Thoughts on MMORPG

[Oskuro]

Ah, PVP focused games. I remember my brief experience with Silk Road online, where a bunch of idiots would run around offering free scarves to other players, and insisting they put them on.

Yes, wearing a colored scarf activated full-PVP mode, with chance of dropping gear if killed.

Regarding player death, fantasy games can justify it via Magic, and futuristic games like, say, EvE, can justify it via cloning, no problem there. It's the ungodly amount of players who have been the ones to kill the dragon and claim the unique sword of awesomeness that makes it a bit ridiculous.

As for death penalties, really, having to respawn and get back to what you were doing is bothersome enough, if something turned me off in other MMOs was losing XP because some asshole had trained a monster gang-rape, or worse, because they failed to indicate that the dark-elf-hating elf building was around the corner and all the high level NPC casters would blast me to hell despite it being a neutral city. From behind. It took about 5 minutes and a lot of log reading to realize what the hell had happened. Or in other words: EverQuest

[Mr Bean]

Frankly in PvP focused games I think corpse-looting is fine... but then I can play EVE and automatically in the bottom 1% of the MMO market.

Top 2% sir, congratulations!
No this was old Ultima Online where big bad bosses might spawn once every two weeks or even just ONCE. Where you were helpless in game for a good two minutes after you logged on. Where if went afk for to long(Two months) someone could come and jack all your shit in your virtual house. Hell they could jack your virtual house if they wanted to. Where Grief's out-numbered actual players.

Or so they tell me, I never played the thing because I did not even own an internet connection at that point in my life.

[Oskuro]

I use Ultima Online anecdotes as bedtime stories to scare unruly WoW players children. I never played the thing either, but it was very interesting from a sociological point, as it demonstrated beyond any doubt a fundamental truth: Most players are dicks.

There are volumes upon volumes of online material (webcomics, for example The Noob*) retelling the horrors of that game. I'm particularly interested in a few anecdotes that might be relevant to this thread:

-Originally, the game was to have a "living world" of sorts, meaning that animals of a given species could go extinct if overhunted. This lead to the only "animals" available for hunting were high level monsters no one could successfully hunt to extinction, thus it failed miserably and had to be patched so the animals respawned.

-The economy was thought out so there were limited resources in the world. When you harvested a resource and used it to create an item, said resource wouldn't return to the game world and spawn a new resource node until said item degraded through use and eventually broke (or was discarded). This lead to players stockpiling resources, and thus drying up the world and destroying the economoy.

-Originally the world was open PvP, always. Due to massive griefing and the subsequent player complaints, it had to be split into two worlds, thus creating the concept of separate PVP and PVE realms.


On the good side though:

-The game was open-ended enough that a player guild decided to all wear the same horned helm, set a fortress on a crossroads, claim that they were orcs, and demand a tax for using the road, thus generating new interesting content on their own.

-Due to the lack of European servers, players marched into the game world's capital to protest before Lord British's castle (Lord British being the avatar of Richard Garriot), wich also included players in ghost costumes spooking NPCs, and nude players streaking about. Lord British actually logged on and promised there would be European servers.

-And finally, due to a game glitch, someone managed to KILL LORD BRITISH (Didn't someone manage to kill a GM in WoW once?) *checks Wiki* Fuck, they even killed him in Tabula Rasa, apparently:

One of the most famous characteristics of Lord British is that he is supposed to be indestructible, but actually can be killed through a number of glitches and exploits.[12] Most of the games in the series require the use of glitches to kill the character, and "Garriott was less than pleased" after learning that the character can be lured to be killed by cannon fire in Ultima III.[13] During Ultima VII, an easter egg allows British to be killed by a falling gold plaque, which is a reference to an incident at the Origin building; a metal bar, where the magnet on the door attached to it, fell on Garriott's head, warranting a visit to the hospital. One of the characters says "Yancey-Hausman will pay!", which is a reference to the owner and landlord of the building.[14] During Ultima Online's beta test, Garriott's character was killed by various bugs and an oversight on Garriott's part.[15][16] This is considered to be a major event within online gaming, as it gave "players an unprecedented ability to change and influence the game."[17][18] General British of Tabula Rasa was also killed during beta testing.[12]

*Yes, I know The Noob parodies features of modern MMOs too, but there's a lot of reference to the old days of MMORPGs.

