How Massive Multiplayer Should Work

Shamus Young

New member
Jul 7, 2008
3,247
0
0
How Massive Multiplayer Should Work

There may be other players around, but most MMOs make you feel like it's best to play alone.

Read Full Article
 

Albino Boo

New member
Jun 14, 2010
4,667
0
0
That exactly how Guildwars 1 worked (ok there where henchmen but they sucked) but by the time you got mid to late game you needed human players and back to the same old grind of getting the right classes with a decent build.

Also farming was very common in GW1 and build did exits to solo certain areas but there was none of the whole kill stealing because of the instance setup.
 

BrotherRool

New member
Oct 31, 2008
3,834
0
0
This is so true. One of the most amazing things about Realm of the Mad God is how much they encourage you to group with other people. You get XP if anything dies, whilst _on the same screen_ as you, so the only time you'd ever not try and meet up with people and kill lots of stuff is if you hate being given money and XP. It makes playing as healers and the like feel good too, because you're still being rewarded for doing your work, rather than having to focus on killing stuff

It's just the way these should work. There's absolutely no reason to be tight about giving loot and XP to players, it's not like it costs the devs anything and if players are getting too much, you just dial the global settings down a bit. There is absolutely no reason to make people fight for XP and loot
 

Mr Cwtchy

New member
Jan 13, 2009
1,045
0
0
Funnily enough LOTRO is also going down that route with Riders of Rohan. The penalty for having someone hit your mob will be gone and the newest zone will use the 'everybody hits mob, everybody gets loot' mechanic in the landscape and public dungeons.

However, it's not quite fair to blame the old system's longevity on developers alone. The announced changes I described have resulted in a number of people complaining about 'interfering', leeching and griefers. Whether this is just resistance to change or not is a matter of opinion I suppose.

IMO, this kind of thing should be made the standard for all MMOs, but you're not going to find everyone cheering for it.
 

SonicWaffle

New member
Oct 14, 2009
3,019
0
0
MUDs. Those are still a thing that exist.

I'm playing one in another window right now. I'm grouped with three other people. One of them I've met offline, and I count her as a good friend. The other two are good friends I have a laugh with. When the playerbase is smaller, friendships are more likely, and even when we're in competition for XP I will move into a room to see that these guys have taken the big-XP hotspot before I got there; I'll swear at them in a good-natured fashion and move on. Later, we may group together to take down that very same hotspot.

Competition exists, but with a much smaller playerbase (usually only 100-150 players online) it's easier to form personal relationships and get to be friends with your rivals.
 

BarGamer

New member
Jul 4, 2009
15
0
0
THIS is why GW2 will revolutionize the industry: Not the combat, the cinematics, the on-and-off gameplay; The mechanics of letting players play together. I played quite a few MMOs in my time, MUDs too, and none of them got this right. Guild Wars 2 got it right.
 

Rainboq

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2009
16,620
0
41
Always nice to see more Shamus.

OT: This. So much this. Now someone show this to Gear Box. I hate having to fight for loot with friends in Borderlands 2.
 

PsiMatrix

Gray Jedi
Feb 4, 2008
172
0
0
City of Heroes didn't force you to team till the Incarnate trials (read: RAIDS) came along. And it had the most robust chat system.
 
Apr 28, 2008
14,634
0
0
Which is why I love it. Sadly, years and years of MMO's have drilled into player's minds that others are your rivals. There's plenty of times when I'm questing and reviving NPC's, and people will walk by and revive another one. I always end up getting up, going to where they are, and help them revive that one. Then we go back and revive the one I already worked on.

Same with fighting. I'll be fighting something, a guy doing the same quest will attack a separate monster. I'll then lead mine into his, and make it a group thing so we both get the xp/loot/quest reward.

In other MMO's, all players are rivals. Even those in the same faction. In Guild Wars 2, everyone is an ally. And I love it.

Also what's great about the game, you can level up wherever you want. From the start you can go to any starting area, and level there. And since the game de-levels you when you go into a lower-level zone, there's no high-level players griefing people by killing everything. The mechanics of the game make griefing a very hard thing to do, if not outright impossible. Oh, and when de-leveled, if you fight in a low-level zone, you still get the same amount of experience you would if leveling in a zone equal to your level. This means you're always leveling where you want to level, and not where the game tells you to level. It's also great if a friend just starts. Since you'll be de-leveled, you and him can quest together wherever he wants and it won't be a "sit back while the high level guy kills everything" deal.

And the skills... the game does away with normal skill trees and the whole "tank/healer/DPS" trinity. Everyone has a healing skill. Sure some are better at it than others, but everyone can be that supporting character if they want. And there aren't any skill-trees. Each weapon has its own skill-set and gameplay style. This means you can fight with the weapon you want.

