem was everyone that had come before me had killed the monsters and they didn't respawn. All later players got to do was spend money to wander through the dungeon trying to catch up to where there were still monsters, but being too low level to do anything if they succeeded. Lot of fun there.
You want to be unique? Be the merchant that makes the best X, be the guy that hangs out in low level areas and helps new players. Heck there was someone on LotRO that most knew as the Bunny Lady. Every afternoon she'd host quizzes and give out a rabbit themed prize. If you have to rely on the game to make you unique, you probably wouldn't be anyway.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Mend and Defend
A developer cannot make a different model.different vertices for every player on a server.So there will end up being 1-3 models and that is it.Armor,again no dev is going to make a unique armor set for each player.Classes we already have multi class game designs so nothing there either.
So then the "crafting "example.You think a developer is going to make enough crafts in a game that perhaps 1/2/3/4/5 million players will all have unique crafts at all levels?Absolutely IMPOSSIBLE.However there is a partial possibility and i will explain...
The closest you'll ever get is to be in the minority,a small group of people that have uncovered game secrets .Using FFXI as an example there were very profitable secrets that lasted a very long time.
The problem is that any kind of unique knowledge will be had by data miners.So you'll never be unique longer than a few days and only unique to the masses maybe 1 year tops.
I doubt there will ever be another FFXI,too complex,too deep,would take too much time and money to design it,so you'll never have even a remote opportunity to be unique more than a day or two. and be joined by data miners.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You cant have 5000 unique characters on a server because then again no one is really unique at all.
So you need to only give it to a small player base which mostly are the ones playing way more than normal people.
As said you can be unique by doing something special, but this also requires a lot of time and dedication.
1997 Meridian 59 'til 2019 ESO
Waiting for Camelot Unchained & Pantheon
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Uniqueness can come in the form of groups, and that's even better than individual uniqueness.
These games need players like Lahnmir's friend (posted just above this post). They give these games that extra social environment that brings them to life.
A Sandbox World is best for this. Lower Power Gaps so players aren't divided and a World built accordingly.
Like Lahnmir's friend, UO (the best Sandbox MMORPG ever made), had a good number of these types. And they gave a lot of life to that game.
The best example of the difference here would be today's Auction Houses compared to UO's.
UO's was run entirely by Players.
They built the large houses and designed them for the purpose. They organized it, advertised it, worked together, and maintained order.
These Auctions were a thing to witness. They were a special social event. They were pretty cool.
UO also had player owned NPC Merchants for the more common sales.
The Auction Houses sold large bulk quantities at Auction, Rare items (this was a fascinating thing in UO as some of them were one of a kind), the best gear, etc.
And if I may say,
screw the RMTers!
for taking great game play away from us normal players.
Once upon a time....
On of the private servers for Legends of Aria was working at doing just that when I was playing the game. That was awhile ago now, so they may have a good deal done of that by now. To play on private servers one must purchase LoA, though.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Don't give this company/game a nickle.
A large Ape had been a servant for a powerful mage. The mage died, and the Ape decided to take over as the new owner of the tower(?). He wears the mages red robe and sits on his throne.
But when he does battle with Conan, he's still an Ape.
Once upon a time....
One game where you can be fairly unique would be UO. Im not sure about Tramhell, but pre-Tramhell there would be people who specialized in certain dungeons, or obtaining certain pets/mounts/items. They would have builds that specialized in it. You had the same for treasure hunters too. Not anyone could do the high end ones so you'd have to find someone. They could make a pretty penny doing so! It was a lot of work specializing that field though in my opinion.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
My memory of that long ago read story may not be complete, but I'm certain that THAT isn't correct to the original story.
Thanks for chiming in, though, I wasn't aware of the comic and I'm always interested in Conan stuff.
Once upon a time....
Call me wen you find that game