Mmorpgs
OttoDestruct
Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7790Members
Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7790Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">And why I don't like them</div> I don't like MMORPG's. It seems to me that every time one is developed ads for it, and magazines push them as "THE MOST 1337 EPIC RPG GAME EVAR!". Keyword there being RPG. Role. Playing. Game. I have yet to see a MMORPG actually focus on roleplaying, with possible exception to SWG as it forces players to interact with its economy. Alas, it just turns into a pay to play Diablo number cruncher with lots and lots of people connected. Granted this discussion will most likely get locked from "OMG NUB X MMORPG BLOWS Y'S <insert body part here>", but.. er... yea.. discuss... or something...
Comments
As stated to find a server where _actual roleplaying_ takes place is a challenge to say the least.
An additional problem I think is also one of mixing new with advanced characters. It seems alot of people can't resist the temptation to team up with some high-level near god-like character to "rush" to get to the next level.
Too much emphasis on stuff - that next fantastic item - and not enough emphasis on just spending time in your character's skin.
PSO was a small step in the right direction but sega didn't continue and it's a real shame. Hopefully someday someone will pick up where PSO left off and run a heckload further XD
<b>edit:</b>
I think this comic page describes MMORPGs at their best =P
<a href='http://www.gucomics.com/archives/view.php?cdate=20040202' target='_blank'>http://www.gucomics.com/archives/view.php?cdate=20040202</a>
Oh back in the day, even with the second land added, UO was the best. Unfortunely, the GM's didn't give a damn about anyone except popular people, and really weren't any help.
I solved a quest early one time, but my choice of revealing "who" the lich was early was in a rather bad way. I shot an arrow at his human form at a gathering and got put in jail. They banned me until the mystery was solved and changed the outcome. I quit shortly thereafter. It was right around the time they started finally making real quests again. *Sigh*
Oh well, not enough roleplayers in it, especially when you see people named "Limp Bizkit" in it.
MMO's are about immersing yourself in a game world you love. Just like people who loved warcraft are looking forward to WoW, and people who loved the Matrix (me) are looking forward to The Matrix Online.
Right now I'm playing FFXI and while there is a lot of leveling and questing, I enjoy the enviorment too. A couple days ago I spent three hours fishing with friends arguing about who was more badass Kefka or Sephiroth, while it wasn't a pure RP experience it sure as hell wasn't level treadmilling.
I think the most obvious problem is graphics. 3D graphics may look nice, but they limit what you can do & where you can go in the game and, even worse, it means that you get much smaller worlds to explore. Theres also something nice about reading descriptions of your location - it lets you build up your own mental picture of the world and what the monsters etc look like, and it also allows you to move around the world very fast when you need to, unlike in modern RPG's.
From a programmers viewpoint theres a virtually unlimited possibility of what you can create in a MUD environment, unlike 3D. Its also a lot faster to implement features ina text mud than working with any sort of graphics, giving more time to work on the design & gameplay side. Its a shame that no professional developers have spent several years making a commercial text-based MUD yet, I think some seriously good games could be produced if this were to happen.
In case you guys are still unsure, Kefka is.
In case you guys are still unsure, Kefka is. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Please monkey it was no contest, Kefka all the way : )
Although they made a good counterpoint since Sephiroth and Cloud were actually one person you had to combine their cool factor. I quickly debunked this by pointing out the Cloud was a pansy.
Anyway you have to face it the only pure RP games are single player, as soon as you go multiplayer you add in free will, which means someone has the ability to not RP. 1 out of 100 people don't RP at 1000 people 100 don't RP at 10,000 people 1000 won't RP. It's just not something you can't fix without completely destroying gameplay. Trust me you can find 50 people to RP even in EverCrack.
Think about it deeper, its the same human traits that make these things fail: laziness, greed, corruption and other fun things. A lot of cool things fail because people suck.
