f13.net

I have read so many opinions, rants, and ideas over the years, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the MMOG industy.  I often nod my head, reform my thoughts, and share my own thoughts.   But later, I have to shake my head in disbelief as people go crazy over the latest safe approach, such as WoW.  Sometimes, people I respect will break down and start discussing the finer details of the latest game, ignoring the larger issues.

Something Haemish said continues to stick in my head:


I agree.

But there will always be room for the latest polished version of EQ.  Hate it, but accept it and move on.  It might be DAoC, or SWG, EQ2, or now WoW.  I don't care if you like/dislike the various approaches of UO, EQ, DAoC, Planetside, WoW, etc.  This is to help those that want to break out of that EQ / DAoC / SWG / WoW / leveling / linear / class / no-risk / safe cycle.  We have to find a way to clearly vocalize what we will or will not accept, to distiguish ourselves from the safe/stagnant MMOGs that are here to stay.

Whatever your gamestyle is, what are the absolute musts and must-not features that will get you to pick up the box, or quickly put it back down?  Be honest with yourself.  There is alot of inbetween features/approaches that you will argue for or against, according to your style, but let us stick with the absolutes:  must have features vs absolute no-nos.

For me...

Must haves:  
1) skill-based combat(player skill, not char skill, pvm or pvp),
2) solo play feasibility(no forced grouping),
3) accidental interactions with others(unscripted, sandbox gameplay, not forced areas to meetup for grouping/forced grouping, etc.  similiar to #2 but not exactly the same).
4) living, breathing, persistant, immersive world, not online game approach.
5) PVP

Absolute must nots:  
1) queued combat, char skill(not player skill, pvm or pvp),
2) artificial laws that dictate: safe pvp+/- areas, what items you can give to your friends, "leveling", forced skill trees,
3) item-based world(goes back to char skill vs player skill),
4) EQ approach to chat interface(including the "artifical" ability to chat with people not in the local area with you).
5) does not support integral, day-one PVP support.
6) hooks/wall that prevent new players from PVPing within a short period of mastering the basic game mechanics.  (Expansion packs always will keep this danger on the horizon)
-Any box with these features, I will put back on the shelf immediately, no matter what.

The area inbetween: There are alot of features inbetween those above, that I will argue strongely for or against, voice mild displeasure, or just ignore and put up with.  The point of this disussion is what will make you put that box back onto the shelf as fast as you can, versuses what features you MUST have to even consider playing.

Really, the point of this really comes down to the "Absolute Must Nots" list, but your "Absolute Musts" list will help clarify your "Must Not" list.

Thanks

Any game where PVE is the primary focus I wont bother with. I got involved in online gaming through MUSHs and MUX (if you need a explanation Ill give one) and was never interested in the MMOLG scene until PS and ww2OL came along. I want persistance, I want player skill, I want open ended PLAYER DRIVEN worlds.

edit: Gonna explain anyway. By Mush MUX I dont mean sitting around with a bunch of other people building rooms and having TS. I mean games that were built with factions/combat systems etc...Star Trek, Star Wars MUSHs come to mind and for pure skillbased! combat Btech MUXs rocked...(you try navigating a hex map in realtime).

Hmm...

Must Have
PVP
Majority zoneless content
Game before World
No Levels
Defined Abilities that do not change
Deeper faction system than EQ
Ability to group with PC and NPC's

Must Not Have
Item Centric PvP
Level Centric PvP
Forced Grouping
Static Camping
No Z Axis
Size of World dependant on Slowing the PC Speed

Must Have:

Player economy - I'm a businessman at heart, and I love the idea of entrepeneurship in games, this includes an in-game auction system that allows offline trading.
PVP - its not worth playing online if I'm not playing against other humans
Player individuality - SWG did a good job with this with image designing and clothing, but it could be taken further. I don't want every player to look and feel the same.
Skills - mini-games for crafting instead of waiting, hunting using stealth instead of queues, etc.

Must Nots:

Templates - I hate them, I hate doing spreadsheets
Item-centric play - No Sword of Pwnzor that drops once a month off a mob that is available for 24 hours kthx, I'd like to see player made items from the best artisans be the best things in the game. Especially if they use components from raids or something. Again, SWG was close to this but missed the mark.
Fire and Forget Combat - I play melee characters, don't make that suck
Raid centric play - they suck, and I don't have the time, let me have fun without trying to find 50 "friends" to join me.

Next generation? No combat.

The central core in the current generation is combat, and that combat is the path to character improvement, the major element in PvP interaction, and the most fleshed-out mechanism. Everything about the combat, endlessly hacking at respawning mobs with no real affect on anything.

Drop it, and a world of possible interactions reveal themselves. Some games already touch upon it with crafting and player economies - but both only exist to further the combat core game. What I want is politics, trade, diplomacy, spying etc. Not whacking rats or other pure time-consumiong tasks.

If you must have combat, make mobs not pop out of thin air, but actually breed and move around in herds, packs or whatever, and make it possible to make a species extinct (as in, will NEVER AGAIN appear on that shard, unless you make it possible for stuff to move between shards). Good luck making that fertility potion when all white rhinos are gone, for instance. Actions should have consequences - in the treadmill hell we have today, they don't.

Oh, and make it permadeath for players as well.

I guess I should go register on Second Life now. Or wait for Stardock to make a 3D world mutation of The Corporate/Political Machine where you play one of the pawns.

I'm weird, in that the only real must have is that the game must be FUN. That's very nebulous, but I know it when I see it. I believe most MMOG's should have some form of free demo, even if the demo is a segregated server that is different from the production for-pay servers.

You see, I thought I'd never pay for a game without PVP, but then COH came along and just bowled me over with fun. Sure, I stopped playing for about a month, but I've come back much more lately and it's still fun. Moreso because of the changes that have been made.

Absolute Must Nots:
Level-based PVP where Levels > everything else
Item-centric gameplay that breeds lewt whorez and ebay farmers
Stability (see CoH and DAoC: that's the standard now, and nothing less will do)


Absolute Musts:
Combat - though I'm really high on the IDEA of ATiTD, I cannot make myself play it because of its lack of combat. It just isn't for me.
Melee combat where my ability to take a punch is more important than my ability to throw a punch
Decent graphics that don't make my computer run like a 4.77 Mhz PC from 1989

I guess I'll try my hand at this

Must Haves:
1) Involved Combat, no more auto attack and wait. COH ruined that for me. WoW to a lesser extent did as well
2) Better class balance. Dungeons and Dragons has had balances classes (Jobs, roles, whatever term you want to use for years). Melee too often becomes a boring tank while mages can kill almost anything in the gameworld.
3) Sim world. What I mean by this is the NPCs seem to have a life beyond just standing there waiting for the player. PR is EQ2 has taken a step in this direction.
4) Redone combat scheme. I'm tired of combat revolving around agro management.
5) AI revamp. Make the AI smarter if at all possible
6) Stop trying to mix PvP and PvE in the same game. It doesn't work and never will.

Must Nots:
Mostly Must nots for me boil down to the opposites of the must-haves.

Must have:

The ability to kill a person and wear their clothes.

Hi, Nija.  

No, I'm not going to say anything productive here.

The only concept I feel I must have in a MMOG is PvP.  That doesn't mean I get to walk up to a day 1 n00blet with my lv 84 DemonWhore and make him my lunch.  My issue is that I can beat up on AI opponents in my standalone games.  I can get persistance (Save / Restore) in standalone games.  I can get multiplayer in standalone games ...with AI opponents.  I can buy expansions ("new content") for standalone games, without having to pay monthly dues in advance.  The only thing that MMOGs bring to me that I care for, is that it allows for many of these features to be brought together AND enable human opponents.

Beyond that, it's got to be fun.  Of course.  Don't care about the rest of the features; I'm sure that there is a system where I'd enjoy queued or twitch combat, player or char skill (every game requires SOME player skill), chat abilities or limitations, etc.

Problem is you're not asking for a RPG, you're asking for a PvP Simulator like WW2OL with a more interesting game world (hmm, weather and seasons mabye would cut it).

Also Solo play in a PVP world is an impossaibility, PVP requires team work or one side will do it and you won't and you'll get pounded for it. You CAN be the solo scout or the solo sniper, but without someone else backing you up, you won't be the solo rambo.  The PvP player that has a wingman should win the battle if you want any skill in it.



There's NO RPG that can get away without these, it's just not going to happen, the mind set is too entrenched. Now you're just talking about an FPS MMOG, not a role playing game, because fundermently, role players want a friendly DM watching over them, not someone out to beat them, pound thier ass, and watch them...suffer (to parahpase an old Interplay ad).

