What comes next for MMORPGs?

Yeah me too! I loved in GuildWars how there were constant mini movies and it actually had your toon talking and wearing the items they possessed. It was fantastic for moving along the story and I always looked forward to them. That added SO much to the immersion.
 
Okay, I realize I have off-topicked this thread. So far, this thread is about what we think MMOs should do with their gameplay, not, what big-name companies already are. So, to weigh in:

No Dehumanizing End-game. Blizzard's biggest pitfall is that at levels 60, 70, and now 80, end-game play is roughly all about being a cog in a big machine. If you are a power-gamer, your goal is to be the best cog that you can be. So you grind up upgrades. Then you join other players in a big raiding machine.

I know that that's not all WoW is (I've played it for 6 years now,) but a player who doesn't go for "best in slot" gear and enchants and gems and doesn't follow the strats becomes more-or-less a "faulty cog." And World Firsts always end up going to the team that behaves most like a well-oiled machine.

Solutions? I'm not sure. Definitely I would prefer that World Firsts go to the more-or-less skilled rather than anyone and everyone who pays their shot. But I would prefer if endgame allowed for more personal humanity, and less faceless role-filling mechanical dehumanization.

More later... need to run.
 
Next gen Factions/Races/Classes I'm not 100% against having classes. I know that many games have already tried the whole "what you use you get good at" thing (Dungeon Siege, for instance) -- however, it is my opinion that this actually aggravates the problem that I have with classes, races, and factions...

In my own opinion, classes, races, and factions in games like "World of Warcraft" are far too similar. In many ways this breaks lore and minimizes a lot of repeatability: a player essentially plays the same way if he is an Alliance Paladin or a Horde Warlock (using WoW as an example):

Class: While Warlocks have pets, life drain powers, and ranged powers, and Paladins have melee powers, buffs, and healing, essentially both classes play the same game -- they utilize special attacks and gear to defeat masses of enemies and complete hundreds of quests, gaining XP and gear in the process, often teaming up with other classes to do this more efficiently.

Races: Other than a start point and a very minor difference, all the races in World of Warcraft are the same -- any differences other than the three "racials" are purely cosmetic. Night Elves are supposed to have an aversion to magic (other than nature magic,) but you'll notice that you can still be a Night Elf Shadow Priest.

Factions: So, the Alliance is supposed to be a team of civilized, technologically superior, and diplomatically-minded races, while the Horde is supposed to be a team of noble savages with a dark side. But, essentially, they all play the same.


I like the idea of "Lore-based gameplay" where the goals, mechanics, rewards, and paths to supremacy for each team are different, and are set up to encourage players to play in ways that work with that team's lore.

Examples:
A race of fanatics who value martyrdom for "the greater good" don't make much sense playing like the characters in WoW, because they don't shy away from death. I'd suggest giving no XP or gear upgrades in the field, but give them the ability to collect "medals of valor" for distinguished service and, even more importantly, for meaningful deaths. After the player has died, they can spend any medals that they have, enabling him or her to return as a new, more powerful character when he or she respawns.

A race based on survival (the last of their kind type deal) might be made to reward players based on how long they have lasted since their last death, unlocking more upgrades and powers as the player progresses. Imagine playing WoW without levels or XP, but with you gaining a talent point each hour since you last died. Of course, a system like this would only work with some sort of a milestone system -- nobody wants to go back to "level 1" just because they died.

A race of devourers could gain power based on the amount of fertile land that they control for a given amount of time.

Of course, the problem with this approach is an immense balance headache. Maybe some day, but right now it would be worse than trying to balance PVP and PVE.
 
What I'd like to see is an MMO where there is no "best spec" because your talents effect and combo up with other players, and where there is a certain amount of randomness to what you can and cannot put talent points in. But, once again, balancing nightmare.
 
because your talents effect and combo up with other players
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what do you mean by this? CoE, imp scorch / WC / ISB / Misery are examples of talents that magnify other players damage. Good luck getting a lock to actually throw CoE up for you though :(
 
XionTawa said:
Unfortunately this is what pulled me away from WoW...
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To be fair, I've yet to play a MMO that didn't suffer from that key flaw. WoW just catches more flak because it's more popular.
 