So in Guild Wars 2, you're playing how you want, where you want, in a group where everyone benefits. It's just... why the hell did it take so long for something like this to happen?!
 
Apr 28, 2008
14,634
0
0
Rainboq said:
Always nice to see more Shamus.

OT: This. So much this. Now someone show this to Gear Box. I hate having to fight for loot with friends in Borderlands 2.
And show them how Guild-Wars 2 handles level-scaling. It'd be awesome if a high-level friend came to help me and we actually fought together, instead of him/her killing everything instantly and getting no xp. If it used Guild Wars 2's system, your friend would still have all the skills/weapons and be strong, but not overpowered. You'd actually play together, and your friend would earn the same amount of experience if he/she were playing in the more high-level areas. And you wouldn't have to always only play together so one of you doesn't get too high leveled.

Seems kind of silly to say Borderlands 2, a shooter, should have a system like an MMO. But I feel it could be vastly improved.
 

Puppeteer Putin

New member
Jan 3, 2009
482
0
0
I agree totally. I find that was a particularly bad problem in SW:TOR. So many of the fun games are group orientated. This meant if you didn't play in a Guild, you would miss out on a huge segment of the game.

GW2, I can play without relying on forming a team to play with. It almost has a Battlefield element to it. Encouraging group play to accomplish objectives.
 

lluewhyn

New member
Aug 26, 2008
33
0
0
As another posted alluded to, LOTRO made this problem worse by not only not giving any rewards to a person who helped you kill a monster, it actually penalized *you* by taking half of your xp. That resulted in a lot of watching someone struggling with a monster and trying to decide if they really were about to bite it before healing them or helping them kill the thing.

Glad it's going away, but the players there who haven't experienced GW2 are trying to imagine all kinds of ways that things are going to suck because of the change. Blah.
 

Ashannon Blackthorn

New member
Sep 5, 2011
259
0
0
I'm curious to see if WoW picks up into this mode of thinking. They have no issues in ripping off other good ideas. Granted some aspects of WoW would't be overly supportive (like end game raids, high level PvP and even dungeons) but the basic leveling, zone quests and dailies could really benefit. (Actually I think wow has brought in a small version, some mobs like Problim in Tol Barad, give all players who smack it credit.)
 

fmatthew5876

New member
Feb 22, 2010
18
0
0
Grouping can be amazing with the right people. When I was an everquest junkie I had a group of friends I would always go out with and do stuff outside of raids. It was so efficient and we made so much progress because everyone was a good player. Grouping with random retards can be frustrating.
 

Bostur

New member
Mar 14, 2011
1,070
0
0
Those systems of GW2 and older games like Rift or Warhammer Online does some things well. As you say they have the fun feeling of running in a pack. But they also miss out on some things that older MMOs did have. The practical obstacles involved with organizing groups helped or even forced people to get together, to chat it out and even make lasting friendships. That doesn't happen in a mob.

Discussing what restaurant to eat at is irrelvant to getting sustenance, but it can be a welcome opportunity for socializing and having a drink before dinner. People don't have time to talk while they nuke a boss, but they have plenty of time while they are waiting for the healer to buy mana potions. Sometimes an involuntary opportunity for socializing can be useful.

This kind of break in the action is one I miss in modern MMOs. It often feels like a bunch of people playing solo in the same spot even though mechanically they may be killing the same boss.

I prefer a happy medium where players have powerful tools to organize groups, but still are expected to take the initiative.
 

BrotherRool

New member
Oct 31, 2008
3,834
0
0
fmatthew5876 said:
Grouping can be amazing with the right people. When I was an everquest junkie I had a group of friends I would always go out with and do stuff outside of raids. It was so efficient and we made so much progress because everyone was a good player. Grouping with random retards can be frustrating.
Bostur said:
Those systems of GW2 and older games like Rift or Warhammer Online does some things well. As you say they have the fun feeling of running in a pack. But they also miss out on some things that older MMOs did have. The practical obstacles involved with organizing groups helped or even forced people to get together, to chat it out and even make lasting friendships. That doesn't happen in a mob.

Discussing what restaurant to eat at is irrelvant to getting sustenance, but it can be a welcome opportunity for socializing and having a drink before dinner. People don't have time to talk while they nuke a boss, but they have plenty of time while they are waiting for the healer to buy mana potions. Sometimes an involuntary opportunity for socializing can be useful.

This kind of break in the action is one I miss in modern MMOs. It often feels like a bunch of people playing solo in the same spot even though mechanically they may be killing the same boss.

I prefer a happy medium where players have powerful tools to organize groups, but still are expected to take the initiative.
None of this stuff has to go away though, as fmatthew points out in his quote, it's still quite a bit more efficient doing things with a good group and if you have decent raids and dungeons then there's still a lot of advantage of hanging around in a good group. Which there are systems in place for and will give the time for the socialising and organising.

