MMOs: Past, Present, and Future

[Mblake1981]

The gamer label came after my time that ended about the time this happened.

[fadetree]

The biggest problem is gear. We are all so locked into the idea of ascending power in gear that it shapes the entire experience. The developers like it because it gives them a simple way to dangle a carrot to keep people playing. We like the achievement dopamine hits of leveling and scaling up our gear.
Unfortunately, the continual ascension of power produces trivialized content which produces the need to constantly release 'expansion' content of increasing difficulty. Things get complicated and hard to tune, and trying to balance out huge amounts of itemizations and skill trees is extremely difficult. You wind up with a bunch of god-like characters standing around bitching about being bored.
I'd like to try something without the gear mechanic, and maybe even the whole idea of character 'stats' and 'levels'. The game would have char stats at some level of course, but they wouldn't ever be visible and they wouldn't ever change. Gear would not affect your char stats. Armor and weapons would not magically enhance your survivability, although armors would protect you some and good weapons would help your damage some. Armor and weapons would not 'drop' from kills unless the mob was wearing/using them, and everything else would have to be made by players. Everything would break/rust/wear out unless maintained. All abilities would be skill based, with skill ups available via repetition and/or 'lessons' from higher skilled players. Magic would exist but be skill based as above. Magical items would be very very rare and they would also break/rust/wear out. No character stats at all would be visible, not HP, not attributes, not AC or ATK or anything like that. Everything would have to be built/made - clothes, houses, carts, castles. Basically, it would be a medieval life simulator with some magic thrown in. Most of your characters would turn out to be peasants and you have to do peasant-y stuff like mine for filth or be oppressed. Only a few characters would get to do any real pillaging and they would either get syphilis or be killed in battle after a few hours.
OK, so I got pulled into a monty python movie there for a sec - but I actually do think that the gear and levels mechanic needs to be rethought. It pulls the game to the same place every time.

[Baler]

Originally Posted by fadetree [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The biggest problem is gear. We are all so locked into the idea of ascending power in gear that it shapes the entire experience. The developers like it because it gives them a simple way to dangle a carrot to keep people playing. We like the achievement dopamine hits of leveling and scaling up our gear.
Unfortunately, the continual ascension of power produces trivialized content which produces the need to constantly release 'expansion' content of increasing difficulty. Things get complicated and hard to tune, and trying to balance out huge amounts of itemizations and skill trees is extremely difficult. You wind up with a bunch of god-like characters standing around bitching about being bored.
I'd like to try something without the gear mechanic, and maybe even the whole idea of character 'stats' and 'levels'. The game would have char stats at some level of course, but they wouldn't ever be visible and they wouldn't ever change. Gear would not affect your char stats. Armor and weapons would not magically enhance your survivability, although armors would protect you some and good weapons would help your damage some. Armor and weapons would not 'drop' from kills unless the mob was wearing/using them, and everything else would have to be made by players. Everything would break/rust/wear out unless maintained. All abilities would be skill based, with skill ups available via repetition and/or 'lessons' from higher skilled players. Magic would exist but be skill based as above. Magical items would be very very rare and they would also break/rust/wear out. No character stats at all would be visible, not HP, not attributes, not AC or ATK or anything like that. Everything would have to be built/made - clothes, houses, carts, castles. Basically, it would be a medieval life simulator with some magic thrown in. Most of your characters would turn out to be peasants and you have to do peasant-y stuff like mine for filth or be oppressed. Only a few characters would get to do any real pillaging and they would either get syphilis or be killed in battle after a few hours.
OK, so I got pulled into a monty python movie there for a sec - but I actually do think that the gear and levels mechanic needs to be rethought. It pulls the game to the same place every time.

Power creep is the best way to explain what you said. And it's a problem that plagues mmo's now-a-days. It would be nice if they could release expansions without making old content useless/trivializing it I agree. I think many theme park mmos like WoW don't even care at this point. They just keep climbing the ladder of power ignoring everything left behind.

