MMO Advancement Archetypes

[Arkadrel]

That also means harder content can't be beat by better items, but by player improvement.

That also means theres no stepping stones, beat one you can beat them all.
Shorter PVE endgame.

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.

Like if your kid plays football and you buy them a pizza after they won the game to celebrate.... totally not needed, screw them if they like football they shouldnt need/want pizza afterwards.

Human nature just doesnt work that way.

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.

At first I wanted to mention the number of skills but I didnt.
I like you realise that isnt what makes a gameplay simple or not.

In GW2 certain skills play together, ei Firewall + arrows that then light on fire ect.
But it looks like small time stuff, and most of the time GW2 gameplay just looks like buttonmashing mindlessly, even if it might have more buttons to push than some games
(or less in some cases)

In FFXI, some melee classes only had like 6 abilities, and some differnt weapon skills.
However the "timeing" of when you used said abilities, ment alot, as did when you used your weapon skills. You needed to memorise like 40 differnt weapon skill combinations between differnt classes, so when someone did 1 type of weapon skill, you could quickly follow it up with another that fit, for the weakness type of that monster (so a 3rd player like a mage could do a Magic burst spell). Usually that just ment people talked about things before they started the exp seasson and people teamed up to do these. However it was expected of people to understand gameplay mechanics and know what to do in a group.
Same with small things, like controll of your character and judge of distance when pulling monsters so you dont aggro more than needed ect.

Another exsample would be a Ninja, his use of Utsumi cycleing with shadows (how they tanked, they masked themselfs in clones that could absorb a 3-5 hits) and had to *count* how many times theyd taken a hit, then cancle the buff of 1 type, while reapplying another (while balanceing cooldown timers, and still keeping up with aggro generation and weapon skills ect).
It only came down to 2-3 skill abilities (to use Utsumi), however the skill needed to tank effectivly as a ninja was immense.

That is because you have a pre-conceived notion that only raids are hard content.

I played FFXI, trust me I dont
And Im all for challenges in games.

Im just not over the top fanatical about GW2. Im expecting to be disappointed because so many MMORPGs do (lately).
And the Itemisation system alone, is very close to a deal breaker for me.

 

[Magusigne]

Let me just chime in and say World of Warcraft has been one of the best game's i've ever played..I admit it. (Vanilla WoW)

Wrath of the Lich king killed it for me. I was wanting some Epic quest line (Jedi Unlock from Galaxies..) to unlock a death knight..and even involving sacrificing a level 60 character that would "come back" as a death knight.. instead..everyone and there brother was a death knight...killed it.

I'm hoping GW2 is decent...hopefully I can resist the purchase and wait a few months..I always say this but I end up caving... (WAR, AoC, AION, resisted star trek woo..).

I don't know DDO is actually pretty good..you just need a large active group playing it with you.

 

[diesbudt]

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).

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

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)

Actually GW2 is as PVE focused as PVP. That is a change Arenanet is going, away from the PVP focused Guild Wars 1, and working on both.

And may be casual in the sense there is no huge 4+ hour raid instances. Otherwise, any MMO can be played and considered casual today, just depends on playing circumstances.

1) No PvP would reduce how many people would want to play it, and would limit how many different things one can do in a game to less then otherwise.

2) No game can be expected to be 100% group. Healers are too gimped to dps adequetly enough to play solo. And games with the holy trinity still follow this, and people are getting tired of it. People are wanting to move to a game where any class can do any of it if specced/geared for it. Its the next level of MMOs

3) Just grinding monsters is the first generation of MMOs, and that never caught on near as massively as the quest system WoW brought to the table compared to Everquests and Asheron's call just killing things with a few huge quests located around the world. Also, just killing things is more mindless than questing, and questing at least makes one have a slightly stronger feeling what they are doing matters in the world, then just killing monsters.

4) Very good idea. GW2 is doing similar to that. Their storyline quest instances, when beaten will unlock the ability at max level to do them again, albeit harder. (much like WoW heroics) except everytime you beat it (for first few times), different paths will open up for harder bosses for different/better loot. So if you beat it, it gets harder. Until it maxes out. And I agree the system where you have to "attune" to instances are great. The only drawback, as seen in WoW, was the need to attune new players to a guild/raid group because you need new people or when people change characters to help the group out they need to attune again. Especially since the average guild-member time length is so much shorter than it used to be.

Don't get me wrong. I am not fully defending or fighting for any of these options per se. I am just saying that with no real alternative to a new MMO genre idea, most ideas people have (Such as remove pvp, restrict the game to certain people, ect.) is a horrible business decision, which means a company will have no ambition to try making a game like that.

 

[diesbudt]

Wrath of the Lich king killed it for me. I was wanting some Epic quest line (Jedi Unlock from Galaxies..) to unlock a death knight..and even involving sacrificing a level 60 character that would "come back" as a death knight.. instead..everyone and there brother was a death knight...killed it.

I don't think this would have made any difference with how you felt about WOTLK as that would just be a minor change to the game. And again anyone would still have a DK basically. However this would have been neat to impliment.

 

[gladiatorua]

I'm hoping GW2 is decent...hopefully I can resist the purchase and wait a few months..I always say this but I end up caving...

I would suggest playing from day one. After couple of month there will be significantly less people playing with pandas coming out and SWTOR going f2p. You can beat pve-content at least once and occasionally pop in for PVP and major updates(free and non-free big expansions). The game looks like it is worth money they are asking for it.

 

[diesbudt]

(A) Like if your kid plays football and you buy them a pizza after they won the game to celebrate.... totally not needed, screw them if they like football they shouldnt need/want pizza afterwards.

Human nature just doesnt work that way.

At first I wanted to mention the number of skills but I didnt.
I like you realise that isnt what makes a gameplay simple or not.

