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MMORPG Discussion.
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: Null Actor
I want to know what you like and don't like about MMORPG games. How they could improve, what would make them better in your eyes.
Things you hate, things you love. Experiences.
I'll post in a bit... anything I write will be hella-long.
Posted by: Null Actor
Okay... here we go...
What I like most about MMORPGs is discovering. Exploring, seeing what's out there. Finding new stuff, seeing new monsters. Being continually wowed by new things.
What I hate is how these games always turn in to games where you strive to hit that next number. Be it a stat point or a level. Why does everyone make numbers so important?
Think about it... it's an RPG. How much time do you actually spend roleplaying? I'm playing Dark Age of Camelot right now, and it's dwindled to nothing more than "Wait for monster to spawn, kill, repeat". That's just not very fun.
Someone needs to make a MMORPG where you spend more time roleplaying, and playing the game the way it was intended, rather than leveling up, or whatever the game's equivalent is.
It wouldn't be difficult. You just have to take away all the things that make players not roleplay. I have ideas about how to do this in a successful way, but I'm not going to post it here, since one day I'll turn it in to a best-selling game.
Really though, why do you need stats, levels, etc? What makes these so important? Think about it. These silly numbers are the main reason why two friends can't play together if one friend plays more often than the other. One gets too high level, and the other just can't hang around with the other in the game anymore.
I think this is stupid beyond belief. For a game type that's supposed to promote team play, and grouping, these games sure do make it difficult.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
I'll start off with a quick tip. More Randomness!
There should be quests that spawn that only last a week, or spawn to a new random location every so often. There's absolutely no exploration value at all in MMORPG's. You find the coordinates and then walk to it. Real fun.
If they were made to where you could explore the wilderness on your own and discover cool dungeons or quests, then it would have more a sense of adventure. Unlike the way it is now where everyone goes to the same boring place with other people and basically camp.
The same applies to items. Everyone usually ends up using the same damn quest weapons. A rarely found quest dungeon would be awsome and make searching for treasure fun again as well as exploring into dangerous wilderness areas. With really dangerous areas available for groups of adventurers.
I know AC is setup where you kill a ton of a certain monster to collect items to assemble treasure. That blows ass. Sure it's cool up to a point, but there's nothing fun about killing the same type of monster for days on end just to get a special suit of armor or weapon. Quests like that could be made fun real quick if they left some mystery as to where the next piece of something is, or hide it in a random location in a certain area.
The skills should also be setup so no one gets a nerfed character. I like how they are planning the skills in Dungeon Seige. Only the skills you use go up. So you can basically improve whatever you wish. No limitations. Skill limitations are stupid. Just because I know how to swordfight doesn't mean I couldn't learn how to pick a lock on the fly. If I attempt it, I should get skillpoints for it even if I always fail early on.
Posted by: Null Actor
See, I agree. Either needs lots of randomness, or full time staff that can easily add unique quests and tasks to the game, and not just the standard fed ex crap like todays MMORPGs have.
As for shaping your character, that's why I liked Ultima Online so much. You could be anything you wanted, and you could change your character at anytime to be something else. Of course, it was a process you had to invest time in, but it was a nice way of being able to keep your character the way you want it.
Of course, UO had a host of other problems.
Posted by: AK47
Phantasy Star Online has "quests" that are updated quite often. Sure, they are all pretty basic stuff, but it adds variety. Also, you can go online and download quests to play off line.
Phantasy star might not be as involved as some of the titles you all are talking about ( I dont know, Ive never played them), but its pretty damn fun.
Posted by: Null Actor
I won't use a keyboard on a console... and if I can't communicate with people or roleplay, then it's not really a MMORPG.
Posted by: AK47
Well, whatever- PSO is comming to PC's
what does roleplay mean?
Posted by: Null Actor
Roleplay. Play the role of my character, in the world, in the context of the character.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
No storage areas or mules either. Charecters should be forced to survive with what's on their character. I like the idea of being able to buy precious gems in place of large amounts of gold. Gems weigh very little. You could even use very expensive gems as quest items.
I've seen some people take hours in just muling. It's just a rediculous way of cheating IMO.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
If they allowed guild halls or things like that where you could store items, they should be robbable by a group of crafty thieves.  Now that would make a Rogue truely fun to play when the booty is taken from real characters. Provided it's within the rules of the game.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
Randomness is good. They've shown it's quite programmable with Asheron's Call. Although, they had too many campable quests anyway.
Portals blow goats. Portals should be extremely rare. I understand that many people want to run in and get some stuff done in the 20 minutes they might have available today. But, isn't that a little too predictable? There should be some risk involved in your game.
I believe banks for coinage should be safe. But, I don't believe that money should be readily available in any town with a bank. You should have to transfer your money yourself between towns and take your chances.
Storage should be safe but expensive in terms of coinage.
I don't need no friggin housing. You are supposed to adventure. Now, if you can pull in a few million in coinage, pay the henchmen, maintain the upkeep, then maybe you could buy a castle or keep.
The biggest problem with current RPG's is the leveling system. It's not that you have stats and levels. It's that characters should only be able to make it to level 15-20 after a year. This makes the playing field much more even. And your friends can usually keep up. Games have become too much "Monty Hall".
All good weapons and armor should be extremely scarce and unique. This follows the same reasoning as leveling. Money pits are required to maintain an economy without inflation.
Numbers are good for skills and attributes. They synthesize the "feeling" you would have as to your abilities. If you can't see measureable improvement, you don't know if you are wasting your time or not. That is actually part of the fun of it.
It became very rare when I would ever lose any items or money. This is when the game gets boring. How many stories do you remember when you played a game and had to get some help because of something you lost? Those are the really great times.
I'm against thieving, or there should be some limits to thieving. It draws all of the grief players. No offense to those that like thieves.
There should be factions as there are in Dark Ages of Camelot. That will allow the people that want PK to get it.
Death should be... hmm... I hate to say it. But, death should not be permanent. There is too much chance of server, network or ISP problems causing death. But, it would be nice to have the option to play "hardcore". Nice bonuses would make it worth it. I can see myself only playing hardcore if there were such bonuses. It would be like starting over a new character each time.
I agree that muling is cheating.
I thought I was only going to put down a couple of things. It turns out that I've thought too much about it.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
I don't think corpses should be allowed to be robbed. But chests and such should be. Think about it, your most precious items you will end up carrying anyways. People who store things are just greedy and deserved to be robbed.
Posted by: redwench
i cant stand muling. a nice safe place to store valuables and gold is required in any rpg. we have them in real life. theyre called banks. and people are so interested in getting to the next level because it makes the game easier and/or allows you to get to new places or kill new monsters.
but i love dungeons. more dungeons!
Posted by: Bishop
No limits.
None.
Kill who you want, Steal what you want, and as long as you're good enough to escape the vengeance you're fine.
Chaotic? Sure. Ridiculous? It most likely will turn out to be.
Fun?
That depends.
If you like the idea of having to watch your back for knives and your purse for gold day in and day out (like it actually is if you take the nature of such places) then you're right in at home.
If you're an honorable young noble fresh out of the castle with a new suit of armor and a billion dollar lance, you'd better be damn wary of dark alleys and gutter towns.
UO was the only game that captured the feel of murder and theivery in the MMORPG element, but it was sorely lacking in thoose and nearly every other area.
Skills should be like UO's, but less restrictive.
Have about 10 or so (maybe 15) skills that you can master (never-ending number, keeps going up the more you practice) and 10 or 15 others you can be adept at, with about 20 or so you can be compotent in.
Think about it from the balance point of view, if you're not going to use levels and set classes, then anyone with enough time and skill to spread their skill usage will find themselves with the ability to not only cut your purse or throat, but duel with halberds axes maces and send a lightning bolt or two your way along with the summoned dragons, trolls, and ogres.
So with that method what you'd have (in what would be my character) a thief mastering in stealth, stealing, lockpicking, dagger and swordplay with some ability along the lines of magic, healing, and tracking.