Tek7 said:
To be fair, I've yet to play a MMO that didn't suffer from that key flaw. WoW just catches more flak because it's more popular.
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Out of the many many many MMOs I have played...EQ2 is really good about not doing that...and the reason I mention WoW is that Blizz seems to speed up leveling with every patch...killing the journey more and more...
 
XionTawa said:
Out of the many many many MMOs I have played...EQ2 is really good about not doing that...and the reason I mention WoW is that Blizz seems to speed up leveling with every patch...killing the journey more and more...
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The only real way to fix that is:

- Remove leveling completely as traditional MMOs see it.
- Make the story nonlinear, so players can play together no matter how long they have played. This of course makes the world static unless you make it variable based on some other system (like PvP).

Thus a player would be compelled to play for the story, BUT there is no real motivation keep playing as you wouldn't really advance.

What they could do is keep adding clothes, or other trophies for players to unlock, ala little big planet. Other options could be to unlock professions, ala classes. But that might end up just being another grindfest to unlock them.
 
nattyg said:
what do you mean by this? CoE, imp scorch / WC / ISB / Misery are examples of talents that magnify other players damage.
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What I had in mind (Warning! Really hard to balance up ahead!) is less "talents that effect other players" and more "talents that define other players." What if, rather than simply giving "+5% crit with shadow spells" with Improved Shadow Bolt, you had talents that did something like "Direct damage fire spells cast by your allies now leave a 5 second damage-over-time 5yard wide AOE"? Or "Friendly mages and priests now have access to the 'Shadow Volley' spell." Right now, WoW talents are for you yourself and a little benefit for others -- what if they benefited others primarily?

nattyg said:
Good luck getting a lock to actually throw CoE up for you though :(
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Guilty as charged. I do have it, and I would throw it up in a raid... but usually don't.
 
Those are interesting ideas (although I don't like the two specific instances you referenced because I just shudder at the thought of my spells doing AoE without my input ;) ). Perhaps part of why this isn't in place is the notion of "bring the player, not the class". While that behavior still happens to a certain extent, I don't think they'd be moving to a model that would essentially allow someone that's totally inept, but spec'd a particular way, priority in a raid over someone who's say purely DPS and excellent at their class.
 
1.) Story.

The fate of people, not the fate of the world.
The world is to big to comprehend, the fate of your friends/group/party hits closer to home and come on people, lets have small brake or changes. You kill guy A, you need to go to guy B.
Expensive, yes, but if done right, this path can make it seem like there is tons of story modes, while keeping it cheep.
Branching linear storyline is how to go.

2.) Location.

Fantasy. I love fantasy...when it's done right. I'm not talking about just the generic magic/swords/magic green glowing forest/lava island. I'm talking about Glass Forests, Citys in the air, Mountins with REAL views or the land you traverse and BEYOND.
Ridges that are so tall you are above the clouds so you look down and you see clouds, beautiful white puffy clouds, lush green jungles with hills and mountains to climb and overlook and to feel like your an explorer from 1850's, polar regions with snowstorm you can get cought in and lost, savannas that go further than the eye can see with no end at all knowing somewhere there is some small town that has yet to be discovered in the game, real tropical islands with real beaches and clear water like you would see on an advertising commercial, and other unnatural sea like materials (metal that glistens in the sun...). Deserts where you feel out in the wild under the stars, alone, not knowing where your path takes you, cliffs with huge cities built into them, ruins that ascend into the sky, cities or fire (yes, the burning kind, like in the earth, and it all burns with a real looking flame). Sci-Fi themed areas that are just mind blowing awesome.
You know area's that make you stop and say "no way..." or "beautiful..." and take your breath away! It's not an RPG if you can't escape the real world for a bit into something much grander. It needs to be fun to explore, and exciting, interesting. Where it makes you WANT to explore the world. It has to be a huge one, one so big you feel like your exploring unexplored area.