(b) In GW2 certain skills play together, ei Firewall + arrows that then light on fire ect.
But it looks like small time stuff, and most of the time GW2 gameplay just looks like buttonmashing mindlessly, even if it might have more buttons to push than some games
(or less in some cases)

In FFXI, some melee classes only had like 6 abilities, and some differnt weapon skills.
However the "timeing" of when you used said abilities, ment alot, as did when you used your weapon skills. You needed to memorise like 40 differnt weapon skill combinations between differnt classes, so when someone did 1 type of weapon skill, you could quickly follow it up with another that fit, for the weakness type of that monster (so a 3rd player like a mage could do a Magic burst spell). Usually that just ment people talked about things before they started the exp seasson and people teamed up to do these. However it was expected of people to understand gameplay mechanics and know what to do in a group.
Same with small things, like controll of your character and judge of distance when pulling monsters so you dont aggro more than needed ect.

Another exsample would be a Ninja, his use of Utsumi cycleing with shadows (how they tanked, they masked themselfs in clones that could absorb a 3-5 hits) and had to *count* how many times theyd taken a hit, then cancle the buff of 1 type, while reapplying another (while balanceing cooldown timers, and still keeping up with aggro generation and weapon skills ect).
It only came down to 2-3 skill abilities (to use Utsumi), however the skill needed to tank effectivly as a ninja was immense.



I played FFXI, trust me I dont
And Im all for challenges in games.

Im just not over the top fanatical about GW2. Im expecting to be disappointed because so many MMORPGs do (lately).
And the Itemisation system alone, is very close to a deal breaker for me.

(A) - If a child love pizza and doesn't care about football. A pizza if they win would be a massive incentive. Only a child who is passinate about football would not require a reward. However, like in this metaphor, most children are not that passinate about the game. (They may so when they get older, but not for a while).

Rewards are more than just that. The main thing about RPGs themselves is the psycological aspect of "feeling stronger" when a character gets better rewards/gear/skills for completeing a challenge. (Which actually shows an increase in Real life confidence fom this.)

MMORPGs are still RPGs. So following this formula is practically the most needed carrot on a stick of them all. So to clarify on that metaphor for anyone confused. (Read a book called "Ready, Player one." It is the psycology and affects games have us on real life and how important that carrot on a stick from a game can be for people in real life.)

(B) - Not many if any people got high enough in level to see what the later combat is in the beta. However, the button smashing is more due to the fact that skills recharge pretty fast and it is a more speedy/active RPG. The actual skill comes in the weapon switching mid fight to combo some of the bigger abilities and when to switch to a skill set that may give you healing skills instead of dps skills, since everyone needs to help heal at times. Never playing any FF online game, mostly because of the time committment required on release.... 24+ hour boss, thats stupid ridiculous, I know on GW2 in later levels the learning curve is massive. I cant wait to face people in pvp who believe it is just mashing buttons. Easy prey.

 

[Arkadrel]

1) No PvP would reduce how many people would want to play it, and would limit how many different things one can do in a game to less then otherwise.

2) No game can be expected to be 100% group. Healers are too gimped to dps adequetly enough to play solo. And games with the holy trinity still follow this, and people are getting tired of it. People are wanting to move to a game where any class can do any of it if specced/geared for it. Its the next level of MMOs

3) Just grinding monsters is the first generation of MMOs, and that never caught on near as massively as the quest system WoW brought to the table compared to Everquests and Asheron's call just killing things with a few huge quests located around the world. Also, just killing things is more mindless than questing, and questing at least makes one have a slightly stronger feeling what they are doing matters in the world, then just killing monsters.

4) Very good idea. GW2 is doing similar to that. Their storyline quest instances, when beaten will unlock the ability at max level to do them again, albeit harder. (much like WoW heroics) except everytime you beat it (for first few times), different paths will open up for harder bosses for different/better loot. So if you beat it, it gets harder. Until it maxes out. And I agree the system where you have to "attune" to instances are great. The only drawback, as seen in WoW, was the need to attune new players to a guild/raid group because you need new people or when people change characters to help the group out they need to attune again. Especially since the average guild-member time length is so much shorter than it used to be.

1) wrong, it would just attract a differnt crowd of people.

2) wrong, FFXI does that and succedes because its like that.
(healers/tanks everyone to gimped to solo = balanced = everyone works together)

3) Your makeing assumptions, that why WoW succeded was because of quest system and thus automatically going "its superior" when it comes to selling a game. Thats wrong

Couter-argument : since then lots of companys do quest based MMORPGs like WoW, but dont succede.

What made WoW stand out was that it was differnt back then, now quest based MMORPGs are a dime-a-dozen. Also look at the asian markets, they have grind games that are hugely popular over there (that just never get translated to english, and make it here EU/USA).

Don't get me wrong. I am not fully defending or fighting for any of these options per se. I am just saying that with no real alternative to a new MMO genre idea, most ideas people have (Such as remove pvp, restrict the game to certain people, ect.) is a horrible business decision, which means a company will have no ambition to try making a game like that.

I believe markets are more than just 1way of doing things.
Its hard to compete if everyone is doing the same thing.

Which makes trying for a non quest driven, no pvp but 100% pve focused game,
make alot more sense.

The main thing about RPGs themselves is the psycological aspect of "feeling stronger" when a character gets better rewards/gear/skills for completeing a challenge.

Thats just it!
There is noooooooooo challenge in WoW, its too casual everyone can do it with small effort = senseless accomplisment.

If you get carrot + pat on back for doing nothing silly little things constantly, it feels belittling.
Its not something that leaves you feeling great that you just accomplished something

(because everyone and their mothers have already done it/are doing it, without issue. AND 2mins lateron you ll do something just like it, and again get same Carrot+pat on back).

 

[GaiaHunter]

That also means theres no stepping stones, beat one you can beat them all.
Shorter PVE endgame.

Like if your kid plays football and you buy them a pizza after they won the game to celebrate.... totally not needed, screw them if they like football they shouldnt need/want pizza afterwards.

Human nature just doesnt work that way.

At first I wanted to mention the number of skills but I didnt.
I like you realise that isnt what makes a gameplay simple or not.

In GW2 certain skills play together, ei Firewall + arrows that then light on fire ect.
But it looks like small time stuff, and most of the time GW2 gameplay just looks like buttonmashing mindlessly, even if it might have more buttons to push than some games
(or less in some cases)

In FFXI, some melee classes only had like 6 abilities, and some differnt weapon skills.
However the "timeing" of when you used said abilities, ment alot, as did when you used your weapon skills. You needed to memorise like 40 differnt weapon skill combinations between differnt classes, so when someone did 1 type of weapon skill, you could quickly follow it up with another that fit, for the weakness type of that monster (so a 3rd player like a mage could do a Magic burst spell). Usually that just ment people talked about things before they started the exp seasson and people teamed up to do these. However it was expected of people to understand gameplay mechanics and know what to do in a group.
Same with small things, like controll of your character and judge of distance when pulling monsters so you dont aggro more than needed ect.

