Should MMO's have more player interaction?

[Sneaky Paladin]

I was musing recently and got an idea. MMO's really need greater player interaction. A bigger sense of community besides a guild would be nice. I remember an old game called Age Of Time I used to play with 30 person servers where the whole point of the game was built on player interaction. People made friends and enemies sometimes we waged war against each other over territory, occasionally even bounties went up to get players stuff back. It gave this wonderful sense of realism that made it a fantastic and immersive game experience.

Onto my actual point.

I think more games should include things like this. Not all MMO's necessarily need 30 person servers but a bigger sense of player interaction besides pvp and trading would be nice. It makes it feel more intimate like knowing the news around the world would actually mean something and allow players to have that extra touch of immersion that really helps make a game. Heres some ideas to start.

More player driven economies: I think Eve Online and games like Darkfall really did this well. In Darkfall almost everything was player crafted and needed to be hand delivered to places to sell. In that game players could actually make it as a trader and be very sucessful. The world in that game was gigantic to, so being able to buy steel from a local trader for a slightly higher price would be alot more appealing then walking 30 minutes to the nearest mine. It was also very difficult to get some of these items so having too many in the world over time wasn't a problem.

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of more ideas so post yours and give me your opinions

 

[Baralak]

I LOVE that idea of player quest board!

Also, I'd love more interactive combat besides "auto-attack+skills, wait for recharge, use skills again."

 

[katsumoto03]

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

I really like this idea. It would be cool if you could put bounties on other player's heads too.

 

[Sneaky Paladin]

I LOVE that idea of player quest board!

Also, I'd love more interactive combat besides "auto-attack+skills, wait for recharge, use skills again."

It really does need a more real-time touch to it doesn't it?

 

[Mr. Mike]

Two absolutely brilliant ideas. The tricky bit here is getting an MMO developer to take notice of these sorts of things.

 

[Baralak]

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

I really like this idea. It would be cool if you could put bounties on other player's heads too.

I know!

Wanted: Kyosai7, dead. Reward: 500 gold. Camped out and stole kill. Bring back proof for reward.


I remember in Everquest, on certain PvP servers, you could actually loot and get one item off people you killed. That sword you and your guild raided for, that you won by having 1 number higher on the die roll than everyone else? Stolen by a rogue who backstabbed you, or by a wandering wizard who liked how it looked.

 

[NeutralDrow]

More player driven economies: I think Eve Online and games like Darkfall really did this well. In Darkfall almost everything was player crafted and needed to be hand delivered to places to sell. In that game players could actually make it as a trader and be very sucessful. The world in that game was gigantic to, so being able to buy steel from a local trader for a slightly higher price would be alot more appealing then walking 30 minutes to the nearest mine. It was also very difficult to get some of these items so having too many in the world over time wasn't a problem.

I don't quite get this idea. Wouldn't that just be what MMOs like WoW and CoH already have, but forcing people to walk farther?

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

City of Heroes has something like this, with its Mission Architect system, where players can write and create their own missions and even story arcs...though what you're talking about seems to just be "players can subcontract their own missions to other people." I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, beyond people trading for invention salvage in City of Heroes or quest items in World of Warcraft.

And the nature of both of those in-game world means there's nothing like "player killers," thankfully, so that's not a necessity.

 

[Sneaky Paladin]

More player driven economies: I think Eve Online and games like Darkfall really did this well. In Darkfall almost everything was player crafted and needed to be hand delivered to places to sell. In that game players could actually make it as a trader and be very sucessful. The world in that game was gigantic to, so being able to buy steel from a local trader for a slightly higher price would be alot more appealing then walking 30 minutes to the nearest mine. It was also very difficult to get some of these items so having too many in the world over time wasn't a problem.

I don't quite get this idea. Wouldn't that just be what MMOs like WoW and CoH already have, but forcing people to walk farther?

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

City of Heroes has something like this, with its Mission Architect system, where players can write and create their own missions and even story arcs...though what you're talking about seems to just be "players can subcontract their own missions to other people." I don't think I've ever seen anything like that, beyond people trading for invention salvage in City of Heroes or quest items in World of Warcraft.

And the nature of both of those in-game world means there's nothing like "player killers," thankfully, so that's not a necessity.

For the just walking farther argument I'd like to say it doesn't need to be just farther away. Maybe just harder to obtain in general.

And when I say a player quest board it doesn't just have to be doing other peoples quests more like helping with getting crafting items or maybe helping a trader get items he would like to sell for a profit.

 

[Tsunimo]

Have you heard of Face of Mankind?
It is a game with as little NP interaction as possible, even the goods that are traded must first be crafted by another player.
Specific goals are given and taken away by the heads of whatever hierarchy you may be a part of.
It can be quite intertaining, and people get very, very into the RP aspect of it, particularly the cops.

 

[Kagim]

The problem over all in an MMO in a player based game is that in needs players to be doing specific parts for the game to work.

If a single person becomes important, then just disappears due to there real life commitments the game can take a flaming nose dive.

That's the problem with building an infrastructure in a world that is intangible yet dependent on people paying time into said intangible world. A persons real life can essentially breakdown a game if the game ends up relying on that person or person to much.

Don't get me wrong, i have written pages upon pages about this sort of game on my lunch breaks. It's just when you need your players to give to much, it can end with the players destroying or stagnating a game. Which ends normally with people quitting.

