MMO Soliloquy
Here is what I am looking for in a next generation MMO:
-Good graphics. I have had the same computer for three years now and have been itching to upgrade it for a while now. Unfortunately, I have found no reason to do so, which I think is fairly sad. Though, I am expecting this to change with the release of the new consoles.
-A deep crafting system. Hopefully, something along the lines of Vanguard, Everquest 2, FF14 (yeah, it was painful, but the crafting was ff14's only redeeming feature). I am tired of games catering crafting to people who couldn't care less about crafting in first place. The crafting systems practically play themselves nowadays, and i find that disappointing. Please use your brains developers. I am sure there is a way to make crafting fun and engaging again! This goes for gathering materials as well...
-Difficulty. Some call it making a game hardcore, but I would just call it a challenge. So many games seem to catapult the players to the max level in no time, with no real plan with what to do with them once they are there. Oh, and where is the death penalty? It doesn't have to be crippling, but something to make death a little more than an inconvenience would be nice. I would also prefer to be grouped with friends grinding exp and exploring the landscape than stuck at max level queuing BG's from the main city.
-Grouping. Long have I waited to play a game where the social aspect of the MMO has been renewed. I harken back to the days of EQ in my memory so often on this one. If a game is so easy, it makes grouping unimportant and worthless. There should be perks to grouping. Perhaps classes could chain combos together off of one another, or exploit their enemies’ weakness with some tactics. All of these things would improve the quality of game play to the social MMO player. You should allow players the opportunity to plan out their encounters beforehand, and increase player camaraderie. I mean, even vanilla WoW had some fun grouping when it came to 40man raids!
-Class specialty. What i mean by this is...classes that have defined roles, and also classes that have particular uses to the other classes. Every class should have a use, and not feel left out in the cold and unneeded. I remember fondly when people would actually buff others to help them out in Everquest, and the buffs actually seemed to do something useful as well (shocking, i know)! It is an epidemic nowadays that classes are becoming homogenized, and uninteresting in group circumstances.
-Exploration. I miss getting lost in the game I am playing. Time consuming treks through the wilderness where certain locations let your jaw drop in amazement at what you were seeing were always exciting. I do not necessarily mean beautiful locations, but getting to those beautiful locations and not knowing how you got there. Unfortunately, it could just be a sign of the times that nobody wants to explore, and everyone wants a beautiful map handed to them when they start the game. I think it would be a great feature if maps existed in the world later on, and you had to purchase them to find out where you were going (again, it’s unfortunate, but I know these would wind up on Youtube in minutes). As a player, though, a map is something that I would gladly pay for, it would be a good way to get money out of the economy, and also add some interest to the game early on.
-Boats. This may go hand in hand with exploration, but I also miss taking a ship into the great unknown and discovering what waits for you on the other side. Even waiting for a ship to step onto with a group of players was interesting to me, and added immersion to the gameplay. While we are on the subject of boats, why are there so few dynamic events when you step aboard one? Imagine, if you will, a player fishing over the side of the boat when it is set upon by pirates, or some other nefarious creature. To me that would be awesome. Even if you went afk and you were dead when you came back to your computer, you would then have a score to settle. Please think outside the box. Traveling does not have to be boring if you put your minds to it!
-Interesting Quests. This also goes with exploration, as i feel that is an enormous part of MMOs that is unfortunately becoming diminished. I am tired of going from place to place being led around by the nose. Allow the player some measure of freedom. Let them go off on their own and find interesting things to do that the developer has left there for them. Word of mouth would spread rapidly, and the players in turn would be drawn to these areas. This allows freedom of choice for the player and the benefit of knowing that your content will not be overlooked or completely ignored because it is being presented to them on a silver platter.
-Good Writing. Everything in an MMO is more entertaining and interesting if there is interesting writing. Imagine you meet a man on the side of the road, his trusty steed has fallen ill (dead) on the side of the road, he has an important message to deliver! You hurry down the road to deliver it and are set upon by bandits. All things considered, that is simply a delivery quest, with a kill quest built in, but because of interesting writing, it feels like a lot more. You just have to be willing to script out the events ahead of time. Scripting out events is fine as long as it engages the player.