Another exsample would be a Ninja, his use of Utsumi cycleing with shadows (how they tanked, they masked themselfs in clones that could absorb a 3-5 hits) and had to *count* how many times theyd taken a hit, then cancle the buff of 1 type, while reapplying another (while balanceing cooldown timers, and still keeping up with aggro generation and weapon skills ect).
It only came down to 2-3 skill abilities (to use Utsumi), however the skill needed to tank effectivly as a ninja was immense.



I played FFXI, trust me I dont
And Im all for challenges in games.

Im just not over the top fanatical about GW2. Im expecting to be disappointed because so many MMORPGs do (lately).
And the Itemisation system alone, is very close to a deal breaker for me.

Once you play it, we will revisit your opinions, especially the mindless button mashing against veterans, champions and regular mobs of level 12 plus. Just don't play going from heart to heart - those are the content for the mindless people.

 

[diesbudt]

1) wrong, it would just attract a differnt crowd of people.

2) wrong, FFXI does that and succedes because its like that.
(healers/tanks everyone to gimped to solo = balanced = everyone works together)

3) Your makeing assumptions, that why WoW succeded was because of quest system and thus automatically going "its superior" when it comes to selling a game. Thats wrong

Couter-argument : since then lots of companys do quest based MMORPGs like WoW, but dont succede.

What made WoW stand out was that it was differnt back then, now quest based MMORPGs are a dime-a-dozen. Also look at the asian markets, they have grind games that are hugely popular over there (that just never get translated to english, and make it here EU/USA).




I believe markets are more than just 1way of doing things.
Its hard to compete if everyone is doing the same thing.

Which makes trying for a non quest driven, no pvp but 100% pve focused game,
make alot more sense.


Thats just it!
There is noooooooooo challenge in WoW, its too casual everyone can do it with small effort = senseless accomplisment.

If you get carrot + pat on back for doing nothing silly little things constantly, it feels belittling.
Its not something that leaves you feeling great that you just accomplished something

(because everyone and their mothers have already done it/are doing it, without issue. AND 2mins lateron you ll do something just like it, and again get same Carrot+pat on back).

1) No it wouldnt' be a "different crowd" because all these games that have strong PvP also have a very strong PvE game. (WoW etc.) This would mean that only part of that crowd (The PvE crowd) would have interest in this game. That is an issue, considering esports and PvP has never been more popular then it is now. Though this could be more due to the fact games like HoN, DOTA, LoL, CoD and BF3 brought on a lot more player vs player competitiveness into the Desktop market.

2) Right, but that game got so popular am I right? That seems like a fun way to play, I will not disagree with your opinion there, but this goes back to being too limited. And there are times I like to enjoy just soloing things. A good game needs to allow soloing of things, but also leave some of the bigger quests, bosses and such to groups only. A reason I believe WoW succeeded so well in subscriptions come end of BC and Wotlk. Easy content for people to solo, and unique hard raid content for groups only. Add in this + 0 PvP in a game, you now also have only about only 25% of the gaming population even interested. Business model failure.

3) Actually, the subscription numbers are good evidence, and the fact enough the first year it was out one of the main praises people gave it was they got to move away from just killing monsters. People are getting tired of quests being the main focus point, andpeople don't want to move to a grinding set-up again, so whats the next level? And with lots of xp and rewards and even story was driven from these quests. Asheron's call and EQ, you could learn as much if not more about the world you are in, but it required one to journey to a dungeon that you may not know anything about, and find some dusty tome at the bottom of a dungeon that gives a story based on some lore of the game world. Instead of a simple quest setting up the lore/world for you.

Counter-counter-argument: That is because you cannot succeed following the same formula if another company has mastered it. You have to change the formula enough to "matter". But much like the execs of TOR stated, they wanted to follow this formula because "it works".

And yes grind games are huge in Asia, so is spending 15-16+ hours on games, why do asians do that? beats me. But not in America, especially with the ADHD CoD children growing up. Again it is based on the business model. You don't target a fraction of the minority, you target the biggest group. If you like grind games, I would suggest you find a way to get onto some of those asian games, because they have some fun grindy games, although the game isn't very advanced in the quest or graphics divison. And they wont be translated because it is nto a popular design in America anymore. (Yes I have tried a few, knowing some asian languages helps tons)

Exactly, there is no real challenge to WoW anymore this is why their subs have been dropping recently. Even some of the best players/elitists in PvE has quite because of this. PvP is still challenged to a degree.

A good challenging PvP and PvE mix game that has an innovation away from quest based games, and do not have grinding as a main focus point in leveling/getting better stuff, that also leads to alternative ways to increase a characters strength that isn't gear based but doesn't require a butt load of time and effort to obtain for your character is required.

What is it? Thats what companies are starting to look for.

They (Act-Blizz) are now more basing their WoW game on fun quick, gimmicky stuff like pet battles (which are actually quite fun btw), and will keep many people playing who enjoy that sort of game.

 

[diesbudt]

Once you play it, we will revisit your opinions, especially the mindless button mashing against veterans, champions and regular mobs of level 12 plus. Just don't play going from heart to heart - those are the content for the mindless people.

And the difficulty has been increased since last beta, in which you do seem to die alot.

So it is challenging.

 

[Chiropteran]

I feel like I already posted on this subject, in my thread over here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2260464

I hate WoW quests. I was one of the guys who leveled through grinding instead of questing any time it was possible. Sure, there were a few quest chains I did, but I didn't do them because I enjoyed them- I did them because they were absurdly easy for the XP, or gave critical item rewards. This is not to say that grinding is tons of fun either- it's not, but it was better than mindlessly questing all the time.