I noticed there was a distinct lact of AI in you're utopiangameworld, do you want complete PvP, or is some PvM accectable? Apart from the interactive game world (actually, the new buildings now in game are cool, partcialyt the new church and blown up bars) and the newbie guide to playing (allegly coming with Brigade Spawning later thios year) it really sounds like you want to play WW2OL, or mabye Aces High, not any RPG game. What's wrong with Planetside?

And while it has no PvP (swap combat for interesting problem solving excerises?), what about ATITD?

This is a topic that hits close to home, lately.  I was torn between two games, EverQuest and City of Heroes, for several months.  It was kind of like picking who to date - what was I really looking for in a game?   I gave it a lot of thought and ended up dumping CoH, though we continue to see each other casually on weekends.  EQ is back to being my steady due to the newest expansion.

Must haves:

1.  Evenly paced PvE combat.   I loathe combat that either moves too quickly for you to be able to save the day (DAoC), but even more I hate combat so slow that you could learn Swahili in the time it takes to kill one mob (FFXI).

2.  Immersive world content.   Being an interactive part of the world (and finding out pieces of the storyline by my actions) is awesome.  In EQ, I killed the gods for phat lewt.  In CoH, I saved the city's water supply because I was a superhero and that's what we do.

3.  Gainful alternatives to combat.  In EQ and CoH, I was a slaughtering machine, and that's fun, I guess.  But one of the neatest things I've done in a MMOG was putting on a traveling show in SWG.  I made a Twilek dancer, got a couple of baby pets, packed up some supplies and hit the road.   Whenever I came to a decently populated area, I'd bust out the tent and the pets - Wiggles the Dancing Dinosaur and Mr. Peepers the Alien Chicken - and we'd do our show.  I made exp, a hell of a lot of tips, and lots of friends - and no mobs were harmed in the process.

4.  Content that accomodates both grouping and soloing.  Working together with a competent set of people is my favorite thing in MMOGs.  However, being stuck with a set of gimps who couldn't find their collective ass with a map and a flash light is my least favorite thing in MMOGs.   I want to be able to group if I feel like grouping, and I want to be able to solo if that's what tickles my fancy.

5.  Intelligent high end/raid level content.  Leading 54 people to kill the dragon is a rush, but it's got nothing on figuring out a complex 3 hour encounter that requires every single person in the raid to work to the best of their abilities and a council of leaders coordinating every move you make.  The encounters in the last two EQ expansions have been nothing short of wonderful - when the scripts work, that is - and it has pushed my guild to excel.  We are all of us better players for having to think our way through encounters instead of muscling our way through.

6.  Unlimited communication.  If I wanted to be cut off from the majority of players in my world or have distance limit my ability to communicate, I don't need to get online for it.  Being able to build a social atmosphere with as many people as I choose to incorporate is imperative for me.  EQ is king for this, with its cross-server-enabled chat interface.  Best.  Ever.

Must not haves:

1.  Forced questing.  If I don't want to save the maiden, making me do it in order to be able to advance just pisses me off.  CoH kind of seduced me into being part of the world, and I liked it.  But if I'd HAD to do it to advance, I'd have dropped that game like a hot rock.

2.  PvP as an afterthought. It's either/or, folks.  If you're gonna gimp it up or put it in just to try to attact that section of customers, don't put it in at all.  Design the world around it and make it a viable, sensible part of the game, or leave it out.  

3.  Absolutely necessary tradeskills.  I hate tradeskills.  I don't want to craft, I don't want to create.  I don't want to stop pillaging or heroing or whatever it is I'm doing to sit my ass down and knit some socks.  Others do and that's great; I'm willing to pay their exorbitant fees.  Just don't make ME play Martha Stewart.

I think the biggest key for me is variety.  Don't force me have to do any one thing.   Give me options.  Broaden the field of choices instead of narrowing it down to a few avenues of enforced advancement.   You can certainly coax me one way or another, but the key is making me want to go there, not just making me go.  


(gee, that was wordy for a first post.  hi, by the way.)

Actually, (my lack of playing FFXI aside), I would have no problem with it taking more time (AND SKILL) to kill one mob.  IF killing that one mob had a greater impact on my avatar's development.

As it is, killing one mob generally does very little to aid in the forward development of your avatar.  Unless it is a quest or raid mob.  I want to see my repeated slaying of foozle X spontaneously develop a "better at killing foozle X-type creatures because you have slaughtered several villages' worth of them" skill.  Rather like a ranger's "favored enemy" class ability in PnP D&D.

That would be a must-have for me to truly dedicate myself to an online game again.  I want to see my individual combat (and non-combat) actions influence avatar development.  If I kill a lot of foozle X, I want to get better at killing foozles like foozle X.  I want the townspeople which have foozle Xs in the surrounding areas to know me as a skilled foozle X slayer.  I want to be asked to hunt down the really NASTY versions of foozle X because of it.  I want my combat options to include "attack foozle X", with that attack doing significantly less damage to non-foozle X creatures, but significantly more to foozle X creatures (or an added stun, or wounding or hamstringing effect).

Wish List: No CON.

You have to actually talk to hunters (/rangers/druids/tribal shamans/etc) to learn about creatures in the area.  They can appraise your current skills and tell you whether you are prepared to face foozle X or not.  They can offer you training in fighting foozle X, or have you seek out nature spirits which advise you on combat with foozle X (actually real advice, like foozle X always swishes his tail before an overhand strike with his spiked club), or show you what foozle X's tracks look like, and what foozle X likes to eat .  They can show you on your map the types of place foozle X might live and hunt in.

Basically, my must-haves tend to boil down to this:

Things that make you, as the player, develop right along with your avatar.

I am looking for a RPG, among other things.  I am looking for a different approach to pvm/pvp interaction in a MMOG.  I am asking for gameplay based on player skill, as well as a break from the industry-standard timesinks.  I want fun > timesink.  I want to be able to play with the skill I bring to the game, as well as learn from the game.  I do not want a game to tell me "You are uber!".  This does not mean I am not asking for a RPG.  I am looking for a different approach to deliver the same persistance, the same ability to live, learn and grow in that world.  This applies to the RPG that I am looking for, as well as any other persistant type of game I want to play, be it Halo/FPS Online, or Astroids-on-steriods/space-sim Online.

Look at Anarchy Online as a bad example: I don't want to fire my gun, and then have the game do a EQ-style roll of the dice for my success and accuracy.

Look at Morrowind, or the upcoming STALKER, as beginning to touch on good examples:  reputation system with the NPCs, projectile/spell combat where I can miss my target, weight/item management, real-time/non-experience/non-linear quests, trading/selling/crafting/repairing, living quarters, huge world where I can live an existing or new lifestyle, difficulty/pacing determined by myself, etc

I want many different approaches to many various diseased aspects of the current MMOG crop.  Like a Zelda isometric approach that lets players dodge fireballs, block blows manually with shields.  I want fast-paced pvp that relys on players dodging blows and spells, instead of the current retards standing face to face, mashing their heads together, waiting for the one with the biggest stats to win.

Yes, there are aspects of FPSs that could be used, as there are aspects of the old 8-bit Zelda, or even Astriods.  Put any of these games in a more interesting, persistant world, and I think the industry might steer part(keyword: part) of the genre in the right direction.  Atleast they would be painting a new room, instead of repainting the same room over and over.




Boo!  For shame.  This is the same mindset that has kept the industry polishing the same turd.  The whole point of this discussion is to get away from this mentality.



How DM friendly is the current crop of MMOGs?  I find it hard to believe any MMOG out now is DM-friendly.  NWN is the closet to a MMOG that is also DM-friendly.  I would hardly call it a MMOG, though.



Players do play a large role in the MMOG that I would play, but there is plenty of room for AI.  The AI, be it clever coding, or just gimmick-using creatures, would be welcome.  Darkfall(if released) is a good example of the harmony that could exist in a pvp-driven world.  PVM in Darkfall serves as a resource to be harvested, battled over, as a departure from the PVP-driven world, and for story-telling.

I have yet to try ATITD(just recently learned of it), but it certainly has grabbed my interest.

Good discussion.  :)

While discussing a different topic, koboshi mentions one key method of (PVM) interaction:



Source (http://forums.f13.net/viewtopic.php?t=463)

The fact that someone had this experience almost justifies SWG's existence, as many issues as I have with that game.  Hopefully we see more of it in the future.  I think it shows that (just like PvP, oddly, and at the risk of being trite), it's not that no one wants this type of gameplay, it's just that no one has gotten it quite right.

Have you played PnP RPGs much? Did any GM simulate hit chance with a dartboard instead of using a d20? That would be an equivalent to letting player skill affect character skill.