You could even continue this quest later, you run into the same guy later on, and maybe it turns out he was just lazy and didn’t want to deliver the letter, or he has pissed off a number of angry centaur people because of his harsh treatment of horses....the possibilities are endless. Don't limit your imagination!
-Character Customization. I am not talking about dragging the nose tilt around, or changing the size of the pupils. There are only a few things that make a noticeable difference in how your character is perceived to the public. Hair, facial or otherwise, makes an enormous difference. I am tired of playing games where there are 4 different types of hair, and a mohawk, for the kids who like to be different. I mean come on, dedicate some people to creating different hair styles for each different race!
Additionally, the face in general is very important. This is where you can apply more interesting things like tattoos, earrings, scars, facial deformations, skin color, tribal piercings, etc. If you must add sliders, that is just a feather in the players cap, but something that is not going to change things that much. Also, consider height, and weight to change the characters a bit.
-Something I haven't thought of! A political system, perhaps? Vanguard had diplomacy, and while it wasn't amazing it showed promise. There must be a system out there that you could add to the game to set it apart from the others. I should warn you, if you are to do this, make sure you do not go into it lighthearted manner. Also, make sure everything else is solid before you go into another system.
-Fun Pvp. See (Vanilla) World of Warcraft, or even Hutball. Objective based PvP can be hugely entertaining. They are the most sport-like forms of PvP, where competition and team work are key to victory!
**Some things to avoid**
-Do not make the world too enormous. I think this is what effectively ended Brad Mcquaids career (And I am sad about this, by the way--great game designer, not so savvy businessman). I love the idea of an enormous world. You have read about how much I love exploration, but we are dealing with reality here. Unless you have billions of dollars free, the sheer amount of content you would have to create to fill a world and make it feel alive to the player would be staggering. Better to have a smaller world with scores of content. Expansions are there for a reason. To be clear, i would love an enormous world completely filled with content, but that seems almost impossible with how much money it would cost to build a game i am describing.
-Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. MMOs have become popular largely because of great worlds, the social aspect of the games, and the combat. Lately, in a clumsy attempt to distance themselves from being labeled a dreaded "WoW clone”, developers have taken to tweaking with core game mechanics. Combat especially.
Every new game since WoW seems to try to be pushing a non-auto attack system that has the player spamming the 1 key over and over and over to build resources. I am sorry, but this repetitive motion is not increasing the players’ level of enjoyment. Auto attack allows the player to do damage while using their brain to decide which executable ability will provide the greatest benefit at the time. It allows time for strategy. Spamming a key over and over does nothing to increase player enjoyment, and isn't fun.
To me, this goes along with the dodge mechanic in GW2, and The Secret World. It does bring little to the table, and further complicates what should already be a strategy heavy combat system.
-Do not cater solely to the fanboy. I am sure there are millions of things i have not thought of, but chief among them should be this. If someone is patting you on the back, then they are not giving you input on how to improve your product, and that is typically detrimental. Gaming is a very progressive business, and you cannot stand on your laurels if you hope to continue to succeed. This is not saying you should completely abandon what got you to where you are, but you should be very aware that an MMO that stagnates can become very repetitive.
In closing, I know i am asking for a lot, but i promise if most of these goals were met, the developer would have a quality game on their hands that would be pretty popular. Perhaps not to the extent of WoW, but developers need to stop striving for that unattainable goal. Even Blizzard was not striving for that when they started out, and look where they ended up. Granted, they have alienated a great number of core gamers since the launch of the game in search of greater profits, but that is the risk you run when you are trying to broaden your brand.
In my mind, every single game that has come out that has tried to copy the WoW formula has been a disappointment. Roll the dice, and strive to be something different, who knows, you may just wind up being a success.
I apologize for the length of this, but I simply wanted to get a few things off my chest.