Speaking of dagger tactics, a highly skilled player able to sneak unnoticed (skill usage would be fair) on someone's back should be able to slit their throat and do massive damage, if not a killing blow.
Leveling in theese type of games is pointless, worthless and should be abolished.
Skill caps when you think about them aren't great, but from the balance side, they belong in some form or way.
As for banks and housing, I liked the way they functioned in UO but Kane brings up the good points of travelling around with your valuables.
Hiring an escort convoy to protect your precious cargo on the way from one town to another.
I think people skilled in the hiding type skills should be able to place items around in specific areas (of their choosing) so they can use that cache if need be.
This would be something for the VERY high skilled, and to uncover the items you would need to be a marginal amount of skill points higher than the hider of the cache.
Thinking of all of this stuff is well and good, but who's going to implement it in a game?
Few companies are willing to take that kind of risk (even fewer publishers I'd bet), even if they COULD find a way to program all of this into the game with keeping lag to a minimum.
Much easier to release a game under the current slew of "rules" and slap the good old monthly fee on there; promising much and delivering little.
Posted by: laborat
an epic MMORPG called Shadowbane might be what you are looking for. Slated for a release in Spring, it has already attracted a rabid fan base. Why? Well it purports to concentrate on the "Game of Thrones" with large scale battles between guilds and city-states. Death is a no brainer with the deadie respawning at his Tree of Life with only 3 items he has chosen to keep with him. I am looking forward to this game very much.
Something about doing a BraveHeart down a hill with a hundred other barbarians sorta appeals to me.
Posted by: -Memnoch-
I think this is why the basic explanition of NeverWinter Nights seems so promising.
The pen and paper type of game.
The ability to set up a server and define the bacic laws of how your server defines the reality.
Most other MMORPG's get old real fast for me because you see the pattern so clearly. It reduces the game to pacman for me.
The repetitive hack and slay of D2 is just a mindless mouse click to me.
As with many other games recently they seem to only last about a month and its old.
All flash and no real substance.
Like Black & White. Fun for about a week and its forgotten.
Posted by: Bishop
Question is though, will we ever see NWN, and will it be all we hope it to be?
I don't think so.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
Tells. Tells are are a necessary evil. But, you should only be able to do tells with another character and both your characters should have gone through a formal introduction to each other.
Thus, if you "know" another character, you should be able to mindspeak to them. If you've never even met before, how the hell can you mindspeak to them?
So, it boils down to several problems I see in RPG's nowadays. There is too much communications, travel and money. RPG's should not place our characters into the modern age with magic. It should be more basic. Much like Lord of the Rings.
Posted by: Null Actor
 Quote:
Originally posted by laborat
Something about doing a BraveHeart down a hill with a hundred other barbarians sorta appeals to me.
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If that's what you want, then you should check out dark age of camelot. I've already done the braveheart thing... it's pretty cool, and chaotic.
As for NWN, it's nowhere near an MMORPG, and not only that, it's the exact antithesis of what I want in a game, since it's 100% level driven, and goes beyond that. Like Ion was saying, one of the biggest problems in MMORPGs is that you can nerf your character, and then you have to start over. That sucks. A lot.
Not only that, but NWN is only as deep an experience as the story told by whoever made the module. Don't expect a lot of top notch user content.
Bishop: The problem with your scenario is that players don't roleplay. See, it's too easy for grief players to just abuse everyone else in the game. That's where the whole system breaks down. See, you want to play a bona-fida thief. I can relate, I want to be a real thief someday too, but no game has done it right. But the problem lies in the fact that players do things, and there is no responsability for their actions. So you get rampant PKing everywhere you go, and it makes the whole deal frustrating for the average player.
See, what you want to happen is this:
A theif (experienced, used to robbing people. You could say 'high level'), and maybe a few thief buddies with you. They hide on the side of the road, and wait for sir-rich-knight with a billion dollar lance (arguably a lower level character, new to the world). They jump out, and try to rob him. "Give me your lance, or we'll slice you full of slits and leave you to die in the bushes where no one can find you". At this point, sir-knight might realize that he could live if he just forked over the lance. So he does.
Now, what would actually happen is this:
Thief jumps out, attacks, knight fights back, dies, has his stuff taken.
The problem there is A) Death isn't something to be feared, and B) There is no roleplaying, and no chance for the knight to live through the encounter.
Posted by: Null Actor
And as a follow up to the latter case: Knight is pissed off, has to get a new billion dollar lance.
Thieves sell lance, go back to the road, and kill a whole lot of other low level players.
What should happen is this: Knight lives, goes back to town. Reports to the guards that he was robbed by a thief with description X. Guards put out a bounty, as well as send out a few patrols to the area. Now, mister thief has to lay low for a while, or he'll get his ass caught and shredded. Who knows, maybe an enterprising group of players will get together, and use a low level bait, and catch you for the bounty.
See, in the ideal case there are repercussions due to good roleplaying. But in the actual case, it's just mindless, annoying repetition.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
How do people feel stat degradation due to death?
For instance, should you lose 1% of your potential maximum hit points every time you die? If your character will potentially reach 100 hit points at an extremely high level, then you would lose a hit point permanently every time you die.
Posted by: Null Actor
You can't have penalization due to death unless you can completely remove the issue of death due to disconnects.
Posted by: Null Actor
Or at least, you can't have a penalization that is permanent.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
It's not that you "can't". 
I was interested to know how people felt about it.
Posted by: Null Actor
Well, the problem is always random death due to shitty networks, or even just someone tripping over your network cable. Or someone at the ISP tripping over a network cable.
The reason why I quit UO for good, was the fact that at the time, my ISP would disconnect me pretty much once an hour. Which was always just enough to leave my character dead, because it would happen at great moments like when I was fighting dragons.
When I died, I'd lose all my magic stuff, and usually about 10,000$ worth of reagents on my mage. Sorry, but that just pissed me off so damn bad.
Posted by: Bishop
There's a difference between roleplaying and intelligently playing.
I never role played a character, probably never will (P&P aside), but common sense alone dictated it's not a good idea to walk up to a group of experienced players and start snooping around blatantly, which alot of the kid thieves did in UO.
Same with murder, you walk around trying to kill everyone you see and you're more than likely going to get wasted.
This is usually where ganking comes in to play, but that's a whole new story there.
Way I See it, for the more player harming skills (blatant thievery, murder, etc) you should have a character that has to have been invested around 6 months worth of time into to be skilled at it.
Take UO for example (a bad one at that), it takes a serious player two weeks (if that) to make a GM dexer.
Back when there was only fellucia, there was a lot of risk involved in doing it the easy way, now with trammel though all the kids just go to the bone room and form their little line and no one is robbed, murdered, or even mistakenly shot.
Let me put it this way: One morning I conned this kid out of about 60K gold in addition to the 20K+ in values I swiped.
Three weeks later I'm running with an arrow in my gut trying to stealth away from this GM archer bearing the same name and a grudge.
Anyone who's played an archer in UO knows it's damned difficult to GM archery, much less in three weeks.
Three weeks prior to that day my 9 month old character was reigning surpreme, on that day I was running for my life (made it out alive if anyone was interested, had a friend waiting in the graveyard).
Perhaps that's what brings about what nova dislikes.
The ease of which you can blatantly do what you like.
Realism, Realism is the key. Controlled realism, not blatant realism.
With 6 months (say two or three years game-time) of training and skill building, a player would be able to invest in thoose abilities.
Which would also discourage new players from using them.
Why spend six months playing to barely get away with someone's purse when you can spend three months playing and walk away with dozens of ogre hides and troll heads?
Nearly every thief I knew in UO chose to become a thief because they knew someone who had a thief and could tell them the trick to rapid skill-gaining, myself included (I had my thief long before I knew the trick, but I did use him much more after GMing thievery).
It all comes back to that one ugly word: balance.
What's the fine line between fair and ridiculous?
Take the ideas listed here and the ones that shall come forth, and find that line.
When that line is found, we'll all have ourselves one god damned good game, if we can ever get it made.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
What is GM?