I am against that, partly because the player's motoric activities, like moving a mouse around is unrelated to the character's actions (aiming a gun, cooking soup). But also because I want the character not to be me.

Case in point: Neocron adds player skill to character skill. This means that since mobs dance around, melee sucks compared to ranged because mobs move faster angle-wise (and hence on the screen) when they are close to the character than when they are far away. So unless a mob aggros and attack you (or is immobile), you will always risk the "hit square" moving away from your target indicator. Though this is somewhat alleviated because the "hit square" also grows bigger closer up.

As much as MMORPGs try to mimic aspects of PnP RPGs, MMORPGs are a whole new beast.  Largest being the lack of DM/GM.

And RPGs do not necessarily have to be based on the PnP/dice approach.  Shadowclan Orcs in UO are one small example of a alternate approach to RP.  They have adapted to the more graphic MMORPG that dictates the worlds rules, to a fairly large degree.

UO, itself, departs from many of the MMOG-industry's various approaches, including PnP roots.

Addressing AO, all I want to do is fire my gun accurately and reliably, instead of having to put up with the left-hand-that-has-fallen-asleep method I am presented with.  The forced lack of skill in many MMOGs has got to go.

Visualization is one of the issues I see.  From the sound of it, you're annoyed at missing so much...but the idea, I believe, is not simply that you have missed...but that the opponent dodged/moved/blocked/his armor was too tough to penetrate.  Sure, it all comes out as 'miss' or 'hit', but in the end, when you roll your THAC0 vs his AC, or whatever the game in question uses, your THAC0 is representing your skill at attack, but his AC represents his skill at defense.  If we could *see* the other character actually dodging each shot/slice/strike/fireball, but it was still controlled by their defensive skills, it would remain character-based and yet give a hell of a lot better impression.

Another thing with RPG combat is the real-time element that MMOG's force upon it.  Ever play Baldur's Gate 2?  Ever play it as a lone single-class mage with average-high stats, and been able to defeat every enemy that comes at you through skill, cunning, and intelligent tactics, whereas rushing in and fighting would always end in your death?  I certainly have.  It's in a great part because of the pause button.  By pausing, I take control of the situation and can assess the battlefield, make a decision, and implement it.  Until a game gives us as much feedback as a real person on the battlefield, there's going to be no replacement for the ability to pause, and while real-time is fun and cool, it definitely reduces your capacity to react to the situation.  Slowing down the pace of MMOG combat might help with this...give the person a little more time to react when they see the fireball coming their way.  Sure, if you're in the blast radius, it's your Saving Throw that determines how much damage you take, but if you see it coming and manage to move out of the blast radius in time, you take no damage at all.  Of course, that's assuming the spell is targeted at a location, and not at you.  If it's targeted at you, you might manage instead to cast a spell to shield yourself.

NWN, for example, has counterspells.  How often are these actually used, though?  In order to be effective, you have to: succeed in a spellcraft check and see exactly what spell is being cast - or simply recognize the graphics that are around the caster.  Then you need to have an appropriate counterspell memorized.  Then you have to target the caster, go through your radial (if the counterspell isn't hotkeyed), and cast the spell - all within a 2-5 second span during which the enemy mage is casting HIS spell.  If things were slowed down so that a spell takes 10 seconds to cast, then you've got enough time to do that.

As for actual MMOG's, so far the one in which I have the most time to think strategically, come up with a new plan, implement it, and have the new plan significantly alter the chances of success or victory is EQ.  Depends on the encounter, and I'm really thinking of small-group operations, though it carries on to uber-raids as well, in some cases.  So far, I haven't yet played an MMOG since EQ that makes my tactical decisions have more than the tiniest influence on victory or defeat.

Then you don't want an RPG!  You want Quake.  In a rpg, the role matters more than the player.   That was one of its chief benefits, a defining characteristic.

Nothing wrong with that, but just realize it might be easier to start with a Planetscape or WW2O game, and modify from there because those games in essence are closer to what you want than EQ/DAOC/COH.

If the player is going to decide how combat matters, then theres little need for stats... race...class/skills.  And then we are more than halfway to WW2O.

Oh, I don't know. Consider the Spitfire vs a Me109 as different classes. Basicaly equal, the Spit is eaiser to use, much more sexy to look at, but the 109 has more firepower and is faster. Pretty much 2 different classes of figher right there.

A better game would give you the ability to choose what ammunation you use (should I use ball ammo, or AP, or a mix?), change the colour of your plane (character) a bit (red ones go faster right?), change the pattan harmonazation of thier gunfire (spread it out for spray and pray, or target it but you need to be a good shot) or choose how much fuel you launch with (put less in, you fly better...but might run out of fuel at an inconventiet time).

The skill of the player is increased BY these decians (good players know how to use thier plane with less fuel, have a good aim so they don't need to fire into empty air so much), and the characters skill is minamzied.

If you want to talk races, call the Spitfire one race, the Me109 another. The Me109E is a digfighter, the K is heavy weapons class for attacking bombers, add bombs and you get a Fighter Bomber class instead (loses some manuraviklbity and speed for ithe ability to attack ground targets).

You want to decrease character SKILL, but class, race, equipment (people who live long, get better access, but if they push too far and become a POW they just lost thier good ride) and player skill...that you want to increase.

'Corse WW2OL dosn't have much of these things yet (you can choose the plane, you can't change the plane), so it's not a good example to aim for (yet...mabye in a year or two it will get all these things).

But an RPG game should be able to do these things. You can have different clases. Different races. Different ABILITIES. And different layers of player skill effecting them. You don't need to remove them.

Please dont confuse roleplaying with rollplaying. Thanks.


What about a game where your actual ability , acting a rolE, in thinking, out talking , outwitting your opponent actually mattered? That'd be something. Again this comes back to a game where combat is the last resort instead of the first.

I think the issue here Shannow is that for combat to be the last resort then you need to remove a majority of the Game to make it work.  Extreem death penalties (perma-death) or social outcasting from the vast majority of mercantile establishments for a lengthy time would a few that I could see creating an atmosphere.  Still you will have the crowd that will just kill for the grief aspects.

Your completely right Fargull. I'd like to see that sort of game, I dont expect to see it anytime soon if ever. Still devs could try a little to introduce the ability for opponents to out think each other in combat.

I did't.  Thanks.

But with regards to your last statement.  As long as theres no reason to talk, or to let something live, you'll have fighting being the games central activity.  

For instance, you only get XP on the death of a mob.   That would have to change.

I think easy ways to move away from this simplicity is to have mobs offer to buy their way out of death.  They'd have some stash hidden away somewhere that they'd give you directions to if you let them go.  And almost all intelligent mobs would have this arrangement as a sort of insurance.  

There also has to be an incentive to letting the mob live.  My plan was to implement a form of diplomacy into the game, but that would have to be just a start.

I agree with Shannow, the concept of player skill is not anathema to MMORPGS, or even normal CRPGs.  Yes, the nature of the character should matter, it's part of the machine-enforcement of roleplay(to prevent players from using powers/abilities their character should not be able to).  However, while novels and 'worlds' have room for hundreds or thousands of basically identical wizards, or thieves, or what-have-you, games generally do not.  In a game, especially a roleplaying game, no one wants to play the 142nd fastest gun in the west.  Nor do most people want to play a_rifleman42 when there are a hundred identical riflemen on each side.  People are always seeking to differentiate themselves from the crowd...  The 'one fighter is just as good as the next' system really doesn't appeal to many people because of this.

The realy problem, however, is that there is really only one role in most MMORPGs...  that of "blood-thirsty homocidal adventurer".  UO, SWG and ATITD(tho it's just as narrow, just different) allow for other playstyles, but most of the other games really do not.  You can try to play other styles in these games, but often find that it's not possible, without having a major financial sponsor, or being at least partially the BHA.  Because the 'role' everyone must play is focused on combat, roleplay tends to devolve to 'rollplay', where players let their combat statistics do all the talking.  The game reinforces this by making every fight to-the-death, nearly every quest involves killing, and (not-yet relesaed games aside) the vast majority of character development comes via the death of enemies.  

What most of the 'player skill' advocates want is not Quake, but something between current systems and Neocron, where player decisions can augment the characters abilities.  Most of these games still boil down to 'Hit A and pray', with the addition of mashing some ability or special move buttons whenever they are available.  Because killing things is the only role to play, killing is the only game, and it's not even really a game that the player participates in.  Many people herald EQ's PvE, because unless you are a tank or a cleric, agro management is a game(killing something in EQ solo is only borderline game-like, only decision is whether or not to run to the zone now).  You make decisions on what your character should do, based on what you know of the mob, and what you and others have done to it.  Being a tank keeps you out of the agro management game, because generally in order to hold agro, you must constantly spam all of your agro-gaining abilities/spells...  No decision making, just the 'twitch' of staying facing the mob and in range, and the button-mashing.  Clerics, except at the very begining of a fight, really don't produce enough hate from healing to participate in the agro management game.  DAoC PvE doesn't have this, even...  the rather short duration of most combats doesn't allow the time for an agro management game.

