MMOG Crowd Control

[mattag08]

I think the likely thing is that in its current form, most MMORPGs are just not going to be capable of this kind of thing. Either massive restructuring or something else is required.

Games like Planetside (an MMOFPS) have a continuing objective that just can't be met alone regardless of whether you are max level or not. This kind of thing is probably what is required to get people to group.

 

[Shamus Young]

In LOTRO, many quest chains end in a group quest. So, you'll do five missions solo and suddenly an NPC will tell you to sod off and find some friends. (And I do hope you read the quest text, or you might charge in alone without realizing you're committing a very humorous form of suicide.) You've just spent the last forty five minutes trying to find and save poor Gerebert, and now you realize all your work was for naught. You can't do it alone and good luck finding help.

**Confused**.. My Elven Hunter is level 30 now, has done most of the deeds/achievements/quests and hasn't ever had to run a group quest. Or if she has, she's aced it with relative ease.

Are we playing the same game?

I don't know. Did you solo the quest to save Gerebert as a Minstrel or a hunter while the quest was still meaningful in terms of loot and XP? If you "aced it with relative ease", you might want to share your extreme elite techniques with all of the other frustrated players who end up leaving Gerebert to rot because the game throws masses of bandits at you.

I tried the mission when some of the bandits were gray, and it was still to much for my minstrel. They chased me off with sheer numbers.

Same goes for my hunter.

 

[uselesstwit]

Could they help the problem by limiting the server choices for newbs? If all new players had to reach x level before getting to choose a server it'd help with low level populations.

 

[Jared]

How to balance? Easy. Permanent character death.

Oh wait.. you mean how to balance and keep an audience? Hmm.. that's harder.

Permanant character death WITH penalty attached for re-spawn?

Its never an easy plan...but, out there is the correct forumale. Just needs someone willing to test and experiment

 

[JerichoEscapes]

DDO is quite good at keeping population levels, mostly due to instances and the fact that there are only 2 cities, one of which is for first levelers only.

DDO is also the only MMO I have played, other then a massively disappointing demo of WoW.

 

[SatansBestBuddy]

Easy: don't.

As in, don't bother trying to keep the population under control, as you're never gonna succeed.

People are gonna move on, and unless you plan on having an extra few thousand show up every month, then there's no avoiding the mid-level zones becoming barren while the endgame becomes overpoplulated.

My solution would be to have no forced grouping quests at the end of a quest line, but to have forced grouping quests at the beginning instead; that way, you have a reason to stay in a group beyond just the one quickie quest, as continuing on the quest line with your current group would be worthwhile for everyone, and this keeps solo quest lines manageable for solo players.

Sure, the solo player will never have as good of loot as players questing as a group, but at least then they won't be hitting bottlenecks like the ones you've described.

 

[Ciler]

Simple solution:

Get rid of leveling.

The idea that the wolves in THIS forest are ten times as deadly as the wolves in THAT forest is ridiculous. The idea that Villager #4 in Town #2 can beat up everybody in Town #1 one-handed, including the huge bully you needed a group to tackle, is insane. A top-level player can kill everybody else endlessly without breaking a sweat.

Forgetting what it means for group quests, it means also that 99% of all content in an MMO, no matter how huge the MMO is, is totally pointless to visit by a top-level player - especially if his equipment never gets lost, loses durability or is otherwise impermanent.

All zones should have something worthwhile for a top-level player, be it resources to exploit (trees that only grow in one area) or politics and commerce to exploit (logs that fetch a good price in one area).

There should be a plateau that is easy to get to, and that plateau should be extremely difficult to transcend, except by politics (clan/guild effort), and the rewards of such should be communal, not individual (a support network, not better gear).

I'm thinking UO, EVE and the upcoming MO. We need more sandbox MMOs.

I've been thinking along these lines as well.

Another similar alternative, that keeps the levels in for those of us who enjoy seeing numbers go up, would be to make it so that your character isn't twice as powerful every couple of levels. The power progression in these games is nuts... level 1 you have like 100 health and hit for 10 damage, and by max level you have 50000 health and hit for 5000. If the progression was more gradual and didn't end at such an extreme, you'd still be able to enjoy a broader range of content for longer.

Also your point about resources is good, I think it's the best way to keep a mix of people active in all areas of the world at all times. With dynamic resources, you could even have places that become over-harvested or under-harvested, which would encourage mobility in returning to previously tapped out areas, or exploring for new resource-rich places.

 

[Larry Schultz]

I always thought that EVE never had that problem. If you ignore the problem you have getting started, the starting areas in EVE are typically populated by people of medium and high level. This is due to the safety of doing business there and the central location of the starting areas.