Posted by: redwench
im guessing grand master or some such.
if you want to have balanced play, include risk. if you steal or kill someone, there will be a risk of guards or police catching you. you can be tried and sentenced. if youre convicted of murder, say, be sentenced to hang. at which point your char is permanently dead, and you have to start over. thievery would be dealt with by a fine and a short sentence in jail.
now, to make this work, your chances of being caught would have to vary with location and circumstances. in town, youre much more likely to get caught. if youre in the back of beyond, you wont get caught. pain in the ass to program, i would imagine, but it would cut down on the rampaging pking and such.
Posted by: AK47
Getting back to Bishop's original idea:
Why not have a sort of police force that assembles and hunts out the thieves? That would be kinda cool
Posted by: Kdr Kane
I don't think being put in prison is difficult to program. More of the problem is figuring out what is appropriate.
It's hard to justify putting someone in prison when the consumer is paying for the game.
Posted by: AK47
wench, you got to it right before I did
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Bishop
Let me put it this way: One morning I conned this kid out of about 60K gold in addition to the 20K+ in values I swiped.
Three weeks later I'm running with an arrow in my gut trying to stealth away from this GM archer bearing the same name and a grudge.
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ROFL!
GM means grandmaster, and it means you got 100% in a skill.
Oh, and redwench, that is an awesome idea. It would mean you would have to be smart about murder, and you'd have to make damn sure you knew what you were doing.
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Kdr Kane
I don't think being put in prison is difficult to program. More of the problem is figuring out what is appropriate.
It's hard to justify putting someone in prison when the consumer is paying for the game.
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And there you've just touched on the biggest problem in MMORPGs: Someone paying money to play, wants to be able to play however they want, without any negative side effects.
Personally, I think it should be in the user agreement for every MMORPG, that grief play is an offense worthy of banning.
Posted by: Bishop
That's the way UO used to be, sort of.
people with low ping and experience doing it could commit a crime (murder or theft) in town and escape the vengeance of the guards.
Nowadays they just autokill.
Prison in UO was moronic, and was only for rule breaking stuff (like first time exploit abuse and such nonsense), rather than blatant criminal actions.
Skill also has to be a part of getting caught.
A bumbling novice picking pockets on the street is much more likley to be caught than a master thief with years of experience, even if he is picking pockets on the street.
What about diplomacy?
I've talked my way out of some hairy situations with people in UO and being able to do that with the "police" force would be good.
The ultimate police force: Not Automated.
People have to actually join.
Same with the judical system, if there is one.
Which leaves the gates open for bribery and all the other fun parts of that aspect.
GM: Grand Master, the rank given to a player when 100% in a skill. UO allowed 700 total skill points, which meant you could master seven different skills.
You got caught though, that's what sucked.
Magery without meditiation was virtually worthless, as was Fighting (any form of melee combat) without healing and healing and fighting both required anatomy to function well.
The ideal system would be one where no skills are dependant, but you did benefit from having the extra knowledge.
As I said, a warrior in UO without anatomy would be doing minimum damage.
Say however in this new mystical game we're dreaming up that you have a Swordfighter who spent many years studying in the arts of healing.
Having such anatomical knowledge, he would know the kinds of strikes and blows would do more bleeding damage (opening major arteries and such) in addition to the knowledge of swordplay in general, thus being able to do a decent amount more of damage depending on his Ability to combine anatomy with swordplay.
I can see it now.
The true RPG.
A tinker, or a smith, a warrior, or a mage, a murderer or a sherrif, a lordly noble or a lowly thief. The implications are rather frightening.
If this game existed in the way I'm seeing it in my mind, I'd pay twice the monthly fee just to participate in the demo.
Posted by: Bishop
And for the love of all that is holy and not, let's find a new term for the god damned genre!
MMORPG makes me cringe and want to vomit every time I see it.
Let the petty games be MMORPG's, the pathetic imitations of EQ and AC and UO and the rest, we'll take our phantom dream game and elevate it to the lofty position of what?
Well there boys and girls, is where you come in.
Let's find the name of this magical new genre, and show them how it's done.
Posted by: AK47
Quote:
The ultimate police force: Not Automated.
People have to actually join.
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yeah, thats what I was thinking- that would be sweet to be on the force and bust theives.
even better- people could be independent contractors- like bounty hunters. people who were robbed could hire a bounty hunter to go seek revenge.
Posted by: redwench
not for eternity. but a day to a week would be good. i mean, what is the risk now, for most games? if you get caught, you might get killed by the victim. in which case, you respawn. if you pick a newbie, you dont even get killed. thieving should have all the drawbacks it does in real life. ^^
Posted by: redwench
oh, and obviously, your chances of being caught would depend on your skill level or whathaveyou. if you get a bad roll, youre caught. much as i hate to say it, runescape did part of it right. you cant pk in the standard areas, only in the wilderness.
but id like to see a game where you dont have people constantly try to kill you or thieve you. they only do that because there are no consequences. if there is the possibility of not playing your char for 4 days, or losing it altogether, you probably wont be attacking too many people.
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Bishop
Let's find the name of this magical new genre, and show them how it's done.
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How about 'True RPG'.
Edit: True CRPG sounds better, and closer to the point.
Posted by: Null Actor
I think what a good solution would be, is to make playing a thief HARD.
Because really, it's not easy to be a thief, or a criminal, and stay out and about a long time.
It should be hard enough to scare off the grief players, but not so hard that someone who truly wants to play a thief would find it impossible.
Posted by: Scav
Fallow me on this ok guys its not too traditional, and I apologize if someone else posted it but I don’t think they did, at least not like this.
I think leveling is stupid. It is the single biggest problem with mmorpgs then next being a static programmed environment that has no feeling of life at all. Ill touch on that second issue latter but for now the leveling.
I would really enjoy a mmorpg where the characters played like Rune for medieval type games or Halflife for the futuristic type. Where it is not the character that levels but instead the human being who is playing who gets better with time and kills. Kind of like when fighting bots compared to fighting higher level creatures. A newbie half life keyboard player is gonna stick to fairly simple and retarded bots, while a more advanced player might adventure to areas with bots that have more life, bigger weapons, and better aim. I think that would work to sucessfuly remove the leveling system from the game from both creatures and players, and keep in mind I mean no leveling at all not even little stuff like bonus’s to life, if you kill 1 rabbit vs 200 you are still just as strong and can take just as many bullets before you fall down. You could still have just as many weapons and towns and all the other aspects, while removing character leveling. Now you are left with the question why kill the creatures. Well that’s how it should be. There needs to be a reason to kill creatures. No adventurer no matter how good, would go out and fight a buncha beasts just for the hell of it (camping) the only creatures he should have to worry about killing are the ones in between him and another town or on the way to accomplish a quest.
My next major concern with the game is how static the enviroment is, and I think most people here touched on that. Creature spawn camps should move and leave signs they have gone behind them. IE in AC if you are beatin the hell out of a drudge camp fire those stupid things should put out their damn fire and move to a spot where you arnt beetin the hell outta them. It should be fairly random and there should be no concern about where they roam to, it will divide up the enviroment. What if a tusker camp decided it wanted to move to a newbie town cause it died less there. That’s a quest all of a sudden created without the programmers, now the towns a ghost town until high level players come to clear the creatures out.
I also want more then just a couple trees stamped across the land. Im not sure how it could be done but it would be cool if trees and bushes could grow from saplings. You know it like they did in Black and white. Where there was a forest more trees would grown when it rained. You that would make it so that maybe when you left a town you saw a few saplings but when you returned in a month or so the trees have grown and clutered the enviroment and made it different and beautiful. Also other things like water levels should rise and lower, if its pouring out a lake should expand and fill up the valley it was in. Also the trees could be then used as part of a trade, ie people could cut the trees for arrows or whatever.
Well those are my ideas. My biggest concern is removing leveling all together and dice rolling style combat. I would like to see a human skill based game.
