The future of MMO's

[Rhyis.]

So the future of MMORPGs is Ultima Online.

Apparently everything really does go full circle.

[Meko]

I think MMO's have lacked some deep immersion recently. The little things like your own house with furniture or dead boss heads on the wall..things like that. Maybe be able to have your own farm or land where you can create events outside of pure combat/raiding/pvp (social events a la the Sims...sort of). Not putting so much emphasis on rushing to the end game but rather being able to experience the world without too many sharp edges. Some sort of AA model where you can reach max level but also build AA's or merits to increase/adjust your character slightly. Then again, /sigh, I don't know.

[Viq]

if they made games without factions they would be boring and unpopular just like ffxi. the playerbase needs something to hate, an "enemy" that's a real player. thus why FPS games are so popular, lollipops and PVE MMOs just won't work and it's a terrible idea so I hope no one actually thinks that.

L2 and EVE have no preset factions when it comes to PvP, and it wouldn't be difficult to argue those are two of the best PvP MMOs ever made. When the game doesn't force factions on players then players will make their own factions. It really works out so much better that way.

[Ashmada]

If MMOs emulate Alla, Im out.

This. Popularity contests are always stupid (wait till someone makes a politics seque/quip here).



As for the OP, I completely disagree on all counts... bar one, maybe 2 (I have no idea what he means by 10).
The one I agree with is NO FACTIONS!

No faction doesn't have to mean no PvP, just "no faction".
You can justify PvP without having a whole "this race hates this race and they're in a perpetual war that doesn't make any sense considering the outside threats they both face."
Or you can even have PvP without any story-wise justification. Your average halokid/PvPer doesn't care, so long as there's a teabagging animation and "fag" isn't censored.


But removing EXP and levels? Periodically, that idea occurs to someone (usually, they post it on lolzam, not here), but frankly it's short-sighted.
Unless the skills you acquire make a significantly lesser difference than the levels and the stuff that goes with it, you'll still have a playerbase divided into "power levels", it just won't be expressed numerically.
Result: same situation, only it's harder to tell whether X player has the right tools to team up with our group in Y event.

Reading between the lines of "everyone can do everything", "no EXP/levels system" and "fully tweak", I get the idea you'd want an endless progression where a dedicated player can basically get every skill in the world if he wanted.
To me, that sounds horribly short-sighted, again.
Limitations might annoy you on a primary level, but those limitations are actually a great asset.

SOME degree of customization is good, but in the end, it must remain in the hands of the dev team to decide a class/race's identity and balance.
Classes and races need to acquire strong identities again, and not only on a visual level.
Oh, and no endless respec-ing. A one-time deal at max level, sure; but not much more than that.
Years ago, I outlined my own MMO, just for fun, with no illusion of ever making it (it's a bunch of formulae and skill lists, that's it), and I had a few ideas to introduce more complexity in the system without making it cumbersome for the player and allowing a good deal of customization; or at least the illusion of it (you can choose skills in a list pretty freely, but in the end there are only a few builds you'll think of, the rest'll be variants with slightly different flavour*).
*See NWN/NWN2/other DnD-based games.


A single server? That's a terrible idea on a technical level.


I agree with Lordender on separating PvP and PvE. Might not make much sense*, but on a practical level it simplifies things a whole lot.
And on communities, though that's harder to achieve.
Of all MMOs I've played, FFXI is the only one where you played with people, not beside people.
Even a simple exchange of /c (with all the judgemental BS it brings, alas) was enough to make the game feel different from those MMOs where I run/fly beside people without even looking at their char/ship, let alone strike a brief convo.

*on that note: fuck realism. Realism belongs in graphics/animations/physics engine, sound effects and to some extent story; not in gameplay.
- I don't care if it's realistic for a char to change gear mid-battle, it's vastly superior to having to fulltime one set of horrible-for-nothing-mediocre-for-everything gear.
- I don't care if it's realistic to not feature jumps, it looks ridiculous when a game allows free jumping. An idiot mashing the jump button breaks immersion a lot more than my char not being able to jump over a ledge. Hell, in reality, how often do you jump over an obstacle in your path? Unless you play basketball professionally (or partake in various athletics events), I'd guess the answer is "pretty much never". There, you char can jump in theory but he never does: you've got your realism.
- ...

