The Story (...would be easy enough compared to the rest)

[Soln]

[derail] FWIW, it might be useful if "Game Design" got its own section, either for MMO's alone or with PC/Console.  This and other good threads would be worth keeping outside of comments on current/planned MMO releases.  Thank you and good night.

[HaemishM]

You mean like this forum?

[Soln]

You mean like this forum?

mayhaps.  I was being pendantic, seeing dev vs design, (reading too many blogs I guess).  Carry on.

[schild]

FIFY.

[Alkiera]

The biggest problem with questing in MMOG's is that no one is invested in the quest itself. Quests are nothing more than item/experience generators. The most entertaining example is WoW, but really they all do it. You have vending machine NPC's, who despite their protestations, really don't give one shit about whether you fulfill the quest for them or not. Some might move or disappear when the quest is finished, but for the most part, their station in the world does not change whether the quest is done or not. If the NPC's aren't invested in the quest, why should the player be invested in it, except for the reward?

I agree whole-heartedly.

Quests need to give the player an investment in doing the quest, and to do that, the quest giver needs investment and it needs to alter the world. You can "fake it" with instancing right now, but for "WORLDS" that doesn't work. The truth is that if you want virtual world type games, every NPC must be a PC, and every PC must have a job that relates to the world. There must be lumberjack PC's, and miners and millers and blacksmiths, and all of these people must be given power and incentive to provide quests to adventurers. Blacksmithing must be interesting, it must be a game in and of itself that makes a player want to forego combat for the blacksmithing. And when a marauding band of orcs come along and steals the smith's iron supply, he must hire another player to get it back from the orcs for him or he will starve, his shop will close and decay or he will have to sell to the lord and work for some other player.

But in order to do all of that, players have to be able to influence and affect other players. And you won't get that in a massive, mainstream MMOG because the average player doesn't want to be affected by other players without his say so. That's why Diku's are so popular, because they provide little negative feedback, tons of positive feedback and sometimes a challenge.

The things you are talking about with WORLDS and stories in those worlds are all things that MikeRozak's massively single-player game players DO NOT WANT.

I see a lot of this kind of thing from reading everyone's posts about EVE Online.  Sure, you start in an area with lots of NPC support, where there are contacts that give out missions and pay rewards, etc... but there is another game, where you leave that area, go out into the wooley wilds of 0.0 space, and start up a new game.  Where you mine, not for the rewards of the mining quest, or to get your skill up, or for money... You mine for your corporation.  Your corp may pay you for it, but it's for their own efforts that you mine.  When someone says 'Hey, there's some guys over yonder poking around, go take care of them' it's not an NPC, it's one of your corp members, and those guys you wander over and blow up and then pod are not NPCs, they are players.  Those quests make a difference in the world of zero-sec.  They protect your borders, they fund your stations, improve your army.  And not some theoretical-but-never-seen army, nor theoretically-in-danger-but-never-changing borders, or invulnerable 'outposts'.  Real borders, that may change if some group with enough clout decides to push you back.  Real border stations that might be lost if those borders change.  A real army(or Navy, in EVE), made up of players, that shows up to battle with other players.

It turns out, what I want is EVE Online on the ground, with elves.  Have a semi-gametic area where you can get your feet wet, work some skills up, make some cash, in a fairly stable environment, then off to the wilds to find interesting new places, meet their inhabitants, and kill them.

Alkiera

[MikeRozak]

I'm not saying that you can't combine sandbox players with massively single-player gamers (MSPG), but some issues need to be overcome.

1) Goals... Why does a player want to do X (pick mushrooms, kill the troll, craft the sword, etc.) ?

In a MMO sandbox, a player wants to do X because the action either affects the player's level/power in the game, or because it affects/involves the player's friends/guildmates or enemies. (Of course, "fun" is also involved.) IMHO, a large impetus for MMO sandbox players is social in nature, since if you stuck a typical MMO sandbox player in front of a single-player sandbox (like Morrowind... which isn't a great example) then the player wouldn't enjoy the game as much. not play as long, and not be willing to spend hundreds of dollars to play. Of course, some of the lack of enjoyment from single-player MMO sandboxes is cruddy AI that's inferior to real players, but I suspect that only accounts for a fraction of the difference.