My proposal is that the relative location and structure of the world can affect how populous a particular game is. If you design the game in a line structure like most MMO you will find that the population is highest in one part of the line and decreases away from that point.

If you make the structure of the world circular like EVE Online, where the starting areas are in the center of the world, and anyone who wants to go from one part of end game content to another can either go through other end game content to their destination (dangerous) or through the center area (safer). Hopefully this will make an even distribution of population by region despite the difference in level distribution.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Turbine has actually rennovated the entire level 1-50 line of Epic Quests. There's now a scaling buff that will allow players with the group quests to get increases to damage and health, and reduce incoming damage, effectively making them 'elite' players for the duration of the quests. It will also apply to some non-instanced quests, but there's more of a restriction there.

More information about the new system can be found here: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/628-developer-diary-volume-1-revised-edition

Edit: This rennovation occured with the latest content update that launched this week.

Yes, and on top of the majority of Epic chain being solo friendly now, Breeland and the Lone Lands (basically the territories you'll be in following the intro areas from level 15 to 30 or so) have also been revamped to remove most group quests or at least rebalance them such that full 6 person teams are no longer needed. I certainly may have missed something, but I'm running a new character through now (currently level 27 and just starting the Ost Guruth area quests in the Lone Lands) and I haven't found any forced grouping at all. I'm really not sure what Shamus is seeing as I've finished most/all chains I've started and have never had to group once. In fact, there are so many quests now with such good rewards (and such fast xp gain) that you will without doubt miss a bunch of hubs and quest chains in the early game unless you choose to do the quests when they are vastly outlevelled.

Honestly, I do see the core issue identified by Shamus as a problem but if there is one game that has handled this progression best it probably is LOTRO. It's much less drastic than what is coming in WoW's Cataclysm, but in LOTRO Turbine has been pushing to update and evolve the lower level areas and content for quite some time now.

 

[Bruden]

Generally speaking the way to keep zones from loosing population is to do away with leveling, give incentives for repeating quests, via getting a little boost by reincarnating your character or whatever, make many factions of reputation like in WoW, and have them open or block off quests based on your reputation with different groups, and finally make sure new rewards are not so important that people skip straight to whatever is new.

 

[Otterpoet]

OH man, I HATE the grouping quests - particularly for the supposedly 'low level' encounters. That became the reason I effectively quit NeoSteam - all my characters current quests involve some impossible baddie. You spend all your time fishing for party members, trying to get them in the same place, trying to keep them from going to AFK while other people show up, and then MAYBE taking a swing at a creature that may or may not be there any more. Nope, not for me.

I think the leveling aspects may be in some ways the true detriment to MMORPGers. They force the designers to structure areas and maps to the levels of the multitude of characters. It also forces experienced players to grind through the same old crap to create a new character.

Perhaps one idea would be to follow the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky model - where the environment's difficulty level remained effectively static, as did the character themselves. However, as the /player's/ experience and gear got better, they might have a better chance to survive in certain regions than a player with little experience and underwhelming gear. This doesn't necessarily prevent the inexperienced from heading off in search of loot and glory, but the chances are higher their inexperience would get them turned into chunky salsa. Nor does it mean the more experienced person won't get their ass chewed off by a normally 'insignificant' threat. And since gear degrades and bullets run out, they'll be on a constant search to replenish their supplies.

Because the world - as in Clear Sky - fluctuates, regions and interactions will differ all the time; thus inspiring the desire to return to familiar (and once 'safe') areas. This would require a more 'hands on' approach from the moderators, but I'm sure that wouldn't be an issue - just drop a new pack of monsters randomly and watch the fun begin. If a 'static' game can do that, why not a MMORPGer? (I mean, I can't count the number of times in STALKER I'd return to an outpost only to find a pack of mutants ripping people to shreds or a squad of bandits trying to reclaim territory).

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I don't know. Did you solo the quest to save Gerebert as a Minstrel or a hunter while the quest was still meaningful in terms of loot and XP? If you "aced it with relative ease", you might want to share your extreme elite techniques with all of the other frustrated players who end up leaving Gerebert to rot because the game throws masses of bandits at you.

