MMO Advancement Archetypes

[maniacalpha1-1]

I prefer exactly what everquest does. You can just grind killing lots of mobs, or you can supplement with quests.

 

[Kalmah]

The only MMO I enjoyed was Eve Online and not for any of the reasons in the poll. It has a different element that none of the other mmos have; being a dirty scoundrel with stealing, deception, espionage, scamming etc... are all part of the game. That sort of stuff is against the rules in most games. That is an element of the game that isn't tied to the game system, but instead tied to your own creativity and asshole qualities.

If I bullshit some guy over on a cargo run(receive payment, don't deliver etc...), it's his own problem. He can hunt me down, put a bounty on me, whatever. There is no crying to mods about it. The last time I played we had a guy who gained trust from our corporation, then stole everything. Later we hunted him down over months time and blew the shit out of everything he flew. He transferred all the loot to a separate account, I can't remember how but we managed to track him. It's all good fun.

 

[FallenHero]

Give me a giant sandbox please. I enjoy some questing, so keep it in. But I would lose my job if a Fantasy or Sci-Fi MMO ever came out which would let me design my own spells/weapons/tech and narrow my skillset to make me really really good at one thing, or be just ok at everything. Blizzard, as much as I love WoW, has somewhat ruined the entire genre for awhile. They call it an MMO, but then put you on a rail once you choose your faction. There is no "man, I'd love to actually be a spy for the alliance" or "I'm gonna be an outcast of the alliance and kill my own paladins for this underground society." No one seems to want to venture there, except EVE, which has a learning/skill curve and time investment that is just stupid.

 

[brandonb]

Yes, but AC and EQ were Monster driven games in which all you did was kill things, over and over and over for hours upon hours at end getting maybe a level or 2. (I know I played AC, even retried it few weeks ago) However that style of MMO is boring to too many people and wouldn't last

Also in this generation, long quests/objectives will not last. People like shorter spurts when playing a game. Like 1-1.5 hours then log off and play later.

Great. They can play another game or WoW. Different strokes for different folks. Being a WoW clone where nobody (competitors) are thinking outside the box is going to be the games doom. Nobody is going to leave their lvl 1000 WoW Character with 400 flying mounts to start fresh in the exact same copy of a game at lvl 1 and nothing. Their time is too precious (yet playing an MMO which is the biggest of timewasters) to go through that work.

"Wah! I can't quest that, it takes too long!" "Wah! I can't kill that mob, I need a friend to help me! No fair!" "Wah! I'm a paying customer like everybody else, I should be able to experience all the content just like them!" All we have are crybabies today, but since we are dealing with crybabies and they don't want to start from scratch, there can only be one game for crybabies. That is WoW. Great for them. They've worked that angle greatly and have been successful in doing so.

So my hope is someone makes a decent game not for crybabies, and can at least make some money and so the rest of us can move on to bigger and better things. The last two games I played have been Asheron's Call and Everquest. I play EQ now that its free to play. Otherwise I'd still be in Asheron's Call. ArchAge looks to be breaking the mold a bit from what I've seen. So I'll keep an eye on that. In a video I watched, you can steal other peoples mounts, or jump on the back of it while they are riding and get a free ride to wherever they are going. Or you can butcher them for food. Try doing that to someone elses horse. "I was hungry. *burp*" That's all I remember. I can hear the WoW crowd "What? Steal my mount! I'm never going to play that game! My precious!!!"

 

[diesbudt]

Great. They can play another game or WoW. Different strokes for different folks. Being a WoW clone where nobody (competitors) are thinking outside the box is going to be the games doom. Nobody is going to leave their lvl 1000 WoW Character with 400 flying mounts to start fresh in the exact same copy of a game at lvl 1 and nothing. Their time is too precious (yet playing an MMO which is the biggest of timewasters) to go through that work.

"Wah! I can't quest that, it takes too long!" "Wah! I can't kill that mob, I need a friend to help me! No fair!" "Wah! I'm a paying customer like everybody else, I should be able to experience all the content just like them!" All we have are crybabies today, but since we are dealing with crybabies and they don't want to start from scratch, there can only be one game for crybabies. That is WoW. Great for them. They've worked that angle greatly and have been successful in doing so.

So my hope is someone makes a decent game not for crybabies, and can at least make some money and so the rest of us can move on to bigger and better things. The last two games I played have been Asheron's Call and Everquest. I play EQ now that its free to play. Otherwise I'd still be in Asheron's Call. ArchAge looks to be breaking the mold a bit from what I've seen. So I'll keep an eye on that. In a video I watched, you can steal other peoples mounts, or jump on the back of it while they are riding and get a free ride to wherever they are going. Or you can butcher them for food. Try doing that to someone elses horse. "I was hungry. *burp*" That's all I remember. I can hear the WoW crowd "What? Steal my mount! I'm never going to play that game! My precious!!!"