Nova when you make this game and if you use any of my ideas i expect an internship :P
Posted by: Null Actor
Hahah... great post scav, but I beat ya to it. That stuff has been written in my design doc for my True CRPG for a while now
I'll expand on your stuff a bit though.
Zero leveling, zero statistics, zero rule based system. I think that is the holy grail. You have to keep some hidden stats, for skills like lock picking or whatever. But for combat, it should totally be the skill of the player.
I love that idea.
Why beat on things repeatedly? For stuff. For money. For money to buy stuff. What stuff? Useless stuff. Custom stuff. Stuff that makes your character who he is, without controlling what he can do.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
I'm gonna start it over again.
If you leave out any kind of leveling, you won't really have the RPG fan base. You have a First Person Shooter game.
I've seen tons of people that love to play crafters, merchants and such. If you leave them out, then you have lost a lot.
I absolutely hate that most RPG's nowadays let you easily get over level 30 in a couple of weeks. It's ridiculous. I just say, let's make it a lot tougher and riskier.
No single player should ever be able to go in and take on a dragon single-handed. It should require a group effort. Not a matter of human skill.
Please don't forget, there are a lot of people out there playing games on computers with physical handicaps. To directly engineer a game that precludes these people from enjoying themselves is self defeating.
Some people have enough trouble playing because they are color-blind. I'm not. But, I have seen this issue come up during gameplay before.
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Kdr Kane
If you leave out any kind of leveling, you won't really have the RPG fan base. You have a First Person Shooter game.
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Since when does roleplaying have to mean numbers? Last I checked, the pure meaning of the term Role Playing, was when you played a role. To tell the truth, the term RPG nowadays is usually a misnomer.
Deus Ex is an RPG. Why? Because you play the role of JC Denton. Once the game sucks you in, you ARE JC Denton, and you exist in his world. That's roleplaying. Not telling your friends you have 234215 in your combat skill and 2341253 hitpoints. That's not roleplaying. That's stats bashing, and that's all this shitty corrupted roleplaying has become.
Quote:
Originally posted by Kdr Kane
I've seen tons of people that love to play crafters, merchants and such. If you leave them out, then you have lost a lot.
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No one said you have to take that out. In fact, I think it will always be a big part. My ideas about that is that there are usually two kind of players: Those who want to be a tradesman, and those who want to be an adventurer. I think they should be separate character types.
Quote:
Originally posted by Kdr Kane
I absolutely hate that most RPG's nowadays let you easily get over level 30 in a couple of weeks. It's ridiculous. I just say, let's make it a lot tougher and riskier.
No single player should ever be able to go in and take on a dragon single-handed. It should require a group effort. Not a matter of human skill.
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What does making it tougher do? It just extends the utter boringness of it all! If it takes longer to level up, in todays MMORPGs, it means fighting more of the same old monsters. Camping the same spawn spots. Clicking the same button over and over. No, making it tougher isn't what's needed.
As for the group thing, while I agree a bit... what happens to those who play alone? They shouldn't be left out. Personally, I'd love to be able to play a character who can brag about how he took down a dragon alone. As it is with groups, if you have to have a group to do anything, it leeches away the sense of personal accomplishment, and takes some of the fun out of the game.
Quote:
Originally posted by Kdr Kane
Please don't forget, there are a lot of people out there playing games on computers with physical handicaps. To directly engineer a game that precludes these people from enjoying themselves is self defeating.
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Don't gimme that polically correct bullshit. There aren't "a lot" of players with physical handicaps. They are a VERY small percentage (unless you count acute cases of nerddom, but that's a completely separate kind of physical handicap  ). Anyway, if they can't play the game, they can damn well play another game. My grandma can't play games... does that mean we should dumb them down even more so she can? No. Anyway, if they can't move a mouse and type on a keyboard, they most likely can't play any of todays games anyway, so it's a moot point.
Posted by: Bishop
The problem with basing the game on the skill of the player alone is going to have the same ones as FPS and the elk; lag, specs, and other such idiocy.
In UO, someone with a POS computer and an AOL connection probably couldn't escape the vengeance of a powerhouse t1 packing player but they should know better not to try it, or have some form of alternating that balance (hiding from a warrior without reveal and stealthing away, etc).
About the only benefit in UO of having a fast connection was being able to out-run people (which didn't matter much with the way they had spell casting and archery) and run circles around the previously pathetic guards.
There's got to be a check and balance system in place, otherwise it would a lot like playing Deus Ex online is now.
As for the difficulty of maintaining a criminal character, you have to realize back then the closest thing they had to an alarm on a house is perhaps the ocasional magical ward placed by a friend of the family.
If you make it in one era, you have to base it on things from that era.
Making the game based on "sheer skill alone" wouldn't be as fun as being able to implement wisdom and knowledge from the game (and common sense of course) to your advantage in the game.
Say, in Rune since you used it as your example scav, the battle algorithims (I think this may be the right word) are really very simple in terms of damage dealt.
It's basic. Very basic.
Now take into effect the type of armor worn, the ammount of it, the type of shield if used and if it blocks, (which has to be computed some way, not just based upon hitting the block key at a certain time), in addition to any magical benefits from amulets/charms/enchantments.
One thing that should be in theese games is blocking with two handed weapons.
In the right properly trained hands, a Quarterstaff could be more deadly than a sword and shield.
That's not even including spears, halbers, and bastions.
Now what about the view? I personally prefer the view on the world UO gave, although distance and angle changes would be welcomed, I think the entire aspect should be chooseable by the player (1st, 3rd, or I think they labeled it 6th for UO styled views, and of course whatever else seems favorable).
1st being obviously FPS games, third being heretic 2, rune, and a slew of others using that type, and then the sixth (if it is sixth, may have been something else) for the close bird's type view.
Before I go, anyone who says games such as rune and quake are based on skill alone need to be hurt severely, quite a number of other factors throw themselves into the mix, and I'd rather deal with the trash they give us now in the current form of RPG than have everything I've wanted in the game at the cost of 700 ping an unplayable game.
Posted by: laborat
Accountability for your MMORPG actions is a BIG issue...
the war between griefers and roleplayers will last as long as there are people playing these games...
Posted by: Bishop
Also, on criminal activities and the punishments against them, what about bribes?
A thief or murderer with a few friends in the right places shouldn't have too much difficulty escaping the vengeance of the law.
That being said, a thief with years of training in lockpicking could get out of most jail cells with a rusty nail, unless of course you're talking about UO jails (the entire map is one big row of small cells, you find yourself summoned there and you leave when your hours have been spent sitting there, or if you manage to convince the GM that you were wrongfully put there).
What about jailbreaks?
I know if one of my friends had found themselves floating home I and a few others would be making plans to break him out, if it were possible that is (by rules and programming of the game, not by our ability to do so).
Posted by: Bishop
Granted labo, but imagine if you took every counselor and GM in UO (in addition to the plenty of people who would join up) and had a played police force, it would work well.
Hell, fit the perfect role for most grief players if you could sign right up, don't tell me there aren't any power crazed corrupt police in this world.
If done right, most grief players won't bother.
As I said before, why waste a year building the master thief/murderer/bandit when you can sopend half that time and have an adept warrior who could (with a little luck) kill the thief?
Giving the less savory roles less restrictions but requiring much more time to invest is probably the best defense, other than outright discluding thoose types of characters from the game (which won't really work, conning and a slew of other acts serve well enough and can be done even easier within the glorious shoes of a noble knight).
Posted by: AK47
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unless you count acute cases of nerddom, but that's a completely separate kind of physical handicap
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Judging from your multi-page posts in this thread, I'm guessing you suffer from nerddom?
Alot of you are saying that there should be no "leveling up" I gotta dissagree. Without leveling up, I really wouldnt be all that compelled to continue. Sure, there could be rares to collect, but if I wasnt getting stronger, I really wouldnt care. Why have battles at all if you arent gonna get stronger?
Finally, I think if you have so many complaints or so many things you dont like about these RPGs, just dont play them. Alot of you have brought up very valid points about things they could fix, but if leveling up really bothers you, just dont play them. If you dont like being robbed and killed, just dont play. Those are parts of the games that I dont see being changed anytime soon (especially leveling up). Perhaps these RPGs arent for you.