[Covenant]

Before WoW did it Guild Wars did, so it's an idea that's been around a bit. You played in Happy Pretty Land until you finished the Newb Arc and then it became Sad Burnt Yuck Land. I think phasing it a bit different, but it's pretty similar in theme.

As for interaction, PVP, and the idea of player contests... strangely, LotR online had a funny system where you could play as a member of Sauron's forces--not a real faction, just a few monster classes that mainly PvP. I think this is the best way to do it. You could have one main game for the heroes, and a micro-faction of the brutish retard enemies for PvP, ganking, and douchebaggery that people enjoy playing through. I'd be a monster constantly, but as a PvPer I really don't give a shit about PvE storylines and would much rather engage in stuff that involves going out and finding players to kill. Having a powerful PvE/P faction and a weaker, streamlined PvP/gank faction lets the PvErs have an upper hand but still cater to the mindset of a PvP player--who would much rather organize a team to sneak into low threat zones and gank people than spend that same amount of time killing creeps for gold. PvE is an inherently limited time affair--how many times do you want to kill the biggest monster in the game? Why collect that loot once you've already accomplished the greatest task in the game? PvP is, at the core, a pointless but entertaining affair. Killing a big AI boss again is rarely that entertaining--it's the sort of thing you do for your guild because your guild demands it, and you were in the guild to get gear, because you want to get gear so you can fight harder things... to take their gear. I think the logic is a bit circular, but I'm not a big PvE or MMO guy. I'm also against big DP in PvP games though, because I feel it discourages aggression, and if I'm paying monthly fees I really should be getting something that doesn't discourage me from playing it.

As for individual players accomplishing things--you can do that a few ways. Presuming it's a fantasy game, let people sink gold into an instanced version of their own territory, with quests within that territory scaled for guild-play that allow anyone with resources and buddies to turn their territory into a guild hall. Once these people complete the "seize the castle" quest their guild leader can give each person some room for their own shit, giving a sense of ownership. I think Champions or CoH did something like this with Lairs and Headquarters.

People also need to look for more interesting ways to keep stuff going. Know those games of Assassin or Tag people play, where you get a name, a picture, and some info on a target and have to go watergun or waterballoon them, take their person, and continue until the end? Do the same on an MMO and your PvP is a lot more interesting.

[PainRack]

As for interaction, PVP, and the idea of player contests... strangely, LotR online had a funny system where you could play as a member of Sauron's forces--not a real faction, just a few monster classes that mainly PvP. I think this is the best way to do it. You could have one main game for the heroes, and a micro-faction of the brutish retard enemies for PvP, ganking, and douchebaggery that people enjoy playing through. I'd be a monster constantly, but as a PvPer I really don't give a shit about PvE storylines and would much rather engage in stuff that involves going out and finding players to kill. Having a powerful PvE/P faction and a weaker, streamlined PvP/gank faction lets the PvErs have an upper hand but still cater to the mindset of a PvP player--who would much rather organize a team to sneak into low threat zones and gank people than spend that same amount of time killing creeps for gold. PvE is an inherently limited time affair--how many times do you want to kill the biggest monster in the game? Why collect that loot once you've already accomplished the greatest task in the game? PvP is, at the core, a pointless but entertaining affair. Killing a big AI boss again is rarely that entertaining--it's the sort of thing you do for your guild because your guild demands it, and you were in the guild to get gear, because you want to get gear so you can fight harder things... to take their gear. I think the logic is a bit circular, but I'm not a big PvE or MMO guy. I'm also against big DP in PvP games though, because I feel it discourages aggression, and if I'm paying monthly fees I really should be getting something that doesn't discourage me from playing it.

And of course..... there's always the WAR route where PVP actually means PVM. The only real reason why you would want to PVP in the game is to actually grief enemy players, since progression is only really possible by attacking an underdefended keep. Hell, I bet LOTD unintended consequences is to actually allow players to find underdefended areas in Tier 4.

As for individual players accomplishing things--you can do that a few ways. Presuming it's a fantasy game, let people sink gold into an instanced version of their own territory, with quests within that territory scaled for guild-play that allow anyone with resources and buddies to turn their territory into a guild hall. Once these people complete the "seize the castle" quest their guild leader can give each person some room for their own shit, giving a sense of ownership. I think Champions or CoH did something like this with Lairs and Headquarters.