As far as fixing the single-role problem, I agree that the solution will have to be drastic, to the 'no exp for killing things' level.  The flexible skillish systems, SWG and UO, at least let you do other things, and develop a character without killing.  However, typically the areas not focused on killing were not as well fleshed out, and not as viable for focusing.  For example... 26 elite professions in SWG:  12 are based on combat or require combat to advance;  4 others are focused on helping others recover from combat; yet 4 more are focused on making things for use in combat.  The other 6?  Creature Handler, Bio-engineer, Architect, Image Designer, Tailor, and Merchant.  And Creature Handler is iffy, since while you can advance without combat, it's faster if you use combat.  I'm not familiar with the UO skill list, but I'd guess it's even worse.

The problem with MMORPGs, most RPGs period, and even PnPs without very good GMs, is that you can typically replace 'role playing' with 'combat simulation' in the acronym and still be perfectly accurate.  Most players play RPGs because of persistance, in the form of character development.  How shocking that when killing is the only way to advance, everyone kills, and everyone advances in killing power, so they can continue to advance.  Welcome, treadmill;  fancy seeing you in this discussion.

The 'out' for this, as I see it, is point-based systems, rather than level/skill-level advancement schemes...  where points are not awarded based on only killing, or only foozle-making, or whatever.  Advancement points should come from achieving goals, either chosen at creation, a la the Sims 2 aspirations, or the goals of important NPCs, in the form of quests.  The repeatability of point-producing actions needs to be addressed as well, but I believe that to be relatively easy compared to balancing exp-gain across hunting areas, or the combat viability of various classes.

--
Alkiera

Earth and Beyond did a decent job by giving exploration XP, too bad exploring was boring.

Aliera,
IMO, if the result depends more on the player than on the role (the character) then you aren't role playing.  You are playing a FPS.  Its a bit  of a scale, some games the role/character skill matters more than the player skill, those are rpgs.  But move down the scale and where you have the player skill matters more than the role/character skill, you have a FPS.  And somewhere there is a 50/50 middle, though i don't think a game has been made yet that has that split.  

So IMO again the concept of player skill can be in a rpg, but only in small amounts, certainly not enough to sway the result of battle by a level or two.  And whenever i see people trying to introduce skill, its because they don't like that levels matter so much.  But thats a rpg, the character is the prime force that determines success or failure.  If you don't accept that, you have to admit to yourself you don't like rpgs.

Rollplaying is the pnp version of powergaming.  Where one decides their actions not because its in character or not, but whether its optimal play.  They aren't playing the character (role), they are playing an optimization game based on how the dice rolls. When players make decisions because (its what Krom likes to do) instead of (its got the highest chance of success), then you know the player is roleplaying, and not rollplaying.  The stats are there to provide a physics framework.  They can do all the talking even when a player is very much roleplaying.  Indeed a good roleplayer (say playing an ogre with int 3) will look at their stats and hold  back on a good strategy because they know their character would never have come up with it.  The stats matter, and the player is playing their role.

I agree that 'alternative' playstyles, are missing in mmorpgs.  These days its like we are playing a prettier version of space invaders.  Kill one screen of mobs, and another one replaces it. Only slightly tougher.  Its one dimensional.  With one measure of success. thus it should be no surprise that powergamers all optimize to this one dimension, the so called cookie cutter syndrome.  People like to blame the character generation system, but the blame goes deeper than that.

But when i see people arguing for the removal of the charater (player skill should matter), and i see how people don't like how levels matter too much in DAOC for instance, I realize it won't stop there. If levels mean very little, then stats are on the cutting boards as well.  Anything that gets in the way of player skill won't be liked. Everyone has to have the uber template, the uber skills, the uber weapons/armour.  To the point where everyone has the same stuff, so what stuff it is is irrelevant.   No one is happy until the only real difference between their character and the enemy character,  is player skill (like quake).  Once you start down that slope, its going to get real slippery.

Two quick things.

1) Deus Ex was a combo of RPG and FPS.  I don't know about a 50/50 split, since I never got a chance to play it and haven't bothered to find it since I've had a rig that could.  Others here can expound on that.

2) Levels are a throwback to D&D and are a crutch for DMs to gague a party's power and create a sense of progression through a hero's story.  They became the e-peen they are today through an iterave process, but that does not mean they are the end-all to an RPG. You can have an RPG without levels, hitpoints and all that mess, but people have to be open to it for it to work.

Edit: WB mentions Zelda below.  Perfect example of an RPG without levels.  You don't HAVE to pick-up that heart container to advance and win, just makes the game a little easier.

I also agree with Shannow.   Alkiera continued in a direction I also very much agree with.  Specifically this stands out...



I understand the points you are making, rscott.  While I don't 100% disagree with:



I do take issue with:



Just for the sake of clarification, let us remove the term "FPS" from this discussion, pretend that the games we're discussing are played from an isometric point of view(i.e UO, Dungeon Seige, 8-bit Legend of Zelda, etc).  This might help you better explain to me, from an ingame interaction point of view, what you do not like when you state "FPS".  

Is it the twitch/action aspect?  Faster action and twitch tendencies do not have to be a part of a player-skill system.  

Is it that a player can dodge a fireball, or manuelly raise his shield, without the need of rolling the dice?  

Is it that players are forced to have limitations through rolling the dice vs other ways to impose limitations(and creating roles) and maintain player skill?  

Explain, so I have a better understanding.  :)

I think it comes down to whether or not you want the game to play itself for you.  Playing a game that allows the player's skill to come into play, does not mean the player does not have room to play a role in that world.  It is up to the game designers, as well as some potentially player self-imposed limits, to allow a player to play a role.  This can be done with story, quests, limiting the ingame tools at the player's disposal, testing the limits of the world's physics and law-system, etc.  There are alot of approaches game designers can take to build a world that allow a role and player skill to work together.

When you play a game with restrictive interaction, and restricted character skills, and prevent player skill from playing any variable in the equation, you end up with a game that plays itself.   You have a game that gives the players a perception that they have some choices, but in reality you are playing a game that is entirely up to the developers to make the fun.  And in my opinion, a DM/GM-less RPG that relies on numbers and automated quests, is something that goes against role-playing.

ATITD certainly is pvp.

Many of the tests require direct competition, the economy is fully no holds barred competitive.

There is a mechanism to perma-kill other players.

There is an entire line of tests called 'conflict' which require you to score win averages in competitive games. At least one of them even involves swords.

What more is required to make something pvp?

Well I think your over reacting here a little to what we are saying. Im not advocating the complete removal of stats etc from the game system, we are talking about injecting some player skill into it. Where there is almost NONE currently.
Stats and levels should be the FRAMEWORK for your character, NOT the straightjacket.
Currently the only REAL difference between characters are their items and level. A 20th level has no chance against a 40th level in the current system. We are talking about where the 20th level has a chance through the use of his brain, a little luck and maybe MAYBE some physical twitch skill (I prefer brains over twitch btw).

You are right though, these games are all about combat and RPG systems are ideally suited to this style of play.

I think the only way to make a game where you can roleplay, have decent player vs player interaction (not just combat) is to make the game completely player orientated and just about remove PvE altogether outside of something to do when things are slow. Only players can create enough content to satisfy a system such as this.

Merusk,
I've played Deus Ex, didn't care for the demo for #2. i would classify it as a FPS with some rpg elements, because player skill mattered more than character skill.

WonderBrick,
I'm not sure why you think i "don't like" FPS type games.   There are different genres of games.  Each with their own fans, own plusses, own minuses.  I like Deus Ex, I liked Call of Duty. I like Total Annihilation, and i like City of Heroes.  I like robot wars. I like various games.  Each for different reasons.

But if i try to change, say a 'manage a baseball team' game into a quake game, because i don't happen to care for managing a baseball games, and that quake is a more popular genre than baseball management, that would be silly.  I should just admit i don't like 'baseball manager games', and let the genre be.  It has its fans, more power to them.

Similarly, if i try to change a roleplaying game so that there is no role, that its mainly based on player skill, that would be just as silly.  I should just admit that i don't like roleplaying games, but rather prefer games where player skill matters most.

