Long-time idea for MMORPG

[Craig234]

Way back around 2000, playing EQ, I noticed how different the phases of MMORPG playing is, one about levelling (typically several months in EQ before expansions), the other the gameplay at max level. One was about chasing experience and grinding, the other was much more relaxing insofar as just doing what you wanted and going after gear.

I thought at the time, that MMORPG's of course have carrots to keep you playing, but I figured it'd be interesting to just take out level griding - start players at max level and leave them there, and have other carrots, from tradeskills to gear to 'flags' for clearing zones or bosses, and some questing.

One game that tried to do something along those lines was Guild Wars, for the multiplayer part. There might have been another I forget.

Anyway, just for discussion, I'd think there'd be a market for a game that let you skip the levelling grind and start out at 'high end content'.

Not that there's anything wrong with levelling, but the split seems strange - in paper D&D and single-player role-playing, it often seems you level throughout the game as part of the 'fun'. By the time you finish the module/game, you never hit a 'level cap' (usually) and then had different gameplay. So, I'm suggesting, try a game without it.

Just tossing it out for discussion.

 

[Maleficus]

The problem with MMO's is there is actually nothing to do and no purpose, the original purpose was SUPPOSED to be a continuous online story you can take part in(you know, the RPG part), that has never happened.

the 'grind' is the point of all MMO's on the market today, time -> 'skill', extend the amount of time it takes to get the gear -> more ez $$$$ from a bunch of suckers.

 

[GenHoth]

I'd go for it. I'd play WoW if I didn't have to do all the level up BS

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Maleficus
The problem with MMO's is there is actually nothing to do and no purpose, the original purpose was SUPPOSED to be a continuous online story you can take part in(you know, the RPG part), that has never happened.

the 'grind' is the point of all MMO's on the market today, time -> 'skill', extend the amount of time it takes to get the gear -> more ez $$$$ from a bunch of suckers.

As if this argument hasn't been done to death. :roll:

I actually don't mind leveling up new characters one bit. I play the game to play, if I didn't enjoy leveling up, I wouldn't play it.

 

[Piuc2020]

That very same reason is why I prefer single-player RPGs, you can progress through the game at your pace, play relaxed through it and actually enjoy the story and your character, it might not have the best stats or the best gear but it still feels like a very powerful character and I enjoy that.

It's not nice spending 4 hours killing blobs to go up one level just to see some kid with no life pass by you with a level 70 character, it's not an RPG, you are not role-playing anything since there is no story, you're just grinding and progressing very, VERY slowly.

Some games (like Diablo II) have similar grinding but it takes a week or two (playing moderately, for those b.net junkies, it takes them mere days to max their characters) to get a character to level 60 in Diablo II, you play a nice storyline, enjoy having a nice character and then you can play some more with it. You actually feel like your character means something, I know it sounds like something silly but I don't play RPGs to feel like an average joe (the whole point of an RPG is to role-play a different, powerful character, not your average geek on an orc avatar) and be punished for not studying the game 24/7, MMORPGs do just that, they are not fun for me.

The concept of a MMORPG is great in theory and if someone could pull it right it would be rather amazing but in practice it just doesn't work too well, I have tried about 10 MMORPGs in my life (including WoW) I didn't like one not even a little bit so now I'm permanently retired from them, but if people have their fun and feel like they got their $20/month worth then that's great, I don't judge people who play MMORPGs, I just don't like the genre.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Maleficus
The problem with MMO's is there is actually nothing to do and no purpose, the original purpose was SUPPOSED to be a continuous online story you can take part in(you know, the RPG part), that has never happened.

the 'grind' is the point of all MMO's on the market today, time -> 'skill', extend the amount of time it takes to get the gear -> more ez $$$$ from a bunch of suckers.

Actually, the original story arc for Asheron's Call fit the bill somewhat (far better than anything I've seen before or since). Monthly, well-communicated lore and story updates made it pretty engaging. The seasons changed (4 seasons, roughly every third update), and as the story progressed we saw and interacted with new monsters and npcs, with quests that fit exquisitely with the lore and evolving story. There were quests at several level tiers with rewards related to the story.

Then the lead writer (not sure of his title while at Turbine) behind the storyline left and it more or less went to crap. IIRC, the original story arc was for 30 months or something and I don't think nearly as much thought/planning was put into the followup story.

