What might the next generation MMO look like?Follow

Girl or guy?

That would be gender, try to pay attention!

Thanks... I got that. The question was "of whom"? The eye shot, the people talking, me, the hosts, etc.

So I'll answer all - The eye shot: My daughter, the people talking, Luxx: Male, Leonai: Female(me), Zanadi: Female

*chuckles* I'm doin' great. Ty for asking

Is there really any other kind of porno music?

Anytime. See how nicely I handled that one? Watch this.


So Leonai, welcome to =4

God i hope not, i play PC's not consolses for a reason, i play games that engage my brain not requires me to do a workout.

Can you imagine trying to do a 6 hour raid as a main tank striking every blow?

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

EQ2 and COH/COV allready have this.




God, I hope not. That is one of the key differences between an MMO and a play alone game.

"You beat such and such Boss Mob, huh? How many times did you have to restart from your last save?"

vs.

"WoW! You beat such and such Boss Mob!? I heard that requires at least two full raid groups and a least 3 hours just to reach him!"

This is different then normal, how? ;)



Seriously though, there have been a number of ideas that I've always thought would work well for MMOs and which would make them more totally immersive then most of the current crop.

- Dynamic economy. Yeah. This one's been hashed out for a long time. And it's really hard to do. And it's potentially exploitable if not done correctly. However, I still feel that it's something that *should* appear. Right now, games create artificial economies, typically based on timesinks and tradeskills of some sort. However, real economies don't work that way. Things have value based on laws of supply and demand. This can be difficult to implement due to the nature of MMO's (characters tend to introduce "new stuff" into the economy at a rate that isn't supported by real life either).

I'd like to see a game however that actually had a dedicated "world engine" that did nothing in terms of dealing directly with the players, but instead kept the world operating. It should track things like raw materials. Basically everything that exists in the world and in what degrees. Items dropping from mobs (for example) should not be random based on the spawn/kill rate of that mob. It should have those items because it's logical and reasonable for it to have them. So if the local economy says that you've got lots of materials for making weapons and armor (and perhaps magical variants of those), then perhaps that named bad guy will have some nice gear. But if the region is impoverished, how on earth is he running around with some uber item that he'd never be able to acquire?

This would require designing the game around this idea, but IMO, it's doable. I recall being somewhat disappointed when I first started playing EQ. I travelled down into the mines of Kaladim, figuring that I should be able to buy gemstones there and then sell them in a far away place and make some money. Obviously, that didn't work, but it would be great if a game world *did* allow that to work (obviously requiring some risk or time expenditure in order to justify the profit).


- Dynamic "threats". I've long held the idea that the bad guys in MMO's are way to static. MobX always spawns in dungeonY. Usually in the same place and with the same reward for killing him. More recent games have gone to instanced zones and encounters, but that's still not much different (and in fact make the whole economic issue worse).

This is similar to the first. The world engine constantly keeps track of regions of the world. Some are settled areas (safe zones, towns, etc). But the rest should have some "threats" that exist in the area. Basically, the idea is to constantly have some bad guys looming out there. Some of them are minor, but some may become major. They'll in turn generate a region of control that they've influenced. The idea is that when there's a "gap" in the map, the engine fills it with a new randomly generated threat (with tons of templates available to keep things sufficiently natural feeling).

These threats would then affect the world around them *and* whatever quests are available. So say the orc king has risen to power in the mountains to the west. The areas around there may start to see more orcs appear. They may conduct raids on villages on the outskirts of civilization. This will result in quests appearing in the nearby towns and their people want adventurers to help with this new orcish threat. These could be as simple as "carry this shipment of valuable tradegoods through the danger zone", to "OMG! The prince has been kidnapped by evil orcish raiders...".


The idea is to allow the world to have an ebb and flow that follows logically from those basic threats. Obviously, the dynamic economy would also be impacted. Depending on the game world size, there could be a number of threats out there at any given time, as well as perhaps "normal" threats (things that always tend to live in various areas of the world and aren't friendly to the good guys).