That said, my "dream game", as described in my post, wouldn't allow for repeated grinding in the literal sense, where you kill the same mobs over and over. Instead, the "grinding" would involve clearing areas and moving on. But it would also be a much shorter leveling game, and most of the game would revolve around max or near-max level.

When vanilla WoW was the only WoW, it was in some ways really close what I wanted (as far as pve)- at 60. Sure, the grind to 60 was much longer than it needed to be, but once you reached 60 there was so much content to do and your level was no longer the most important number, but your gear and skill were far more important. After 60 you'd run regular dungeons, run ZG, AQ20, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, AQ40, and then finally Nax. But it wasn't a strict progression line, for example most guilds skipped C'thun at the end of AQ40 and went directly to Nax. Most guilds also skipped ouro. I thought this was a good thing, it gave distinctions between players. Someone who actually had the full AQ40 set was actually impressive, because there was often only 1 single guild per server who could kill ouro and c'thun.

It all comes down to "what do levels do"? Make you feel more epic for leveling up? Not really anymore. They really just do one thing: create an artificial barrier to prevent you from playing with people of differing level. F that. Remove the barriers. A small level cap is needed to give the true newbies some training wheels before getting to end game, but it doesn't need to be this 50 hours played to reach max level BS. No thanks.

And add in some death penalties too, while you are at it. This is actually relevant to the OP, as I think major XP and even potential level loss should be a part of every great MMO. With actual risks for dying, you can scale XP in more interesting ways. For example safe and easy mobs might give you 1% of the xp to next level to kill, so you gotta kill 100 of them, but you wouldn't ever die. Harder mobs might give you 5%, and allow you to level after only 20 kills, overall taking less than 1/4 the time, but if you screw up or get ganked while fighting them you end up losing a lot of XP from dying and the net result is it takes longer. The highly skilled players, and players who just prefer the excitement of risky play can fight these harder mobs, while those who want to play it safe can just stick with safe and easy.

That is one thing that bugged me about WoW, there really wasn't any reward for fighting harder higher level mobs. Kill a mob your level, get 200 xp. Kill a mob 4 levels higher, which was significantly harder just because your mass ability miss chance went way up, and you get like 240 xp. Not even remotely worthwhile, so you just kill the stupid mobs that have no chance of threatening you.

 

[diesbudt]

I feel like I already posted on this subject, in my thread over here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2260464

I hate WoW quests. I was one of the guys who leveled through grinding instead of questing any time it was possible. Sure, there were a few quest chains I did, but I didn't do them because I enjoyed them- I did them because they were absurdly easy for the XP, or gave critical item rewards. This is not to say that grinding is tons of fun either- it's not, but it was better than mindlessly questing all the time.

That said, my "dream game", as described in my post, wouldn't allow for repeated grinding in the literal sense, where you kill the same mobs over and over. Instead, the "grinding" would involve clearing areas and moving on. But it would also be a much shorter leveling game, and most of the game would revolve around max or near-max level.

When vanilla WoW was the only WoW, it was in some ways really close what I wanted (as far as pve)- at 60. Sure, the grind to 60 was much longer than it needed to be, but once you reached 60 there was so much content to do and your level was no longer the most important number, but your gear and skill were far more important. After 60 you'd run regular dungeons, run ZG, AQ20, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, AQ40, and then finally Nax. But it wasn't a strict progression line, for example most guilds skilled C'thun at the end of AQ40 and went directly to Nax. Most guilds also skipped ouro. I thought this was a good thing, it gave distinctions between players. Someone who actually had the full AQ40 set was actually impressive, because there was often only 1 single guild per server who could kill ouro and c'thun.

It all comes down to "what do levels do"? Make you feel more epic for leveling up? Not really anymore. They really just do one thing: create an artificial barrier to prevent you from playing with people of differing level. F that. Remove the barriers. A small level cap is needed to give the true newbies some training wheels before getting to end game, but it doesn't need to be this 50 hours played to reach max level BS. No thanks.

And add in some death penalties too, while you are at it. This is actually relevant to the OP, as I think major XP and even potential level loss should be a part of every great MMO. With actual risks for dying, you can scale XP in more interesting ways. For example safe and easy mobs might give you 1% of the xp to next level to kill, so you gotta kill 100 of them, but you wouldn't ever die. Harder mobs might give you 5%, and allow you to level after only 20 kills, overall taking less than 1/4 the time, but if you screw up or get ganked while fighting them you end up losing a lot of XP from dying and the net result is it takes longer. The highly skilled players, and players who just prefer the excitement of risky play can fight these harder mobs, while those who want to play it safe can just stick with safe and easy.

That is one thing that bugged me about WoW, there really wasn't any reward for fighting harder higher level mobs. Kill a mob your level, get 200 xp. Kill a mob 4 levels higher, which was significantly harder just because your mass ability miss chance went way up, and you get like 240 xp. Not even remotely worthwhile, so you just kill the stupid mobs that have no chance of threatening you.

I agree that I loved the lv 60 and 70 progression model with some bosses being skipped and that at the last raid "boss" in both vanilla and BC only a % of a small fraction of players killed it (until the nerf to riad bosses hp)

However, I believe leveling isn't as much as a barrier, but a way to get you to explore a large storyline. Quick leveling top max would kill many ways to obtain the lore, and way too much story and content of the games lore would come from max level it wouldnt be as full-filling because it didn't lead "up to" the epic battles in the raids. If you were to just enter AQ barely doing quests and just leveling to max, in vanilla, you wouldn't know much beyond the significance of what was truly going on there. The leveling and quests pushes you (if you want) to immerse into the storyline.

Even some quests in vanilla and BC hint and foreshadow some events that have happened in later expansions.

 

[Wardawg1001]

I dislike the quest system and its basically the reason I quickly lose interest in most MMO's. That and I play MMO's for PvP, and few MMO's are focused around PvP. The only MMO's that ever kept my attention for long were open world, advancement was not quest based, and there was either enough open world elements to promote or allow for engaging PvP or were based around PvP (UO, Shadowbane).

 

[Arkadrel]

@diesbudt

FFXI at its height only had like 600,000+ users, and by now is probably somewhere around the 250,000-300,000 user base. I would say thats a "popular game".

