I'm Still Waiting for My MMO

[Zing]

I never will forget my first and last. World of Warcraft was my first true MMO and god dammit that feeling of being in a whole other world with players running around you and doing your own thing... the feeling is just indescribable.

Sadly, I've tried getting that feeling back by making new characters and trying out different MMOs but it's never coming back.

Ahh this is a sad realization many MMO players come to. Unfortunately once you learn how to play an MMO, they cease to become a fantasy, you realize the system behind it, and even when it comes to playing a completely different MMO, the feeling can't be recreated because the facade has faded.

In that respect WoW has spoilt any MMO that tries to be anything remotely like it, it would take a truly completely innovative MMO, I'm talking a completely unique set of systems, archetypes, combat, atmosphere, environment etc to give veterans(of which there are a LOT more thanks to WoW) that feeling again.

Yeah, at the moment WoW is my last MMO and if I ever need a fix i'll go straight back to it. I'm hoping their secret project Titan will be something different... but my hopes aren't too high. I'll stick with my TF2 and indie games for now

That's where I would put any hope, but i'm not putting much thought into it.

WoW has become very much a corporate, streamlined, money machine that has no sense of community(PVE OR PVP) and I don't see anything to suggest that titan wouldn't be more of the same in a different skin, plus Greg Street is working on it, which is not a good sign. Buuut, that said, Blizzard have some of their top veteran devs working on it, guys that made WCIII, Starcraft and Vanilla WoW/BC so exceptional, so perhaps there is hope.

 

[Augustine]

As a beta participant in GW2, I can say it may very well shape into something special. It is certainly heading in a right direction.

 

[bobmd13]

I read the article that Dennis posted and I find it a bit strange.

The Secret World has broken the mould of the modern MMO.

Yes it has its shooting elements and yes it has its gear grind but and its a big but, it has investigation quests.

These quests range from the simple to the diabolical.

When a game has a web browser built in so you can use the internet to research information on quests or find the translation of a specific language or cipher, but still expect you to translate the document, then it is different.

Investigation quests can take hours to do,and that's not the whole quest but one part of it.

I do have a problem with the Secret world and that's the level of content,for Funcom to have anything worthwhile in a few months even, they must have started the work years ago and why wasn't it in the final game then.

An excellent game but a niche market,with some glaring problems at the moment.

A chat system which dies on a regular basis.
A targeting system from the dark ages.
A UI which is below the standard for today.
Ohh and my pet grievance, a vertical bag which can get so long you miss part of it on screen.

I missed out on the fact that some major quests bug out on a regular basis,but this can be corrected by a change of server shard (instance).

Even with these problems a great game,with a steep learning curve.

 

[RagTagBand]

Planetside 2

That is all.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I read the article that Dennis posted and I find it a bit strange.

The Secret World has broken the mould of the modern MMO.

Yes it has its shooting elements and yes it has its gear grind but and its a big but, it has investigation quests.

These quests range from the simple to the diabolical.

When a game has a web browser built in so you can use the internet to research information on quests or find the translation of a specific language or cipher, but still expect you to translate the document, then it is different.

Investigation quests can take hours to do,and that's not the whole quest but one part of it.

I do have a problem with the Secret world and that's the level of content,for Funcom to have anything worthwhile in a few months even, they must have started the work years ago and why wasn't it in the final game then.

An excellent game but a niche market,with some glaring problems at the moment.

A chat system which dies on a regular basis.
A targeting system from the dark ages.
A UI which is below the standard for today.
Ohh and my pet grievance, a vertical bag which can get so long you miss part of it on screen.

I missed out on the fact that some major quests bug out on a regular basis,but this can be corrected by a change of server shard (instance).

Even with these problems a great game,with a steep learning curve.

I have to agree. I picked up The Secret World because I heard good things and I am finding it very different and very exciting.

The investigation/mystery missions are excellent and the game even has fake websites that you have to study to get clues and can read for extra background and lore.

The gameplay is great too with a character wheel that lets you play however the hell you want but also a little guidance in the form of 'decks' Which you can fill and receive a class costume as a reward.