The question of whether the game plays itself for you isn't any more relevant in RPGs than it is in RTS where you have little units that do the fighting for you, mostly without any input from you at all.  You are missing the forest  for  the trees if you think that removing player interaction from fights removes player interaction from the game.  Its the same as in RTS.  And its part of why i would want to improve the 'alternative game' portions of mmorpgs.

Shannow,
I probably wasn't clear.  I didn't mean to say that you advocate removing all player skill, just that it will probably result in that.  It may start with the injection of some more player skill, but it certainly won't stop there.  Looking at the current crop of games, it seems that anytime an ingame affects combat more so than player skill, people want to get rid of it.  

As far as current games require NO skill.  I would reject that outright.  Having experienced having to group with an ebay bought character, it was apparent within 5 seconds of a fight that the player had no skill.  If the games didn't require skill, then this wouldn't have mattered, but it quickly because apparent that indeed skill was required, and we weren't about to risk ourselves because this skilless fool purchased his character.

heh ok to clarify myself to.
I realise that mmorpgs require some skill, and more importantly knowledge of one capabilities (ie to be able to punch the winning combo). However its the ration of skill vs stats/level thats the problem. For EQ/DaoC etc its skill = 15%, stats/level = 85%...A noob who just ebayed a level 40 character can still gank a level 20 fairly easily. If you bought a general rank on ww2ol you'd get laughed at because it would afford you nothing..im looking at striking a balance between the two extremes.

Lets face it this debate is moot in regards to the current game systems we have now anyway so Im going to roll a Druid in the Kalaman graveyard....:P~~

There are other ways to add player skill without turning a game into a FPS. Let me give a couple examples:

A merchant where the player skill involved is knowing where to buy low and sell high and also knowing the routes to travel or the risks to take to avoid getting attacked on the road.

Making armor weight matter. Yes everyone could wear full plate but the more you carry the slower you walk. You could be a slow walking tank but a fleet archer might be able to take you out. The key would be to balance any "protection" gained by the armor with the speed loss. Think of in Quake, if when you got quad damage your walk speed dropped by 4X. The balance might turn out to be everyone wearing chainmail *gasp*.

A theif where when you run up behind another character to steal, instead of a dice throw, a puzzle game pops up and you have X number of seconds to decipher the knots in the puzzle to grab the purse.

Say you're a merchant (again) and you suck at FPS style combat. Maybe you could hire NPC guards which could protect you long enough for you to escape if anyone tries to attack you. Or when you do get attacked you go into RTS mode and control your NPC guards.

An assassin (in a town that actually has dark alleys) where actually wearing dark clothing (and not "everyone wear plate) would matter by allowing you to hide in an alley and FPS shoot or run out and attack the rich merchant.

Edit:

Couple other things I would sight are Savage where it is a FPS but it also has levels (*gasp*). Leveling up is mostly visual but it does give *small"* perks like +1 armor in one level or +1 melee damage in one level.

And Rome: Total War (which is an RTS) where if you just tell your units to frontal attack without using strategy (like flanking with cavalry) you'd lose a lot more men.

And lastly, the way to reward player skill is with status not power which leaves PvP equal.

First, the relation of skill to stats/level is wrong in my opinion, but it would be impossible to assign an objective definition to this.  It also depends on the class.  A Warrior in EQ may have that ratio, but a Bard, Necromancer, Druid, or even a Cleric requires more application of skill.  Making all classes equally interesting has great merits, and I would like that.

And second, you're using an incredibly excessive level spread.  Of course a level 40 can gank a 20 fairly easily.  That's a HUGE difference in levels in a game that only had 50, 60, 65, and now 70 levels.  20 levels is a difference of more than 1/4 the levels in the entire game!  And considering the characters are both below the original level cap, effectively the differences between them are designed to be well over 1/3 of the levels in the entire game.  On the other hand, a level 30 stands a chance against a level 35 if his skill and use of abilities is higher - and the classes they're playing are in his favor.  But if it's going to be an RPG, you have to accept that your character and the enemy's become more powerful, and that certain classes are weaker against others, and that you use tactics and strategy to make up for a difference in level, but given identical player skill and perfect decision making on both side, the one with the biggest stats will win.  But given that identical skill and perfect decision making never happens, as long as you're not trying to challenge something that's *too* far above you, you have a chance.

Or to quote Ilyich from the Improved Ilyich mod in Baldur's Gate 2..  "We are easily ten times as experienced as you are.  If it were not for our penchant for making suboptimal tactical choices, you would have no chance of defeating us."  But in an AD&D based game, one of the ones in which even one or two levels can make a huge difference in a fight, you can defeat enemies vastly higher than your character, simply because they are NPC's and make suboptimal tactical choices.  Against a halfway-intelligent PC group, you would truly have no chance.  It is the tactical choices that make the difference between victory and defeat.  The same applies to almost any MMOG combat I've ever participated in, with the possible exception of those that are over so fast that you do not have time to use tactics.  

This is why MMOG monsters don't work by the same stat system players do, and why a level 20 orc can slaughter a level 20 player without breaking a sweat in most games.  The game increases the NPC's sheer power, while keeping their level the same, to make up for the complete lack of intellgient strategy.

I never said you "don't like" FPSs.  And I don't think I said anything that conveyed that.  I hope not.  But I did ask for the term "FPS" to be ignored for a moment, so I can get a better sense of the point you are making.

Also, early on, I tried to make it very clear that the current EQ/AO/SWG/RollPG game is here to stay.  I wanted to respect that, and see what brainstorming can be done to progress the player-skill aspects of the MMRolePG-genre forward, seperate from the existing successful approach.  I don't want to change the formula for success that certain games enjoy.  But in the journey to tell the developers what we want and don't want, there can often be some mixed signals they receive.  I don't want to turn baseball into Quake.  I am looking for a largely non-dice-roll form of interaction.



No, no, no!  I think this is where the misunderstanding is.  I am not wanting to join a game with 10 years of gameplaying experience to be Superman in the game.  I want to take on a role.   I want to play a thief, a barkeeper, a dungeon-exploring adventurer, a drunken fool, or a Shadowclan Orc.  I want to take on all the challenges that each entail, either self-imposed(back to PnP roots), or dictated by the game(beer fogs my vision and I need to fight my own jittery reflexes, I have a task before me but with limited tools, I am placed under a curse, I need to practice my archery skill with ingame physics, etc).  I want to take on roles, and all the strengths and weaknesses that the game places before me.  I want the game to present limitations through creative gameplay, and roleplayed challenges, not flat, arbitrary, limiting numbers.  Stop saying I don't want an RPG.

Roleplaying does not mean you need dice.  Roleplaying does not mean you have to let your character play itself.

The RTS analogy is a good one, if I understood the point you are making.  Yes, your units are fighting in an automated manner.  Yes, they would die without you guidance.  Yes, you still need some player(you) intervention to make it more then just hard numbers clashing against hard numbers.  But that intervention is about all the interaction there is.  And that is what I take issue with.  But I take issue with it after accepting that there is a market for the existing approaches.  And the whole "roleplaying" aspect of MMORPGs complicates the issue in a manner that RTS games do not need to take into account.



I am not foolish enough to completely rule out skill in existing queued combat MMOGs, anymore then I would rule out skill in an RTS.  There is timing and management aspects that players learn and use.  But knowledge of the way the game wants you to interact with it plays a huge factor.  You are watching the game play itself far more then you would like to think.

I just wanted to mention that based on the "haves" the original poster was asking for stuff that was entirely found within the original release of UO. Alright, maybe UO with modifications to make combat more player-skill-based.

Just struck me as ironic that many of the things he wanted were in the first game of the modern MMOG genre....the one that started everyone bitching about MMOGs in the first place.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

Someone should make Ultima Online: Source.

Well, UO was indeed my first MMOG.  No other MMORPG approach even remotely enticed me away.  The only thing that made my eye wander was the sheer amazement I had, that others wanted the approach that those other games offered.  I am now at the point(well for past two years), where UO has changed into something so different from the original product, it is UO that is driving me away, not another game luring me away.

Though it is to early to tell at this stage, Darkfall appears to capture every aspect of what I desire.  It is a nurtured and carefully evolved form of early UO.

Wonderbrick,
It was actually a good question about ignoring the FPS abbreviation as I see how it could be confusing.  The first person view portion of it is indeed irrelvant to the issue.  I tend to use Quake as an example of an anti-roleplaying game, and the current crop of games as more pure roleplaying.