However:

It was released in Japan on Sony's PlayStation 2 on May 16, 2002, and was released for Microsoft's Windows-based personal computers in November 2002. The PC version was released in North America on October 28, 2003, and the PlayStation 2 version on March 23, 2004.

2002 -> 2012 = 10years of running with 13-15$ a month from users.


If you factor in its production cost, was probably much much less than a game like SW:TOR, which has barely lived 7months before it goes Free2play. Which is the better sucess story?

And no games that are both PVE and PVP dont attract the same crowd of people,
as those that want to play a game like FFXI (because games with both PVE/PVP => always shitty pve).

Its time someone made a *caugh caugh* copy of FFXI with modern graphics, set a differnt world.

 

[diesbudt]

@diesbudt

FFXI at its height only had like 600,000+ users, and by now is probably somewhere around the 250,000-300,000 user base. I would say thats a "popular game".

However:
2002 -> 2012 = 10years of running with 13-15$ a month from users.


If you factor in its production cost, was probably much much less than a game like SW:TOR, which has barely lived 7months before it goes Free2play. Which is the better sucess story?

And no games that are both PVE and PVP dont attract the same crowd of people,
as those that want to play a game like FFXI (because games with both PVE/PVP => always shitty pve).

Its time someone made a *caugh caugh* copy of FFXI with modern graphics, set a differnt world.

And swtor at its height had 1.5 million and will probably retain 300k-600k even if they kept a sub. Asheron's call still has 100kish subs. And it has been around for 16 years? and still has a monthly payment. But it is a poorly made game compared to today's MMOs, especially considering it was just a monster kill for xp game with groups of people doing challenges together. People have different tastes in gaming. So this shows no point to anything your saying.

Because what I am saying is those numbers are not high enough for a company to try that path, especially considering gaming has gone full blown casual, and the more solo a game can be the more people attracted to the game is. So a new FF11 even with different story, graphics and name, would not be successful in terms of business, in todays world. Which means they wouldn't even dream trying to make an MMO like that.

And the bolded part. WoW itself refutes that statement.

However they do attract the same crowd. The WoW crowd attracted the EQ and AC crowd. GW attracted the same crowd. People chose the game that had the certain stuff they were looking for in pve and/or pvp that they play, not based on "just pvp vs pve attraction" Also going back to what I was saying to a Business Model and the costs to make an MMO in todays market means no business would want to create a MMO that is only attractive to a small % of the MMO playerbase (i.e. only group killing, little quests, no real solo game, no combo of pve/pvp, etc.)

And remember, it doesn't matter what you think is a great MMO, or what you find is fun personally. It matters as a group of gamers, as that will be the targeted audience for games. Example: if all the sudden CoD sales plummeted by 75%+ on the next release, they would probably totally change up CoD or even do away with the series.

Edit: And to be clear, I do find that type of MMO fun myself also. But I realize such an idea is in the past and not marketable in this gaming age. I also find quest driven ones fun also. It just depends on what else a game brings depending and not style I play.

 

[diesbudt]

Also as a side note. For all those that polled for C (something more self driven).

I dont know if it wasnt a well explainedd choice or not.

But a self driven MMO would mean there is 0 rewards. Rewards =/= self driven. So no quests, no xp, no levels, no gear, no stats for pvp concept. You would play it just because it was fun.

Just thought I would throw that up there.

 

[Chiropteran]

Also as a side note. For all those that polled for C (something more self driven).

I dont know if it wasnt a well explainedd choice or not.

But a self driven MMO would mean there is 0 rewards. Rewards =/= self driven. So no quests, no xp, no levels, no gear, no stats for pvp concept. You would play it just because it was fun.

Just thought I would throw that up there.

That isn't what that means, generally. Someone who pushes themselves to exercise every day might be considered "self-driven", but that doesn't mean they don't reap the rewards- being fit and healthy. Someone who gets up every day and works hard building their own business might also be called "self-driven", but they certainly reward themselves with profits.


In the context, I'm pretty sure the OP meant self-driven in that a player decides to do something rather than just doing what the NPC says to do.

Example Quest-driven: King Wenthark wants you to slay the great dragon and return his chalice, if you do so he will give you riches beyond your imagination.

Example Self Driven: Player thinks to himself, "hmm I bet that big dragon has a lot of loot, I'm going to kill it". Upon killing the dragon the player takes the dragon's horde of treasure.

However, I believe leveling isn't as much as a barrier, but a way to get you to explore a large storyline. Quick leveling top max would kill many ways to obtain the lore, and way too much story and content of the games lore would come from max level it wouldnt be as full-filling because it didn't lead "up to" the epic battles in the raids. If you were to just enter AQ barely doing quests and just leveling to max, in vanilla, you wouldn't know much beyond the significance of what was truly going on there. The leveling and quests pushes you (if you want) to immerse into the storyline.

Even some quests in vanilla and BC hint and foreshadow some events that have happened in later expansions.

I guess this is something where we just disagree. I think the best use of leveling is to teach people how to play the game, how the game works, items works, and perhaps some very general basic lore, stuff like "dragons are mean and goblins are mean but elves can be nice".

When it comes to long story driven lore quest lines, I think they are terrible for leveling, because of numerous problems.

If you skip them while leveling, you need to go back and do them at max level, where combat is all trivial and rewards are probably wasted for you but you need to go through it just to learn the lore, this is a bad thing.

If you do them while leveling, but you are just trying to hit max level and catch up with your friends, you might just skip past all the text and speeches and zoom through the quest line because you want to level as fast as possible, so the lore itself is wasted because you don't even pay attention to it.

And often these quest lines destroy the sandbox feel of a game. Oh you saved the King of North Blackstone? I could have have swore I saved him just 2 days ago, whats this guys problem that he keeps getting captured? I'd like to see, as a change of a pace, a game that has constant endgame quest/events, which are unique and can only be completed once each, but duplicates (with different names and details) enough so that everyone can enjoy them. Or better yet, a real player driven system, but that is a whole other discussion.

 

[Grooveriding]

I will be on board with GW2.

To some of the comments about WoW, particularly about the DK quest and how everyone had one, I agree. I really enjoyed Vanilla and TBC more than anything else. I played an unhealthy amount at that point of the game, raided everything and loved it. WoTLK was okay and I played much more casually at that point, it worked out well that I didn't really like the new direction they went with the fact I had a lot less time to play. Cata was more of the same.