[Viq]

What is short-sighted about a system where one character can theoretically gain every skill? Again, look at EVE. While I certainly am not a fan of the real-time skill gain method that the game uses, it's system of allowing any character to learn any skill, assuming they meet the pre-requisites, is anything but short-sighted. It allows newer players to specialize in order to play a role alongside players that have been playing for years, which does a great job at eliminating the problem of "Oh, my buddy wants to play but we can't play together yet" that most games suffer. It also allows long-time players to have new goals to work towards, and also allows them to be more flexible by being able to fill whatever role their current group may need.

EVE also is an example of a game successfully having only a single server for all players. Certainly, the nature of the game makes it less taxing on each individual player's computer to be in a highly populated place, but the server itself handles 20,000+ simultaneously logged on players incredibly well.

[Cleverness]

You can't really get away with single server traditional MMO's, trying to camp world spawns would be horrific. It works in EVE because of how it's designed plus also the sheer scale of the available play area is massive, the sheer controllable space some Corps have carved in 0.0 sec is massive. Would need an MMO with a realistic size world to be able to have everything on a single server.

And I like the comment on player housing, having just a sort of house or base for your guild has always been a nice feature. They had Guild Halls in GW1 and they will probably be there in GW2, FF11 had mog houses that you could customize in your home nation, and of course Ultima Online housing was all sorts of epic and lulzworthy at times. Not really a major feature in an MMO but it's just a little thing that gives the player something to do in their free time and that they can show off.

[The Stig]

I think MMO's have lacked some deep immersion recently. The little things like your own house with furniture or dead boss heads on the wall..things like that. Maybe be able to have your own farm or land where you can create events outside of pure combat/raiding/pvp (social events a la the Sims...sort of).

Second Life allows you to host and create/build all sorts of things. That game is purely none combat though I believe. However, that game is also has some sort of negative rep, mainly from trolls and people who wish to cyber sex in them.

Of all MMOs I've played, FFXI is the only one where you played with people, not beside people.
Even a simple exchange of /c (with all the judgemental BS it brings, alas) was enough to make the game feel different from those MMOs where I run/fly beside people without even looking at their char/ship, let alone strike a brief convo.

Very interesting view point, I never considered the with/beside theory.

Hell, in reality, how often do you jump over an obstacle in your path? Unless you play basketball professionally (or partake in various athletics events), I'd guess the answer is "pretty much never". There, you char can jump in theory but he never does: you've got your realism.

If I ever design a MMO, I'm gonna add a Parkour class. haha!

You can't really get away with single server traditional MMO's, trying to camp world spawns would be horrific.

I'm going to see if I can dig out that huge argument people had over world spawns and the pros and cons about it, but I believe the general consensus was that no one wants them anymore? Still, perhaps by adding a world spawn where it can be fought over and requires you to claim, hold, and fight off attackers should be entertaining.

[ringthree]

As a consideration, the point of an MMO isn't necessarily for the playerbase to divide themselves up into exclusive clubs in order to tackle content (or sit around hoping for a pickup group/invite).

Arenanet is planning content for that kind of setup, just like they're planning organized 5v5 PvP and not just wide-open WvWvW. The story content also utilizes instancing to keep individual challenge present.

That being said, the point (presumably) of an MMO is to actually be part of a large game world. Not to run around at odds with other players/groups who are trying to do the same things you are. The structure of the open world parts of GW2 encourages informal cooperation on a larger scale, which is probably more in tune with what the larger MMO ideal is, rather than a competition between rival co-op groups like most tend to be.



GW2 isn't classless, it just doesn't rely on the same structure as nearly every other MMO.

Guild Wars already does a lot of the XP related stuff you mentioned, and while GW2 is a definite departure from it, there are similarities. At least in GW1, vertical progression plateaus quickly. While there's still a lot in terms of expanding your repertoire, the game still puts a lot more focus on player skill than stats.

Part of the rationale for bucking the "holy trinity" trend is to involve every player more, and probably to make a wider variety of skills have value. As we've seen with FFXI, if you can just dump healing on someone, then defensive strategies become moot. Mainly what GW2 lacks, if you look at the Skills on the wiki (and some dev comments) is mass healing. Without that, people actually need to avoid damage, or use tanking Skills, and so on.

Can't say for sure yet, but really, Arenanet has not catered to skill-less play before - hell, the tutorial sections of Factions took more skill than half of FFXI endgame...I doubt they're abandoning that for GW2.

