What might the next generation MMO look like?Follow

I ended up on one of the SOE official forums

That likely explains a great deal of how they went from crushing dominating market share to third rate players in a few short years.

I posted this somewhere else, but it's relevant. It's only part of it so it may be a bit convoluted:

Well, I honestly don't know anything about UO, but I'll try to address your thoughts otherwise.



The idea is somewhat like that; however, (and keeping in mind I don't know about UO) the intent is that you don't worry about capping skills, you just naturally become stronger as you go. In other words, there is little incentive to intentionally get out there and grind (at least, for the most part) because you can actually get grind-like results just from doing quests and the like. As for diminishing returns the higher you go, only to a small extent. Actually depending on your race you would have different growth rates for different stats.

But you have to keep in mind, I'm not talking about your bare bones stats like strength, magic, and speed. There would be hundreds, eventually thousands of abilities and stats, each becoming stronger through repeated use as well as training quests. You want to make an ice-based ranged user who's fast on his feet? If that's what you use, that's what you'll get.

Another aspect to deter people from grinding is that there is really no advantage to being stronger as far as personal growth goes, except that your chances of victory will naturally depend on your abilities. For example, let's say that you've been a dedicated player for a year, and you want to play with your friend who just picked up the game. If you take your friend to an area where you can solo, they'll get the same growth rates as they would in a newbie area, they'll just have a greater risk of dying. So if you want to party with someone, there's really no disadvantage to letting them tag along for either you or themselves (with few exceptions, like say they wanted to train as a tank but the enemies you fight will one-shot them-- it's for that reason you do grow slightly faster the lower you are)




That depends on to what extent you want to know if I know, because as far as programming goes, I dropped out of my first C++ class, so no, unfortunately I have no programming skills. I'm just an architect. As for how it would function, now that I can divulge. As I mentioned, the idea is not to cap the players' growth, but also not to set a cap that they can see but is just insanely difficult to reach-- more like, there is effectively no cap. If you were to repeat the same action over and over nonstop for two years let's say, then maybe the math would allow you to cap it. It would be so unrealistic to cap, no one would even try, but at the same time, you would still make observable progress. The trick here is that people won't be dwelling on that numerical stat that's recorded on their character anyway, because many of the better abilities will require actual skill to use optimally.

Ok, skipping ahead a bit. Let's say that you want to cast a water materialization spell to suffocate your opponent. Now, you'll have to hit your macro, or whatever the trigger for the spell will be, and now a small diagram will appear on your target, in the shape of a wave (just as an example). To execute the spell optimally, you need to trace the shape of the wave with your mouse. The spell will work even if you just draw a straight line, but to maximize your damage, you want to be as close as possible, and the better you do, the more growth you get. This is just one of many ways in which abilities would be made to depend on something other than your stats. Now do you really have time to worry about grinding out stats when your performance depends more importantly upon your execution? No, now you're not doing the same boring task over and over to improve your character, you're actually pushing YOURSELF to get better at something.

Of course, with a system like this, updating new content that grows in challenge with the playerbases' progress is paramount. Essentially, there will always be monsters and tasks in the game that are too hard for anyone to defeat. By the time they can overcome those obstacles, new ones are added that again the playerbase cannot defeat.

Heh, that was more than I wanted to share without getting paid for it, but at this point I'd just be satisfied if someone would make my vision a reality, even if no money were involved. Any questions or if you think you may have found a flaw in my design, I'm happy to address it.

I'm sorry. Did I ever state that this had never been attempted before?

Moron.



Care to elaborate on that? Exactly how is dynamic content with unique randomly generated quests/tasks that change based on the nature of another randomly generated threat more exploitable then static content in which every single player can figure out the "best" quests to do and just do them over and over?

Cause I'm not getting that. See. There's a reason everyone does the Creator task in EQ's DoN expansion. Best bang for the buck. There's a reason why 99% of the content in EQ (for example) is completely ignored. Same deal. Static content allows players to quickly realize which quests/mobs/zones are "best". And once they do that, they'll pretty much only hunt/quest/raid in those zones.

Worse, the developers know this, and they also know that if the new content they introduce doesn't match up, the players wont play it (and wont buy the expansion). This factor is largely responsible for the mudflation most games experience over time. Each new expansion has to intruduce "better" rewards for the player's time, or the players wont bother.

All of this occurs because of the focus most MMORPGs have on reward over time. That very dynamic is what causes most of the problems most games run into. Players don't play for immersive content. They play to get the "best" gear, and play the "best" class or power combination. My suggestion involves removing those things. Players (presumably) would play for the content. They'd do quests because they are part of a storyline. They want to see how the story progresses. They want to see what happens next. I'm not suggesting that my ideas are the perfect way to achieve that. I *am* saying that if a game could be built that achieved those goals, I'd play it and never look back. By removing levels, and "per-kill" based experience systems, you remove the need/desire to grind. By removing static content, you remove the tendency for players to focus on just "the best" content, and remove the need for expansions to add "better" content. Heaven forbid that new content simply be about more storyline possibilities and new quest constructs rather then "phat lewt!"...




Only because you are stuck in the mindset that the entire purpose of playing is to build up your character(s). You're judging this idea based on the assumption that we're playing in a game that does not have those other things I've been talking about. Remove them entirely and the player plays for the fun of playing, not purely because of any single character.

You may think this is odd, but I don't. Remember, the scale I'd set would still give the average character a 5-6 year lifespan. How many players actually stick out that much time playing a game? And if they do? So what? You retire that old character and start some new ones. Happens all the time. I've been playing in a rpg in which we use normal aging rules for decades. I've had tons of characters life, retire, grow old and die. Believe it or not, it works just fine. You find new characters that interest you more. You don't get stuck thinking "I've got to make this the most uber character possible!!!".

In short, it's a "role playing" game. Not "play one mighty character" game. You aren't playing yourself. You're playing a role. You may even be playing multiple roles. Frankly, it gets boring playing the same characters over and over. Fresh characters and fresh ideas breathe new life into a game. Games that don't do this tend to stagnate and die...

****

Go on. You're itching to post 3,000 words that 'attempting' something isn't the same as it 'appearing'. Make yourself look even more of an cnut

Ah... So if I were to say that I thought good game should include the ability for players to make choices that affect their success, this means that I believe that no game has included these features?

I was listing off a set of thing I believe that next gen MMORPGs should have. Some are "new ideas". Some are things that have been tried (with varying degrees of success). I'm not sure why you're assuming anything other then that this is a list of things I'd like to see in future games. Period.

Sheesh. You guys just look for thing to ***** about now?



Look. The OP asked people to post what they'd like to see in a game. So I posted a list of things I'd like to see in a game.

You're free to disagree if you want. Those are the things I'd like to see. Emphasis on "me".

Now if you'd care to be constructive instead of a nitwit who can't do anything but ******* all over other's posts, how about you show us your brilliance and come up with your own list of things?

It took you how many years to figure this out?