The idea is that as the threat grows, the impact of that threat grows, and the number and difficulty of quests and tasks related to that threat grows. Eventually, various groups of players can gain quests that will defeat the threat itself. Completion of quests against the threat will progress the "storyline" of that threat. Eventually, assuming they succeed, then the threat is eliminated, and the game world is free to create another one in the same general vicinity (but maybe this time it's the zombie master or something...).


- "Real" timeline. As in things change over time. People age. They die. Yup. Even characters. It's quite possible to set a time scale for a game that allows for reasonable (yet realistic) rates of travel (especially if you assume time compression when traveling and time expansion when fighting), while being set with realistic age limits and still giving players plenty of time to play their characters. My idea is that time moves even if you aren't playing. So your characters age and gain experience/skill constantly, not just when you're playing them. Obviously, they aren't completing quests and gathering prestige and powerful magic items while you're offline, but they could be doing "normal" stuff within their profession/skillset and earn some basic coin and skill as a result.

Part of the concept behind this comes from my favorite pencil and paper RPG: RuneQuest. That game is purely skill based. It also has a system for occupations and skill gain over time. So if you don't play a character for a few game years, that character will get better (and older). This makes a realistic aging system possible. I'd love to see the same thing in a MMORPG.

And I don't think it would be unworkable. I know that many people will argue that it sucks to have characters grow old and die, but the reality is that if you set say an 8:1 ratio of time (which is not far off for an online game), it would take over 5 and a half years for a young character to reach age 50. That's not too ridiculous.


- Skill based system. Ok. Maybe you figured it out from my earlier statements. I'm a big fan of "good" skill based systems. It's very workable, even in an automated environment. In skill based systems, instead of an arbitrary number next to the bad guy determining how dangerous he is, it's purely about how skilled they are and what sort of weapons/armor/magic they have. This ends up being much much more realistic. You also don't need artificial reasons for why that naked orc is so much of a threat. Well. If he's naked, he probably isn't a threat. But then you don't get much for killing him. If he's armed and has magic and is reasonably skilled, he is a threat (but perhaps grants more reward as well).

Part of the assumption here is that most of the things around the world are pretty low skill and low geared. Getting assigned tasks/quests would put you into instanced events/dungeons scaled to the "level" of your group. The idea is to simulate the methodology of a classic tabletop RPG. A group of people set off on a quest to do something. Instead of sitting in a zone camping a spot and killing everything around. You set off on a task which is scripted and scaled to the group (just as a GM might do). The big difference between this an even existing instanced stuff is that your quest actually has an impact on the storyline of the world itself. Your characters become part of the story, not just a group of people defeating irrelevant NPCs. And since the given threat actually disappears from the world when defeated, it's a "real" effect.

IMO, skill based systems work very well for that since you're not concerned so much with grinding out experience, but simply using a variety of skills while accomplishing a task/quest. Tailor the game system such that the players will want to do those things instead, and they will do them. In most games, the players are constantly in a fight between choosing storyline and levels. Rarely do those actually work together. By eliminating the level focus, you eliminate that problem.


I could elaborate even more on this, but I'm sure most people's eyes are already glazed over by now... ;)

Wow, I just read and dug a gbaji post all the way through.

Have you paid any attention to Darkfall? There's speculation that the entire thing is vaporware, but it aims to deliver at least the economy and skill-based system you described closer than any MMO I've read about. I like the aging idea, too, but more as a means to limit the need for expansions to become ever more uber and thus ruin older content through mudflation.

Edit: Oops, Darkfall also aims to have dynamic spawns, so that when you hunt a certain species in one area they will migrate to a new area where the adventurers aren't fUcking with them as much.


Edited, Aug 20th 2007 4:49:54pm by Barkingturtle

Hmmmm... It does look pretty interesting.