When I first started playing though, everyone was cool as hell and were nice people... now everyone is just an **** because of how this world is... it sucks.
I'm still looking forward to playing World of Warcraft though.
Here's the part you're confusing with what works: IRC =P
That's right... chatting. It's no coincidence that MMORPGs have an interface that's frightening similar to what you'd find in your usual Internet Relay Chat. Rather than successfully create a new system that works well (like PSO, dear god the chat system in that was good XD ), they just put pretty 3d graphics and some number crunching on and call it a game.
Levelling breaks immersion too, people talking about things in numbers is a atmosphere shattering experience =/
If you took out the daffy levels and left it as a sorta 3D explorable world with combat and fancy items it'd still be fun because the people make it that way. Course IRC is free so I think you're better sticking with that until an MMORPG with genuine gameplay comes along rather than the current crop of voyeuristic marvels where you can watch shouting "woo! go stats! give that goblin chief a treadmill thrashing! wahey!" and occaisonally press some buttons to make you feel like you had some important imput that can't just be stuck in a macro and left.
</cynisism>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Levelling breaks immersion too, people talking about things in numbers is a atmosphere shattering experience =/<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
One of my biggest pet peeves right now is leveling. Seriously, why? Why does just about every RPG ever made have to have leveling in it? Imagine this if you will: An MMORPG where you create your character by taking a phsych test (like in Jagged Alliance 2), this will determine which skills (up to two in JA2) your character would get bonuses to. Then you get to allocate a set number of points to your character's 'stats' (if anyone can think of a better way to do this I'm all ears), then.... they stay that way! Perminantly! You can't level up, so there would be little attraction other than role playing (I suppose you could have fun just sitting around shooting the breeze with drinking buddies in the local pub dr. d style too), as any nublet could theoretically make a character just as good as yours. Ok, I hear you asking, but without anyone being able to improve their skills there would be no variety. Yes that would be a concern, so I present to you an idea I first saw in System Shock 2 (but which is probably older): When you preform a skill based task, say, lockpicking, you are presented with a simple sort of minigame, the dificulty of which is dependant on whether or not you have the lockpicking skill, what you're dexterity stat is (in this case), a random number (some pin configurations are harder than others), and the lock's toughness (Medeco > Master Padlock #3). Then the players ability at the minigame will set him apart from other players. If he/she is really good at the minigame, they may be able to pick an average lock successfully without the lockpick skill and a low DEX, so they can create a new character with a diferent skill. Character improvement is thus still possible, but it is done through improving ones own skills rather than increasing some stat. You get better at the game much like how you'd get better at quake.
Now personally I think a game like that would be really slick (assuming the minigame-ish thing was done really well), maybe even good enough for me to want to pay to play it on a per month basis.
Here's the part you're confusing with what works: IRC =P
That's right... chatting. It's no coincidence that MMORPGs have an interface that's frightening similar to what you'd find in your usual Internet Relay Chat. Rather than successfully create a new system that works well (like PSO, dear god the chat system in that was good XD ), they just put pretty 3d graphics and some number crunching on and call it a game.
Levelling breaks immersion too, people talking about things in numbers is a atmosphere shattering experience =/
If you took out the daffy levels and left it as a sorta 3D explorable world with combat and fancy items it'd still be fun because the people make it that way. Course IRC is free so I think you're better sticking with that until an MMORPG with genuine gameplay comes along rather than the current crop of voyeuristic marvels where you can watch shouting "woo! go stats! give that goblin chief a treadmill thrashing! wahey!" and occaisonally press some buttons to make you feel like you had some important imput that can't just be stuck in a macro and left.
</cynisism> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All that doesn't change the fact that I spent three hours hanging out with friends inside a town fishing and just shooting the ****.
Its easy to pick out everything wrong with MMO games but its just as easy to ignore them and make your own fun. Look at a game like Neverwinter Nights, plenty of people didn't RP but the people who did were great at it because they chose to do it, and it wasn't forced on them like in MUDs.