Guild wars 2 is no subscription and is making a lot of changes to the MMO genre. May want to look into that.

1 of the unrealistic "wants" from the minority of people who dislike where MMOs are at, is a giant war/battle setting in which you can backstab cheat and steal from other players even on your own side. However that would force PvP onto all people who play the game, which albeit fun wouldn't be successful in the market place. So it wouldn't be a good business decision to make something like that.

That scenario can work for a few other ideas people want. That is the drawback with the MMO genre, it has to be balanced in whatever it does, it has to be at least semi popular (both pvp and pve, hardcore players and casual players), and it has to hook people in with a reward system either gear, points, or some money object that can turn in for other rewards.

The questing is old, and needs a new way of doing things that is obvious, GW2 does this well in my opinion. But an overall change to the MMO genre is unrealistic if in nothing else, business strategy.

I challenge the people who polled that they are tired of the questing system to come up with a realistic, logical change to the MMO genre that would still be fun, and balanced without having quests or many quests. (I am tired of it too, but I can live with it if other unique changes happen)

 

[PingSpike]

I like the idea of an Ultima Online style game with permadeath and less gear difference. Honestly the whole grind and leveling thing of MMOs is just not appealing to me. People say there is no endgame in player driven games without quests, but games like WoW the endgame sounds so artificial. You reach a new level and your reward is just some new harder content areas and more powerful gear to go with it. You never win there either, its just you're given the illusion of progression. And the quests in even single player games are pretty shallow usually, I imagine they're moreso in WoW and the like: collect 10 pelts or whatever. I just don't get the appeal honestly. And everyone gets so attached to the gear and the time they invested in the grind that they demand there be no or little punishment for death. Why not just go run on a treadmill instead? At least you'll improve you health. That's just my opinion though. The gear grind is the reward system behind lots of popular games like Diablo so obviously a good portion of the population at least sort of likes it.

I heard there was a new detective style game coming out where you can commit crimes and leave clues behind that other players can find. That sounds interesting.

I feel like we get online to interact with other players, but all people are doing is click killing a monster next to other players. Why don't they have good AI controlled enemy factions that overrun whole servers? Do they ever do anything like that in WoW?

 

[GaiaHunter]

Sandboxes will never be more popular than developer content based MMORPGs.

 

[Dumac]

EQ...No real thinking involved

lol

Also in this generation, long quests/objectives will not last. People like shorter spurts when playing a game. Like 1-1.5 hours then log off and play later.

Also, they like everything being handed to them

 

[Arkadrel]

Also, they like everything being handed to them

Which ironically I loath.
Ruins the experiance of the intire thing, if there is no challenge or sense of achievement from it.

Guild wars 2 is no subscription and is making a lot of changes to the MMO genre. May want to look into that.

To casual for my taste, and too pvp focused.
I still think GW2 will be a huge success because it has a insane following, and the animations look smooth and the UI ect looks well though out (as does the Lore, and the world it takes place in).

Personally Im just waiting for RaiderZ and MWO, and i ll be doing that for some time and not really worry about other MMOs for along time.


@diesbudt

I challenge the people who polled that they are tired of the questing system to come up with a realistic, logical change to the MMO genre that would still be fun, and balanced without having quests or many quests. (I am tired of it too, but I can live with it if other unique changes happen)

Why have Class balance if all the game is focused around Group PVE? no reason to then = why there is a holy trinity.

so;

1) Remove pvp from game

2) Accept that differnt classes do differnt things
(ei. healer heals, buffer/debuffer does that, puller does that, dps do that, tanks tank ect)

3) remove lame quest system, in its place? NOTHING. Just make differnt monster grind spots people can "find" on their own, and go do as a TEAM (not solo).

4) make story line based missions, that are tough as hell, that unlock new abilities, new area's, new bosses/raids.
Make people work for everything, so when they re able to do these things they feel like they have acomplished something.

Dont make new abilities just be bought for xxx gold/whatever currency at a npc in middle of town = laaame.

There FFXI remake yes please.

Some people dont want a "casual" game, where the healer can dps like a melee dps, and where 95% of the game is solo leveling via lame quest system. Id much rather have a grind monster @ various spots in world to level up, and be forced to group up for everything in the game = builds community.

To futher teamwork, make a TP system like in FFXI, and have melee's have weapon skills, and have mages have the ability to magic burst spells on skillchains (encurage people to work together even to do damage! in a exp group)

 

[pandemonium]

Well, I'm glad to see I'm not alone!