I see two schools of thought as to how to improve the current EQ-clone crop.  1) being the turn it into an arcade game where you play whack a mole with everyone else similar to the DAOC battlegrounds only with the character mattering less and less and player skill mattering more and more, and 2) de-emphasizing of combat so as to add emphasis to everything else, opening up the game play to other avenues.  I consider 1 an anti-rpg approach, which is not bad, but they should make the terms clear and and call it a mmog, or call it a massively multiplayer arcade game.  2) seems more rpg-ish, but very hard to pull off and might not be that marketable, even pnp games sometimes don't play much more then combat simulators (as someone else said).

...

IMO, roleplaying does indeed mean the character should  govern the chance of success more than the player.  (not sure if thats what you meant).  If the character matters less, then in a sense, EVERY game is a rpg and the term looses all meaning.  IMO, any time i've played a game no matter how many role playing elements it  has, inventory, skills, persistance, character appearance customization... it never really feels like a rpg until the character matters more than the player in governing chances of success.  Every other time, it feels like an arcade game, or fps or rts or whatever else heck the game is.

...

You understand my RTS analogy very well, i'm surprised.  The other thing i would add is the understanding that 'the game' of RTS does not reside in the individual fights, it occurs at a meta level above the fights.  The fights are the bricks of a building, each one not so important, but the resultant sum is  the thing of interest.  Similarly, 'the game' of RPGS should not reside in the individual fights.  But rather the sum of all the characters actions, both through mouth and muscle are where the game is.  So as one should not pay too much attention to the fight, its not really where the 'play' is.

I do think that roleplay needs to have a character-driven approach to gameplay, but not with flat numbers alone.  It is hard to convey a non-numbers approach to anyone who is used to the hard numbers approach that most games offer.  But bear with me, as I try.

The first thing that jumps to mind is Shadowclan Orcs in UO.  They have a set of self-imposed rules that they live by:  no mounts, stay in character at all times including by speaking their own language, respect and obey the heirarchy, no powergaming, specific weapon and skill usage, etc.  This is just a real quick example of the enviroment that they live under, in classic UO.  Classic UO was very much a game that was not driven by hard numbers alone.  They have limitations that come in a more creative form, not flat numbers clashing against hard numbers with minor player intervention.

I hate using FPSs as an example, but incase you are not familiar with pre-AOS UO, maybe FPSs will still be able to get my point across.  Shadowclan is essentailly living in a FPS enviroment, where player skill plays more of a role then hard numbers.  Even in this enviroment, they have an immersive world that they live in.  They roleplay in this world, with plenty of player skill, and few hard numbers dictating the outcome.

I think a game could offer a large variety of race and role specific rules that help guide a player along a roleplaying experience, without forcing hard numbers.  Imo, the hard numbers approach can often force the roleplay out of a game.  Numbers can help assist roleplay, but hard numbers alone do not make roleplay.

Morrowind is another example, but perhaps to loose with it's player freedom implementation to prove my point.  Numbers play a role when casting spells, calculating damage and protection, but the actual projectile/spell aiming is still left in the hands of the player.  If you were to take Morrowind, and add a clearer variety of roles to live in, complete with role-assisted atmosphere, then I think you have something more along the lines of what I am aiming for.  

If a game could offer the players the tools to play different roles in the manner that Shadowclan impose upon themselves, then I think we are headed in the right direction.  The implementation of role-assisted atmosphere is so important to success or failure, especially in the MMORPG world.  Powergamers and balance issues make this implementation a nightmare.  You end up with games that, in order to solve the implementation issues, end up using only hard numbers to keep the non-RPers in check.

Earlier in the thread you said:


I did not want to comment on, in fear of the point entirely being lost.  I do think you could take a persistant FPS, and add content and rulesets to reach the goal I am headed for.  But if you simply use the FPS model, without the appropriate roleplaying tools and guidance, then you fail and are left with only a shallow action game with RPG-ish trappings.  This is not what I am after.

And just to clarify the different approaches to RP that I think you and I have...



My approach to RP is that I want to play through the eyes of my character(and I don't literally mean first person point of view when I say this).  I don't want to play from a removed, RTS-like position, making poker-like-odds decisions based on what I think my character would do.  I want to live vicariously through my character, living within the imposed RP "rules", fully testing those boundries, while staying "in theme".  Whether I am playing the hero or the low level orc badguy, I want to play the best I possibly can, within those set limitations.  Certain situations require me to make decisions that I feel my character would make.  But make no mistake, if survival is at stake, that hero character, or low level orc, will be attempting to fight as hard as possible, within their limitations(though certain exceptions exist).  Numbers help with the limitations up to a point, and then the player plays with what he is dealt, with some imagination thrown in.  I am a fan of living though my character, instead of acting as a removed, guiding factor in his/her life.

On a seperate, but related note, does anyone know how combat is handled in the upcoming SWG expansion, Jump to Lightspeed?  I just watched a clip of it, and at first glance, it appears realtime combat(and they stated this also).  Could this be a good sign of MMOG devs experimenting with player skill?

To answer the title's question, my role in the stagnation of mmorpgs is to let it continue to stagnant. The reason why mmos are about loot and levels is that most players *want* them to be about loot and levels, so that's what they get. Companies are making a lot of money as games are now and they have zero incentive to change. IMO it's time to accept the limitations of the genre.

I don't mean to imply that the only restrictions on play are numerical.  Just that the stats describe the character and to  ignore them is to ignore the character.  You ignore the character in your play and i'd be surprised if anyone calls that roleplaying.



But i wouldn't call it roleplaying.  They are being themselves (for the most part) in this immersive world, and that isn't roleplaying.  Or maybe a 1 out of 10 rating on the rpg scale, as most any game can be called roleplaying to some extent.  In any event, its barely worth the title.



I can play a rts and picture myself living in the world commanding an army, maybe give myself an in game name and appearance.   Does that mean that the RTS is an rpg?  I wouldn't say so. I could even impose some restrictions on my speach and unit choice for some in game justification.  i still wouldnt call it rpg.  Heck, you can do that to most any game save the more abstract ones.  Are they all rpgs?  Only if you reduce the term to meaninglessness.  

This living through the character is one of those 'elements' that i spoke of that many other games support.  But they never really seems like an rpg.  Because its still me whose doing the action.  



You said you want to live through your character, I could ask how smart the character is, but really i'd be asking how smart you are.  I could ask how good a fighter is, but really i'd be asking how good a fighter you are. I could ask a bunch of things, but after a while, its pretty apparent the character is superfluous.  Its all you.  The character is superflous in the RTS i mention above as well.

Until its the character that determines success, your game is about as much an rpg as any rts game is.

We will have to agree to disagree.  

Maybe I did not get the Shadowclan point across as clearly as I could have.  But there is no doubt that Shadowclan represent a fully--fleshed out, and respected form of RP.  They hate humans, demand tribute, act grumpy ingame and otherwise outside the game, they kill my horse because they are hungry, smoke my nightshade, beatup the gruntees, train the gruntees, each have their own backstory, etc.  When they fight humans, they do so with as much fierceness as I would expect from an orc.  Everything they do is done as the character they developed would do it.  They are not the brightest of creatures, but within the restrictions they have placed on themselves, they excel.  etc, etc.  There is very little  of the Rolling/numbers game going on.

It might not be the approach you enjoy, but it is not any less RP in my book.

What. The. Fuck. I don't see how the Shadowclan is any less roleplaying than any PnP game. If you're not throwing dice it isn't roleplaying? As far as I can tell from your position you are claiming that EverQuest is more roleplaying than the Shadowclan because you are forced to sit there for 200 hours of your life pressing A to get to level 65. And this is roleplaying because it's impossible to deviate from the stats on your character. Whatever you're smoking hook the rest of us up!


Why don't you tell us what 10 on your RP scale is? And if your answer is LARP I think I might cry.

Krakrok,
Please don't quote me like that.  And nice strawman, save it for dorothy.

Wonderbrick,


Agreed.

I understand what you said about the Shadowclan did, and i like it. But i feel that the amount of RPing is partially dependent on the game system. And if the game system has the character determining the results, thats imo more roleplaying than if the player determines the results.  The Shadowclan did a great job with what they had to work with.

I would like it if some of those things they did with the clan could  be made in game, like Gurps or Champions has done with their  advantages/disadvantages system.  That you could impose a restriction on your character, at generation time or later in game, that you do not  get along with humans, or that you refuse to use swords.  Or that you are honorable and refuse to backstab.  And that you might gain extra  attribute points or something for that.

Roleplaying is about your ACTIONS being defined by the personality you imbue the character with, whether that personality is different from your own or not.

It has fuck all to do with the statistics your character has; those are just mechanics to allow you to resolve the actions your character takes.

Agree with Haemish. Rscott I have to say your idea of roleplaying is truely screwed up..