 

[Bradd94]

That quest board idea would be amazing. Obviously you'd have to take the proposed award from the player giving the quests to prevent them getting the items then not paying, but for all intents and purposes it works well.

I play WoW, and I know what you're getting at. If I didn't play in a guild with friends I know in real life, my only player interraction would be through the dungeon finder/battlegrounds and the auction house. Which isn't necessarily bad, some people like that, but it has potential for so much more.

 

[shreedder]

I was musing recently and got an idea. MMO's really need greater player interaction. A bigger sense of community besides a guild would be nice. I remember an old game called Age Of Time I used to play with 30 person servers where the whole point of the game was built on player interaction. People made friends and enemies sometimes we waged war against each other over territory, occasionally even bounties went up to get players stuff back. It gave this wonderful sense of realism that made it a fantastic and immersive game experience.

Onto my actual point.

I think more games should include things like this. Not all MMO's necessarily need 30 person servers but a bigger sense of player interaction besides pvp and trading would be nice. It makes it feel more intimate like knowing the news around the world would actually mean something and allow players to have that extra touch of immersion that really helps make a game. Heres some ideas to start.

More player driven economies: I think Eve Online and games like Darkfall really did this well. In Darkfall almost everything was player crafted and needed to be hand delivered to places to sell. In that game players could actually make it as a trader and be very sucessful. The world in that game was gigantic to, so being able to buy steel from a local trader for a slightly higher price would be alot more appealing then walking 30 minutes to the nearest mine. It was also very difficult to get some of these items so having too many in the world over time wasn't a problem.

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

I'm having a bit of trouble thinking of more ideas so post yours and give me your opinions

Have you tried LARPing? Kinda like an MMO with the focus on entiraction between players. What you would like in an MMO but outside with swords, and fighting.

 

[euro2019]

Great idea so far fellow escapists I personally like the idea from Lineage 2 (if they still have this) I remember in that game, guilds during "guild wars" could fight for castles in certain cities, and as such when the guild war was over and a guild took the castle they had the capability to tax the npc vendors of the down i believe up to 5 or 10%. I think thats a pretty cool idea don't you guys? Guild wars would take place once or twice a week.

 

[Nunny]

Puzzle Pirates is very player focused, player run economy,land and most activities require groups to work properly.

Though it is an excelent demonstration for what happens when a player driven game lacks the players to work efficiently.

 

[Tethalaki]

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

Even though you mentioned EVE previously:

EVE has it's contracts system. I can put up a contract and offer money for items and items for money. There is also courier contracts: I put up a contract with a reward (money) if someone picks up my cargo from station X and moves it to station Y.

Screenshots:
Courier: http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/8361/contracts1.jpg
Selling/Buying: http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/5044/contracts2.jpg


Is that the type of thing you want in MMOs?

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I'd say all of this is a part of a bigger MMO idea - having players actually affect the world.

As fun as WoW or Champions Online might be, it's pretty disheartening to complete a quest and than see the very people you've hunted down and killed respawn in five minutes.

Nothing ever changes in MMOs unless the developers actually make it change. The closest thing to this to ever happen in such MMOs was the WoW plague and even that left barely any lasting consequences.

 

[katsumoto03]

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

I really like this idea. It would be cool if you could put bounties on other player's heads too.

I know!

Wanted: Kyosai7, dead. Reward: 500 gold. Camped out and stole kill. Bring back proof for reward.


I remember in Everquest, on certain PvP servers, you could actually loot and get one item off people you killed. That sword you and your guild raided for, that you won by having 1 number higher on the die roll than everyone else? Stolen by a rogue who backstabbed you, or by a wandering wizard who liked how it looked.

Delicious, delicious vengeance.

This needs to exist.

 

[Judgement101]

Player quest boards: I don't know to this day if a game ever did this right but I always thought the idea of player quests was great. Say one player needs 10 wolves pelts for armor he's making or wants to get his items back from a Player Killer from earlier. He goes to the board and puts up a quest for it and a reward. Another player sees the quest and goes after the Player Killer/Wolves and gets a reward.

Amazing idea! This should be put in MMOs!

 

[josemlopes]

Have you heard of Face of Mankind?
It is a game with as little NP interaction as possible, even the goods that are traded must first be crafted by another player.
Specific goals are given and taken away by the heads of whatever hierarchy you may be a part of.
It can be quite intertaining, and people get very, very into the RP aspect of it, particularly the cops.

You can try FOM, played it once and it seemed to envolve that feeling that the world was controlled by the players. The game is a bit complex but it looked preety cool.

This is actually the reason why I dont play MMO's, everything you do just isnt worth it, there is no impact to the world.

In GarrysMod RP (when things went smoothly) it was very cool, most of the time nothing was happening in terms of shootouts and it all revolved around the dialog from the players.
In the end there were cops performing drug busts and forcing people to stay inside their houses when at the start everything was peacefull. The interaction of those players changed what was happening in that city and it had a noticable sence of evolution.

 

[Nerf Ninja]

I've been playing the new DC universe MMO. It might as well have been an offline singleplayer game for all the player interaction it has. All it does is have other random superheroes flitting about around you spamming their attacks trying to show off.

Back in the early days of Star Wars Galaxies there was a great deal of player interaction, especially for the crafters. I'd love to see a return to that in an MMO. (Preferably set in the old west with player housing!)