I love it at the moment and my only regret is that my friend clocked on that I was playing it and now I have to wait until he comes back from the garage to progress.

 

[doctorjackal777]

Well, good news is, a couple of the classic MMOs are now free to play, like the original EverQuest, or Everquest II, which I feel should have been as big as WoW, but it's requirements were so obscene at the time that even top of the line PCs couldn't run it.

I played Everquest the other day because I'd heard so much about it, and boy was I disappointed. It's probably because its such an old game, but the controls, the interface, basically everything was crap. The screen is cluttered with a dozen boxes, it's hard to find what you're looking for, and even talking to NPC's a chore. If I've clicked on you, that means I want to talk to you, why do I have to type hello to start the conversation, and keep typing other words to trigger the rest of your dialog. It's not immersive, it's flow breaking because every five seconds, I get ripped out of the game to have to type in commands. I'm not talking with your NPC's I'm controlling them via text commands, which means all the NPC's might have well have been robots in game. I couldn't even get past an hour before frustration set in and I couldn't take it anymore. If EverQuest II has the same kind of systems then no wonder they didn't do as well as WoW, and it wasn't because of PC requirements.

 

[Madman123456]

"This and that Technology tree allows you to create a character that is exactly how you want him to be!"
We've heard this in different MMORPG Teasers, Trailers and the like and its all Bullshit.

There is one way to create a Character that does best for different tasks. There will be toons of certain Professions that will be leveled, skilled and equipped in the same exact way because its the best to perform certain tasks. You see a toon which is a damage dealing Class? You will most likely see him having the Weapons which deal the most damage. If those happen to be swords, he will have Swords. Someone who fits out his toon with a sword and an Axe because he thinks it looks better will be rather alone on the Server. And he will most likely be fucked over in PvP, or whatever other task he wants to do.

So you will see many many People with toons which all look the same, because they have gear, perks, leveling or whatever to make the toon the best it could be for its particular task.



Quite a lot of MMOs have instance, in which you have Teams which must consist of certain classes, most likely and Tank and a healer among them. A Crowd Controller, a damagedealer as well in some cases. You'll have to do stuff, like switching a device on that makes the Boss vulnerable or something. Avoiding "frenzy" periods where that Boss would run around and attack everyone and doesn't respond to taunts or other measures to keep him attacking the tank instead of the healer. You'll have to be at certain Points of the "Arena" at certain times, maybe to try and avoid aggro from Adds.


Another Point very common in mmorpgs is the backwards leveling. You can create a toon that is immensly strong for a rather low level. You can have a toon that clears out a lowlevel instance all by himself.
You can't do that when leveled up fully.
Through the course of the Game, there is less and less stuff you can do that is useful for your toon alone. Eventually, you will have to rely on teams to do everything with you because alone you're too weak to do anything.



Most MMORPGs are like that and if you played one of them, you played them all.

 

[cerebus23]

Pirates of the Burning Sea has many of the trappings of the standard MMO genre, but also some surprises, a very different economic model, player-conquerable ports, and a very dynamic endgame.

I played in the beta and early on as a Freetrader. This game fell prey to the two biggest problems in any "world PvP" system: unbalanced sides, and unbalanced classes.

Unbalanced sides, well, that's an obvious problem. Once the game slants toward a particular side (in terms of numbers), it's all over but the crying. Having a small number of highly-skilled players can't save you from the fact that the other team has enough players on it to keep the pressure on 24-7. Zerg doesn't win by running over the opponent, it wins by flowing around them.

Unbalanced classes ensured that even on the "winning" side, fun was reserved for a particular group. By that, I mean "Ships of the Line." When it came to port battles, it didn't matter how much you wanted to play. If you weren't a top-shelf Naval Officer with a well-outfitted SoL, you were treated like a liability to the team... and what's worse is they were right. A freetrader effectively had nothing to contribute to the fight that was better than having another huge ship firing on the enemy.

So, the "world PvP" quickly became "Wolfpacks around ports picking on FTs" and "Naval Officers getting to play the 'real game' in their giant ships."

Lest you were not a pirate at launch we had no line ships, our writ ships were a joke in port battles, well that and it was lultastic to a NO to drag your 1.5 million gold p herc, while some of your team is in deliverance or something silly.