A MSPG player gets motivation from playing with friends, potentially meeting new friends, AND from the stories in the quests, as Margalis pointed out with "Mom the adventurer". The stories bring the NPCs to life (making up for very limited AI) and give the player a reason to want to collect mushrooms or kill trolls... because (a) it involves a NPC that the player "cares" about, and (b) the player wants to know what happens in the end of the story. (A poorly written story WON'T cause the player to "care" about the NPC and/or to want to learn what happens at the end of the story.)


2) Time commitment...

Because MMO sandbox players are socially involved in a world, they're willing to commit hundreds of hours.

As pointed out, MSPG player will only stick around until the content is consumed. At that point, the MSPG player and his friends will go to the next game. Furthermore, they're looking for quality content, which means that killing 5 orcs is fun, but 50 orcs is boring. I suspect that a MSPG player will stick around for 25-50 hours of play.

The time commitment works both ways... If a player can't afford to spend more than 5 hours in a game each week, then they won't be able to form strong social ties, won't join a guild, etc. Consequently, the only goals they can have are either story-based or to use the game as a way to meet up with their friends (at arranged times).


(Personally, I'm more of a MSPG player, and my assumptions/observations about MMO sandbox play could be wrong. (If so,tell me.))


I see points 1 and 2 as the most important differences, although issues like other players negatively affecting gameplay have an affect. However, if statements 1 and 2 are correct, then a world that combines both forms of play consists of two tiers: players that stay in the world for a long time and get socially involved (sandbox) and those that are more like tourists that come, consume the content, and leave (MSPG). Putting the two disperate play styles in one world seem like a tricky thing to do, both from a design perspective and a financial one. MSPG players won't pay $15/month since (a) they'll probably only play 20 hours over the entire month (1/4 of a sandox player's 20 hours per week), and (b) they'll get bored and leave after a month or two.

[Akkori]

Hmmmm. Well, it seems I missed something in my thinking on this and other issues. Something blatant. I didnt really consider that most of the people playing MMO's are idiots. Either literally stupid, or maybe English is their second (or third) language. Maybe they are 12. Maybe they really do just want a single player game in an online environment. So, with that in mind, maybe it really is out of the realms of possibiliity to have a game as cool and fufilling as I want? Well, its probably still possible, but it seems like it would be a huge undertaking, and not worth it for a corporation to do. So this leaves me, once again, with picking my favorite niche game. Not such a bad deal I guess.

I still think a sandbox game can co-exist peacefully with a combat-only system, with a social and economic system under it, and skill based. Putting aside all SWG hate (and views on how much the implementation of everythign sucked) for just a few seconds, isnt that pretty much what SWG was in the beginning? Everything was player-driven except combat. And the combat was (supposed to be) flexible, with myriad skill templates available so everyone could be different in some way. It just bugs the shit out of me that every time I try to see it from a new perspective, it seems that SWG had the potential to be the best MMO ever. Then SOE's Suits and LA killed it (but mostly LA). Sorry about the tangent...

I like the idea that the world evolves based on player actions. I picture a new game where on Launch day, there are only 2 cities for players to start in. They start working on skills and infrastructure. After a short time, an in-game event destroys both cities, leaving the players a completely empty world to build. No Dev cities, no technonolgy... nothing. All there is are the players, and the skills they managed to learn before the cities were destroyed. From that point on, everything in the game is player created. Cities are built, new skill "discovered", inventions lead to new tools and weapons, and transportation. NPC's start to pop up due to the political actions of player-elected Players. Certain player cities are made public, and NPC's move in and out. Players take up duties in the cities. Cities are destroyed through war or political manuevering, etc...

This actually ties in to a common assertion of mine. The Devs are really missing the boat by not letting some players help develop and fill the game with content of all sorts.

[HRose]

One of the reasons the story of Ultima V is important is because generally the game progresses via the story, not via the combat.  Because the story is integral to the gameplay, it matters.  That didn't happen because they threw a bunch of writers at the problem, it happened because Garriot designed it that way from the start

And isn't this the exact same thing I'm saying?

Right now the story is built to be fluff. The story can be great or crap, but it will remain fluff. What I'm saying is that this "jump" is not possible if we spend more money into the content to make it more rich. This is false. Not what I think. What I believe is that it's the DESIGN to be flawed. The overall structure. The systems within where the story should exist. We have already those good stories. We just need to put them in a structure where they are valuable. Because right now we are just wasting them.

It seems so.