Honestly, I can't remember that one but I started in Ered Luin. I remember soloing the Dwarven Citadel though. Hunter has some sick DPS combined with traps.
My burglar's out there though, what level is the Gerebert quest? (Gerebert Misses A Meal is level 8)

(Not being a showoff. I haven't really had any difficulty with doing the fellowship quests a few levels later (apart from the Bree Tombs, but that's because the game has a hard-on for spiders and makes them impossible))

 

[jmpatt]

So, here's a thought, not completely fleshed out, but maybe workable, using the WoW nomenclature: Every 10 levels or so, you get the chance to choose the next realm server you want to go to. So, launch day you have 20 realm servers, each with a big population. As the initial crowd moves on, you add realm servers that are not eligible for level 1 characters to start in. If you need to, start removing realms from the list that allows new players. There may be huge gaping holes that I'm not thinking of, but it certainly seems like it might be viable...

 

[Bruden]

So, here's a thought, not completely fleshed out, but maybe workable, using the WoW nomenclature: Every 10 levels or so, you get the chance to choose the next realm server you want to go to. So, launch day you have 20 realm servers, each with a big population. As the initial crowd moves on, you add realm servers that are not eligible for level 1 characters to start in. If you need to, start removing realms from the list that allows new players. There may be huge gaping holes that I'm not thinking of, but it certainly seems like it might be viable...

except the whole point of playing an MMO is to play with people you meet in game, and everyone having to swap servers at different level points means there's absolutely no reason to make friends with anyone till you hit max lvl, you'd be effectively discouraging grouping making your game no better than an oblivion clone that forces you to connect to the internet to play.

 

[Ysazen]

Hi there. I've mulled upon the idea of "crowd" control before, but never thought of it as such. Here is my idea on how to work with it.

Combine Endgame and starting zones.

Think of it as a WWII theme. Newbies, fresh from training, crammed into landing boats, shoulder to shoulder with other new characters and NPC cannon fodder. Meanwhile Endgame characters are trying to capture certain points by using the landing parties to advance their own agendas via some command mechanism, and opening up content with successful advances and failures.

Meanwhile, the Newbies are thrown straight into the thick of the battle, not expected to make any great progress, and no death penalty yet, learning the ins and outs of the system while great battles take place around them, with most of the visible progress in the never ending fight being made by the endgame characters either grouped together raid-style, or orchestrating the fight through quests and NPC's.

After a perscribed amount of level, usually the point in which the threat of death penalties kick in the newbs finish their "tour of duty" and go home to where the mid level content is, and level up through regular means, with a slow build toward returning them to the fight as experienced Endgame commanders, putting them back in the thick of the fight, now commanding and affecting the endgame on a more immediate scale, now with serious consequences for failure and larger goals surrounding the same pitched battles that as a new character they were only a small, insignificant part of.

 

[Whispering Death]

I love all your Experienced Points articles Shamus!

 

[Fearzone]

I had the good luck of starting World of Warcraft when they were still creating new servers at a brisk pace. I think I started back when there was still only 6 million. Starting out on a new server is the way to go. You might not be getting 3-4 gold per stack of copper ore, but you won't be playing by yourself.

Leveling is a fun and easy way to advance your character and become more powerful, but always, even in the best of circumstances--even on a newish server with a reasonably even spread--leveling has a devisive rather than a uniting quality. People get kicked out of guilds if they aren't progressing fast enough with the guild. If that friendly and skilled player that you had a lot of fun with and put on your friends list last week is now several levels ahead of you, or behind you, you might exchange tells now and again but basically you won't be playing together. Leveling also contributes heavily to database deflation where the game becomes smaller the more you play. In terms of social connectivity, there is no advantages and only consequences that come from a leveling system.

Finding a way to create good long-term development of your character without a leveling system is the first step. I bet Blizzard will be the first to do it successfully.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Simple solution:

Get rid of leveling.
We need more sandbox MMOs.

Agree completely. The whole point of MMOs from a design perspective seems to be that everyone is playing in the same world, and yet almost no games make any attempt to create a world. If all we get is a bunch of more or less scripted events in a more or less linear sequence, essentially a theme park, things can be done much more effectively in single player or conventional co-op. MMOs have a purpose, but simply recreating the single player RPG with thousands of players isn't it.

Frankly I think that the people who do, legitimately, ENJOY the grind the we get in most modern MMOs would be just as happy with well implemented versions of conventional multiplayer and centralized stat/achievement tracking. Just take the CoD model even further, and support it with addons etc, do matchmaking based on skill, exp, whatever and you've got the current MMO experience with much less overhead and a core design that allows better developed gameplay for the rest of us.

 

[hansari]

I was able to break the economy just by selling my excess herbs at the auction house.

How?

Surplus herbs just means plenty of cheap herbs for everyone to horde up. I don't play WoW, but I know the "economy" includes more important items like armor and weapons...