3.) Weather
Weather is important. It could be area based, world based. It could be run on an clock, randomly, so that at 10:00 am it could be sunny, but by 2:00 pm it could storming and tornado's. It would all be random based for random time. All weather conditions: sandstorms, blizzards, rain, tornado's, hurricanes, floods that could block paths, along with possible some dangerous conditions such as hail, which could cause certain conditions, or heat wave that causes certain conditions. The reward for times where conditions are extreme could be better drops. You think of it, it would be done, even some for the area’s the game makes up, like a metal sea, Sci-Fi world stuff.
While the certain conditions weather would be much harder to implement, the others can no problem. Random weather can run on a random clock. Not to hard to put into practice.
Night/day. Enough said with that.

4.) Weapons
Weapons, everyone loves weapons. Brake free from the basic MMO's by getting intersting, what about primitive guns, whips, objects to be thrown, crossbows, make stuff up, be creative, spread your wings and brake some ground. I don't think anyone will mind an MMO that has a fantasy alternate world, and primitive guns with that.

5.) Grinding
I'll be blunt:
Worse.
Idea.
Ever.
I think it was incorporated just to make gamers angry. No one likes doing the same thing 50 times just to get 1/100th of what you need to do. Throwing grinding out we all got to admit that being level 100 just sounds cool, even level 300, or even 500.
Get rid of grinding. Yes, there needs to be some kind of way to prevent super leveling, but what about hard quests. Guild Wars does a great job with quests, it's 'go to point a, then to point b, then back to a, then back to b, then to c, then to d, then to a and so on.' That's grinding. Maybe do some quests, you some monsters you can kill to gain items to turn in for XP. GW2 said they were gonna have some kind of system where you can group with someone and they can take you as a side kick or something and you can temporary gain near a level. Great Idea.
If you had some way to gain 12,000 XP from varrious bosses that varies in levels to gain large amount of XP, grinding would be cut greatly. Think about it. Need 900,000 XP to go from level 99-100, killing a boss that would drop an item that you could gain 50,000 would be a nice way to level up. You could regulate this to some extreme by saying it only dropped it for your character every 15-30 minutes or what ever. These items would have extra value as they can be sold and turned in only at a certain level to prevent mass leveling, and only done so every 15-30 minutes per item. Maybe some reward to leveling in increments of 50 or so would be nice. Some elite attack move or something.
Being level 700 sounds sick and when you arn't always grinding the same area/quest/boss (because each vary in level and location) all the time.
I think it would all be cool to say we slayed a level 1000 monster by our self.

6.) Equipable items
Items would be on your character. Armor, tatoo's, weapons. Maybe if your in combat for a long time, your armor could show wear and tear. Maybe just as a graphics choice. It would return when you talk to an armor trader or so that way you can return to a town and just make it so it appears to be held togeather with just the seams. Also having them show up in cutsceans would be awesome. If someone decks out their character to a ridiculous degree, shouldn't they see them that way in a cutscean. Guild Wars hit this spot on!

7.) 2 Options on worlds
Sometime meeting friends at a certain location outside a town is the way to go, maybe for a healer, a tank, support, or to have someone already busy to join you later. A mass open world causes it's own problems too. Some things more so than other. Such as effects within the world. Environmental changes in geography being one. You can make some epic things happen with environmental changes.
A world generated for you and your team (like Guild Wars). This could be used for a more private party, no crowding in on monsters, environmental geography could happen for certain quests, where this would be the only action possible.
I once made an idea for how this could mesh perfectly into the game world, so it's possible, I just don't remember how.

8.) Risk/Rewards
To prevent elitists, if you take such a level character a certain percent lower, the chances of rare drops increase by a certain percent. This way it will be a gamble to take someone along with a lower level, but the risk/reward thing must pay off a good 75% or more to make it worth it.