[HRose]

Quests need to give the player an investment in doing the quest, and to do that, the quest giver needs investment and it needs to alter the world.

I agree with all your premises but I disagree on your conclusions. As I wrote in the other thread:

Branching quests aren't where the foundamental point is. The fundamental point is about making a game revolve around stories and characters. DISLODGING the quest mechanics from being just level-up ease of use. And make them focus on the story itself, the immersion.

So I agree on how you can make the story worthwhile. But I disagree when you say that the story is interesting only when it alters the world.

I just don't think it's one main trait. It adds something but it isn't anything fundamental.

About the first and second points of Mike Rozak. Well, this is what we are saying from a while (the two layers).

The point is that I still believe that the two parts can be brought together. And one be a gateway to the other. I strongly believe that the distinction between the two "player types" is a silly, superficial commonplace.

It's the game that should bring the player to the discovery of what it has to offer. Not the players to dictate what they want from a game.

[Venkman]

And I'm glad the term "massively-single player game" has been coined. That's been what I've considered the PvE side of the Diku spinoffs all along, but it's always taken me too long to say it. A bunch of people doing their own thing during combat for the singular purpose of advancement is a self-gratifying and fun experience. But there's very little "mulitplayer" about it (which is where it differs from PvP).

To me, this discussion has finally progressed to the next step, but there's still a clear dilineation:

• It can be done in theory and execution.
• It can't be done because the current players won't buy it.

I think we all understand #2 by this point, either from within this thread or more likely from general experience. People don't want the accountability a fully immersive relevant storyline would bring with it. The ideal of personal stories in a player-directed world requires factors players don't find fun en masse.

Therefore, while I feel a brand new experience is required to facilitate immersive stories, market realities will require whatever game that is to emulate something popular or it's not going to get the exposure. There's only so far outside the box one can go in the short term. This includes things like soloability, only some accountability, less punitive death, and so on.

Contrary to a popular assertion, the general playerbase are not idiots. They're just less interested in investing so deeply, emotionally and chronologically, into a game. These people want things to lean more on the side of diversionary-play, not immersive. They also outnumber those that do by many orders of magnitude.

The genre is going because the mass market games are getting less immersive. So whatever solution that comes to more relevantly integrate a story is going to need to take diversion into consideration. DDO may be the first to experiment with this, because the instances do require real decision making and do involve mistakes. Whether it becomes hugely popular will be very interesting to watch.

[Stephen Zepp]

I still think a sandbox game can co-exist peacefully with a combat-only system, with a social and economic system under it, and skill based. Putting aside all SWG hate (and views on how much the implementation of everythign sucked) for just a few seconds, isnt that pretty much what SWG was in the beginning? Everything was player-driven except combat. And the combat was (supposed to be) flexible, with myriad skill templates available so everyone could be different in some way. It just bugs the shit out of me that every time I try to see it from a new perspective, it seems that SWG had the potential to be the best MMO ever. Then SOE's Suits and LA killed it (but mostly LA). Sorry about the tangent...

I like the idea that the world evolves based on player actions. I picture a new game where on Launch day, there are only 2 cities for players to start in. They start working on skills and infrastructure. After a short time, an in-game event destroys both cities, leaving the players a completely empty world to build. No Dev cities, no technonolgy... nothing. All there is are the players, and the skills they managed to learn before the cities were destroyed. From that point on, everything in the game is player created. Cities are built, new skill "discovered", inventions lead to new tools and weapons, and transportation. NPC's start to pop up due to the political actions of player-elected Players. Certain player cities are made public, and NPC's move in and out. Players take up duties in the cities. Cities are destroyed through war or political manuevering, etc...

This actually ties in to a common assertion of mine. The Devs are really missing the boat by not letting some players help develop and fill the game with content of all sorts.

It was called Shadowbane...unfortunately execution sucked, and there were some fundamental game mechanics/play requirements that shot it into the ground (not to mention the crashes).

[Fargull]

Hmm... just tossing this out there.  One of the things that has really bothered me about grouping in MMOGs is it is another division.  While certainly greifing comes about from open looting and I am not sure how to correct that mechanic.  I don't like how the current crop of MMOG's limits the play ability to aligning the roll of groups as being only x amount of players.  UO did not have and really never needed grouping or the party... outside of ease of communication.  What does this half to do with story and the drives?  More in that currently the group (forced in most cases) again stratifies not only the player base, but the content.  I just don't like it.