I think you missed the main thrust of the criticism of this issue. Homogenization is not a great thing overall if it causes a break down of internal group coordination. Part of the "fun" of any massive game, and especially MMO's, is to assume a role in the group. Breaking away from the holy trinity may involve the individual player more, but it makes the actual coordination of the group far less important. Your example of FFXI is both vague and untrue. There were years where NIN or /NIN was critical because you couldn't just dump healing on someone. If everyone has to avoid damage and everyone has to self heal and everyone has to DPS, what is the point of classes at all?

I think you are falsely assuming that we are saying that class homogenization was created to make up for a lack of skill (though it probably was as it lets individual players make all the decisions instead of relying on group coordination), we are just making the argument that it is more boring and moving in the "single player game in a multi-player world" direction that many of the older FFXI (and that generation) do not enjoy.

I think the most obvious flaw in your thinking can be found in this statement:

That being said, the point (presumably) of an MMO is to actually be part of a large game world.

This is exactly the thinking that some of us thinks needs to be avoided. A large game world is largely irrelevant to the nature of an MMO. All of the Final Fantasy games had large game worlds. The true part of an MMO is the interaction between individuals in achieving in-game goals. If you do this right (as FFXI did even if the content wasn't all that great) then you create good player interaction without even trying.

[Qalbert]

I suggest you read more about GW2 before you keep complaining about it for stuff it doesn't do. Your complaints come across as a blatant kneejerk response to them daring to change things up a little. Just because you don't have "TANK LFG" doesn't mean there isn't interaction and coordination required. In fact World vs World requires more coordination and strategy than a lot of MMOs out there, you're fighting full scale battles with commanders marking objectives and tactical points, you have the construction of siege weapons and fortifications, and so on. A coordinated assault will be far superior to a bunch of individuals just running around hitting things. Even in PvE a lot of class skills play off each other, and combine in new powerful ways. Just because someone isn't dedicated to spamming heals doesn't mean there isn't group coordination involved.

[Lordender]

I know I won't be playing any MMO thats not going to take a chance on being different like a GW2. A MMO needs to do what WoW did to the industry starting back in 04, it needs to greatly improve on whats already out there while adding a innovation to the genre. I see MMO games like SW:ToR and say the game instantly launched as 7 years old. I don't see how that game is ever going to be more than getting that fringe MMO subscriber who pops on for a month after every content patch then bolts until the next update.

The genre has a whole lot of critical problems right now from overall stagnation.

[ringthree]

I suggest you read more about GW2 before you keep complaining about it for stuff it doesn't do. Your complaints come across as a blatant kneejerk response to them daring to change things up a little. Just because you don't have "TANK LFG" doesn't mean there isn't interaction and coordination required. In fact World vs World requires more coordination and strategy than a lot of MMOs out there, you're fighting full scale battles with commanders marking objectives and tactical points, you have the construction of siege weapons and fortifications, and so on. A coordinated assault will be far superior to a bunch of individuals just running around hitting things. Even in PvE a lot of class skills play off each other, and combine in new powerful ways. Just because someone isn't dedicated to spamming heals doesn't mean there isn't group coordination involved.

I think you may be playing the part of the fan boy here. I am not criticizing GW2 specifically, because, as I said I believe WoW is moving in this direction too. You can do all of the World v. World things with or without differentiation between class. And it is good that coordination is required, but at the end of the day is it just "You 5 go do this"? Because if it is then it is no different than any other game with decent PvP really.

Nothing you have said really disputes the argument about the need to avoid homogenization to avoid repetitive game play and support group coordination. Roles are good. Even if you think that the holy trinity is bad, I don't think the solution is to just dump it all and let everyone do everything. If you wanted to improve the system, go the opposite direction and be MORE creative not less. More roles. These used to exist in FFXI and EQ.

Again, casual games just don't compete against WoW anymore. If you want to carve out a niche in the market, then pick one and go with it. Every time someone mentions the uniqueness of GW2 (or any other game like SWTOR, WAR, Conan, etc.), I just roll my eyes. They were all unique and they all failed. The hype train for GW2 is rolling, but at the end of the day its just a tweak on WoW's style, and that probably won't be that successful.

[Isiolia]

Your example of FFXI is both vague and untrue. There were years where NIN or /NIN was critical because you couldn't just dump healing on someone.