FTs can cry all they want but pirates of the burning seas just treated pirates like jokes, granted pirates live fast died young and a pirate vs the navy is silly in and of itself, but when you have pirates as a playable faction it does imply they will be a viable faction.

We made good goes at it but when push came to shove the NOs simply put their foot down, we never won a pb that the nats took seriously. Half the time their ques would not even fill up for pirate pbs, well that could have been partially an effect of "off hours" flipping, but still if the nats wanted a port even if it was 3 am on a work day they would get a fleet there for for it.

Now days we got sols they got sols, when i was playing awhile back, 4th rates and whatnot seemed to be getting phased out or some major changes to line ship bundles and etc or something. So many people playing cross servers you could swap ships or get free ships i had a guy give me a mace off his nat just for lulz.

Even for the old school mega imbalances, the game is alot more even now days than back then. And i agree that end game in potbs can be far far more interesting than the end game in most of the mmos i have played. Potbs is partially dependent on some amount of balance in the factions, else one will steamroll.

But your whole life revolves around that end game what ports are flipped, how many points you put toward it, almost every action you can do has meaning in potbs, even if its simply killing npcs around a port to raise tensions, or actual pvp on the open seas.

Most pvp in games is so regulated its near impossible to pvp, old school mmos simply made a server where every character was pvp period. there were no conditions or rules of off limits areas, my first mmo the first time i logged into the pvp server i was camp killed endlessly until i had no items but a wooden starter weapon that was no drop, think i got to level 2 maybe just killing a rabbit and getting a few hits on the level 30 that was camping me.

My friends guild on that server once held the most popular leveling dungeon for an entire week, they kept guarding it in shifts killing anyone that entered. at some point the rest of the server decided to bury any bad feelings they had about anything else and all went en mass to that dungeon and evicted my buddies guild, but not without a heck of a fight.....

Some games are getting back to that old school pvp idea where reps are earned and you did not need killboards and the like, you carved your name on trail of corpses you leave pure and simple.

Me personally i am waiting for a shadowrun mmo, a full 3d sandbox one, player driven econ, pvp, not too enthused by the current sr online stuff to be sure.

 

[Yal]

I played Everquest the other day because I'd heard so much about it, and boy was I disappointed. It's probably because its such an old game, but the controls, the interface, basically everything was crap. The screen is cluttered with a dozen boxes, it's hard to find what you're looking for, and even talking to NPC's a chore. If I've clicked on you, that means I want to talk to you, why do I have to type hello to start the conversation, and keep typing other words to trigger the rest of your dialog. It's not immersive, it's flow breaking because every five seconds, I get ripped out of the game to have to type in commands. I'm not talking with your NPC's I'm controlling them via text commands, which means all the NPC's might have well have been robots in game. I couldn't even get past an hour before frustration set in and I couldn't take it anymore. If EverQuest II has the same kind of systems then no wonder they didn't do as well as WoW, and it wasn't because of PC requirements.

This is a MUD system shinign through, talking to NPCs with /say commands. Everquest is in some ways a little like those early Sierra adventure games that were halfway between text adentures and point and clicks. Man, it took us months to figure out that thing on the beach in King's Quest 2 was a "trident" and not a pitchfork or any other word we could come up with...

But the EQ system had its benefits. You could talk to any NPC, you could give any item to any NPC, even monsters, and there was no quest log at all. That meant quests could be hidden absolutely anywhere. Secret World investigation missions ain't got nothing on old EQ quests.

 

[doctorjackal777]

I played Everquest the other day because I'd heard so much about it, and boy was I disappointed. It's probably because its such an old game, but the controls, the interface, basically everything was crap. The screen is cluttered with a dozen boxes, it's hard to find what you're looking for, and even talking to NPC's a chore. If I've clicked on you, that means I want to talk to you, why do I have to type hello to start the conversation, and keep typing other words to trigger the rest of your dialog. It's not immersive, it's flow breaking because every five seconds, I get ripped out of the game to have to type in commands. I'm not talking with your NPC's I'm controlling them via text commands, which means all the NPC's might have well have been robots in game. I couldn't even get past an hour before frustration set in and I couldn't take it anymore. If EverQuest II has the same kind of systems then no wonder they didn't do as well as WoW, and it wasn't because of PC requirements.