I like there being areas in MMOs where there is content and rewards that very few will get. It was never anything to do with the haves and have nots, but it was something to push for and game hard to get to. I understand that is a minority view, as WoW has gone to giving everyone everything with a relatively small amount of effort, still is a crap way of doing things imo.

I've played through the beta for their next expansion and the game literally feels like it has been made for children now. The UI, the story, the hand-holding. It feels like a children's game. It's pretty sad to see where it has ended up these days.

I don't have the time I did to play an MMO before, but GW2 has me excited just for the robust pvp. It's my favourite part of MMOs and they have so much varied content to address pvp. It's going to be sweet.

 

[Arkadrel]

I guess this is something where we just disagree. I think the best use of leveling is to teach people how to play the game, how the game works, items works, and perhaps some very general basic lore, stuff like "dragons are mean and goblins are mean but elves can be nice".

I agree with diesbudt on that one, you need a certain amount of time to get to max level so you can have story between. That doesnt mean that your "forced" to do certain story parts, but rather you can do these lateron (or at max level if you want) to get the benefits from doing said story lines (like unlocked area's, abilities ect).

When it comes to long story driven lore quest lines, I think they are terrible for leveling, because of numerous problems.

If you skip them while leveling, you need to go back and do them at max level, where combat is all trivial and rewards are probably wasted for you but you need to go through it just to learn the lore, this is a bad thing.

Combat doesnt have to be trivial if you "level cap" a area, so everyone thats a higher level, in that area (doing said mission) is downleveled to said level cap. This means people need to save gear for certain levels (ei. every 10th level, to have gear for certain story missions).

If you do them while leveling, but you are just trying to hit max level and catch up with your friends, you might just skip past all the text and speeches and zoom through the quest line because you want to level as fast as possible, so the lore itself is wasted because you don't even pay attention to it.

That should be up to each individual to choose. It shouldnt be chosen for them, and alot of people that love stroy based missions would enjoy it. Final fantasty series always had cutscenes and story (on unique missions) and that made them alot more enjoyable (atleast for me).

And often these quest lines destroy the sandbox feel of a game. Oh you saved the King of North Blackstone? I could have have swore I saved him just 2 days ago, whats this guys problem that he keeps getting captured? I'd like to see, as a change of a pace, a game that has constant endgame quest/events, which are unique and can only be completed once each, but duplicates (with different names and details) enough so that everyone can enjoy them. Or better yet, a real player driven system, but that is a whole other discussion.

You have a point, however your also ignoreing all the good that comes from such a system.
Your very focused on the negative aspect of that element.

The good is that you feel like the game has a "red-thread" so its not all just pointless.
You can "beat" the game in a sense, which can be immensly pleaseing if its challengeing enough boss fights (dont drop loot, but give abilities/unlock new area's ect).

Honestly I did help others with story part missions a few times, even though Id done that part myself...... why? because I was stuck on a lateron story part mission. Did that suck? no not really, sure it cost me some time but it was worth it because I lateron grouped up with these people and accomplished missions I was stuck on without a group to go through with.
We formed a static group, and every weekend we 'd spend some hours going through the next mission

Because of that story based mission line (some are like 30 mission, 1,2,3,->,29,30 = done). I made new friends, id group with, that I knew from the story line missions and they me. Which then resulted in getting groups with them (reputation) or lateron help with NM kills or quests, ect ect.

It builds community.

I like there being areas in MMOs where there is content and rewards that very few will get. It was never anything to do with the haves and have nots, but it was something to push for and game hard to get to.

You are not alone Groove, I feel the same way. Games need challenges.

I've played through the beta for their next expansion and the game literally feels like it has been made for children now. The UI, the story, the hand-holding. It feels like a children's game.

This reminds me of what I said earlier on:

I said this:

"There is noooooooooo challenge in WoW, its too casual everyone can do it with small effort = senseless accomplisment.

If you get carrot + pat on back for doing nothing silly little things constantly, it feels belittling.
Its not something that leaves you feeling great that you just accomplished something "

 

[diesbudt]

That isn't what that means, generally. Someone who pushes themselves to exercise every day might be considered "self-driven", but that doesn't mean they don't reap the rewards- being fit and healthy. Someone who gets up every day and works hard building their own business might also be called "self-driven", but they certainly reward themselves with profits.


In the context, I'm pretty sure the OP meant self-driven in that a player decides to do something rather than just doing what the NPC says to do.

Example Quest-driven: King Wenthark wants you to slay the great dragon and return his chalice, if you do so he will give you riches beyond your imagination.

Example Self Driven: Player thinks to himself, "hmm I bet that big dragon has a lot of loot, I'm going to kill it". Upon killing the dragon the player takes the dragon's horde of treasure.




I guess this is something where we just disagree. I think the best use of leveling is to teach people how to play the game, how the game works, items works, and perhaps some very general basic lore, stuff like "dragons are mean and goblins are mean but elves can be nice".

When it comes to long story driven lore quest lines, I think they are terrible for leveling, because of numerous problems.

If you skip them while leveling, you need to go back and do them at max level, where combat is all trivial and rewards are probably wasted for you but you need to go through it just to learn the lore, this is a bad thing.

If you do them while leveling, but you are just trying to hit max level and catch up with your friends, you might just skip past all the text and speeches and zoom through the quest line because you want to level as fast as possible, so the lore itself is wasted because you don't even pay attention to it.

And often these quest lines destroy the sandbox feel of a game. Oh you saved the King of North Blackstone? I could have have swore I saved him just 2 days ago, whats this guys problem that he keeps getting captured? I'd like to see, as a change of a pace, a game that has constant endgame quest/events, which are unique and can only be completed once each, but duplicates (with different names and details) enough so that everyone can enjoy them. Or better yet, a real player driven system, but that is a whole other discussion.

By your definition of self driven, doing the quests is also self driven, again pointing to poll option "c" was a bad example added in, and should not have mentioned self driven at all.

That is all I was pointing to on that.

Yes, quests are only an immusive tool if done correctly. OR if the player "self-drives" to do them correctly, but so is any other system. Which again brings about the point WHAT? would be a good new idea that would make it so quests were not as important?