9.) Skills
Magic and all is cool and fun. Attack skills too. But there is a lot of ground to be gained here in this field. There are many people would love to see something else revolutionary such as NPC control, where a risk/reward thingy would happen, such as losing control of your character to a computer controlled thingy with increased damage. Computer controlled for 10 or 15 seconds can get you killed, but if it can increase your skills by 25% it might be worth the risk. Maybe certain objects in the environment can be moved or used as weapons. In a cave and you got a stalactite on the ceiling, you cause it to fall on something. Maybe someone who can only use items, any, but some are only allowed to be used for that class.

10.) Customization
To be able to customize your character to a large set of preset options, as well as being able to recreate your character through the same presets. No one wants to loose their favorite character because you regret you made him/her bald.

11.) Dungeons
Dungeons that aren’t repetitive by using various traps/groups of enemies in various locations, the layout possibly changing, the look and style.

12.) Homes.
Custom housing: not just the typical building or small area, but you can grab some land and build. Not just on the ground, but in tree’s, underground, in cliffs, in caves, in the sky. You just find some ground/location anywhere you want in the massive world and choose an option to build and the game would tell you what you have to work with.
On trees you would need a support for a big room being a tree, maybe some bridges, some kind of pulley or ladder to get up.
In cliffs, you can have things that are both inside and suspended outside the cliffs.
These homes could store many things, and only your house would be visible to you unless you decided to let other people see it. The homes could store storage, bedroom, kitchen, den, garage (if you want to throw some kind of cool transportation in there), any thing you would want. You could have multiple houses.
To balance some of these things, each room you would add would cost you, but it wouldn’t be super expensive to fill a house with what you want where you want if the house had 6 rooms. A house idea done right would be fun.

13.) Trophies
If someone slays that level 400 monster by them self, shouldn’t they have a right to show it off as bragging rights? If someone did something extraordinary shouldn’t they have a right to show it off?
Trophies could be collectible items, armor, things in your house, titles, or anything else.

14.) Danger Area’s
Different from elite dungeons, these are area’s where the reward is huge, but the risk just as big. These area’s can hold random effects that are unknown until you enter, being either weather or some kind conditioning. Paths can change, limited visability, and monsters can range range 100’s of levels above what the warning says. The only way out is to exit through another exit or to finish it. Logging off could prove fatal as it would not log you out for a certain time afterwards. Elite dungeons would be the same thing, same level monsters, same quests. Danger area’s would vary in all things except overall theme of the location.

I think these would brake the MMORPG build, and still be different and fun.
 
1.) Story.
I like this. The new Star Wars rumors to be something like this, and I hope it catches on. If not really, see my note on grinding.

2.) Location.
I agree. I don't care what genre it is, show me something new and interesting. I loved the African theme in GW: Nightfall because I hadn't seen anything quite like it before (nor have I really since). Of course, everything depends upon the art style involved, but in a full blown world there's room for pretty much anything. One of my biggest wishes was that there would be a town/outpost/whatever with the same look as the Nexus dungeon in WoTLK. Seriously people, its a fantasy world lets throw in some towns that make people just stop and go: whoah.


3.) Weather
Weather is important. Agreed, however it must be fairly regulated because having a blizzard in the middle of a Sahara-esq desert doesn't make sense. I think a lot if not most MMOs have some sort of weather system that works pretty decently. I'm not sure about the severe weather conditions though. It would probably work in instances, but I'm not sure I would appreciate what the developers are trying to accomplish if I've gotta wait 30 minutes or so to fight this tough mob without suffering a debuff.


4.) Weapons
I think they are doing a pretty decent job, and again it boils down to the direction the developers wish to take. Some of the stuff in WoW is just out there, whereas GW has a more 'realistic' feel.

5.) Grinding
Agreed. Grinding sucks. However, there are things people consider grinding and others don't. Title farming in GW is a prime example. Endgame gearing in WoW is another. Everyone agrees there needs to be less grind, but nobody really knows how to do so because few can agree on what it is.
The discussion of grind inevitably feeds into a discussion of leveling because that's where the subject most often appears. I'll address this too. I think there should be a level cap that is rather low (between 20-50 IMO) so time isn't wasted on developing areas people will only see on their way to the endgame content. I think a nifty idea would be to cap the attribute gains at X level, but allow levels to continue indefinitely. This way people will know if you've spent years on the character or whatever.