But this helps you reach that stage, because strangers aren't an enemy (even if you're with a group, extra strangers will only ever help you earn XP and loot faster) it's easier to casually meet people, casually make friendships and start talking to them and if you've hung out with them a bit and you like their company/you work well together, then you're naturally going to want to arrange to meet up again and then this is where the load gets handed back to the old guild system.

Except better! Because loot drops are sorted out, you don't get stupid drama breaking up friendships, because they don't punish you for being in a guild, it's more fun to be in one.


That's what happens in places like Realm of the Mad God which has systems like this (albeit a very different sort of MMO)
 

Darkmantle

New member
Oct 30, 2011
1,031
0
0
Another good system that's been out for a while is ddo. THe whole game is instance based, which for many detracts from the experience but they've been doing the loot and xp sharing for years.
 

Bostur

New member
Mar 14, 2011
1,070
0
0
BrotherRool said:
fmatthew5876 said:
Grouping can be amazing with the right people. When I was an everquest junkie I had a group of friends I would always go out with and do stuff outside of raids. It was so efficient and we made so much progress because everyone was a good player. Grouping with random retards can be frustrating.
Bostur said:
Those systems of GW2 and older games like Rift or Warhammer Online does some things well. As you say they have the fun feeling of running in a pack. But they also miss out on some things that older MMOs did have. The practical obstacles involved with organizing groups helped or even forced people to get together, to chat it out and even make lasting friendships. That doesn't happen in a mob.

Discussing what restaurant to eat at is irrelvant to getting sustenance, but it can be a welcome opportunity for socializing and having a drink before dinner. People don't have time to talk while they nuke a boss, but they have plenty of time while they are waiting for the healer to buy mana potions. Sometimes an involuntary opportunity for socializing can be useful.

This kind of break in the action is one I miss in modern MMOs. It often feels like a bunch of people playing solo in the same spot even though mechanically they may be killing the same boss.

I prefer a happy medium where players have powerful tools to organize groups, but still are expected to take the initiative.
None of this stuff has to go away though, as fmatthew points out in his quote, it's still quite a bit more efficient doing things with a good group and if you have decent raids and dungeons then there's still a lot of advantage of hanging around in a good group. Which there are systems in place for and will give the time for the socialising and organising.

But this helps you reach that stage, because strangers aren't an enemy (even if you're with a group, extra strangers will only ever help you earn XP and loot faster) it's easier to casually meet people, casually make friendships and start talking to them and if you've hung out with them a bit and you like their company/you work well together, then you're naturally going to want to arrange to meet up again and then this is where the load gets handed back to the old guild system.

Except better! Because loot drops are sorted out, you don't get stupid drama breaking up friendships, because they don't punish you for being in a guild, it's more fun to be in one.


That's what happens in places like Realm of the Mad God which has systems like this (albeit a very different sort of MMO)
It can still happen of course. I think Warhammer was better at turning ad hoc groups into organized groups, because that game encouraged communication and had formal groups. Groups were easier to make and join in Warhammer than WoW for instance.

But I don't think it happens because of the efficient infrastructure, I think it happens in spite of it. In my experience people are naturally shy, and if given a chance to be anonymous most will remain anonymous. Downtime can be an important element not only for socializing but for emergent gameplay in general.

Modern MMOs starts feeling more like traditional multiplayer games like shooters or RTS games. Games that have only gameplay and lobby. I liked that MMOs used to have a more organic way for people to play together, they added some variety that seems to be going away.
 

TheRocketeer

Intolerable Bore
Dec 24, 2009
670
0
21
Believe the hype!

Guild Wars has gotten a lot of it, and it's true. It slices, it dices, it cleanses and shines. This is not a WoW clone. I repeat: ArenaNet has, in fact, done more than rearrange the buttons and promise you a new experience. This is a new experience, created by re-evaluating what an MMO should do for its players, and designing an experience from the ground up based on those assumptions.

Guild Wars 2 is an intrinsically free-to-play, interesting, dynamic, fresh, fun, and staggeringly beautiful game. If you have ever felt like an MMO was wasting your time, trying to copy a different game, or if you just claim not to like the kind of gameplay that MMO's tend to offer, give this game a chance. Even if it's not your cup of tea, it is living proof that progress can be and is being made with the massively-multiplayer model, and even that by itself is an answer to a question the gaming community has been asking for around a decade now.
 

rbstewart7263

New member
Nov 2, 2010
1,246
0
0
Its clearly the best motherfucking mmo around. If you disagree you simply dont get it TRICK!!!! :0

just in case i have too. Im joking dont debate me.lol