Sure. Then more recently, with Abyssea for example, massive HP buffs and refresh amounts made that strategy largely irrelevant.

If everyone has to avoid damage and everyone has to self heal and everyone has to DPS, what is the point of classes at all?

Because their setup isn't actually as homogenous as you seem to think it is. Look at the skill lists on the wiki, look at how the game actually works. You get your weapon slots, which determine half your skills, one dedicated self cure, three regular skills and an elite skill. Most professions can toggle between two weapon configs while in combat, a couple utilize a different mechanic but are still limited. Other skills are changeable only outside of combat. Generally, you're going to go into combat better prepared for particular roles than others.

Scan down the skill lists for different professions. They're all skewed towards different kinds of roles. Warriors have relatively few skills that directly buff or heal allies if you compare them to Guardians, who will have some with almost any weapon setup.

I see it as less of a "everyone is doing everything" and more that every job can adapt. Sort of like if the subjob system in XI if you didn't need to worry about so much of it getting crippled by half-level skills.

This is exactly the thinking that some of us thinks needs to be avoided. A large game world is largely irrelevant to the nature of an MMO. All of the Final Fantasy games had large game worlds. The true part of an MMO is the interaction between individuals in achieving in-game goals. If you do this right (as FFXI did even if the content wasn't all that great) then you create good player interaction without even trying.

My line of thinking is less the actual "size" of the world, but more the number of players. Why do you need a game model designed to accomodate thousands of people on a given server if you only ever play with a relative handful of them at a time? The dynamic event model, for example, instead represents something that can actually make having a hundred+ people in the same zone something relevant. If you enter Abyssea or Dynamis and see 100 people in the zone, most of them are either irrelevant or in your way, depending on your reasons for being there. Seeing developers try to change "there were so many people online that we couldn't do what we wanted" into "there were so many people online, it was awesome" would seem to be an appropriate goal for the genre.

[Qalbert]

I think you may be playing the part of the fan boy here. I am not criticizing GW2 specifically, because, as I said I believe WoW is moving in this direction too. You can do all of the World v. World things with or without differentiation between class. And it is good that coordination is required, but at the end of the day is it just "You 5 go do this"? Because if it is then it is no different than any other game with decent PvP really.

Nothing you have said really disputes the argument about the need to avoid homogenization to avoid repetitive game play and support group coordination. Roles are good. Even if you think that the holy trinity is bad, I don't think the solution is to just dump it all and let everyone do everything. If you wanted to improve the system, go the opposite direction and be MORE creative not less. More roles. These used to exist in FFXI and EQ.

Again, casual games just don't compete against WoW anymore. If you want to carve out a niche in the market, then pick one and go with it. Every time someone mentions the uniqueness of GW2 (or any other game like SWTOR, WAR, Conan, etc.), I just roll my eyes. They were all unique and they all failed. The hype train for GW2 is rolling, but at the end of the day its just a tweak on WoW's style, and that probably won't be that successful.

You called GW2 the antithesis of proper MMO development. That's pretty specific and kneejerk. and for the record, yes I am looking forward to GW2, but I am hardly a fanboy. I know it doesn't reinvent the wheel, and I'm ok with that. It's a solid, polished combination of good ideas, with a few interesting new twists, and with a focus on fun content, which is more than enough for me to justify buying it.

[ringthree]

You called GW2 the antithesis of proper MMO development. That's pretty specific and kneejerk. and for the record, yes I am looking forward to GW2, but I am hardly a fanboy. I know it doesn't reinvent the wheel, and I'm ok with that. It's a solid, polished combination of good ideas, with a few interesting new twists, and with a focus on fun content, which is more than enough for me to justify buying it.

I think most of this discussion is based on the idea that it is time to reinvent the wheel. I don't think this thread was aimed at discussing if you like some specific idea about a game, which then borrows the rest from WoW, and down the line. I said that in comparison to FFXI, GW2 is moving in the wrong direction. Context is important. GW2 looks like a decent game, but the roles of the players is being lost in the morass of everyone doing everything. You have admitted as much. I do believe that this morass is the wrong direction to go. I also believe it is the next "new thing" that MMO's of this next coming wave will embrace until they realize they can't beat WoW with it, and the idea gets dumped for the next new idea.

Could a classless system work? Maybe, if it was used as a grassroots fundamental change to the formula of MMO's, I just don't see it working well (for me) just being shoehorned into a WoW-esque game.