Stormwaltz - you've still got fans out here. Interesting side note, I just googled Stormwaltz to find one of his old interviews to link. Seems he is/was a writer at Bioware who works(ed?) on Mass Effect. That's two major storylines he's been involved with that I've been totally impressed by.

 

[PingSpike]

I agree with the OP. I sort of had a dream at one point to work on video games (but I gave it up since it pays for shit, has bad hours and I don't want to move away from my family where there's no job prospects for it) so I enjoy thinking of game ideas.

The business model for MMORPGs, IMO, detracts from their game design. They're popular because its fun to hang out with friends and play together in a world with lots of other people. But, it seems like the game is designed to keep you playing for massive amounts of time, not for you to enjoy that time. In order to keep you paying for months, they must provide vast amounts of content. There is no way to provide mass amounts of quality content...so large amount of crap is offered in its stead. They give you carrots to keep you going, which of course never end...and the design often separates you from people that you might want to play with but are lower level.

I kind of felt that the OPs idea, a relatively level playing field, would be best. Perhaps players could become more powerful...but not massively so. A 1st level player might be at a disadvantage, but would be perfectly capable of killing a high level character for instance. Armor and weapons are fun...but instead of going from "magic sword of +1 damage" to "magic sword of +2 damage" forever...why not have all the armors and weapons be basically balanced? Armor A is -1 magic damage, but armor B -1 sword damage...swords are better at X, axes on these...etc.

And finally...there are just two many players in the world. How many heroes can the world have? When there's 400 heroes for every shop keeper...its kind of hard to feel like an epic sword master saving the world from monsters. This of course would make it no longer a MMORPG...but why not have servers limited to a few hundred players with vast amounts of quality NPCs with decent AI to be the crappy players?

 

[tk149]

I actually prefer the leveling up part, and hate the "end game" - going on endless raids to just get more stuff.

 

[Ariste]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I agree with the OP. I sort of had a dream at one point to work on video games (but I gave it up since it pays for shit, has bad hours and I don't want to move away from my family where there's no job prospects for it) so I enjoy thinking of game ideas.

The business model for MMORPGs, IMO, detracts from their game design. They're popular because its fun to hang out with friends and play together in a world with lots of other people. But, it seems like the game is designed to keep you playing for massive amounts of time, not for you to enjoy that time. In order to keep you paying for months, they must provide vast amounts of content. There is no way to provide mass amounts of quality content...so large amount of crap is offered in its stead. They give you carrots to keep you going, which of course never end...and the design often separates you from people that you might want to play with but are lower level.

I kind of felt that the OPs idea, a relatively level playing field, would be best. Perhaps players could become more powerful...but not massively so. A 1st level player might be at a disadvantage, but would be perfectly capable of killing a high level character for instance. Armor and weapons are fun...but instead of going from "magic sword of +1 damage" to "magic sword of +2 damage" forever...why not have all the armors and weapons be basically balanced? Armor A is -1 magic damage, but armor B -1 sword damage...swords are better at X, axes on these...etc.

And finally...there are just two many players in the world. How many heroes can the world have? When there's 400 heroes for every shop keeper...its kind of hard to feel like an epic sword master saving the world from monsters. This of course would make it no longer a MMORPG...but why not have servers limited to a few hundred players with vast amounts of quality NPCs with decent AI to be the crappy players?

This would completely negate the purpose of an MMORPG. Would you want to play if, after six months leveling up a character, you were only just a little bit better than you were six months ago? With no prospects of improving? Why would anyone plan any type of RPG if his/her character was incapable of moving up in the world and only capable of moving sideways?

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Ariste

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I agree with the OP. I sort of had a dream at one point to work on video games (but I gave it up since it pays for shit, has bad hours and I don't want to move away from my family where there's no job prospects for it) so I enjoy thinking of game ideas.

The business model for MMORPGs, IMO, detracts from their game design. They're popular because its fun to hang out with friends and play together in a world with lots of other people. But, it seems like the game is designed to keep you playing for massive amounts of time, not for you to enjoy that time. In order to keep you paying for months, they must provide vast amounts of content. There is no way to provide mass amounts of quality content...so large amount of crap is offered in its stead. They give you carrots to keep you going, which of course never end...and the design often separates you from people that you might want to play with but are lower level.