Here is what I am looking for in a next generation MMO:
-Good graphics. I have had the same computer for three years now and have been itching to upgrade it for a while now. Unfortunately, I have found no reason to do so, which I think is fairly sad. Though, I am expecting this to change with the release of the new consoles.
-A deep crafting system. Hopefully, something along the lines of Vanguard, Everquest 2, FF14 (yeah, it was painful, but the crafting was ff14's only redeeming feature). I am tired of games catering crafting to people who couldn't care less about crafting in first place. The crafting systems practically play themselves nowadays, and i find that disappointing. Please use your brains developers. I am sure there is a way to make crafting fun and engaging again! This goes for gathering materials as well...
-Difficulty. Some call it making a game hardcore, but I would just call it a challenge. So many games seem to catapult the players to the max level in no time, with no real plan with what to do with them once they are there. Oh, and where is the death penalty? It doesn't have to be crippling, but something to make death a little more than an inconvenience would be nice. I would also prefer to be grouped with friends grinding exp and exploring the landscape than stuck at max level queuing BG's from the main city.
-Grouping. Long have I waited to play a game where the social aspect of the MMO has been renewed. I harken back to the days of EQ in my memory so often on this one. If a game is so easy, it makes grouping unimportant and worthless. There should be perks to grouping. Perhaps classes could chain combos together off of one another, or exploit their enemies’ weakness with some tactics. All of these things would improve the quality of game play to the social MMO player. You should allow players the opportunity to plan out their encounters beforehand, and increase player camaraderie. I mean, even vanilla WoW had some fun grouping when it came to 40man raids!
-Class specialty. What i mean by this is...classes that have defined roles, and also classes that have particular uses to the other classes. Every class should have a use, and not feel left out in the cold and unneeded. I remember fondly when people would actually buff others to help them out in Everquest, and the buffs actually seemed to do something useful as well (shocking, i know)! It is an epidemic nowadays that classes are becoming homogenized, and uninteresting in group circumstances.
-Exploration. I miss getting lost in the game I am playing. Time consuming treks through the wilderness where certain locations let your jaw drop in amazement at what you were seeing were always exciting. I do not necessarily mean beautiful locations, but getting to those beautiful locations and not knowing how you got there. Unfortunately, it could just be a sign of the times that nobody wants to explore, and everyone wants a beautiful map handed to them when they start the game. I think it would be a great feature if maps existed in the world later on, and you had to purchase them to find out where you were going (again, it’s unfortunate, but I know these would wind up on Youtube in minutes). As a player, though, a map is something that I would gladly pay for, it would be a good way to get money out of the economy, and also add some interest to the game early on.
-Boats. This may go hand in hand with exploration, but I also miss taking a ship into the great unknown and discovering what waits for you on the other side. Even waiting for a ship to step onto with a group of players was interesting to me, and added immersion to the gameplay. While we are on the subject of boats, why are there so few dynamic events when you step aboard one? Imagine, if you will, a player fishing over the side of the boat when it is set upon by pirates, or some other nefarious creature. To me that would be awesome. Even if you went afk and you were dead when you came back to your computer, you would then have a score to settle. Please think outside the box. Traveling does not have to be boring if you put your minds to it!
-Interesting Quests. This also goes with exploration, as i feel that is an enormous part of MMOs that is unfortunately becoming diminished. I am tired of going from place to place being led around by the nose. Allow the player some measure of freedom. Let them go off on their own and find interesting things to do that the developer has left there for them. Word of mouth would spread rapidly, and the players in turn would be drawn to these areas. This allows freedom of choice for the player and the benefit of knowing that your content will not be overlooked or completely ignored because it is being presented to them on a silver platter.
-Good Writing. Everything in an MMO is more entertaining and interesting if there is interesting writing. Imagine you meet a man on the side of the road, his trusty steed has fallen ill (dead) on the side of the road, he has an important message to deliver! You hurry down the road to deliver it and are set upon by bandits. All things considered, that is simply a delivery quest, with a kill quest built in, but because of interesting writing, it feels like a lot more. You just have to be willing to script out the events ahead of time. Scripting out events is fine as long as it engages the player.