Id rather see someone who plays a good character that occasionally violates some of the 'stats/rules' of their character sheet than someone who sits there and yells 'You can't say that! You only have an int of 3! That's cheating!'....Thats what we call being a rules lawyer....

Thats why I always liked playing D&D because the rules were pretty uncomplicated and everyone knew so them that we could spend time being our characters instead of consulting a rule book every 2 minutes.

Rules/states are a backbone, not full metal plate.

Now maybe I see where your going in that the rules should be hardcoded into the game so that they enforce roleplaying.
The problem is how do you hardcode a system to cover all the permbutations of human interaction?
Really the desire to be in character must come from the player themselves and the players around them.
This very well maybe impossible in todays MmOLG environment.

But at the end of the day I think Id rather have players enforcing RP themselves instead of trying the impossible task of coding it into the game.

I disagree completely.  The amount of roleplaying has nothing to do with the game system.  Little kids will roleplay with no system whatsoever... and you can have the most complex set of restrictions and chance algorithms to define a character, and still have people saying 'Sup thou?' in public channels.  Roleplaying is in the players.  All MMOGs to date have had nearly microscopic groups of people that actually roleplayed.  Whereas there are online games, MU*s and the like, where there is very little combat system, where roleplaying is something everyone participates in.  Matt's muds, Achaea, Imperium, etc, manage to bridge the gap in that they have quite a few players, have a well defined system, and yet the players still roleplay.  It has nothing to do with the system, you could try to powergame all you want, it would only get you so far.

In those systems where roleplaying is happening on a large scale, it has nothing to do with interacting with NPCs, and everything to do with interacting with other players.  Not neccesarily combat with them...  interaction.  In Iron Realms games, you actually need to see another player to be trained in your skills, to find out where your guildhall is, and how you get into it, and to learn how best to use those skills once your character has been trained in them.  Players make the vast majority of equipment.  They can load NPCs with their wares, but only so much.  The other players also teach the lore, and enforce the guild's alliances and enemies.

All of that has nothing to do with the 'system' and everything to do with the humans behind the terminals.  Trying to enforce roleplay with systems only provide a crutch, and will typically create the limit to which players will roleplay.  If your system forces them to reoleplay up to point X, they will stop right there, and become no more immersed than that, never see points Y or Z that they could have reached by having your players encourage them.

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Alkiera

I don't argue that.  But i clearly said  *partially dependent*, not *completely dependent*, or  even *dependent*.  Assuming you can't ignore the software altogether, i think the amount of RPing  in the framework of a tetris game would be generally quite limited.

The software can't enforce RPing, but it can certainly hinder it.

I agree on both counts.  Tetris is a rather abstract game, there are no roles in it at all.  IMO, as long as the system provides roles to choose from, even if they are 'sniper, soldier, engineer, medic, scout', then the system allows for roleplaying.  It may not encourage it, but it allows for it.  

As far as the system hindering RP, I feel that this is primarily caused by lack of immersion, lack of sufficient different roles, 'artificial' systems like character levels which seperate players, and other systems which discourage player gathering.  I believe that players really have the greatest effect on the nature of roleplaying on a server, much moreso, even, than the system.  If people want to RP, even if the system discourages it, they often will.  Also, if a new player sees existing players RPing, they are more likely to give it a shot than if they log in to find a discussion of the Yankees and Red Sox.

--
Alkiera

Heh the issue here is that people are using the world roleplay to mean two different things.

Certainly roleplay includes how you think your character feels about a situation, or will react to a given incident, but rscott's point is that your character's skill (and not the player's) should determine a segment of roleplay. For example it's hard to roleplay a great warrior if you the player suck at it, or roleplay a horrible thief if truth be told your character is no better or worse than anybody else. Having said that I'd rather gouge out my eyes than play another mmorpg where combat consisted of hitting auto attack and going to the fridge.

The funny thing is I've played a lot of EQ, supposedly the origin of the "hit autoattack, go AFK". And that only holds even remotely true if you're in a moronic grind group. A warrior in a challenging environment not only can't go AFK they get lots of opportunity to show skill. Which means an average warrior will demontrate the extent of how much they suck. Thus someone talking about "going AFK", if they are referring to EQ, is basically confirming that they never reached or attempted the actually challenging parts of the game. In short it says as much about the player as it does about the game.

Anyway, from a game mechanics point of view "warrior" is a fully sufficient role. And thus it counts as roleplaying. Whether you can show skill in the tactical domain and be a skilled warrior, or show ability in the social domain and project an identity, are parallel concerns. Or to put it another way you don't have to roleplay to play a role.

Heh it's more of an exaggeration. I didn't play a warrior for too long (too boring). My main was a paladin and I never had any issues with keeping agro, rooting adds, etc, but I also didn't have as much fun with combat as with my DAoC hybrids. You'd think it would be the opposite since EQ hybrids have more spells, but melee combat just flat out sucked in EQ (note: I quit just before DAoC came out, so it might have gotten better).

What should govern RP more, numbers or imagination?

As soon as RP is defined by numbers it's exploited by power gamers.  This is true in pnp as well as electronic.

Exactly.  The system/software should be a base upon which RP is built, not codified rules for everything that is possible, otherwise you limit what is possible to what there is rules for...  thus the tendancy for all player interaction to work down to fighting in most MMOs, because combat is the only well-fleshed out system.

--
Alkiera

That depends on what aspect of rp we are talking about imo. Numbers have little to do with your character's background, political affiliation, etc.This question though reminds me of the time I was roleplaying a samurai and I wanted to pull off this crazy maneuver (hey, I had the dex :p). The GM just looked at me like I was nuts and laughed. He laughed even harder after the roll :).

Both, they're completely parallel systems. One is the character within the world and one is the world within the character. You're free to believe you can fly and the world is free to apportion falling damage.

Of course the fact that computer AI isn't really practical for MMORPG applications yet also has a certain say in what the boundaries are.

Look at the games that most MMORPGs are based on.  They are from a community that, by choice and/or by technical limitations, had to form a foundation(world physics, if you will) on which the RP imagination could be played out.  Now look at what sets a good GM/DM apart from a bad one.  Is it the strictly anal way they approach the numbers, or the imagination that they bring to the table?

This thread is about MMORPG's. In such a context any mention of human GM's is irrelevant until one of two conditions are met. You come up with an economic model that will fund one human GM per ~10 players or you develop a fully functional, computationally affordable, AI. Since I don't expect to be alive when either of these happen I'm not going to waste neurons considering it.

Which is a good point.  In fact, the genre has bad connotations around 'rules lawyer' and other similar names for people who know all the rules and go overboard with applying them.  A computer program is the ultimate rules lawyer.

And then there are games like Amber Diceless RPG, which I don't think rscott would even call an RPG... Your character had a rank in a few stats, strength, endurance, dexterity, and willpower, I think.  It basically set up a pecking order for each stat, to settle contests between characters.  You then used remaining points to define some background traits, what kinds of powers you had access to (not specific powers, but generic 'sets' of powers), any special items or places you had access to, special knowledge.

Then the DM unleashed the players on each other, in a 'game of thrones' type game, which was often PvP and sometime PvE.  The point being, that there were never any system-determined results.  No hitpoints, no damage tables, no dice or other random means of determining results.  The whole of the game was based on products of the players' imaginations, not a GM guide.

The point of the Amber game was that the developers thought the system was often a crutch to roleplay; sure it helped people who hadn't figured RP out yet, but because everyone had to use it, it held those who wished to really get into their characters back from their potential.  The Amber universe is one where you have an infinite level of flexibility, anything you can come up with can exist.  Trying to write a system which would allow for that would have been insanely difficult.  So they didn't.

Consider that one of the main aspects of RPGs is that you're telling a story or your character, as he/she progresses from above-average nobody to world-renowned hero.  When people tell these kinds of stories, they use several tricks to keep the story interesting, including time compression, so years of practice in magic or sword use or whatever happen between chapters, or while the character is not the focus of attention; and deus ex machina, where things seem to work out for the main character for no discernable reason other than it is dramatically appropriate.  The first is something that RPGs seem horrid at, in that you, the player, must experience every dead goblin, orc, troll, large mouse, mutant spider your character ever sees.  This leads to the tedium of MMOs, because there's a reason the authors skip those parts... they're boring as heck.  As far as the deus ex machina, we get a bit of that in quests, but it looks bad when you do the quest a second time for your buddy, and is a joke by the time you've done it a 50th time for a new guildmember.