You can complain about level treadmilling and item whoring all you want but these games don't force you to do this, it is entirely up to the individual player how they choose to spend their online gaming time.
To completely prove this point beyond a shadow of a doubt, I was a member of an RPing clan in <i>Diablo 2</i>. There was about 20 of us and we spent our time staging in character quests and sat around town drinking booze and fudging around. The RP opprotunites are out there, don't be lazy.
Hacking in Neocron also worked like that and there's even a whole game dedicated to that style of play called 'puzzle pirates'. Shame PP's implementation isn't exactly great but it's a step in the right direction =3
I personally believe that games should be a mix of char and player; the minigames being the player part and the difficulty of the minigame being the char ^^ <b>:edit</b>
D, I know where you're coming from being an RP fan myself, but the levelling does hold you back =/
For one, most MMOrpgs have level limits to locations; some arbitary, some just caused by the strength of the ever-spawning monsters there XD
At some point or other you WILL have to level to achieve something, and even within the constraints of RP I'm very free-spirted which means I absolutely love exploring.
Another MMORPG spoiler from the levels is the other people in the game. To illustrate exactly what I'm getting at I'll point out something that happened in PSO;
My character was having a relationship with another character, we'll call him 'lolly' for reference sake XD
Anyways, one day I'm sitting in the lobby chattering away like usual when lolly's player comes in with a character depicting his archnemesis. He starts making threats against my char and with her usual fiery passion she starts giving him a tongue lashing. Unfortunately the 'villian' was new and so everyone else in the lobby saw he was just level 1. The net result is we actually had to stop and inform everyone we were RPing because everyone had ganged up on him screaming that he was a noob and that my lil char would kick his rear and stuff. Not only was the room reaching flaming new temperatures but the actual char was surrounded by people doing kick/punch animations on him lol.
You can even add the two together... Imagine a thief in RO who isn't high level enough to have the hide ability. They RP and say they're hiding. while the others involved in RP understand, the other players will start pointing out that they haven't hidden and will get involved. This will inevitably end in some conflict or annoyance and even after you mention it's RP there's always going to be someone new arriving to point out the thief isn't hidden =P
Stepping away from RP to a little extent the whole levelling mindset causes even more aggrivation. If you were walking in the woods when you saw someone beset by wolves which you responded to by jumping in and helping them fight them off, chances are they'd either;
a) thank you because you just saved them/made their lives easier
b) get angry because they're too proud to accept help and would scorn you saying they could have handled them themselves
c) become miffed because it was a trail or something story depicted.
As you can see, even amongst non-RP players this is still a healthy environment for RP and atmosphere.
Now put this in a levelling context and the result almost entirely ends up being....
d) "OMG JOO NOOB THAT WAS MY XP!!! YOU KSER!!! I REPORTZ JOO!!!" or some other slagging match.
Even more 'pleasant' players such as myself find it somewhat aggrivating when people interfere by helping you in a fight and therefore increasing the amount of milling you'll have to do to get the next new shiny level.
The worst thing is this is extended further by the 'hero complex' where men seem to think all girls in combat over a second long probably need a hand. If the game wasn't based around boringly dull xp treadmilling you'd probably find the girls at the recieving end of this a little more patient but as it is when you've been 'saved' for 800th time, slowing your progress towards getting that important skill it's a little too easy to blow your top ^^;
D, I've sat around on MMORPGs many a time having a nice chat... sure you can do it in IRC but the environments and avatars make it nicer. Ragnarok Online was fantastic for finding places to sit and RP, or chat or have a romantic interlude. The environments themselves were interesting and there were many places to explore and there were even many items you could find that had no practical application beyond RP (such as rings, dolls, etc) but eventually you'd always have to come back to the same old boring stupid number gaming.