This is a MUD system shinign through, talking to NPCs with /say commands. Everquest is in some ways a little like those early Sierra adventure games that were halfway between text adentures and point and clicks. Man, it took us months to figure out that thing on the beach in King's Quest 2 was a "trident" and not a pitchfork or any other word we could come up with...

But the EQ system had its benefits. You could talk to any NPC, you could give any item to any NPC, even monsters, and there was no quest log at all. That meant quests could be hidden absolutely anywhere. Secret World investigation missions ain't got nothing on old EQ quests.

I see, I suppose that makes sense. I guess I never really got into those kinds of games, which is why having that mechanic in an MMO is frustrating to me. But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

Captcha: small fries
Now I'm hungry~

 

[Yal]

But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

No quest log is one of those things that is a design flaw but also sort of feature but also definitely a flaw...

One of that game's quests, the rogue "epic weapon" quest (it was pretty epic ten years ago, they out a lot of work into those quests), has you working for dude named Stanos. He's in hiding, before you came on the scene he foiled an assassination attempt and made rather a lot of enemies. A dark elf general had hired one of the human rogue guilds to kill an ambassador in a human city, hoping to start a war. Stanos felt this would be bad for business, betrayed the assassin and now the guild and the dark elf both want him dead. Stanos has a plan for you to kill the dark elf and get the heat off him, and you can do that quest. You'll get sweet dagger for your troubles.

Or... Half the world wants Stanos dead, he's standing right in front of you, and you've got a knife. There's no indication you should follow this route, but if you've read the story it makes perfect sense, and it turns you can and it works. Kill Stanos and you can claim a reward from either the assassin's son or the dark elf (who is actually a raid boss who will murder anyone who tries to talk to him). It took ages for anyone to work this out, I think it was at least a year after the primary plotline was solved. It was awesome.

Now, you could theoretically do this with a quest tracker in place. But I honestly can't ever remember a game that let you just completely ignore your tracker and go do a completely different quest with the same characters. Quest logs are great when they remind the player what the player wants to do next. Except more commonly they just tell the player what to do, and that's sort of a shame.

 

[doctorjackal777]

But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

No quest log is one of those things that is a design flaw but also sort of feature but also definitely a flaw...

One of that game's quests, the rogue "epic weapon" quest (it was pretty epic ten years ago, they out a lot of work into those quests), has you working for dude named Stanos. He's in hiding, before you came on the scene he foiled an assassination attempt and made rather a lot of enemies. A dark elf general had hired one of the human rogue guilds to kill an ambassador in a human city, hoping to start a war. Stanos felt this would be bad for business, betrayed the assassin and now the guild and the dark elf both want him dead. Stanos has a plan for you to kill the dark elf and get the heat off him, and you can do that quest. You'll get sweet dagger for your troubles.

Or... Half the world wants Stanos dead, he's standing right in front of you, and you've got a knife. There's no indication you should follow this route, but if you've read the story it makes perfect sense, and it turns you can and it works. Kill Stanos and you can claim a reward from either the assassin's son or the dark elf (who is actually a raid boss who will murder anyone who tries to talk to him). It took ages for anyone to work this out, I think it was at least a year after the primary plotline was solved. It was awesome.

Now, you could theoretically do this with a quest tracker in place. But I honestly can't ever remember a game that let you just completely ignore your tracker and go do a completely different quest with the same characters. Quest logs are great when they remind the player what the player wants to do next. Except more commonly they just tell the player what to do, and that's sort of a shame.

I totally get that, but if it were me I'd just word the quest information carefully. Have something like "resolve the issue between Stanos and the guild." The straight forward answer would be to follow what Stanos wants you to do, but if you're the kind of person who thinks outside the box, then 'resolve' could mean something different. However you want to 'resolve' the issue is up to you, and depending on what way you chose the quest would branch in a different direction.
Or alternatively reward the player for exploration by having alternate outcomes come up in NPC conversation. Stanos hired you to kill someone, but on your way to do that you hear about what a douche he is, and how it might be better if he was the one that died instead. Then it gets you thinking, hey maybe I don't have to follow his orders, maybe I can take him down instead. There are options available, and all the quest tracker needs to do is keep track of what you've already done, and what information you've collected relating to it, rather than harping on what the game wants you to do next.