[HRose]

More in that currently the group (forced in most cases) again stratifies not only the player base, but the content.  I just don't like it.

Why so?

[Alkiera]

More in that currently the group (forced in most cases) again stratifies not only the player base, but the content.  I just don't like it.

Why so?

It's a problem when you have 6 friends, and the group limit is 6, or 5.  You have to leave people out of what you're doing.  My group of RL friends ran into this quite a bit in later EQ.  You end up split up because you don't all fit in the artifically limited group size.

On the other hand, I can certainly see the issue from the other side... If you are designing content, you want to limit the number of people involved so that they don't trivialize it by bringing 20 people to what was designed as a 6 person fight.

Alkiera

[Akkori]

Is there any real benefit to having an online "mostly" single-player game? Can the _online_ part of it bring value to the game, and justify the subscription? I'm just wondering if what I am now thinking (and I am sure I am waaay behind all you guys) is already being done:

An online game where you play as the Hero of the story in a "personal dimension", where the entire world revolves around Your actions. When you are not out re-shaping the world, you can hang out "in town", which is a "home" dimension, where other Hero's gather to share the heroic adventures they had in *their* dimension. You can do stuff there too... buy goods from players, learn new skills, join with a few other Hero's to embark into a particularly dangerous Dimension together, etc...

Picture Ravenloft. Several different Realms where the Story is different. You can subscribe to Realms, and play there till you get bored, then switch. You play through that content till you get bored, then can switch to a totally different dimension.

Is that enough to get the idea? Sorry its rough, its coming to me even as I type it. This seems to be a good way to have engaging stories, where the players actions *matter*, and they can still interact with others *if they choose*.

[HRose]

It's a problem when you have 6 friends, and the group limit is 6, or 5.  You have to leave people out of what you're doing.  My group of RL friends ran into this quite a bit in later EQ.  You end up split up because you don't all fit in the artifically limited group size.

On the other hand, I can certainly see the issue from the other side... If you are designing content, you want to limit the number of people involved so that they don't trivialize it by bringing 20 people to what was designed as a 6 person fight.

Ah well. My idea of group up to four player would work. You could still split in two groups of three if you are six.

An online game where you play as the Hero of the story in a "personal dimension", where the entire world revolves around Your actions. When you are not out re-shaping the world, you can hang out "in town", which is a "home" dimension, where other Hero's gather to share the heroic adventures they had in *their* dimension. You can do stuff there too... buy goods from players, learn new skills, join with a few other Hero's to embark into a particularly dangerous Dimension together, etc...

Well, it's pretty much the idea I posted in the previous page.

[Akkori]

Great minds and all that.... and mine has the word "dimension", so its better, lol

j/k!

[Fargull]

More in that currently the group (forced in most cases) again stratifies not only the player base, but the content.  I just don't like it.

Why so?

It's a problem when you have 6 friends, and the group limit is 6, or 5.  You have to leave people out of what you're doing.  My group of RL friends ran into this quite a bit in later EQ.  You end up split up because you don't all fit in the artifically limited group size.

On the other hand, I can certainly see the issue from the other side... If you are designing content, you want to limit the number of people involved so that they don't trivialize it by bringing 20 people to what was designed as a 6 person fight.

Alkiera

Two good points; however, looking at everything from EQ to WOW, the group dynamic as currently setup is a barrier setup by the content designers as they focus on that specific size.  Yes, it makes the job easier, but again limits the play room.  If the game is broken because x amount of people have the "uBer IteM" then is it the fact they brought 20 people for an easy win or the item that is broken?

If you have content designed for x+ players, that is good, but not when it is set to five or 10 or 3... anything that isolates; at least to me, is bad design.

Does that help clarify?

:: Holy crap I should never post first thing in the morning...

[HaemishM]

Is there any real benefit to having an online "mostly" single-player game? Can the _online_ part of it bring value to the game, and justify the subscription?

I'm of the opinion the mainstream audience doesn't really give two shits about the Massive part of online games. They don't care if there are 6 billion, 600 or 6 players in the world, so long as they get to play with their friends or like minded people. They want most people to be window dressing and not much else.

As for your idea, it sounds like the Tabula Rasa concept.

[Hoax]

Does TR have pvp these days or not?

I need two new games for the sig and I can't come up with anything for the life of me.

/pour 40oz for Twilight War and the fun in AA