There aren't many MMOs I haven't played, but I will say that FFXI was probably the best group oriented game for PvE. DAoC was pretty close second for PvE and #1 for PvP. Everything coming out now doesn't seem to get the PvP system right...at all.

I'm currently subscribed to TERA and I had [too] high hopes for it for about 9 months prior to release. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how much of a quest clicker it was until after it was released (never got into the beta and didn't buy the game at launch).

I'm considering trying TSW, but like I did with TERA, I wanted to wait until a few months after release to see how it does (then jump on the bandwagon when everyone else is jumping off - ya, ya, I know; you probably think I'm weird and doing it wrong, but I have my reasons).

I didn't vote because I play Ultima Online and I don't know if it's quest-driven or not.

Trolling or serious? Lol. UO is definitely not quest driven. It's a grind, and [back in the day] was an awesome MMO. I've gone back and tried playing it on several ocassions and each time it just couldn't hold my interest (dated gameplay, graphics, and tons of goofy extra stats added to weapons/armor).

 

[pandemonium]

Players are sick of the quest-driven style of MMOs. WoW is largely to blame as they ram that down your throat and have driven it into the ground. The game continues to bleed subs. Activision/Blizzard lost over 1,000,000 World of Warcraft subscribers in the past three months.

Largely due to Diablo 3 (which failed horribly IMO). Actually, WoW pushed me to dislike Blizzard very much. SC2 edged me further yet. Diablo 3 made me absolutely, 100% certain that I'm never buying another game from them again.

The idea of a subscription is definitely going the way of the dodo.

Not for me. I really don't mind paying a monthly fee if the game is good. Don't get me wrong, the P2P system is valid, works, and has merits, but I honestly prefer paying the monthly fee and not having to browse through some real cash market to find out what part of the game I'm missing.

 

[pandemonium]

you would rather grind 1 group of mobs than quest?

i agree that i hate questing where you have to go back and forth between the same 2 areas, but i'd much rather do that than grind.

Grinding isn't so bad when it's in a game that you can bring the challenge to yourself and your group. FFXI would be the prime example. There's something to be said about being able to exp chain pull 120 monsters, skillchain abilities off of each other, line the monster up for threat control done by the Thief, cower behind the Paladin for cover, never get hit once by timing Utsusemi, etc... For a game that had, at most, 15 abilities per character through 75 levels (more with merits), it sure did make you feel like each class was unique and powerful in their own right.

 

[pandemonium]

Which ironically I loath.
Ruins the experiance of the intire thing, if there is no challenge or sense of achievement from it.

To casual for my taste, and too pvp focused.
I still think GW2 will be a huge success because it has a insane following, and the animations look smooth and the UI ect looks well though out (as does the Lore, and the world it takes place in).

...

There FFXI remake yes please.

Some people dont want a "casual" game, where the healer can dps like a melee dps, and where 95% of the game is solo leveling via lame quest system. Id much rather have a grind monster @ various spots in world to level up, and be forced to group up for everything in the game = builds community.

To futher teamwork, make a TP system like in FFXI, and have melee's have weapon skills, and have mages have the ability to magic burst spells on skillchains (encurage people to work together even to do damage! in a exp group)

It appears we both miss the hell out of some XI, heh.

I'm also probably not going to be that thrilled with GW2 because of the casual nature that it incurs. I love PvP, but I want to be able to PvE as well. I want hardcore. I want a community that feels like they're devoted to making some sort of change in the virtual environment they enjoy playing. I don't want a game where people run by each other, never considering to wave or recognize the rest of the world that's flashing into the distance (and all of the real people are just part of the landscape).

I really just don't understand people that are so easily amused by cheap rewards and cheap thrills.

 

[tcG]

Damn, everyone has an opinion about this.

The old school MMORPG's like Everquest are better than the WoW-clones. All the concessions to casual players make the game worse. Things like high death penalties, grinding, permanent character attributes, heavy class differentiation, PvE, et. al., are what make these games great.

 

[Arkadrel]

@tcG
@pandemonium

Have you guys heard of RaiderZ?

Its tag line is "Hunt together or die alone".

It has me thrilled, I believe their on the "right" track, (it still has quests system, but more or less everything else about it = win)
which is more than I can say for 90% of the MMORPG developers out there.

Honestly I saw a video of SW:TOR before the game was launched even, and I could tell just from the gameplay video peek's, that the game was gonna flop. I mean even a game like AGE OF CONAN, I couldnt tell just from the start, and had to play upto endgame before I really got tried of it. And AoC was a huge mess, so I was 100% sure SWTOR was gonna flop (which it then did). Which is crazy because before its launch they where talkingn about it stealing millions of subs from WoW and being the next big thing.