Does an MMORPG need a guild goldsink?

People also need to look for more interesting ways to keep stuff going. Know those games of Assassin or Tag people play, where you get a name, a picture, and some info on a target and have to go watergun or waterballoon them, take their person, and continue until the end? Do the same on an MMO and your PvP is a lot more interesting.

Oddly enough, this has to be the source of the most fun and frustration in Warhammer Online. Kill the flag player you dickwards!

[Covenant]

Does it need a guild goldsink? It doesn't need one, but if people are having issues with not feeling special or uniquely awesome, and want to be the Big Damn Heroes then I figure the best way to avoid that is to make them Not The Big Damn Heroes and let them work up to a level of importance which can be objectively measured in terms of non-equipment assets.

The idea of a house/airship/lair/fiefdom thing is that people will feel unique and special about their own unique and special house, but don't expect that nobody else has a house. You provide some customization (the goldsink aspect) with a difficulty curve and people will feel not only that they've accomplished something to achieve a uniqueness, but it would allow groups of people to do this in a more grand scale without making a loner incapable of these things. If they came with other attendant benefits, quest lines, and so forth, then it's not a Big Damn Heroes moment, but it is a My House Is My Castle moment, and that makes people feel special and important in a little way. They may not be changing the entire gameworld, but they are changing the part of it relevent to them.

If you want to push this about as far as it'll go, the only route I can think of at the moment is a kind of Taloon-the-Merchant system, where you start off as a schmuck in a city doing normal level 1 quests. Delivering items, killing rats, and so on and so forth. However, you could theoretically make these newbie starting zones actually the instanced areas owned by higher level players and guilds. Furthermore, there might be some form of a "quest hand-out" system where you are able to hand off quests to other people. I presume there would simply be things you find too annoying (such as killing 50 bears for 10 bear pelts) so it would be valuable to you to assign a quest for it. Or you'd run down to your store and ask them to increase potion supplies, so that merchant now hands out more "bring me 10 vials of pure water from this one specific spring" quest.

I bet it could be wrangled to work somehow, but it would still begin pancaking as people began getting high enough that there weren't enough lowbies to do missions. I'm not sure how the demographics work, but it's kinda like Eve with a quest screen. Other than a system like that, nothing can make you feel like the Big Damn Hero, unless you're willing to let that guy be some dickless wonder who grinds 18 hours a day. Because if you really want to 'reward' people for being the best, you'll just make sure that the King of the Land is the absolute lamest person imaginable.

[nightmare]

For example, make the dragon quest an exclusive event, and the dragon will never respawn once it has been killed off. This essentially means people are competing against each other to slay the dragon. Not only would people have to race against others to kill off the dragon, it also creates an incentive for people who are going on such a quest to kill off their fellow competitors.

You don't want other players to take away your credits, and steal all the exp points and gold you can receive from killing the dragon. Especially if those players are low level players.

Once you slay the Dragon, not only did you gain all sort of bonus points and all that, you are given a heroes welcome, and the town that was constantly attacked by the dragon becomes more prosperous. It can also open up new areas for everyone in the game to explore, and fight against all sort of new creatures that is trying to take over the Dragon's position as the new boss of a certain region.

This makes the game more challenging, and makes you feel that you really accomplished something.

The other thing that needs be reworked is the experience gain system. How do you get people to kill off the big dragon when they might not even receive any experience points due to the fact that they fail to strike the final blow? In my opinion, you can gain experience points for every damage that you have inflicted on the dragon.

Even if you damage the dragon by one HP, the amount of exp points you can gain is far more than killing off a low level monster.

On the other hand, if you are the one who strike the final blow on the dragon, even if the dragon is left with a single HP, the experience points you can gain is more than the experience points you can gain by damaging the dragon by a 100 HP.

Due to the fact that the dragon quest is now an exclusive event, quest would be constantly introduced to get new players to play the game, and the game experience of the MMORPG will keep on changing. A person who started playing in 2009 would face different kinds of enemies from the person who played the MMO series in 2008. He might even hear stories about other players who have slain the Dragon, understand how they affected the game experience of the MMORPG and all that.