 

[Dennis Scimeca]

The reason you feel that way vis a vis MMO's having more potential than FPS's is because you are confusing a genre with a perspective...

I specifically called out Portal and Antichamber by way of dismissing games that have a first person perspective but which are not first person shooters. I was only talking about FPS games specifically, and why I give them leeway which I do not grant to MMOs.

First Person Shooter fan? Fan of MMOs? Want to have persistence and consequence? Can't believe you didn't mention the upcoming Dust514.

I covered DUST 514 at E3 and had a long conversation with CCP about how it is going to integrate with and affect EVE Online. Perhaps I will write about that when the time is right...

The biggest (and worst) portion of the world that's been cut in nearly every MMO? Non-heroic, non-combat gameplay. The ability to be something other than the "hero of the universe" or "slayer of the Big Bads." Crafting wasn't just a diversion or a money sink. It could be a full-time way of engaging the game (and the game engaging you right back). You didn't have to live out the life of a main character. You could live your own.

This. Think about the crafter in Star Wars Galaxies and then think about persistence and consequence. When a weapons or armor crafter on the Starsider server developed a reputation for quality, people from all over the server would come to them specifically for their gear. Persistence of reputation.

And as a consequence of that crafter doing really high-quality work, they effectively made the game more fun to play for thousands of people by giving them weapons which did more DPS or lasted longer than other weapons crafted by lesser-skilled artisans.

You can't say just say MMO when you mean MMORPG. Planetside is an MMO that just happens to be an FPS.

I recently got into a very long conversation with someone on Twitter about this. Technically, online is redundant. You can?t be a massively multiplayer game nowadays without being online unless we?re talking about a massive LAN session.

For better or worse the general gamer audience understands MMO to mean EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, Anarchy Online, World of Warcraft, The Old Republic, The Secret World and their ilk. So if we're writing about MMRPGs for a mass gaming audience, many outlets choose to stick with MMO to make themselves understood. Sometimes a conversation about doing otherwise just turns into a conversation which is a distraction from whatever the actual issues being discussed are like...um...this one...

The Secret World has broken the mould of the modern MMO.

A single, unique mechanic is not enough to break a mold in my book.

Planetside 2. That is all.

My problem with Planetside 2 right now is that it has limited persistence. This may be due to the lack of multiple worlds but you can't take and lock down planets. Each faction always has a permanent, protected beachhead which seems to defeat the purpose of taking over a planet. You want to kick your enemy off a planet entirely, and force them to forge a new beachhead from scratch, right?

I personally prefer the World War II Online model. It is possible for the Axis or Allies to win the war, after which the server resets and everyone starts from square one. That is also a different and limited kind of persistence but at least it does present a closed system where, within a single cycle of war, there is irrevocable persistence and consequence.

EVE Online is currently the gold standard for persistence and consequence in massively multiplayer gaming.

 

[Baralak]

But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

No quest log is one of those things that is a design flaw but also sort of feature but also definitely a flaw...

One of that game's quests, the rogue "epic weapon" quest (it was pretty epic ten years ago, they out a lot of work into those quests), has you working for dude named Stanos. He's in hiding, before you came on the scene he foiled an assassination attempt and made rather a lot of enemies. A dark elf general had hired one of the human rogue guilds to kill an ambassador in a human city, hoping to start a war. Stanos felt this would be bad for business, betrayed the assassin and now the guild and the dark elf both want him dead. Stanos has a plan for you to kill the dark elf and get the heat off him, and you can do that quest. You'll get sweet dagger for your troubles.

Or... Half the world wants Stanos dead, he's standing right in front of you, and you've got a knife. There's no indication you should follow this route, but if you've read the story it makes perfect sense, and it turns you can and it works. Kill Stanos and you can claim a reward from either the assassin's son or the dark elf (who is actually a raid boss who will murder anyone who tries to talk to him). It took ages for anyone to work this out, I think it was at least a year after the primary plotline was solved. It was awesome.