I believe I know what people want in a mmo, more than the damn developers do.
Its the *only* reason I think of, that they put out so much crap.

 

[sushicide]

Raiderz looks a lot like TERA, which was fun for a month but "action combat" as a gimmick itself could only carry so much until the repetitive gameplay started to get stale.

signed up for the beta anyway, we'll see how it goes.

 

[pandemonium]

I had not heard of RaiderZ yet. From the limited reading I was able to see it does appear to have some of the redeeming qualities that I'm looking for, but too much of a focus on PvE. Never-the-less, I'll sign up and look more into it. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[BenSkywalker]

I can't answer the poll as I'm not quite sure what the OP means?

By questing do you mean theme park style MMOs? My mage in WoW played through vanilla and then two expansion packs and I don't think I did more then a dozen quests total throughout(excluding Hand of Adaal and the like). MMOs that revolve around content the developer created for you to work your way through is the theme park style. Sand box is the devs put in a big world with a very loose set of rules, have at it.

FF XI fell somewhere in the middle IMO, and outside of the fact that you absolutely had to group to do anything, it was the best designed MMO that I had tried for my tastes.

Trying FF XIV now, honestly extremely impressed with it, seems like they have fixed the issues the game had at launch. For those that used to play XI and thought about XIV, it's only $10 on GameStop right now and includes a free month, worth checking out if you were a fan of XI IMO(I'm still fairly early in the game, but greatly enjoying it, lack of hand holding takes a bit to get used to after the theme park MMOs, but really loving it at this point).

 

[pandemonium]

The poll is in regards to the primary way that you advance your character in the game. In the terminology you're using, Themepark would be questing, sandbox would be self-driven. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear.

I tried FFXIV pre-release/release for about 2 months and it was horrible. It had a lot going for it, but they focused far too much on the leve system and that's all everyone ended up doing (parties were fairly rare to find to skill with). I spent way too much time crafting to be able to suit myself up and leveled just about every "class" to 20ish. I have a friend who's playing it for his first time and said that it's pretty good so far. He also mentioned that the 2.0 update that's coming will apparently completely change the game (for the better).

I definitely need to reactivate my account and check it out. Thanks for mentioning it! ^^

My mage in WoW played through vanilla and then two expansion packs and I don't think I did more then a dozen quests total throughout(excluding Hand of Adaal and the like).

I'm going to have to call BS on this. You mean to say that you ground your way killing monsters to level 60 on launch and then through WoTLK even though one of the primary selling points of the game at the time was the incredible questing system that spanned most of the map? Unlike how they portrayed WoW in Southpark, you can't actually level by killing boars over and over.

 

[Arkadrel]

@BenSkywalker

I was in the closed beta for FFXIV...... nope Im never gonna try that game.
As far as Im concerned its just them polishing a turd.

You cant make a awesum game out of something thats buildt on flawed concepts, not to mention how many bugs and how badly the UI was, or the Keyboard/mouse use was with it. Everyone on the beta forums where practically "screming" that the use of mouse/keyboard was too horrible to use. Why is it like that? because the game was "made" for a consol, so it fits a consol controller. The intire game is like that, they opted for causal users who play on consols = suckage.

Its weird because in FFXI, you could use a keyboard for 98% of all tasks in the game (didnt need to touch your mouse except very rarely at say the auction house).

In FFXIV they TRASHED everything good about FF11, and took the worst parts with them.
And after BETA testing where the forums where overrun with people complaining, they went ahead and launched the game anyways. They dont care, all they care about is makeing money, well jokes on them cuz noone will play that peice of crap.

The only fun part of FFXIV, was seeing them struggle with things that worked perfectly in FFXI, and wonder why the fudge they didnt just re-use the working design from FFXI, if they couldnt come up with a suitable alternative. It felt like the *only* reason they had changes, where to have changes (change for changes sake), not careing if the systems worked.

Best thing that could happend is if they just dropped FFXIV, and started working on a new FF MMORPG that copied all the original concepts from FFXI.

 

[GaiaHunter]

To casual for my taste, and too pvp focused.
I still think GW2 will be a huge success because it has a insane following, and the animations look smooth and the UI ect looks well though out (as does the Lore, and the world it takes place in).

Casual in what way?

Time wise, yes, unless you want to grind for legendary items (items with same stats but flashy effects).

Skill wise it isn't casual.

Considering all PvP occurs in arenas or in a special separate continent and the PvE areas are gigantic, I don't see how it is PvP driven.