Posted by: Bishop
The problem with levels in RPG's (theese kinds anyways) is that it becomes a rush to the high levels.
In UO you could set your own pace.
Levels aren't the only way to advance, skill increasing based on how much you used it and the more challenge (to a point) you're using each time advances niceley, and it doesn't have the same bitter taste that EQ has in that respect.
You stop playing EQ for a week or so and everyone you knew at your level was damned certain to be 10 or 20 higher, same with nearly any MMORPG with levelling, you have to constantly play to keep up, not to mention the group aspect of it.
I spent most of my time in UO, usually the only times I paired up with people were plotting house kills and fencing for more experienced thieves in the small group of people I knew (most of which came from old b.net).
I went for weeks at a time without playing and wasn't finding myself far behind them (no farther than I started out anyways) because we spent our time doing things other than simple skill gaining, which is all EQ and such ammount to.
Collecting rares is worthless, I wasn't that rich (quite wealthy mind you, but no where near the standards of say, Galad) but I still had quite a bit of clutter in my tower, most of it worth something to someone.
See, as I gaze back into the mists and think about my time in UO, I have to admit that was probably some of the most fun I've had in any game over the past few years.
And yet, looking back I see everything they could have done better, everything they did wrong, and soil that with the tons of bugs and idiocies brought about by OSI and I don't regret leaving.
Skill gaining is the more realistic way of "getting stronger" as you put it AK.
Killing fifty ogres to gain that 6K experience needed to advance to level 27 and thus gaining attributes (or placing them as you decide) and perhaps a spell or two isn't that realiastic.
Little education in the way UO's skills worked (which I find has been the most fun way to do things, although a bit flawed and needed some of the things we've discussed previously).
Three Attributes, strength, dexterity, and intelligence.
Different skills required different attributes, some combining them.
Strength was your health and amount you could carry, dexterity was your attacking speed and length of time you can run and intelligence was your maximum mana coupled with your rejuvination rate (further enhanced by meditation).
Skills would increase depending on how much you used them, for most of them once you became adept you would have to use more difficult targets (stronger monsters with fighting skills, stronger spells with magery, etc).
Mining for instance requires strength, so the more time you spend mining, the more your strength eventually went up, in addition to your mining skill.
Much more fun than slaying seventy hundred beasts to gain five attributes, wouldn't you say?
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by AK47
Alot of you are saying that there should be no "leveling up" I gotta dissagree. Without leveling up, I really wouldnt be all that compelled to continue. Sure, there could be rares to collect, but if I wasnt getting stronger, I really wouldnt care. Why have battles at all if you arent gonna get stronger?
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No one said you wouldn't get stronger. I just said that the level system is horrendously bad for this type of game. UO by far has the best system of any of the MMORPGs (see his post for an explanation), though it was severely flawed in many aspects.
Quote:
Originally posted by AK47
Finally, I think if you have so many complaints or so many things you dont like about these RPGs, just dont play them. Alot of you have brought up very valid points about things they could fix, but if leveling up really bothers you, just dont play them. If you dont like being robbed and killed, just dont play. Those are parts of the games that I dont see being changed anytime soon (especially leveling up). Perhaps these RPGs arent for you.
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We love these games, which is why we want them better. Anyway, I started this thread for a selfish purpose. One day I am going to make this True CRPG, and it's interesting to get feedback ahead of time.
Unlike 99.9% of the gamers out there, I can do something about it.
Posted by: Bishop
When you do get around to it, let me know.
By that time there might be 99.8% of them.
Posted by: Null Actor
Quote:
Originally posted by Bishop
The problem with levels in RPG's (theese kinds anyways) is that it becomes a rush to the high levels.
<snip>
You stop playing EQ for a week or so and everyone you knew at your level was damned certain to be 10 or 20 higher, same with nearly any MMORPG with levelling, you have to constantly play to keep up, not to mention the group aspect of it.
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Yeah, that's the biggest problem. I was a fast leveler in camelot, and then I didn't play for a week, and now I can't group with my friends cause they are all 4 or 5 levels higher than me. And in camelot, when there is that much difference, you just can't play together anymore.
Quote:
Originally posted by Bishop
See, as I gaze back into the mists and think about my time in UO, I have to admit that was probably some of the most fun I've had in any game over the past few years.
And yet, looking back I see everything they could have done better, everything they did wrong, and soil that with the tons of bugs and idiocies brought about by OSI and I don't regret leaving.
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I couldn't have said it better myself. UO is still the favorite of the MMORPGs for me, despite how much I hated it. It was the best(worst) time I've ever had playing an MMORPG.
Posted by: Scav
You guys have all lost sight of what the point is, to have fun, and leveling isnt fun.
As for all of you who are complainin there will be no replay value and on the same token there will be no fan base. You dont level in counterstrike, halflife, or rune, or any game without leveling, the reply value isnt the charactor its the game and what you are doing, thats whats suppose to be fun. Also counterstrike and half life have far more players then any rpgs out there now so if nothing else those fans could play.
And addressing the ping. Its rediculous to say that ping is everything only in fps type games. Ping is just as important in AC or any other online game where yer computer must communicate with anouther. Of course some people will have blazin fast connections and others will have piss poor connections, but people will migrate to connections that work for them. I am tired of games that catar to everyone, when you expand to far you end up with crap. If your playin on a 33k modem you shouldnt be playin a game that starts off with the words, massive multiplayer.
As for everyone who is stuck on this idea of leveling, thats something that should have gone out with dice. The only reason its there is from the pencil and paper games where a person could not become more skill ful every game he played much the same way he could not randomly chose which targets he hit and didnt hit simply by shouting "i think ill hit him with my bullet this time" "or this round i wanna not suck with my gun" when you are playin pencil and paper there is no where for a person to actualy act out the combat or roleplay it, a fps type interface would allow it.
Posted by: Null Actor
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the main thing that True CRPGs require. Thanks to scav for pointing it out:
When I make a True CRPG, it will be broadband only. Screw the modem users.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
Thanks to Scav for acknowledging my point.
This discussion was originally about RPG's. It's denigrated to a discussion about FPS's.
Posted by: Null Actor
When did it become a discussion about FPS? I don't see how not having numbers makes something an FPS.
Posted by: Scav
i use fps to describe an interface. Why does a game have to be clear cut one or the other, cant it just be fun. Look if you guys get off to the little nerd trips of how many hours you have spent whackin it to creatures vs someone else then clearly thats a game you should buy and sit in dark rooms rejoicing when all your friends are too far below or ahead of you to play with and your only driving factor is that some day some how, eventualy your charactor will be 'perfect'.
What i am talkin about is a Massive Multiplayer Role Playing Game, no where in that title does it say Massive Multiplayer Random Number Generator and Game Play Meter.
Posted by: Null Actor
Don't worry, I'm on the same channel.
And I think first person style would be great for the True CRPG. It works. Deus Ex proved that.
But that's just a minor thing.
Posted by: AK47
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Why does a game have to be clear cut one or the other, cant it just be fun
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yes, and cant we all just get along!!
Posted by: redwench
no.
Posted by: Null Actor
Ha. We could all just get along if everyone did and liked what I like.
Posted by: SKYHN
This might be a stupid question, but I dont think I have ever played an MMORPG. Are they like turn based or real time? Do you do quests or just fight monsters/each other? Im pretty sure I havent ever played one.
I saw a gameplay vid of FFXI last night and it looks really great. There were 5 guys fighting a Malboro and a bunch of other little battles.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
The thing that makes RPG's the funnest is a sense of adventure. Really I don't think showing skills or levels matter either way as long as they are all useful skills and no one gets a nerfed skill.
While slaying monsters and finding treasure are very fun to do, there's no sense of adventure because nearly every person in the world knows about each dungeon and what's in it. I want to see one with a huge world. One where you can explore into the wilderness and actually run into a dungeon where no one else has been, or even run into an extremely rare monster type.