Now, you could theoretically do this with a quest tracker in place. But I honestly can't ever remember a game that let you just completely ignore your tracker and go do a completely different quest with the same characters. Quest logs are great when they remind the player what the player wants to do next. Except more commonly they just tell the player what to do, and that's sort of a shame.

I totally get that, but if it were me I'd just word the quest information carefully. Have something like "resolve the issue between Stanos and the guild." The straight forward answer would be to follow what Stanos wants you to do, but if you're the kind of person who thinks outside the box, then 'resolve' could mean something different. However you want to 'resolve' the issue is up to you, and depending on what way you chose the quest would branch in a different direction.
Or alternatively reward the player for exploration by having alternate outcomes come up in NPC conversation. Stanos hired you to kill someone, but on your way to do that you hear about what a douche he is, and how it might be better if he was the one that died instead. Then it gets you thinking, hey maybe I don't have to follow his orders, maybe I can take him down instead. There are options available, and all the quest tracker needs to do is keep track of what you've already done, and what information you've collected relating to it, rather than harping on what the game wants you to do next.

There's now a quest log in EQ, if it helps. but yeah, I hate MUDs, but since MMOs are totally text based, I loved having to talk to the NPCs instead of just clicking "Next" over and over. EQ 2 did get rid of that, but they really improved everything. There's even an entirely separate leveling system for your profession, totally different from your standard class. So you cam literally be a lvl20 Cleric/lvl 30 woodworker. Both are great MMOs, though. I think they do "hotbar" combat better than any MMO, bar none.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

WTF? Bioshoock was a limited mess it pushed no boundaries at all. ><

 

[doctorjackal777]

But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

No quest log is one of those things that is a design flaw but also sort of feature but also definitely a flaw...

One of that game's quests, the rogue "epic weapon" quest (it was pretty epic ten years ago, they out a lot of work into those quests), has you working for dude named Stanos. He's in hiding, before you came on the scene he foiled an assassination attempt and made rather a lot of enemies. A dark elf general had hired one of the human rogue guilds to kill an ambassador in a human city, hoping to start a war. Stanos felt this would be bad for business, betrayed the assassin and now the guild and the dark elf both want him dead. Stanos has a plan for you to kill the dark elf and get the heat off him, and you can do that quest. You'll get sweet dagger for your troubles.

Or... Half the world wants Stanos dead, he's standing right in front of you, and you've got a knife. There's no indication you should follow this route, but if you've read the story it makes perfect sense, and it turns you can and it works. Kill Stanos and you can claim a reward from either the assassin's son or the dark elf (who is actually a raid boss who will murder anyone who tries to talk to him). It took ages for anyone to work this out, I think it was at least a year after the primary plotline was solved. It was awesome.

Now, you could theoretically do this with a quest tracker in place. But I honestly can't ever remember a game that let you just completely ignore your tracker and go do a completely different quest with the same characters. Quest logs are great when they remind the player what the player wants to do next. Except more commonly they just tell the player what to do, and that's sort of a shame.

I totally get that, but if it were me I'd just word the quest information carefully. Have something like "resolve the issue between Stanos and the guild." The straight forward answer would be to follow what Stanos wants you to do, but if you're the kind of person who thinks outside the box, then 'resolve' could mean something different. However you want to 'resolve' the issue is up to you, and depending on what way you chose the quest would branch in a different direction.
Or alternatively reward the player for exploration by having alternate outcomes come up in NPC conversation. Stanos hired you to kill someone, but on your way to do that you hear about what a douche he is, and how it might be better if he was the one that died instead. Then it gets you thinking, hey maybe I don't have to follow his orders, maybe I can take him down instead. There are options available, and all the quest tracker needs to do is keep track of what you've already done, and what information you've collected relating to it, rather than harping on what the game wants you to do next.