 

[Arkadrel]

GaiaHunter

If "time wise" getting the best grade weapons which all are the same stats wise (is really quick/easy = causal), then its safe to assume most of the time will be spent doing other things..... which leaves PVPing. I dont like the "item looks better but has same stats" idea they use, I think raid items should have better stats than non raid drops (to give people incentive to do them).

That makes it a pvp focused game.
Skill wise? Errrhh... what? GW system looks really simple, in what way is that not "casual" friendly?

It being a game made for a casual audience isnt a bad thing, alot of people like that.
Dispite my slightly negative outlook, i ll still probably buy it to try it out since its free to play after its bought.
See if my pre-conceived notions hold true or not.

Considering all PvP occurs in arenas or in a special separate continent and the PvE areas are gigantic, I don't see how it is PvP driven.

Thats just plain bad design, if you know people will zoom by all the PVE (becuse of game design/itemisation) and then spend all the rest of the time playing it as a PvP game in a small area.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'm going to have to call BS on this. You mean to say that you ground your way killing monsters to level 60 on launch and then through WoTLK even though one of the primary selling points of the game at the time was the incredible questing system that spanned most of the map? Unlike how they portrayed WoW in Southpark, you can't actually level by killing boars over and over.

/facepalm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABGpKtha3cc&feature=related

That is the exact route I ran for most of the leveling in Wotlk(used UK for 70-72, ICC for 77-80). TBC and Vanilla was a lot more hopping around, but you can get a pretty good idea watching that video how I leveled in WoW. Yeah, if you wanted to level insanely slowly you could go do the whole quest thing, AoE grind ftmfw

I was in the closed beta for FFXIV..

I tried FFXIV pre-release/release for about 2 months and it was horrible.

I hadn't touched the game until ToR announced they were going Farmville, one of my buddies who played at launch was over this weekend and he said it was completely different then what he played <shrug>. I'm liking it a lot, reminds me of FFXI but without having to group for everything.

 

[GaiaHunter]

GaiaHunter
If "time wise" getting the best grade weapons which all are the same stats wise (is really quick/easy = causal), then its safe to assume most of the time will be spent doing other things..... which leaves PVPing. I dont like the "item looks better but has same stats" idea they use, I think raid items should have better stats than non raid drops (to give people incentive to do them).

That also means harder content can't be beat by better items, but by player improvement.
If people need a carrot to do something they are playing for fun (unless people play for something else than having fun), it means probably it isn't that fun in the first place.

That makes it a pvp focused game.
Skill wise? Errrhh... what? GW system looks really simple, in what way is that not "casual" friendly?

Considering even normal mobs (above level 10-12) can kill you in 4-5 hits, veteran mobs will down you in 3 hits and champion mobs will kill you in a couple of hits and are pretty impossible to solo, I hardly say that is casual friendly.

Don't confuse small number of skills available at any single time, opposed to having 80 skills, as simple, when you need all those skills to survive.

Thats just plain bad design, if you know people will zoom by all the PVE (becuse of game design/itemisation) and then spend all the rest of the time playing it as a PvP game in a small area.

That is because you have a pre-conceived notion that only raids are hard content. But when people are taking 5-8 hours to complete the low level 5 man explorable mode dungeon and a few hours to complete some elite DEs, granted part of it is because people aren't very good yet, and then you have 3 full zones dedicated to elite events at level cap, you are in for a surprise.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

The only MMO I enjoyed was Eve Online and not for any of the reasons in the poll. It has a different element that none of the other mmos have; being a dirty scoundrel with stealing, deception, espionage, scamming etc... are all part of the game. That sort of stuff is against the rules in most games. That is an element of the game that isn't tied to the game system, but instead tied to your own creativity and asshole qualities.

If I bullshit some guy over on a cargo run(receive payment, don't deliver etc...), it's his own problem. He can hunt me down, put a bounty on me, whatever. There is no crying to mods about it. The last time I played we had a guy who gained trust from our corporation, then stole everything. Later we hunted him down over months time and blew the shit out of everything he flew. He transferred all the loot to a separate account, I can't remember how but we managed to track him. It's all good fun.

That's one thing I always liked about EVE. You can pretty much do anything you want but there are always consequences.

Oh and this has to be the most epic tear harvesting moment ever recorded in EVE IMHO.

The loss mail.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14210105

The ranting and tears after a 3.2 billion ISK loss (which isn't that big of a loss compared to other loss mails and scams.) from a AWOXER is pretty epic here.

http://soundcloud.com/gecko-1-1/gecko-fleet-phoon-awox