And put lots of quests in with virtually no clue about how to finish them. The funnest quests would be one you accidently stumbled across in a hidden dungeon somewhere and only you or your adventuring party knows about it.
There's nothing adventurous about going to a dungeon everyone on the server knows about. Until I see a game that offers that, i'm not bothering with another MMORPG.
Posted by: Null Actor
Yeah. I think the solution there is in fractal algorithms and random generation of terrain, towns, dungeons, and monsters.
Really, for an MMORPG to give a full sense of adventure, it has to give a few things.
1) A huge world. One that would take you weeks to cross on foot, and days (at least) to cross by horse.
2) A world without spawn points. Monster camps should by truly dynamic, like Scav was suggesting. They should move around to avoid getting their asses kicked. If a camp is wiped out, that's it. Gone. Finished. Kaput. Other camps could occasionally send out groups of their monsters who would then start up a new camp elsewhere. Or perhaps even genetic algorithms that would cause them to multiply and spread.
3) Truly unique dungeons and mines. One time things. Well hidden entrances, with maybe a few dangerous monsters who've taken up residence, and hoarded treasure from travelers they've killed. When someone ousts the monsters, that's it, that mine is empty until a new monster stumbles across it and moves in.
4) NPCs should also expand, and possibly stumble across these hidden dungeons and holes with dangerous monsters. Think how neat it would be if you are in town, and the townsfolk are in an uproar over one of the townspeople who've gone missing... Or maybe, you stop in a town and everyone is mysteriously gone...
It sounds like something that could never happen, but it can. I doubt any of this would be truly difficult to implement. The hardest part would be making a world that achieved balance. But that's mostly number tweaking, and running test programs.
I think the only true requirements for this kind of world would be massive harddrive space and ram in the servers. Other than that, it shouldn't be truly difficult.
Another thing is that the world's NPC and monster population would have to outnumber the player population by quite a bit. That's one of the biggest issues in MMORPGs, is the fact that in a real fantasy world (pardon the oxymoron), the heros do not outnumber the commonfolk.
Whew, long post. I'll leave it at that, and elaborate later if anyone wants elaboration...
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
INDEED!
I would pay 30$ a month to play that game! But you had bettered charge 10$!
Posted by: Null Actor
INDEED!
If I made that game, I could probably charge whatever the hell I wanted monthly, and people would line up to leave their bank accounts, gold bricks, and first born on my doorstep... hehe
Posted by: redwench
i would have to say go with the shard system. limit the signup per server, and not to the max it can hold. if its a huge world, 10k per server would be a good number. you really shouldnt be running into a lot of adventurers outside of town.
Posted by: Null Actor
10k would probably be too much. But that's something that would need to be tested.
Hmmm... just woke up... but... more... ideas... brewing...
Will post after my ability to think presents itself for the morning.
Posted by: redwench
well, im thinking huge world and powerful servers. dont forget, most people wouldnt be online at once. but im sure others know the stats better than i do.
ok, how about this nova: in addition to the regular map, have an entire underground world thats just slightly smaller. that would certainly spread out the players. stick a couple large cities down there, a few mines, a couple mazes, a few lairs, etc.
Posted by: Bishop
Have to find a balance between realism and population, being that you'll have say 10K people, take 7K right away for soldiers, police, scholars and then you have the smiths, bowyers, trackers hunters and such.
That leaves you with about 3K characters who are going to be playing the generic wizards and warriors role.
Also, how many characters are there per account?
I know in UO I had my thief, a dexer, a mage, a smith, and then my ganker type (had him outfitted with cheap but effective equipment so I could lend a hand when beer or gully needed it, yet not worry about losing anything if I died).
UO had 5, and that seems to be a good limit, although six might be better.
Two craftsmen, two adventurers, then a murderer and a thief.
Posted by: redwench
oooo, i had a brainstorm (not original unfortunately). nova, did you ever play septerra core? gameplay aside (you either loved that or hated it), it had a wonderful idea with the shells. if you combine that with the forgotten realms floating cities of netheril, you have yet another level for players to explore. so in effect, you could have a huge world to explore on 3 levels. maybe not practical from a coding aspect, but interesting. it would require somewhat different skills on the various maps. (ie, not much call for smithing in the floating areas). you could get between the standard world and the floating areas by hiring some kind of transport, or hiring yourself out for some purpose.
never gonna happen, but sounds cool to me
Posted by: Null Actor
One thing you gotta realize, which few people don't, is that when it comes to games, bigger doesn't necessarily mean harder.
And I agree, full underground world, and maybe some magically restrictive areas that are hard to find and enter.
But the catch is, it should really be huge.
What I'm envisioning, is that to get to another area, you'd go find a coachline or something, and pay for your trip, then it would tell you how many hours/days the journey would take in real time, and then you could log out, and when you logged back in after that amount of time, your character would be where you wanted.
Also, I was envisioning a (don't laugh too hard, it's a developing idea) 'mystic mail' system, where you'd visit a mystic in a town, and compose a 'message' to send to a friend. Maybe even chat. But it should cost for your services. And you should be able to buy 'link gems' that will allow you to communicate with good friends any time you want, as well as know when they were in the world.
This would give a real reason for chat, as well as dissallowing free form communication (which I've always hated in DAoC). It was nice that in UO you could only communicate with the people near enough to hear you. (Though they might have changed this after I quit playing).
Posted by: Null Actor
Oh, and I've always liked the ideas of magical/hidden areas that you can't get in unless you are a master at what you do, or do something special, etc.
Like Wind (Is that what it was called?) in UO. You could only get there if you were a master of magic or better. Very cool stuff. But in my game, entrance to a place like this would be very secret, and you wouldn't even know it existed except in rumor and myth. They'd find you.
Posted by: redwench
sounds good to me. i see no reason why areas wouldnt be hidden to all but certain types. only wizards could see some enterences, miners could see a different type, thieves yet another... but youd have to make sure there were an equal number or size for each type of char.
or, if you went to say, a floating city, it could be limited to certain character types, unless you were hired to do something. now, when i say floating city, i dont necessarily mean only a city, it could be a small continent. but having a city or enclave limited to wizards and invitees seems logical to me. or one for thieves. sorta like large guild halls, except you could also enter if invited (ie. quest)
oh, and you can have a few sources for rumors: inn keepers, merchants, and guards. if you stick guard posts in various locations (city exits and various other locations along roads), you can have them both warn people of what lies nearby, and spread rumors.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
You should have a "bulletin board" in each town. Local characters could go up and peruse the messages. These messages would cycle away as new messages are posted. Characters could only post one message per half-hour.
This would give each town a local feel.
HORIZONS original design included no spawn points. Basically, monsters would generate "off the screen" and be mobile. They would even possibly come after you. This system would encourage travel and movement in the environment.
Rewards are always a big part of every game. If you don't find an uber item every once in a while, it doesn't seem worth it. If your skills aren't advancing so you can take on bigger monsters, why do it?
Story lines are great. But, you will need rewards in the story also.
Posted by: Bishop
Don't forget about intrigue in theese cities.
Crime is likely to be low in the magi citadel's, being that most locks are magical in nature and there wouldn't be that much valuable to the common thief, but on the same token, a conscripted job would be an give an attractive challenge (and of course, price).
Stealing a certain wizard's prized tool of some sort, perhaps.
Also, on limiting thievery you should have to pass a test of sorts if you plan on joining the thieves guild (of which shouldn't be required if you're a thief, but works for novices) in where you have to steal something from an NPC.
NPC's should conscript jobs.
A wealthy thief of experience should be able to go around different places checking for jobs, NPC's give the jobs to steal from other NPC's.
Then you have the player jobs.
Imagine it, a raid into the dungeons below comes out sucessful, only one disgruntled survivor is angry that they didn't get the almighty swords of daemon's bane or some such idiotic name, so they conscript an experienced thief to steal the item from the player.
With a system that let you do that, it would work wonderfully.