You could even continue this quest later, you run into the same guy later on, and maybe it turns out he was just lazy and didn’t want to deliver the letter, or he has pissed off a number of angry centaur people because of his harsh treatment of horses....the possibilities are endless. Don't limit your imagination!
-Character Customization. I am not talking about dragging the nose tilt around, or changing the size of the pupils. There are only a few things that make a noticeable difference in how your character is perceived to the public. Hair, facial or otherwise, makes an enormous difference. I am tired of playing games where there are 4 different types of hair, and a mohawk, for the kids who like to be different. I mean come on, dedicate some people to creating different hair styles for each different race!
Additionally, the face in general is very important. This is where you can apply more interesting things like tattoos, earrings, scars, facial deformations, skin color, tribal piercings, etc. If you must add sliders, that is just a feather in the players cap, but something that is not going to change things that much. Also, consider height, and weight to change the characters a bit.
-Something I haven't thought of! A political system, perhaps? Vanguard had diplomacy, and while it wasn't amazing it showed promise. There must be a system out there that you could add to the game to set it apart from the others. I should warn you, if you are to do this, make sure you do not go into it lighthearted manner. Also, make sure everything else is solid before you go into another system.
-Fun Pvp. See (Vanilla) World of Warcraft, or even Hutball. Objective based PvP can be hugely entertaining. They are the most sport-like forms of PvP, where competition and team work are key to victory!
**Some things to avoid**
-Do not make the world too enormous. I think this is what effectively ended Brad Mcquaids career (And I am sad about this, by the way--great game designer, not so savvy businessman). I love the idea of an enormous world. You have read about how much I love exploration, but we are dealing with reality here. Unless you have billions of dollars free, the sheer amount of content you would have to create to fill a world and make it feel alive to the player would be staggering. Better to have a smaller world with scores of content. Expansions are there for a reason. To be clear, i would love an enormous world completely filled with content, but that seems almost impossible with how much money it would cost to build a game i am describing.
-Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. MMOs have become popular largely because of great worlds, the social aspect of the games, and the combat. Lately, in a clumsy attempt to distance themselves from being labeled a dreaded "WoW clone”, developers have taken to tweaking with core game mechanics. Combat especially.
Every new game since WoW seems to try to be pushing a non-auto attack system that has the player spamming the 1 key over and over and over to build resources. I am sorry, but this repetitive motion is not increasing the players’ level of enjoyment. Auto attack allows the player to do damage while using their brain to decide which executable ability will provide the greatest benefit at the time. It allows time for strategy. Spamming a key over and over does nothing to increase player enjoyment, and isn't fun.
To me, this goes along with the dodge mechanic in GW2, and The Secret World. It does bring little to the table, and further complicates what should already be a strategy heavy combat system.
-Do not cater solely to the fanboy. I am sure there are millions of things i have not thought of, but chief among them should be this. If someone is patting you on the back, then they are not giving you input on how to improve your product, and that is typically detrimental. Gaming is a very progressive business, and you cannot stand on your laurels if you hope to continue to succeed. This is not saying you should completely abandon what got you to where you are, but you should be very aware that an MMO that stagnates can become very repetitive.
In closing, I know i am asking for a lot, but i promise if most of these goals were met, the developer would have a quality game on their hands that would be pretty popular. Perhaps not to the extent of WoW, but developers need to stop striving for that unattainable goal. Even Blizzard was not striving for that when they started out, and look where they ended up. Granted, they have alienated a great number of core gamers since the launch of the game in search of greater profits, but that is the risk you run when you are trying to broaden your brand.
In my mind, every single game that has come out that has tried to copy the WoW formula has been a disappointment. Roll the dice, and strive to be something different, who knows, you may just wind up being a success.
I apologize for the length of this, but I simply wanted to get a few things off my chest.
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