There's now a quest log in EQ, if it helps. but yeah, I hate MUDs, but since MMOs are totally text based, I loved having to talk to the NPCs instead of just clicking "Next" over and over. EQ 2 did get rid of that, but they really improved everything. There's even an entirely separate leveling system for your profession, totally different from your standard class. So you cam literally be a lvl20 Cleric/lvl 30 woodworker. Both are great MMOs, though. I think they do "hotbar" combat better than any MMO, bar none.

I actually have EQ2 but never got a chance to play it. I installed it, but gave up after two entire days of patch installs and I really don't want to download a game that big. So I guess I'll never know the potential awesomeness~

 

[Baralak]

But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

No quest log is one of those things that is a design flaw but also sort of feature but also definitely a flaw...

One of that game's quests, the rogue "epic weapon" quest (it was pretty epic ten years ago, they out a lot of work into those quests), has you working for dude named Stanos. He's in hiding, before you came on the scene he foiled an assassination attempt and made rather a lot of enemies. A dark elf general had hired one of the human rogue guilds to kill an ambassador in a human city, hoping to start a war. Stanos felt this would be bad for business, betrayed the assassin and now the guild and the dark elf both want him dead. Stanos has a plan for you to kill the dark elf and get the heat off him, and you can do that quest. You'll get sweet dagger for your troubles.

Or... Half the world wants Stanos dead, he's standing right in front of you, and you've got a knife. There's no indication you should follow this route, but if you've read the story it makes perfect sense, and it turns you can and it works. Kill Stanos and you can claim a reward from either the assassin's son or the dark elf (who is actually a raid boss who will murder anyone who tries to talk to him). It took ages for anyone to work this out, I think it was at least a year after the primary plotline was solved. It was awesome.

Now, you could theoretically do this with a quest tracker in place. But I honestly can't ever remember a game that let you just completely ignore your tracker and go do a completely different quest with the same characters. Quest logs are great when they remind the player what the player wants to do next. Except more commonly they just tell the player what to do, and that's sort of a shame.

I totally get that, but if it were me I'd just word the quest information carefully. Have something like "resolve the issue between Stanos and the guild." The straight forward answer would be to follow what Stanos wants you to do, but if you're the kind of person who thinks outside the box, then 'resolve' could mean something different. However you want to 'resolve' the issue is up to you, and depending on what way you chose the quest would branch in a different direction.
Or alternatively reward the player for exploration by having alternate outcomes come up in NPC conversation. Stanos hired you to kill someone, but on your way to do that you hear about what a douche he is, and how it might be better if he was the one that died instead. Then it gets you thinking, hey maybe I don't have to follow his orders, maybe I can take him down instead. There are options available, and all the quest tracker needs to do is keep track of what you've already done, and what information you've collected relating to it, rather than harping on what the game wants you to do next.

There's now a quest log in EQ, if it helps. but yeah, I hate MUDs, but since MMOs are totally text based, I loved having to talk to the NPCs instead of just clicking "Next" over and over. EQ 2 did get rid of that, but they really improved everything. There's even an entirely separate leveling system for your profession, totally different from your standard class. So you cam literally be a lvl20 Cleric/lvl 30 woodworker. Both are great MMOs, though. I think they do "hotbar" combat better than any MMO, bar none.

I actually have EQ2 but never got a chance to play it. I installed it, but gave up after two entire days of patch installs and I really don't want to download a game that big. So I guess I'll never know the potential awesomeness~

Really? I just downloaded it from Steam for the first time on my new laptop, and only had the latest update to download, which was about a gig. Try getting it from Steam and see if it goes by faster.

 

[doctorjackal777]

But I'm surprised you mentioned no quest log as a benefit, how is that a good thing? Yes, having hidden quests is interesting and would reward exploration but really? When I have a lot to do in a day I'll make a list, so that I remember to get everything done, why would you not want that feature in your game. You can have multiple quests going at once, why would you not want a concise list to help you keep track of where you were in each one. I can just imagine coming back after a short hiatus to the game, forgetting what quests I was on and what I was doing, and then just turning it off again.

No quest log is one of those things that is a design flaw but also sort of feature but also definitely a flaw...