Fair point on the quests. Except, if leveling isn't used (unless your forced to complete X quest before moving on, like in SWTOR) for the long quest lines, some incentive needs to be there and I am assuming max level. And unique to each person? But an MMO cannot survive with that kind of set-up. And it is more because of the MM in MMORPG M. Massive Multiplayer.

If person A enjoyed all 100 quests leveling from 1 to whatever max level, and after hitting max level. and a server say has 3000ppl max. They would have to create 300,000 unique quests (just changing a few things still makes it unique) just for those 3,000 people. That is just way too much. And again you point to a events that can change and such, which is a system GW2 is trying out. Some huge story events will only happen once a year. Some big ones will only happen once a month. And what happens success/fail, will stick around until the next time it comes around. And since it is with just people who are there, it is a bit more unique experience. But you claim GW2 isn't something you would be interested in, in a different thread.

Its looks like MMO is not a genre you enjoy. Not a problem with that, just making an observation.

But I am sidetracked from this thread:

Again I want people who are against the curret quest system to come up with a legit, logical, business applicable system that would work in the MMO department of gaming. So far there has been 0 good ones, just opinions on what people "enjoy/love" in an MMO, thinking that the majority must be the same because they think that way.

P.S. Thanks you 2 by the way. I love a good debate. (Ark and chir)

 

[Arkadrel]

Which again brings about the point WHAT? would be a good new idea that would make it so quests were not as important?

WTF? why would you want quests that "were not as important" (as they currently are)?

WoW and all the f** like developers that copy WoW quest system are already drowning people in quests that are not nesseary and belittling.

The best thing to do is to remove then altogether, go back to grind monster at certain spots for exp.
Then make quests MUCH more rewarding to do, unlock new abilties ect.

Want to be a ninja? a new class added to game.... sure go ahead, go do this story line so you unlock it.
Want to use these "core" ninja class spells? sure go ahead and do these story line quests for a spell scroll reward (for 1 ability).
Now your ninja level 20, you can use a new spell, go do a story line quest for it. ect ect.

Dont add pointless quest for gear and exp. = best possible solution.

 

[diesbudt]

WTF? why would you want quests that "were not as important" (as they currently are)?

WoW and all the f** like developers that copy WoW quest system are already drowning people in quests that are not nesseary and belittling.

The best thing to do is to remove then altogether, go back to grind monster at certain spots for exp.
Then make quests MUCH more rewarding to do, unlock new abilties ect.

Want to be a ninja? a new class added to game.... sure go ahead, go do this story line so you unlock it.
Want to use these "core" ninja class spells? sure go ahead and do these story line quests for a spell scroll reward.

Dont add pointless quest for gear and exp. = best possible solution.

By not as important I mean, less influencial in the game. I.E. a less quest driven game. And the quests in the game would have to be important, very important, to be in a game designed to be not quest based.

Thing is, not many enjoy a monster grind (by many I mean enough to matter for a business to go back to this model). This is the #1 complaint on quests: Too many Kill X# of Y creature/monster.

That is the overall point. If grinding monsters is boring (which it gets boring after so long, and I believe a little quicker than getting bored just doing quests), and has almost no point once max level beyond raids and such(Quests still give rewards at max level, even useless ones) and according to this pole people are tired of the questing system, what new thing that is not quest based or monster grinding based would work?

And you cant focus a game only on big groups content/raids because the average gamer plays alone almost as much as together in MMOs now. And you can't just group people together to do content via a looking for dungeon finder, without giving them some buff or the content some nerf as all the complaints of getting people who cant play well. Also, the more popular games (again I am using popular in the meaning of business model) has a mix of PvP and PvE, maye focus more on one or the other, but having both significantly increases the number of people willing to give it a shot.

Basically I just want to challenge the people on this thread to create a system that:

(A) is not about grinding monsters as a primary way to advance
(B) is not a quest based system (Can have quests, but they are not so plentiful and have real meaning behind the rewards and story of the game)
(C) Both a mixture of PvE and PvP
(D) Solo play and the best rewards come from large group/social groups/raid gameplay.

Which brings me around to a whole new point altogether, that for the past year or so, we are out of the Golden age of MMORPGs and won't be long before it is an antique of gamestyles.

Maybe the new style will be MMOStrategy? or MMOSimulation? or MMOFPS?

 

[Chiropteran]

By your definition of self driven, doing the quests is also self driven, again pointing to poll option "c" was a bad example added in, and should not have mentioned self driven at all.

That is all I was pointing to on that.

Well, for something to be "self-driven", IMO and using my definition, there needs to be choice involved. Even a quest-less game might not be "self-driven" if there is basically a mandatory line of dungeons you must do in order every time to level with no player choice allowed. And even a game with quests can be self-driven if those quests are truly optional and not the only optimal path of leveling. Quests in vanilla wow didn't bother me much because they were mostly optional, but come cataclysm it seemed like every zone had some massive quest chain you basically were forced to complete because you needed it for some critical reputation or item unlock or something later at endgame.

There were successful MMOs before WoW and several of them didn't have quests in the traditional sense. You might argue that they eventually failed because of lack of such quests, but there have been hundreds if not thousands of other new features and advancements in MMOs since then, so it's really impossible to definitively say that lack of quests were the downfall.

Yes, quests are only an immusive tool if done correctly. OR if the player "self-drives" to do them correctly, but so is any other system. Which again brings about the point WHAT? would be a good new idea that would make it so quests were not as important?

You don't need a new idea. In the absence of quests, players find other ways to level.
I like the idea of mobs that give high XP initially, but XP decays on repeated kills, so you can't simply grind an area- instead you would clear a zone of mobs and move on. Zones would be dynamic, there would be multiple mob types that could spawn and control each area. While the physical shape and design of the world would be static, the monsters and treasures would vary from day to day as players kill them and other mob types re-spawn in their place. Zones would be more re-playable than they are in a basic static would system like most MMOs.

And of course, I have always been in favor of shorter leveling games. I think the real game is at or near max level, and players should reach it quicker. You have INFINITE time at max level, so put most of the content there.