I think that is something that MMORPG can really offer, and creates an environment where a person's action can drastically affect the gameplay experience of other players.

It would be nice if people can spot any flaws in my idea, and offer new ideas to improve MMORPG.

It's mixing PvE with PvP, which is a recipe for unmitigated disaster. PvE and PvP player's dont mix well, nor do they want to. It also calls for completely different challenges between the two. PvE monsters have all the intelligence of a rock; they present a challenge by cheating with numbers/levels/skills that the players don't have access to.

It is, however, possible to have PvPvE events that happen because of a change in either. I know Guild Wars 2 plans to have this, and from what I read on Aion, their "PvPvE" system has a kind of feedback into PvE depending on how the PvP goes. Original Guild Wars has a tiny bit of that as well; "favor of the gods" which determines when you can reach high end PvE areas used to be based on the results of high end PvP; that's long gone, now it's based on PvE achievements. It still has an ongoing PvP war between two factions, however. Depending on which faction rules a certain town or area, available services vary, moreso if you happen to be part of the alliance owning the place. PvP that has PvE elements in it, like NPCs with given functions, is often considered PvP by the PvErs and PvE by the PvPers...

Basically, you can't ever mix PvP and PvE together in the same instance. Well, you can, but neither the PvErs or the PvPers want to play it. That includes me, by the way. But this is just based on my own experiences (and observation of the behaviour of thousands of other players).. I recall that there is at least one game that mixes PvPvE in the way you suggest, but damn if I remember the name; I never looked at it again, nor will I. Dark something, I think.

[Alferd Packer]

Top 2% sir, congratulations!
No this was old Ultima Online where big bad bosses might spawn once every two weeks or even just ONCE. Where you were helpless in game for a good two minutes after you logged on. Where if went afk for to long(Two months) someone could come and jack all your shit in your virtual house. Hell they could jack your virtual house if they wanted to. Where Grief's out-numbered actual players.

Or so they tell me, I never played the thing because I did not even own an internet connection at that point in my life.

I played UO for some time back in 1997, and it was indeed as bad as you describe. By the time I joined, all the good open land had been built upon, so by the time I got my little house constructed, I was relegated to the northernmost chunk of land in the game (or so said my map). As I understood it, you could originally break in to people's houses and ransack their shit. They eventually implemented a control system that allowed you to state, unambiguously, what players were allowed in(IIRC, you targeted them while they were outside your house). You could whitelist players, blacklist players, etc.

And your house would indeed rot away after a few months of inactivity. So would your boat, personal vendor, or any other permanent structure you placed. Once you had your house and/or a good guild though, it was pretty easy to survive and thrive. Your equipment tended not to matter, as it would definitely be looted by the time you got back. As a result, you only used your good stuff if you planned on going into dungeons, where the griefers didn't bother to go. For fucking around with your buddies in the woods, you used whatever junk you'd scavenged.

One of the cool things I remember was how the game imitated life when I set up my house; I was between two larger houses. The one guy who had a large (by game standards) ranch-style house was a griefer who murdered like crazy to make his cash. On the other side was a two-story house which housed a moderately powerful guild of normal players. During guild activities, I'd come out and hang out with them, and we'd occasionally see our griefer neighbor skulking around his house, but he had the sense not to attack a dozen people. It was actually quite fun.

Of course, if you're one of those people who likes playing largely solo, you'd have been properly fucked in UO. There was just no way to safely do anything by yourself in the game. The omnipresent danger was kind of entertaining, though.

[Korvan]

I was a mostly solo player in UO, but as I played from work after hours with a T1 line my latency was so low that I could run from almost any griefer situation and make it away cleanly. The potential to lose all your items on death seems quite harsh, but it was relatively easy to acquire even the best of items. The one exception was if you had any pre-nerfed versions of items. When something was nerfed in UO, the nerf would only effect new versions of that item. Already existing ones wouldn't be effected.

I had at one time a pre-nerfed chainmail hauberk of invulnerability. This item was actually the equivalent of a current plate breastplate of invulnerability without the associated dex penalties of plate. It was absolutely irreplaceable and boy did it suck when I eventually did lose it. UO did have a sense of freedom and danger that WoW doesn't have, but in the end I play MMO's to have fun and there were times when UO definitely was not fun.