One of that game's quests, the rogue "epic weapon" quest (it was pretty epic ten years ago, they out a lot of work into those quests), has you working for dude named Stanos. He's in hiding, before you came on the scene he foiled an assassination attempt and made rather a lot of enemies. A dark elf general had hired one of the human rogue guilds to kill an ambassador in a human city, hoping to start a war. Stanos felt this would be bad for business, betrayed the assassin and now the guild and the dark elf both want him dead. Stanos has a plan for you to kill the dark elf and get the heat off him, and you can do that quest. You'll get sweet dagger for your troubles.

Or... Half the world wants Stanos dead, he's standing right in front of you, and you've got a knife. There's no indication you should follow this route, but if you've read the story it makes perfect sense, and it turns you can and it works. Kill Stanos and you can claim a reward from either the assassin's son or the dark elf (who is actually a raid boss who will murder anyone who tries to talk to him). It took ages for anyone to work this out, I think it was at least a year after the primary plotline was solved. It was awesome.

Now, you could theoretically do this with a quest tracker in place. But I honestly can't ever remember a game that let you just completely ignore your tracker and go do a completely different quest with the same characters. Quest logs are great when they remind the player what the player wants to do next. Except more commonly they just tell the player what to do, and that's sort of a shame.

I totally get that, but if it were me I'd just word the quest information carefully. Have something like "resolve the issue between Stanos and the guild." The straight forward answer would be to follow what Stanos wants you to do, but if you're the kind of person who thinks outside the box, then 'resolve' could mean something different. However you want to 'resolve' the issue is up to you, and depending on what way you chose the quest would branch in a different direction.
Or alternatively reward the player for exploration by having alternate outcomes come up in NPC conversation. Stanos hired you to kill someone, but on your way to do that you hear about what a douche he is, and how it might be better if he was the one that died instead. Then it gets you thinking, hey maybe I don't have to follow his orders, maybe I can take him down instead. There are options available, and all the quest tracker needs to do is keep track of what you've already done, and what information you've collected relating to it, rather than harping on what the game wants you to do next.

There's now a quest log in EQ, if it helps. but yeah, I hate MUDs, but since MMOs are totally text based, I loved having to talk to the NPCs instead of just clicking "Next" over and over. EQ 2 did get rid of that, but they really improved everything. There's even an entirely separate leveling system for your profession, totally different from your standard class. So you cam literally be a lvl20 Cleric/lvl 30 woodworker. Both are great MMOs, though. I think they do "hotbar" combat better than any MMO, bar none.

I actually have EQ2 but never got a chance to play it. I installed it, but gave up after two entire days of patch installs and I really don't want to download a game that big. So I guess I'll never know the potential awesomeness~

Really? I just downloaded it from Steam for the first time on my new laptop, and only had the latest update to download, which was about a gig. Try getting it from Steam and see if it goes by faster.

I mean I bought a physical copy of the game from a store about say maybe two years ago, and it just was so much epic fail. Just tried to reinstall it now, nothing doing. Looks like that was a waste of money but whatever, I downloaded their FTP version from the website no problem. But it's not even playable even with everything set to minimum so it looks like ass, the lag on it is outrageous and I know my computer is better than that. How the crap are you running this thing on a laptop?

 

[Sorryflip]

This article was a great read thanks.

I agree and would love to see game developers take a more creative direction in the genre and focus on making great games. However big productions will almost always try to widen up their "player base" as much as possible even in other art/entertainment branches. (Music, movies, books, etc.)Because the main motivations behind the (atleast financial) investors are usualy driven by greed. Aslong as the old formula sells, why fix it?

Although making more specialised MMO games can open up allot of doors for creativity it has a serious reprocussion that already hurts modern MMO's afaik, the community becomes less diverse and becomes more boring.
One thing I really liked about the earlier MMO's is that there wern't many out there. Which caused 1 game to have a community including: hardcore gamers, casual gamers, roleplayers, griefers, carebears, traders, pvpers and maybe more all in one game. This made the world feel so much more alive and provided for allot of amusing situations and also caused the community to react to each other, creating different guilds with different purposes for example carebear guilds to protect traders and roleplayers from griefers and pvpers. I really miss this dynamic community, not only did you have to pick a race and class but also you had to decide what role you were going to play within the world.