I did it without the system in UO, simply based on honor (mind you I demanded half price up front, 25% if they were someone trustworthy) and got quite a few jobs that way.
You can only see text onscreen in UO, but they have the party system now, you can have up to 10 people in a party and they can share messages.
They can also have "party looting" enabled, which reminds me of what another thief I knew did back in UO.
He'd party up with people for a week or so on his honorable character and then switch to Jumbo Tubesteak, approach them and say "it's me ZeL", they'd party up with him to talk and he'd lead them off to an ambush, they'd be wasted and he'd loot them and dissapear into the mists, although I have seen him running from people on ZeL, occasionaly.
Point is, cities are full of intrigue, Sure there are going to be one or two places (glorious knight's fortress and lowly serf farm) where ill will barely exists, but for the rest of the world, a few gold peices here and there can purchase nearly anything.
Posted by: Bishop
UO had all of that Kane, but again in OSI styled it was done wrong.
Every bank and inn had a message board, but they were mostly cluttered with NPC quests (go off and rescue this or that gimp from this or that group of ogres, orcs, or brigands).
Their powerful items were probably vanquishing with a spell or some such tacked onto it, but anyone using them in the Real World (Felucia, not trammel) found themselves floating home (ganked, patheticly) and the first person to grab the corpse got away with the item in question.
They did get the monster stuff right though.
Monsters roamed the land at will, some had concentrated areas (more likley to find the more powerful serpents deeper into the swamp and such) and some of them had forts (orcs had a camp, so did the brigands) where they'd constantly spawn, but more or less they spawned randomly around the world.
One thing that I liked going a couple years back was how they had the War going on between the humans and the lizardmen.
Every so often a group of 20-30 lizardmen would stroll into town on a killing spree, heading for the bank and gathering if they weren't dispatched.
Posted by: redwench
indeed bish. the hiring of thieves or sell swords, etc by npc is what i had in mind. and raids on small towns by bandits or monsters is just assumed. ^^
kane: you can improve you skills, strength, etc without using levels. the level system is just more convenient to program. a more gradual system can be done, thus imitating real life. and of course, vanquishing a dragon would get you either a lot of money equivalents and/or an uber item. or using your skill could get you such an item. craftsmen could make them at high skill levels, thieves could steal them, wizards could create them.
i pity the programers that try to make this game
Posted by: Bishop
Programming it is going to look easy compared to balancing it, unless you throw balance to the wind and find yourself some common sense to build on, and then let the world develop itself.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
This brings up an interesting point.
Why do games have to be "balanced"?
Posted by: redwench
depends on your definition of balance
you dont want anything to be easy for a novice, or horrendously difficult for a GM. and you want all player characters to have similar potential value. if you make one char useless, no one will seriously play it. and you dont want a bunch of warriors and thieves running around, but no craftsmen and wizards. youd all be competing for the same things. that wouldnt be fun at all.
Posted by: Null Actor
The game has to be balanced because players are shallow.
If one class is more powerful than the others, then in a level based game, most players would only pick that class, since it will allow you to level up faster.
In a skill based game, where there aren't levels to separate players, you just play what kind of character you want to play.
But 'balance' is too often a bastardized term. Most people seem to think that balance is a term reserved for combat and killing monsters only. I'd like to think that in a True CRPG, balanced would mean your ability to have fun without frustration playing the type of character you'd want to play.
See, balance is a bad thing in most cases, in the traditional sense of the term. I mean, wizards should be way more powerful than your standard fighter. 3, 4, 5 enemies should be no problem for a wizard, nor a more powerful creature that would roast a fighter.
But, on the flip side, it should take a lot longer to train that wizard in to a powerful figure in the game, whereas a fighter has the bonus of being quickly trained, and being able to heighten his ability to slay monsters with magical items.
But again, the problem is that if one character appears stronger than the other, players will migrate to playing that character type only.
Posted by: Null Actor
Personally, I'd love to play a wizard in a game, even if it took me months to train him up properly.
There is no MMORPG out there that has done thieves or wizards properly yet.
Posted by: Scav
im not crazy about the loggin out for travel idea for days. If used it shouldnt exceed an hour two if your going across the whole world, when i wanna play a game i dont wanna wait.
Also you need to have a lotta side things that do not resemble combat or have anything to do with it, such as finding items on creatures to craft other items from. Like in a game called nexusTK there was mining and woodchoppin and sewing. Sewin you had to kill sheep for the wool so i wont talk about that. But for mining and cutting wood all you did was drop an axe or shovel on the ground and pick it up and you would eventualy get better at it and get more wood or better minerals. I think for none combat related stuff like that you should initiate a skill system though very very limited that every single player can do but maybe some excell at, like if you have a miner class he should be one level above where everyone else would be, or a woodsman class same thing. I just remember that when i played nexus tk i spent many times what i did fighting, cutting wood in the attempt to craft the perfect wooden swords to sell for loads of money. I would like to see a good non combat aspect introduced, extending farther then other games craftsmen or so called 'merchants'. And the only reason im suggesting levelin here is cause you cannot do this any other way save like one of those cheesy meeters where a person hits one button and when it gets to a point he hits anouther button and closer he is to the mark the better.
Also i agree with the totaly random enviroment done by the computer not the human through algorithims or whatever the hell. If the game just had a set up code where it should randomly introduce a dungeon and how the dungeon should look that would be really cool. Anyone here every play dagerfall? that game had all sortsa dungeons that were increadably even nausiating random that were so outta the way its inconceavable a programmer put them in. ANd that game must be a decade old.
Magic is tricky i dont even wanna speculate on that hehe.
Posted by: Null Actor
Crafts are separate. I don't think of them as a key element of a game, despite the fact that lots of people like it.
I think they should be completely separate. Either you are a craftsman, or you are an adventurer. Mixing sucks.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
One thing I think should be adressed is death. Losing items on your corpse sucks. I mean if areas were easy to get to, it wouldn't be so bad, but sometimes it may take several minutes just to get back to where you died. Then you're less powerful from dropping items and you will probably die again.
I would like to see it where you lose nothing but gold or gems when you die. The key to making this work however is to make valuables actually valuable. Gold is way too easy to accumulate in most games and serves little purpose in its value.
If banks are allowed, they should come at a premium. Make gold and jewels cool to get again.
As for dying, I would like to see maybe something like a special gem or other item you can buy. Then wherever you tune it to, you will teleport there when you die. Only usable in the wilderness. It would be useful to use it right next to a dungeon though.
Posted by: Null Actor
I think the best way to deal with death is that you lose your stuff, but your stuff doesn't influence how good of a character you are. It's just for looks basically.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
In your game.
Posted by: Null Actor
The catch is there can never be a true penalty for death.
How can there be? When people die from stuff like disconnects, true penalties are a major pain the ass. Currently, in DAoC, you lose experience and gold. But that is stuff that's easy to come by. So what's the point? Anything anyone does for death is just an inconvenience.
Posted by: Null Actor
My views on death in games is that there should be a penalty for dying. BUT death should be escapeable 90% of the time.
Why?
Because then it allows for heroic deaths. As it is right now, there is no such thing as a heroic death. But imagine how cool it would be if you decided to hold off a group of monsters so that your friends could flee to safety. You die, but for the greater good.
That would be very cool.
It would work, because with death only an inconvinience, why go out of the way to make sure the player dies? In DAoC, by the time you realize you are probably going to die, it's pretty much inescapable. Lately when I play, it's just "Ho hum, guess I'm gonna die. La-dee-dah, now it's just MORE time I have to spend trying to get to the next level".
That just isn't fun.
However, if I could run away and live to return another day, that would be great. In a game where it was a huge world, I could mark the spot on my map, and come back later on, after I became more powerful. Or come back with friends. It allows me to have fun and avoid the frustration and annoyance of dying.
See, with the huge random world, something like this would have a real point to it.
Posted by: Bishop
That's how UO was a while back, disregarding the ganksquads roaming the earth.
What about poisons?
They should be fairly powerful, to where if you don't notice the effects soon enough and get them treated, you're going to become weaker until you finally die.