I kind of felt that the OPs idea, a relatively level playing field, would be best. Perhaps players could become more powerful...but not massively so. A 1st level player might be at a disadvantage, but would be perfectly capable of killing a high level character for instance. Armor and weapons are fun...but instead of going from "magic sword of +1 damage" to "magic sword of +2 damage" forever...why not have all the armors and weapons be basically balanced? Armor A is -1 magic damage, but armor B -1 sword damage...swords are better at X, axes on these...etc.

And finally...there are just two many players in the world. How many heroes can the world have? When there's 400 heroes for every shop keeper...its kind of hard to feel like an epic sword master saving the world from monsters. This of course would make it no longer a MMORPG...but why not have servers limited to a few hundred players with vast amounts of quality NPCs with decent AI to be the crappy players?

This would completely negate the purpose of an MMORPG. Would you want to play if, after six months leveling up a character, you were only just a little bit better than you were six months ago? With no prospects of improving? Why would anyone plan any type of RPG if his/her character was incapable of moving up in the world and only capable of moving sideways?

Because the act of playing the game itself might actually be fun, rather than an endless repetitive grind?

 

[Feneant2]

Personnally, my idea for an MMORPG has always been progression and scaling... I love games that have levels, but I hate that they have a cap. For example in Everquest 2 the cap is 80 currently. That should be made a soft cap so that you can level higher but very slowly. And when the next expansion is out, they could raise the soft cap to 90 by making the 81-90 levels easier to gain but still allow folks to level past that.

So what you would end up with is a large number of folks around the cap and the ones who wish to be the elite (or who just have too much time on their hands), could be a 5, 10 or even more levels higher than the average.

The thing with this is it implies dynamic dungeons/instances that would scale with group levels which would probably be too much work on getting a balanced loot table... but I wish someone would have the guts to try it out.

 

[airhendrix13]

I've always dreamed of making an RPG that uses a fighter type style of gameplay (Soul Caliber) as the battle sequences. Then if you wanted to use magic for instance, you could hit a button that opens you "magic menu" in which you select the magic you want to use, while simultaneously putting the fighting into "slow-mo", allowing the action to continue, a sense of urgency to exist, and remove the tediousness of memorizing impossible special moves.

But back to MMORPG's. I'm definitely fore a game that has leveling, doesn't provide significant improvement over other players, but unlocks perks instead. An example of this is the Battlefield series, you can unlock new weapons and stuff, but someone just starting still can take you on.

Perhaps there can be a system where the higher the level you are, the cheaper new weapons are or w/e. This would allow the elite players easier access to elite weapons, but not make it unreachable for newer players.

What the hell do I know though!?

 

[Ariste]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Ariste

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I agree with the OP. I sort of had a dream at one point to work on video games (but I gave it up since it pays for shit, has bad hours and I don't want to move away from my family where there's no job prospects for it) so I enjoy thinking of game ideas.

The business model for MMORPGs, IMO, detracts from their game design. They're popular because its fun to hang out with friends and play together in a world with lots of other people. But, it seems like the game is designed to keep you playing for massive amounts of time, not for you to enjoy that time. In order to keep you paying for months, they must provide vast amounts of content. There is no way to provide mass amounts of quality content...so large amount of crap is offered in its stead. They give you carrots to keep you going, which of course never end...and the design often separates you from people that you might want to play with but are lower level.

I kind of felt that the OPs idea, a relatively level playing field, would be best. Perhaps players could become more powerful...but not massively so. A 1st level player might be at a disadvantage, but would be perfectly capable of killing a high level character for instance. Armor and weapons are fun...but instead of going from "magic sword of +1 damage" to "magic sword of +2 damage" forever...why not have all the armors and weapons be basically balanced? Armor A is -1 magic damage, but armor B -1 sword damage...swords are better at X, axes on these...etc.

And finally...there are just two many players in the world. How many heroes can the world have? When there's 400 heroes for every shop keeper...its kind of hard to feel like an epic sword master saving the world from monsters. This of course would make it no longer a MMORPG...but why not have servers limited to a few hundred players with vast amounts of quality NPCs with decent AI to be the crappy players?

This would completely negate the purpose of an MMORPG. Would you want to play if, after six months leveling up a character, you were only just a little bit better than you were six months ago? With no prospects of improving? Why would anyone plan any type of RPG if his/her character was incapable of moving up in the world and only capable of moving sideways?