[Lhancelot]

Originally Posted by Baler [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Power creep is the best way to explain what you said. And it's a problem that plagues mmo's now-a-days. It would be nice if they could release expansions without making old content useless/trivializing it I agree. I think many theme park mmos like WoW don't even care at this point. They just keep climbing the ladder of power ignoring everything left behind.

They could fix this by instead of creating bigger stats on items which ends up trivializing old items by instead creating new weapons and abilities that work with future content.

Meaning, in the first expansion make it so mobs take damage from frost and swords more than other types of damage. In the next expansion, create a world where mobs are more susceptible to other forms of damage. This is just a simplified example but you get the idea.

They could create new abilities that allowed players to conquer the newer content easier instead of constantly raising the stat bar of the characters and their items. This would allow for older content to still remain relevant as well as giving old weapons and skills/abilities a place to still be useful.

[Necrostoner]

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They could fix this by instead of creating bigger stats on items which ends up trivializing old items by instead creating new weapons and abilities that work with future content.

Meaning, in the first expansion make it so mobs take damage from frost and swords more than other types of damage. In the next expansion, create a world where mobs are more susceptible to other forms of damage. This is just a simplified example but you get the idea.

They could create new abilities that allowed players to conquer the newer content easier instead of constantly raising the stat bar of the characters and their items. This would allow for older content to still remain relevant as well as giving old weapons and skills/abilities a place to still be useful.

Then you just have the same content and items that just have different resistances. Nothing like doing the same thing over and over. *Cough Everquest cough*

[fadetree]

My recommendations:
1. No visible numbers....no stats or HP or Mana or AC/ATK numbers.
2. All gear can break/degrade. Can be repaired by players with skills. Good stuff lasts longer, crap breaks easy. Gear can degrade all the way to unrepairable.
3. All gear can be tradeskilled except the really rare stuff
4. Magical items all need to be powered and recharged, and can break/explode.
5. damage is wound and fatigue based - not subtraction of abstract HP numbers.
6. All gear takes skill levels to use...no twinking. If I am a bad swordsman with a rusty longsword I still suck with a Longsword of Uber Slaying.
7. Any special 'treasure' loot that drops is all no drop.
8. All skills learned by repetition. A master can teach up to a certain level to make it go faster.
9. No 'levels', it's all skill based. If a Giant can stomp me flat when I first start, then he can when I've played a long time unless I dodge. Meaning, I don't have an absurdly larger number of 'hit points', I can use my skills to not get hit in the first place much better at higher skill levels.

[Axlrose]

Fadetree -

It sounds like you would want a game that combined Eve with EverQuest. Your character advances through skill training, but would never be so utterly powerful that nothing can best him (or her). You training as a warrior template can kill a relatively new player, but a gang of small players would whittle you dead with one thousand cuts. Markets and resources are player driven - if nobody is mining Veldspar (iron), then nothing would be sold to another player that can then create the armor and weapons needed to combat monsters (pirates or "rats" in Eve). And short of training long lengths of time to utilize that better sword (tech two item), then you would be using what nearly everyone else would be using.

I have considered and collected numerous thoughts about such a game for a while now! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[fadetree]

Yeah I was thinking it sounded like what I've heard about Eve.

[shuklak]

No... he said those were examples of his reasons...

[deniedius]

I really enjoyed vanilla WOW, mainly because it forced you to make friends in the game. Much like EQ you were forced to interact with others. Even if you were soloing in EQ you had to negotiate camps with people, trade buffs (hey I'll sow you for some clarity) etc.

I think one of the issues with new MMOs is the lack of the "multiplayer" part. I felt EQ, vanilla wow, and dark ages of camelot were very good for that element.

On to items. I tried to play the new wow because some co workers were into it. I realized I freaking hate items that you need to progress and level up. It's freaking depressing. I honestly just like having said item and that's it. I still enjoy the EQ itemization the most, followed by original warcraft. Everything felt real and very important to have.

I have high hopes for Pantheon, but I'm also a bit excited for the new camelot game. I like the insane amount of classes and races in it. I always felt EQ had the most robust races and classes.

So we'll see what happens.