To me, classless systems are no different than FFXIV's system (which they dumped), and dumping auto-attack (which both FFXIV and WoW already dumped). It's just so much icing on the cake. Remember when Arenanet made a huge deal of their leveling curve? How each level takes the same time? That has been the case in WoW (and most sane/non-FFXI MMO's) for years, they just adjust the amount of XP you get so it looks larger, but you generally take the same amount of time for most of the upper end of the levels. Touting awesomeness before delivering is just annoying no matter how much Blizzard or Arenanet or Bioware assures us.

I think both you and Isiolia are focusing way too much on the specific mechanics of a specific game, and not at the overall movement of the market. Take a step back and look at it comparatively. No offense but both of you seem to have a lot of emotional investment in the game already. Isiolia in particular is just cherry-picking specific moments from FFXI to prove points that can be largely disproven by looking at the majority of the game's lifespan of that particular event (healing prior to and outside of Abyssea, Dynamis prior to it's revision).

As a side note to both of you: How much time have you spent on the GW2 beta? I would like to hear more about the game play in general. Can you discuss your experiences or is there still an NDA in place?

[Isiolia]

How much time have you spent on the beta? I would like to hear more about the game in general.

There have yet to be beta events sans NDA AFAIK. Otherwise I'm sure some of us would be illustrating things more concretely >_>;

[ringthree]

There have yet to be beta events sans NDA AFAIK. Otherwise I'm sure some of us would be illustrating things more concretely >_>;

So, you are just repeating things I have already read about the game? Then we are just looking at differences in interpretation of the same data.

I don't want to say "I figured" but I figured. The roleless system is no different than SWTOR's "innovative" story-telling, or WARs "innovative" PvP, or... etc. Icing on the cake, as I said.

Blizzard has iterated the genre to the point that it is very hard for other companies to bet it at it's own game. I understand that GW2 is trying to break the mold and maybe it will, but it just seems like more iteration on Blizzards idea rather than something new. While I agree with Lordender, that we need something new, and maybe something that harkens back to a different era, and that would be good, I just don't think that GW2 does that yet.

[Qalbert]

I'm just saying you seem awfully mad about a game you haven't played and don't seem to understand. You came in, specifically called out the game, and made a huge negative statement about it. Blindly hating something is an emotional investment too.

[ringthree]

I'm just saying you seem awfully mad about a game you haven't played and don't seem to understand. You came in, specifically called out the game, and made a huge negative statement about it. Blindly hating something is an emotional investment too.

Woah there Mr. Sensitive. LOL

I was leveling a criticism about GW2, and WoW, but also the genre in general. I don't blindly hate GW2, I have already signed up for the beta *crosses fingers*, and I have consumed quite a bit of information about the game as a whole. I like the game. I just don't think it's good for the genre or for MMO development. It's just the next hyped up thing. Will it be good? Yeah, definitely. Will it live up to the hype? No, nothing will. And I just don't want to keep wasting money on iterative MMOs.

I don't see how "GW2 is the antithesis of proper MMO development" translates to "GW2 SUXXORS DOOD!!!1!1". Perhaps I should qualify my statement that I was talking about the process of developing MMO's and the genre, and not GW2's actual development team, but I didn't think I needed to explain things in such layman's terms given the nature of the topic of this thread. Perhaps I will use smaller words and easier concepts with you in the future.

There are lots of good iterative games. I just think this genre needs something new to thrive or it will live in WoWs shadow for a lot longer.

Perhaps you should consider avoiding taking statements about games that you like with such emotional investment. A dispassionate look at the process is helpful for understanding why you may or may not like a game in the future.

[Qalbert]

I'm just saying calling something "the antithesis of proper development" seems like an unnecessarily harsh tone, and makes you look pretty mad.

[Rhyis.]

The hype train for GW2 is rolling, but at the end of the day its just a tweak on WoW's style, and that probably won't be that successful.

The game is more like Monster Hunter then it is WoW.

Dodge rolls are such a simple addition to any RPG, and I've never understood why games rarely put them in. It drastically increases the skill level of any fight encounter, and by extension your enjoyment level. Tank and spank is a bad formulaic design. Better to have your players need to actually dodge to avoid damage, not a mathematical equation that the game decides for you. It makes the gameplay feel more fluid and dynamic.