Figured I'd elaborate a bit on the skills system I'd recommend. In RuneQuest, all abilities are skill based. The somewhat unique bit (and would still work perfectly in a computer game) is that they don't use skill points (which is just a replacement for experience points really). You get a skill increase chance every time you use a skill. However, there are 2 aspects that make it work:

1. You can only get one increase chance per "scene" (encounter/fight/whatever). So even if you fight 100 bad guys you'll still only get one skill chance in your weapon attack, one in your parry, maybe one with your missile weapon if you used it, dodge, etc... For non combat skills you can abstract a bit using time or keep the idea of a "scene" (divide up an instanced zone so each counts as a scene/encounter for example). So picking a lock will get you a skill increase chance. Picking 5 chests in a single room still only gets you one.

2. You only actually go up in skill level based on some time factor. In the earlier editions of the game, they simply had it occur once per game week. So if you got 5 increase chances, you could only go up once. Of course, you got 5 chances to go up (which increased the odds of gaining skill). Abstracting some kind of time system for skill increases would work pretty well IMO.


The whole point of this is to make "grinding" pointless. Your skills will go up as you use them, but can't go up faster then a set rate no matter what you do (ties into the whole "game time is real" idea). Getting into more fights might increase your odds of getting a skill increase, but not the overall possible rate. This encourages characters to be broader with their skills instead of super narrow. Also, it removes the need for the game engine to impose artificial restrictions (like skill caps). Also, it removes the distinction between level. You get a skill increase chance when fighting a wimpy goblin just as well as fighting that Demon-Lord guy.

The idea is to make the power level of the characters based on their skill and whatever gear/magic they've acquired, not an arbitrary number next to their names. The method to make this work is to remove any benefit from "grinding" anything. Doing a quest is just as good in terms of gaining skill as not (assuming theres "some" fighting involved). The only difference between fighting a horde of goblins and a single super powerful guy is the loot (goblins will probably have a bunch of junk you wont want to carry).

The other major bit (which ties into the economy) is also a carry-over from RuneQuest. Severe encumberance system. Let's face it. You really can't carry 8 backpacks with 3 full sets of armor and gear in them. You just can't. The encumberance system should be designed such that a typical character is limited to wearing one suit of armor (and may not be able to wear the heaviest ones), a couple weapons, and maybe a pack with some basic supplies. What this does is remove the benefit from "farming", while also removing the problems involved in allowing NPCs to have gear just like players do.

I've always found it ridiculous that a naked level 20 orc is a threat to a fully geared level 20 warrior. Strange that. But the whole reason that you can't have your orcs all wearing armor and carrying weapons (as they should be) is because then the characters would grab all the loot and sell it. This would "break" the economy. Well, if you make the weight problems realistic, then they can't carry that stuff off. New players can trivially obtain basic non-magical gear because virtually everything they fight will have *something* on them that's useful (though orc armor may be of low quality!).

This allows you to make mundane items relatively common and cheap. It doesn't break your economy because the assumption is that someone else will eventually come along and grab that stuff that you left rotting (hence the next round of orcs will also have some crappy but now bloodstained gear). The focus stops being on finding basic armor and weapons and gets on to why people play these games (quests, fame, and rare/magical stuff).

Let's face it. How many D&D groups carried out the mundane armor and weapons of their defeated foes? None, right? You pretty much carried coin and magical stuff. That's the way it should be IMO. But most MMORPGs have such poorly designed encumberance systems and poorly designed economic systems that they must ensure that NPCs are mostly naked in order to prevent farming of armor and weapons. It's an odd catch-22 since no one would carry the stuff if it wasn't so expensive (and therefore valuable), and it wouldn't need to be so expensive if it dropped of of every single mob.

Make the easy/mundane stuff "easy". I don't want my warrior spending the first years of his life just trying to find some basic chainmail armor...

Gbaji, more gaming and less politics, please!

I agree with a lot of what you wrote.

Except this:



It's the princess.

***.