Fair point on the quests. Except, if leveling isn't used (unless your forced to complete X quest before moving on, like in SWTOR) for the long quest lines, some incentive needs to be there and I am assuming max level. And unique to each person? But an MMO cannot survive with that kind of set-up. And it is more because of the MM in MMORPG M. Massive Multiplayer.

Like I said, some early MMOs survived in the absence of any sort of quests at all, so what makes you so sure one couldn't exist without them now?

If person A enjoyed all 100 quests leveling from 1 to whatever max level, and after hitting max level. and a server say has 3000ppl max. They would have to create 300,000 unique quests (just changing a few things still makes it unique) just for those 3,000 people. That is just way too much. And again you point to a events that can change and such, which is a system GW2 is trying out. Some huge story events will only happen once a year. Some big ones will only happen once a month. And what happens success/fail, will stick around until the next time it comes around. And since it is with just people who are there, it is a bit more unique experience. But you claim GW2 isn't something you would be interested in, in a different thread.

You don't need quests for leveling. "Quests" IMO should actually fit into the sandbox of the world of the MMO, not just be some generated tool for gaining XP. Quests should be important. There could be repeatable tasks for XP during leveling, like "go kill 10 bad guys", but I wouldn't even call that a quest. A quest would be like "go get the sword of eternal fires and douse it in the elemental waters of the frost volcano" or something. It wouldn't be your quest, it would be anyone's quest. And there might be conflicting quests- some other NPC might want the firesword for himself instead of destroyed, and you could return it to him instead. These quests would change the game, and every player who wanted to be a part in them could get involved. Hell, maybe a player will get the sword and just decide to use it for themselves as a powerful weapon instead of turning it in for any reward, and the quest kinda morphs into "go kill diesbudt and take the sword of fire from his corpse, and then douse it in the frost volcano".

Its looks like MMO is not a genre you enjoy. Not a problem with that, just making an observation.

On the contrary, I want to play an MMO that actually is an MMO, not a single player game with integrated chat rooms and potential to hop into your friends game to help them do something. See original ultima online, or shadowbane, fix the flaws but don't turn them into world of warcraft.


Edit addition:

That is the overall point. If grinding monsters is boring (which it gets boring after so long, and I believe a little quicker than getting bored just doing quests), and has almost no point once max level beyond raids and such(Quests still give rewards at max level, even useless ones) and according to this pole people are tired of the questing system, what new thing that is not quest based or monster grinding based would work?

Raids & such is the answer, you named it. Bigger and badder monsters always exist. Better item rewards. Building towns and castles, like in shadowbane. PvP. Personally not a fan of raids, but all of that is possible in smaller groups.

 

[Arkadrel]

Thing is, not many enjoy a monster grind (by many I mean enough to matter for a business to go back to this model). This is the #1 complaint on quests: Too many Kill X# of Y creature/monster.

The reason people dont like Kill X# of Y creature/monster, is because oh how EPIC such quests are!
And right after you did your "epic" *caugh caugh* quest, you get another just like it (epic right?).

Frankly what is the point of killing 10 monster, when they dont effect the game world, they respawn a few secounds lateron. And after you get your "reward" + pat on back, you get another quest just like it.

Most people quickly realise the *only* reason its there is to feed you exp, and get annouyed by running back and forth and suffering through dialog that is meaningless and only results in "kill x of y".

Eventually people get so sick of it, they dont even read the quests anymore.
And this is the GROSS part about it.... game developers make it so they dont have too!

It ll say "kill x of y" in the bottomhalf of a "quest log" and even have a click-to-walk to quest option.
(which is good for people that are already fed up by this system, but its like a giveing a man on fire a glass of water, instead of putting out the flames that are consumeing him)

Again the best solution is to leave the system.
I dont believe for a minuet that people cant accept a game without quests exp gain leveling.

Someone just needs to make a good MMORPG that has EXP PARTY based grinding @spots, that shows all the others how its done.

And of course, I have always been in favor of shorter leveling games. I think the real game is at or near max level, and players should reach it quicker. You have INFINITE time at max level, so put most of the content there.

I agree with Green text.
I dont agree with red.

Games need a decent leveling curve, that gets harder and more and more challengeing, up to the point of endgame.
So by then people know their class, what it can do, how it works with other classes, ect.

Its not really about duration, but about haveing that curve! (WoW really doesnt have, endgame = completely differnt game).
Anyone can get max level, from stupid small quests that have no meaning or teach you anything about your class.

***********edit:

also the best way to make people learn, is by being hard on them.
You die? you lose exp worth 10mins of grinding. You die again? and again? eventually you ll delevel.
=> forces person to reconsider their tactics/gear ect or think out a new gameplay style for this encounter.

Like I said, some early MMOs survived in the absence of any sort of quests at all, so what makes you so sure one couldn't exist without them now?

^ this! omg yes Chiropteran
Thats how I see it too, and frankly Id prefer a game like that over a quest based one where the world is just littered with monsters near a quest giveing npc.

This is why I love FF7, it has a open world map with random encounters, and hidden/secret locations ect. = fun.
Being forced through a narrow pathway or to follow a "road" with quest givers on one side, and monsters on other = laaame.

Better to just have monsters of x level, at random spots, let people find them on their own and seek them out, with a group to grind them in that 1 spot, until they out level the monsters their killing, and move on to next spot. Make some of these spots hard to get too they ll have to fight their way, or use "sneak/invisible/deorderise" ect or walk around monsters aggro ranges ect. That way you make even getting there a journey which adds something too, to the gameplay.

You don't need quests for leveling. "Quests" IMO should actually fit into the sandbox of the world of the MMO, not just be some generated tool for gaining XP.

^ again we see eye to eye.

On the contrary, I want to play an MMO that actually is an MMO, not a single player game with integrated chat rooms and potential to hop into your friends game to help them do something.

OMG! you understand me!
What I DONT want is a single player game that just happends to be played with others in it.
(look at what happend to SW:TOR, they should have just made a single player game instead)

I much rather be forced to group up, than have it be a solo quest one.
Already to many casual solo quest type MMORPGs out there.


******************* Crosses fingers that some game developers actually read this thread ******************

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Eve Online already does what the OP wants and more.