There's a great many solutions to treadmilling, including removing character advancement altogether, but until they're used I will continue to pour molten hate on MMORPGing =P
*squish*
Ughhhh I gotta go change my pants now <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Hacking in Neocron also worked like that and there's even a whole game dedicated to that style of play called 'puzzle pirates'. Shame PP's implementation isn't exactly great but it's a step in the right direction =3<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You mean <a href='http://www.puzzlepirates.com/' target='_blank'>this</a> Puzzle Pirates? Damnit, that actually looks like fun.... must...resist...urge...to...play...subscription...based..game...lest..I...become...addicted...
Yeah, I'd love to make something liek that too but unfortunatly I don't have the time or skill to pull off something on that scale. Not to mention that I abhore subscription based gaming and couldn't bring myself to force people to pay for the undoubtedly expensive bandwith costs... unless it could somehow be P2P... Anyways, I'm working on a very simple single player RPG in a similar vein so who knows, maybe there will be an MMORPG sequel to it someday.
at this rate it's gonna be on UT2k4 though ^^
I used to play RuneScape when it first came out and there were no p2p players who thought themselves above everyone else. I used to know when to sleep because the sun was comming up <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
In all - I would like MMORPG's if the last three letters actually applied to something within the game and not some ambiguous title that really stands for MMOMLG.
In all - I would like MMORPG's if the last three letters actually applied to something within the game and not some ambiguous title that really stands for MMOMLG. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, if you were to get additional quests and what not it would make leveling more highly appreciated.
Ultima Online had more Roleplaying then SWG ever had. I've come across some roleplayers about once in SWG.
Anyway. one of the first people is right. Try the less main stream MMORPGs.
I beta tested an UMMORPG (Ultra-massively...) called Wish online. That had AMAZING amounts of role playing, because it had just one huge server the developers had a story line that was changing every day. And this was just in a beta. It had a new newspaper with information on what is happening with the lords etc, and some of the lords were played by the developers.
You'll never get lots of roleplaying in mainstream mmorpgs cause there are so many FPS people there.
After that time, I came to the conclusion that such games aren't for me. I'll play a game online occasionally, but games where most of the fun lies in online play (BF, and a lot of games) aren't for me. I just don't like how the online world feels when it comes to playing. You'll come across someone that will learn to exploit something to their own benefit then they tell a friend that tells some of their friends and then everyone is doing it. And usually, with such things, they take the fun out of games. Anyone remember their first time playing CS? Even the average player knew the AK pulled up and to the right and they would use that to their advantage. Then there you are, getting destroyed online constantly by people that know of it and not having much fun.
I have to agree, Skulk's skill system would be best. You'd have people realize what has to be done in the world and make a character tailored for that purpose and join a group. But there should still be some form of advancement, even if rather minute. Say you're playing a futuristic MMORPG like game. Well, you have a character that is a great pilot of vehicles and a decent mech pilot, but when it comes to combat in the form of foot or in vehicles where you don't have a gunner, the character doesn't do too good. The way to fix this is either team up with people that are good gunners/fighters or spend time (I'm not talking hours, I'm talking weeks and MONTHS) to try and improve the character's skills.
As far as I'm concerned my system handles this nicely. If you are a bad shot, you'll have to spend a long time teaching yourself (not you're character) how to shoot better, constantly adjusting you're mouse sensitivity and acceleration and practicing until you can shoot sparrows in mid flight. But really, if you're character isn't designed to be a gunner, then why isn't someone else filling that position? Isn't social interaction the whole point of an MMORPG? I guess I just feel that even if you give the players some INSANE requirements to improove a stat they'll find a way to write a script to punch cows all day (JA2 reference) for them, or hack the server, or otherwise ruin it for everybody who has put some honest effort into it. Besides, imagine what would happen if your character, who you'd recently spent six months improoving, died. In most MMORPGs this is relatively insignificant, in mine death is death , perminant. But its not a huge setback because you can easily recreate the character, or decide to create a different one with lower dexterity now that you can shoot so well.