On the other hand though, (depending on the type of poison) poisons should take time to effect you.
Some could effect within minutes and leave you weak (health loss, temporary stat decline, decline in stamina and mana) but wouldn't be fatal.
On the powercharacters, simply make them take longer to get.
A wizard can be compotent with a couple months of playing, but he won't be the powerhouse he'd be with 9-12 months of training.
Mana shouldn't be attributed to intelligence, it should go to stamina.
Nearly every form of book or movie where they have a wizard of some sort eventually shows them getting tired to the point they can't cast anything, different reasons of course but I find it idiotic that intelligence is linked to mana.
Stamina is more logical, and on the stats, don't put a stat cap on availabilty.
You get yourself say 100 dex and 100 int for a wizard, giving you the maximum mana and the highest spell-learning abilities (and damage abilities, intelligence is the base for damage), but say you only had 15 str.
You should be able to gain str, but it would take twice as long (Takes quite a while to get 100 of a stat in UO, taking twice that long to get that third stat up to 100 would take almost a year).
The problem with all of this is eventually you get people who make a character and do nothing with it but train until they have a satisfying power to the character.
This is fine, as long as you don't aid them.
Power hour as it's sometimes called in UO is one of the most idiotic idea's I've ever seen, and it was the killing blow to easily GMing a character in under a weeks time.
What it did was for a certain hour every day, depending on the shard, all stat increase penalties were cut in half.
What this means is rather than the skills being much harder to advance once you got past 60 or so, (on a scale of 0-100) they would only be as difficult to gain as when they were 30 or so.
Was ridiculous.
My dexer was about 2 years old before I even had him at 50 fencing (spent my time actually Doing things rather than statgaining like most kids today).
Which in a way needs to be fixed.
Most of the statgaining methods involve sitting somewhere doing the same thing over and over.
More on that tommorow.
Posted by: Null Actor
No fatal poisons. That is the most annoying thing ever in games. And it would be especially shitty when used against players.
But see, this goes back to my point of not having stats in the game. If someone can see a stat, then they are going to want that stat to be a certain number, and they aren't going to play the game, they are going to work the game. That's no fun.
I'm spilling more beans about my idea than I want to here, but what the hell. If someone takes the ideas and uses them, well, all the better for the rest of us.
See, I think if you have a skill, you should be labelled 'skilled', and if you don't have a skill, you should be labelled 'unskilled'. If you are unskilled you can't do a task requiring that skill. If you are skilled, you can.
"But how do I get more powerful" you ask. Well, simple, same as always. Internally, there will still be stats. But, the catch is, a weak stat is just as useful as a strong stat. Only difference being that with a high skill, you are more likely to succeed quicker, and on the first try.
What does this accomplish? Three things.
First, you determine your skill through roleplaying. Only you know how good you are at something, and there is no way to describe that fact to other people except for the feats you've accomplished.
Second, it lessens the gap between a new player, and a player who's played for a very long time. Both are good characters, but if one is more mature, he'll be better at things, and quicker at them.
Third, it completely removes the tendancy of players to focus on making their numbers bigger, rather than just playing the game the way it was meant to be played. If you aren't worrying about a silly number, then you spend more time adventuring, exploring, and experiencing the world.
Posted by: Ion Silverbolt
That sounds cool. You would have to prove your skill to others instead of just having a damn level or number.
Make gold and jewels worth getting too though. Too often I see games where you can get a ton of gold so it has no value. The biggest part of treasure is supposed to be gold and gems and the like. Anymore, people just leave that kind of stuff and only take weapons or armor.
Posted by: Null Actor
Yes. Well, there should be specialty stores where players can sell magic weapons and such that they found, that they don't want. And since they'd be unique ( or hard to get/find ), other players would be able to buy them from that store. Of course, they'd be expensive, which is a good enough reason to keep gold and gems around.
I envision gems as a non-standard money type. The catch being that if you get a gem worth a large amount, you might have to travel to a large city to actually sell it for a decent price.
Posted by: Scav
Id just settle for AC with a Rune Style interface, all this stuff is gettin too far out there
Posted by: Null Actor
I only played AC long enough to line up at a spawn spot and try and grab a drop *for my very first quest*.
Quit playing.
Descibe this rune system, I don't know what it is.
Posted by: Bishop
Rune, the game.
UT engine, third person viking combat.
www.runegame.com, although I think you've played it Nova.
Posted by: Null Actor
OH!
I misread his post. I thought he meant there was a Rune interface with AC... WTF? hehehe
Okay, makes sense now.
Posted by: Scav
http://www.runegame.com/downloads.php?loc=demos
grab the demo and check it out real quick, i like the control and think it would be cool for a real rpg cause the control is comfortable and you have a variety of swings but at the same time it is very unconventional and difficult to completely master.
Posted by: Null Actor
I've played it. It's okay. Had it confused with Blade of Darkness for a bit.
Posted by: Null Actor
I think that interface is a minor issue though. Why? Cause it's the easiest thing to program. In a matter of weeks you could program as many different interfaces as you want.
The only requirement I'd put on it, is that I like to control my character directly. When I press an attack button, he attacks. When I press the move keys, he moves. When I press block, he blocks.
None of this 'turn on attack mode then sit back and watch your character fight in the equivalent of slow motion' crap.
Of course, there'd be some internal numbers working to make it work, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as current mmorpgs where everything is timed, and rules and blah blah blah.
I think WoW is going to do the action style.
Posted by: Scav
i think thats important cause the rest is unimportant heh if you look at the games combat is almost everything. I think a good combat is the most important, yes maybe the other stuff takes more time but no one spends as much time lookin at a tree or a mountain or the sky or even accomplishing a quest, as they do fighting
Posted by: redwench
i see nothing wrong with having an "auto" mode for combat, provided its optional.
Posted by: Null Actor
The problem there is that an auto system, and a controlled system, are completely different. You can't really do them both.
Posted by: Null Actor
You have a point scav, but the thing is, is that combat, despite the fact that it's what you do most, is still governed by the rest of the game mechanics. If the rest of the game doesn't fit properly, then no matter how much fun combat is, the game will still suck.
And in the end, making combat good is the easiest thing you can do, assuming the rest of the game is good.
Posted by: Drake
Well I skipped reading alot hehe dont have much time left before bed time
Heres my Take on it.
What all MMORPG's are missing is a simple yet very important part of any true roleplaying game
A DM ( I use DM becuase GM has become a name for someone who enforces policies and not promote role playing)
While a DM promotes Roleplaying they are also able to asses situations on the fly and add or subtract as needed to the encounter and cater to the players needs without giving free exp/item/skills away.
AC almost had this, with thier ever changing story line drastic world altering events. But, what they lacked was small scale player interaction. I remembered when AC destroyed towns, one day they where there, the next just rubble.
But it failed in the fact that there was no small group scale DM run quest to follow off the major event, to try and further the story while involving the players.
and thats another point, the stories move along at a predetermined pace. No matter what the players do or try they have very little affect on what the outcome of the story would be. Unlike when we played pen-and-paper RPG's, We where the story. The story moved becuase of our actions took shape and never had a predictable ending Sure when i DM'ed i had a rough Campaign layed out but it was rough becuase I didnt know what the players would do. If they got off track then I made a new side story to keep them going in that direction. Never force people on a path they didnt choose themselves.
ah well nough for this installment back to reading previous post.
Da Storm
Drake FireStorm
The Forgotten Ranger
Dagna BattleHammer
56th Lush of Brell
Jade Dragon
Posted by: Null Actor
Read this post to see my take on that Drake.
Posted by: Null Actor
I will not let this thread die!
I came across a fine moment, if fleeting, in DAoC the other day...
It's when you stumble across things like this that MMORPGs rule:
Posted by: Null Actor
To put that in to perspective, When standing right next to that giant, his foot took up my entire screen. I was still pretty far away from him when I took that screenshot. So were the people up in the front of the group (Which is a raiding party of us pushing in to Hibernia, where we successfully took a keep).
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