Frankly, I personally believe traditional 'RPG' games aren't really compatible with the MMO framework.  There is too much focus on becoming a hero, a world-changer, in the RPG genre to have it work out properly with more than a few important characters, nevermind thousands.  This is especially true for fantasy, whereas comic-hero systems have fewer issues, since all the heroes typically affect a limited area of effect(often one city), which allows for other heroes to be doing their thing elsewhere.  There just isn't room for more than a couple world-shaking heroes in any universe, so one designed to allow hundreds or thousands of them is bound to have problems.

Wow, that got long and rambly.

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Alkiera

That so takes me back. The debates between the rules lawyers and free-form RP fans just went on for ever. But the really funny thing is there's not really that much difference. In both environments any interaction outside the character needed to be judged. In a rules based systems a lot of judgements become regular and automatic, I don't have to go through the DM because the rules are obvious. In a freeform system there is not that regularity so you're entirely dependant on the current mood of the DM.

It's the same for stats. In original D&D if I have 18/00 strength I know I am as strong as any mortal man can be, and I know how to apply that strength to certain routine tasks. In a freeform system I might be "strong", and all of a sudden even the most mundane actions need to be judged by the DM. The mechanics of my character became fuzzy and uncertain.

In other words all that rules represent are standard GM jusgements, a shared environment between the GM and the players on how the world works, and the best GM's recognised this. The game mechanics allow them to focus on the big picture stuff, but the right to over-rule the general mechanics in any specific case is always reserved.

Of course computers are hopelessly dumb. And the programmer time needed to make them smart grows exponentionally the more sophisitication you demand. It simply isn't economically viable to craft a game that is that much smarter than some of the current ones.

I could also argue that fantasy is dominant because of some mechanical advantages. It's hard to have a group based game when people have automobiles, mobile phones and you can engage the mob at sniper rifle range. You can see this in why SWG combat simply doesn't work. And I'll be interested to see how MxO ends up working. Superhero's probably work because of their limits. The game doesn't allow your super-hero to pick up an assault rifle or phone in an air-strike because it's not in genre, even if the technology allows it.

I see your ramble and raise you a wandering discursion.

It's also a problem with the style championed by the makers of the diceless (not really system-less) RPGs.

For instance, the ranking system in Amber is like playing RPS where one player has the rock, another the paper and a third the scissors. So rock guy goes up against scissors guy, and win because he outranks the other in that particular skill. But then paper guy goes up against rock guy (using a different ability), and wins because of rank. In MMORPGs, this can be matched by FOTM min/max-ers. Amber was mainly played by fans of Zelazny's novels, but there were many of them (since they are very good).

One of the most vocal pro-diceless arguers back on rec.games.frp was David Berkman, maker of Theatrix (http://www.seanet.com/~alanb/theatrix/theatrix_review.htm). In that game, Story is king, and the players could be allowed to affect it somewhat, but never totally derail it. But what do you expect from people who published a sourcebook based on an adult comic book (Ironwood).

The third diceless system, Everway, was hardly played by anyone: It's major aspect was some trading cards you used to interpret to decide the backstory for your immensely powerful character. The diceless branch died out soon after.

I prefer simple systems in RPGs, but never random-less: FUDGE (http://www.fudgerpg.com/fudge/) and Prince Valiant (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9189.phtml) come to mind as very simple systems that give plenty of opportunity to roleplay.

The issue with computer RPGs is that everything has to be in numbers and formulas, so there will never be true roleplaying, unless you have GMs around at all times, and they can only handle a few players at a time. This will in effect remove the "massive" part, but could be an interesting alternative for people wanting the RPG to matter more. Both the old Vampire game and NWN support this kind of play.

Even with unlimited human GM's the system doesn't scale. As you get a large number of people sharing the world the GM's must be balanced, which means they will have to follow increasingly strict rules and avoid any deviation or risk being accused of favoritism, with all the acrimony in brings. I saw this in the rare attempts to do multi-GM games.

But there is roleplaying in EQ, "I'm a warrior, you're the wizard" is roleplaying. It's not all that roleplaying can be, but it is sufficient and consistent.

Well, as opposed to you (i think) I tend to put things on a scale.  No game is 100% rpg, or 0% rgp  compatible. They are shades of grey.  The scale is based on which affects character success more, the character, or the player.  The more the results depend on the character, the higher i put it on the scale.  The rating is independent of dice or computer involvement.  The rules even are irrelevent.  It could  be all randomly picked from the GMs head.

So... seeing as there is a method to determine success in Amber, and it appears to have nothing to do with the player, i would guess that Amber would rate higher on my personal RPG scale, towards the RPG end.

One of the core rules of game design that many game designers use is:


Elderscrolls IV(sequel to Morrowind) gets what I am looking for in player-skill combat right.  It is not hard numbers vs hard numbers.



Source (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/558955p2.html)


Getting away from the combat discussion for a moment, Oblivion Producer, Todd Howard, talks about a few important things(bold emphasise is mine):



Source (http://www.elderscrolls.com/codex/team_rpgnextgen.htm)

This is what I like to hear and see.

Why are most current MMORPGs so seemingly content to focus on retention tactics over player fun, hard numbers over gameplay, and evolution over innovation?  I don't fault current MMORPG success, but I want something more then just the current formula selection offers.

And finally, Todd Howard says



Yes.  I want to live another life, not watch my character live it.  This is one major point where RP philosophies clash.

Yeah.  And the Shadowclan weren't just putting on a show when others were around.  You could ghost their fort and they'd be going about their orcly duties and speaking their languages, abusing gruntees, etc.

I wish someone would implement my idea of having a hero/god type character that is fully developed upon completion of character generation.  The Amber characters (and game) were like that.  We didn't get a "Hero's Journey" story for Corwin.  He just was there, and the action was immediate.

Yeah, you would like that one.  There was an example in the rule book of a character being faced by a sphinx and asked a riddle (or a similar situation).  The character in question had very high intelligence and its player simply told the GM "I solve the riddle and spit back the answer".

I had more fun with games where the players had to solve the puzzles/riddles/traps.

Just remake UO with modern shiny graphics and a larger world.

Post-Trammel UO.

The MMOG world will be better off once you Koster-esque "ganking = virtual world" proponents are all driven into the sea.

You're right.  We shouldn't have an open chat sytem either, because a player might say something that is more witty than his 5 intelligence character would ever come up with.  Some simple pulldowns, with generic chat options for "buy/sell/truce/fight/group" should be enough.

[quote="rscott"

But when i see people arguing for the removal of the charater (player skill should matter), and i see how people don't like how levels matter too much in DAOC for instance, I realize it won't stop there. If levels mean very little, then stats are on the cutting boards as well.  Anything that gets in the way of player skill won't be liked. Everyone has to have the uber template, the uber skills, the uber weapons/armour.  To the point where everyone has the same stuff, so what stuff it is is irrelevant.   No one is happy until the only real difference between their character and the enemy character,  is player skill (like quake).  Once you start down that slope, its going to get real slippery.[/quote]

What are you so afraid of?  Both systems have an advancement scheme.  Once scheme allows your character to get better through time played.  The other system allows the of the character (which means the character gets better) to get better through time played.  One systme is very hands on, the other is very hands off.

new registant, nice forum.  smart people here.  anyway....

i agree with this a lot, probably more than any other single idea.  ever since UO i have wanted to exist as a craftsman, particularly as a blacksmith.  my dream of being a miner and smith with an established customer base and reputation as a good merchant were literally killed by the unrestrained PVP.  after that terribly disappointing experience with what i knew was a budding gametype, i stayed away from PVP in many other games.  but i still wanted to be a blacksmith.  this is one thing i really, really liked about A Tale In The Desert: the marginalizing of combat (can't quite say elimination, but it definitely isn't like in other games).  if for no other reason, it keeps the jerk-factor low.

i'm easy (at the moment) so it's pretty short.

must have:
1. auction house system.  i'd prefer something more evolved than FFXI.
2. skills, not levels.
3. functioning economy, preferably Hong Kong type instead of USSR type.

must NOT have:
1. no-trade/soul-bound items.  see #3 above.
2. world outside newbie area is a total death-field.  let me explore!
3. PVP against which i have no defense at any point in time.

otherwise i'm pretty easy.  of course, you never know what new idea will anger me to no end.

Your shift key is very very lonely.

Your 'comma' key is very, very lonely.

ZING!

Orders of magnitude, biotch.

we are currently seeing other people, but we get together occasionally, for the kids.

Me too, but it absolutely has to be more interesting than my current life.  The realization that my online life was at least as tedious and frustrating as my offline one was what finally allowed me to throw the EQ monkey off my back.

I heard Steven Seagal plays EQ. Imagine how frustrating it is for him. He can kick more ass in real life than his character can in the game.

If someone could make a game that even Seagal would consider "fantasy", then we'd all be happy.

Uh oh. Did I just step in a bear trap?