Because the act of playing the game itself might actually be fun, rather than an endless repetitive grind?

Games like that exist. We call them first person shooters.

And that current RPGs and MMORPGs are an 'endless, repetitive grind' is a matter of a opinion. I believe that the reason that people play MMORPGs is that they feel that progression is fun. Remove progression and you remove the soul of an MMO.

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: airhendrix13
I've always dreamed of making an RPG that uses a fighter type style of gameplay (Soul Caliber) as the battle sequences. Then if you wanted to use magic for instance, you could hit a button that opens you "magic menu" in which you select the magic you want to use, while simultaneously putting the fighting into "slow-mo", allowing the action to continue, a sense of urgency to exist, and remove the tediousness of memorizing impossible special moves.

But back to MMORPG's. I'm definitely fore a game that has leveling, doesn't provide significant improvement over other players, but unlocks perks instead. An example of this is the Battlefield series, you can unlock new weapons and stuff, but someone just starting still can take you on.

Perhaps there can be a system where the higher the level you are, the cheaper new weapons are or w/e. This would allow the elite players easier access to elite weapons, but not make it unreachable for newer players.

What the hell do I know though!?

I wish there was a game like this too. I wish the makers of games like Oblivion borrowed a bit from fighting games like Soul Calibur so it wouldn't be just swing, block, swing, block,.......................

 

[Modelworks]

I have always wanted an mmorpg with real people as the NPC and monsters. Companies that are making profits like blizzard could easily afford to pay people to play the part of an NPC or monsters. I would even pay more each month upwards of $30 to play in such a environment.

To me the thing I hate about an NPC is how they are always the same, the same lines, the same manners. If I go to fight a major boss type monster I want it to be epic, not scripted. Imagine fighting a boss that is human controlled. No fight would be the same and they could have a set vocabulary they could use.


Bring back the roleplaying instead of this scripted nonsense.



The other thing I would change is forced armor/weapons based on level or race or profession. If I'm a magic user don't tell me I can't pick up a sword and at least try to kill what is attacking me. I may suck at it, but at least make it possible.

That way I could buy a really great sword as a low level and as I gain experience using it, I get better. If I am a magic user make the sword experience go really slow, but don't tell me I can't use it.

 

[Nik]

Part of the purpose of "levelling up" is to teach you how to play your toon. Giving someone max level with a bunch of skills and crap will mean you have a boatload of mediocre players instead of excellent players.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Nik
Part of the purpose of "levelling up" is to teach you how to play your toon. Giving someone max level with a bunch of skills and crap will mean you have a boatload of mediocre players instead of excellent players.

No, the purpose of leveling is they copied it over from earlier games and it is just easier to implement than an actual experience based game.

I would have it so that the more you do something the better you get. No levels.
If I want to practice climbing, don't tell me I have to be lvl 20 before I can, that is just stupid.
Make it so I suck at it from day one and the more I climb the better I am.

This stuff with you have reached lvl 20, now you can get to increase your stats ?
Why ? Suppose I never did anything requiring agility from lv 19 to lvl 20, just because I reached lvl 20 I can now increase agility, even though I learned nothing about it since lvl 19 ?

Think about this:
Your asking for party members to go kill some beast.
You don't ask , need 5 lvl 55's to go kill .xxxx
Instead you say , I'm going to kill xxxx, need some help
People reply , I killed yyyy and I am good with a sword, I might can handle xxxx ?


hell, might even toss out the numbers all together.
You can tell in a fight if your getting better or sucking.
Numbers were used when it was P&P because you had no feedback on how you were doing.
Now the graphics and interaction is enough to tell you if your losing or winning.
Make the character your playing start to stumble, or miss , or bleed all over when they are losing a fight.

For magic let people attempt whatever spell they like. If they can't cast it, they know they need to do something so they can. Part of the fun is figuring out what that spell needs.

 

[PingSpike]

On second thought...I don't think this would work. MMORPG = same old "grind / level / advance" game system in people's minds...I think if you make one with a unique game system, the regulars are going to be disappointed and the players that might it might appeal to will recoil from it as they do with anything that has MMORPG stamped on it.

Even on here, the very idea of a game system that breaks standard classifications is outright rejected by many. I understand that it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but its not as if that doesn't make an enjoyable idea for a different type of player. I think it would be a marketing failure....at best it might obtain a cult success to be copied later.