6.) Equipable items
Armor wear would be hard to implement. And the more I think about it the harder it gets. Think of the time it takes to create just one of the thousands upon thousands of pieces of whatever in an average MMO. Now multiply that by how many iterations you want the pieces to go through. Its really the art that takes the longest, the stats are all just math.
As graphics improve we will probably see much more of the in-game cutscenes, I'm sure.

7.) 2 Options on worlds
Not exactly sure what you mean here by environmental changes. I know GW2 is trying to mesh its instanced game world with a persistent one, so people can hopefully have the best of both. Who knows how that'll work out.

8.) Risk/Rewards
Interesting Idea.

9.) Skills
Skills are cool, with many different ways to implement them. I really enjoyed the WAR system (from what I played of it during beta), and I like the having only X number of skills available to be swapped at any time idea as well. GW is of course the master at this.

I don't know what you mean by NPC control. If it means making things squad based, I'm aaaallll for it. It would be the only logical way to go in the upcoming 40k MMO in my opinion. :p

10.) Customization
This is where I don't mind microtransactions. I do love being able to do some serious customization to my character, and a reason I'm looking forward to DDO going F2P. Seriously, if any MMO is going to have it, D&D Online had better be the one...

11.) Dungeons
Dungeon design is serious business and something that takes a good deal of effort to pull off. A good dungeon has to be balanced to the number and skill level of the people going in, have an intriguing environment, and some unique facet that makes it memorable.

12.) Homes.
I used to be against the idea of a personal 'place' in the world, but with the leaps made in phasing technology, I think it would be a great thing to have, if only because it would be fairly interesting. If done right people would put a TON of effort into their place, as they do in title and achievement grinding.

13.) Trophies
Most MMOs I've played have something like this already.

14.) Danger Areas
I think a ton could be gained from borrowing EvE's layered security system. Go out into some pirate filled south seas, and its a free for all. home capitals, not at all. It would add quite a bit to the feel of the areas.
 
Story has the potential to replace or mitigate grinding. Reputation could be adjusted by the choices that you make as you play. "Grinding" could be a punishment for ticking off a rep team by your choices. Or you can make reputation only change on story.

Moreover, I am of the opinion that if your story mode is good enough, you can pretty much dispense with leveling altogether.
 
Current technology relies heavily upon sound and visual stimulation to understand what is going on. Sound effects quickly become a wash of noise when too much activity is taking place (particularly when you factor in that most libraries don't follow the real world in accuracy at all, instead choosing the maximize the volume for each effect). While visual design is hard to fit a ton of objects in due to limited real estate (usually a viewport is 60-90 degrees wide, while a normal human has over 190 degrees). The more cruft you throw in, the harder it will be for the player to focus in on their objective vs situational awareness. For instance when healing in certain games it requires to to watch the health bars like a hawk, and hovering over tiny icons indicating status ailments because there is little to no visual effect, which leaves you open to relatively preventable situations had the developers not hated their player base.

Developers seem to have forgotten that warfare is founded on relatively simple principles. For instance you can suppress an enemy with fire and kill them off relatively easily by pinning them on their flank. It doesn't matter if you are using an M4 or an HK416, well aside from the fact that one explodes when wet. Currently there is little to no benefit from using strategy in combat, instead it is heavily reliant upon stats and luck.
 
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VK's posting about sound is very true. Skill in World of Warcraft's PVP is almost completely dependent on your ability to translate sounds into awareness of what is going on around you. If you can't do that (due to failure of your hardware, failure on Blizzard's part, failure of your own senses, or "strategic" sound barrages,) you quickly find yourself overwhelmed and owned.

Something that happens to me on a regular basis.
 
I have never made that correlation. I have almost always been a mediocre PVPer in WoW and I have always had my sound off in favor of vent or music.

Interesting.
 
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