Fuck quest driven content.

[tmp]

When you're alternative to quest grinding is mob grinding, that's not really a choice. It's still a game play mechanic unique to this genre. Well, unique in that it usually involves exactly the same action over and over.

There's certainly grinding in other games and genres. Heck, leveling up in CoD# is grindy. However, the wrapper around that feels very different because it's not the same chain of four skills against every single target there is in the game.

It's kinda funny there isn't many people complaining about grind in say, Mario. After all it's pretty much using the single skill to jump over the fucking mushrooms all day long. All way to next level castle.

[Ashamanchill]

I knew something like this would eventually come up. Video games, or any game really, have repetative actions, we get it. It's the perception of doing things over and over again that determines if things are grindy or not.

For instance say, Aion, where you are killing the same mob over and over, literally thousands of times to gain a level. Grindy. Vs, say, WoW, where the exp gain is back loaded, and yes you are killing those mobs, but then you run back to town (experiencing a piece of terrain other than the same fucking foozle hill in Aion), and turn in the qst to get exp, cash, items etc. Not grindy (to me). That at least feels rewarding.

[Ratman_tf]

Most people haven't put 1845 hours into Mario 3 (Most  ) whereas MMORPGs are aimed at long term play.

[ezrast]

For me, the difference is one of engagement. Tetris is perhaps the most repetitious video game in existence but it works because every single decision is important, both short- and long-term (inasmuch as Tetris has a long term). With MMOs you figure out your optimal rotation pretty quickly, and from there it's very easy to become disconnected from the game even while you're still sitting there pressing buttons. Plus, since character progression is mostly one-dimensional, none of the big-picture decisions you make (questing vs mob grinding, where to level, etc) really matter since in the end it all amounts to just another few bubbles on the xp bar regardless.

[rattran]

Most people haven't put 1845 hours into Mario 3 (Most  ) whereas MMORPGs are aimed at long term play.

What kind of insane OCD'er puts 1845 hours into any game? Shit that's a whole year of full work weeks.

green

[Slyfeind]

From an RP perspective, you might have just killed 700 wolves, but did you know to collect their tails? No? Then STFU bitch and go out and get me 10 tails.
From a mechanical perspective, fuck the old EQ1 style of "shit that rat dropped a testicle. gimme a sec I have to alt-tab to allakhazam to see if it's for anything before I sell it. Ah it's for a quest, better keep it and have it clog my inventory for the next 3 hours/days/months."

Maybe those rat testicles (and all other quest drops) could be "Double-click this to start the quest." Even better, maybe have some kind of library you go to, with sages and crap, and they could tell you where to take it. You'd get two quests in one! It'd also be annoying to most of the players. I'm probably the only one who would think that's fun.

I don't like the overly-long wordiness of the questgivers in LOTRO.

Yeah, PoBS and WAR and CO did that too, and a great many WoW: WotLK quests for that matter. I make it a point to skip every other sentence in quest text, just to see if it makes it better. (It does.)

[Draegan]

It's going to take an action-y type MMOG to break the mold.  Whether it's a persistent FPS or some other arcade type game.  It'll have to stop with the sequencing of the same hotkeys through a fight.

Questing and Grinding will be acceptable again because you're playing the game and not the UI.

[Nebu]

It's going to take an action-y type MMOG to break the mold.  

I disagree.  I think that breaking the mold could also be done by someone artfully combining games like puzzle pirates (fun yet brief minigames), WoW (achievement + atmosphere), and ATiTD (building + societal dynamics).  There are a number of fantastic gaming aspects already available in current subscription games.  They just need to be streamlined and combined in a fashion that doesn't create yet another soul-sucking grind.

Actiony has been done to death in FPS and presents many technical problems in massive worlds.  The key, I believe, is to take the turn-based hybrid approach we see now in MMO's and make them feel more proactive/reactive to the player.  Coupling action-y to a character building, long-term model seems too difficult to balance and maintain.  

[01101010]

As for EQ's pacing; you're right, Koy, no other game has done it and there's a reason for that.  EQ mobs took a minute or more to kill per mob.  That gave the puller plenty of time to run out, grab one from the pack and run back just as it was dying (or to kite it for a moment) so the tank could move on to the next.   I don't think the modern playerbase of MMOs would put up with that kind of time frame, and nobody seems interested in developing niche games.  They're certainly not willing to risk a few million trying it out 'just to see.'

FFXI did it... at least that is what i gleaned from my time playing as a ranger in that game and then as a paladin. I have no comparison since I never got into EQ, so take this with a grain of salt. However, in FFXI it was all about the chains and xp bonuses you could get (pre-BURN partying). Chain 5s were the golden goose if your puller could keep up with the pace and always have the next mob waiting. In fact, this is what propelled many to push bards into pulling for the sleep queue'd mobs. FFXI seemed to be broken into parts though - the main quest line part which was never done for anything other than the rank and story, and the xp part which was buzzsaw grinding.

Of course the only real quests I cared about back then were the AF armor quests...which sadly do not exist in other games.

[Draegan]

It's going to take an action-y type MMOG to break the mold.  

I disagree.  I think that breaking the mold could also be done by someone artfully combining games like puzzle pirates (fun yet brief minigames), WoW (achievement + atmosphere), and ATiTD (building + societal dynamics).  There are a number of fantastic gaming aspects already available in current subscription games.  They just need to be streamlined and combined in a fashion that doesn't create yet another soul-sucking grind.

Actiony has been done to death in FPS and presents many technical problems in massive worlds.  The key, I believe, is to take the turn-based hybrid approach we see now in MMO's and make them feel more proactive/reactive to the player.  Coupling action-y to a character building, long-term model seems too difficult to balance and maintain.  

Minigames and achievements can be added to any game to make it more interesting.  Minigames for keeping you occupied when one activity gets boring or tedious and achievements are fun since it gives you a goal to work towards.

Society building can be sprung in any game as long as you have the tools in the game to make it, and don't allow players to go around them.  Although if you're referring to sociatal as the aim of the game, it would be interesting as well.  What kind of mechanics, or game style, who support that on a large scale AND be fun?  Building things is interesting, but how does that scale with people?  What are you doing while building?  Are you physically laying bricks?  Or you commanding minions of workers?  What is the typical game session like as far as what you're actually doing minute by minute.

I think any game style could fit in, you obviously just have to make it work which is the incredibly difficult thing to do.

[Gunzwei]

It's going to take an action-y type MMOG to break the mold.  

I disagree.  I think that breaking the mold could also be done by someone artfully combining games like puzzle pirates (fun yet brief minigames), WoW (achievement + atmosphere), and ATiTD (building + societal dynamics).  There are a number of fantastic gaming aspects already available in current subscription games.  They just need to be streamlined and combined in a fashion that doesn't create yet another soul-sucking grind.

Actiony has been done to death in FPS and presents many technical problems in massive worlds.  The key, I believe, is to take the turn-based hybrid approach we see now in MMO's and make them feel more proactive/reactive to the player.  Coupling action-y to a character building, long-term model seems too difficult to balance and maintain.  

More user content creation options would be breaking the mold for me. Imagine what people's reaction would have been if it was Blizzard who launched the CoX Mission Architect to let people create their own 5-man dungeons with a simple to use UI and presets (mobs+boss, face off against a horde of mobs, puzzle-oriented dungeon). People would shit their pants.

Any sort of player building would be nice for a change.

Most the time now when I'm playing an MMO I just sit back and wonder what kind of retard designed some of this non-sense. Some of the most innovative ideas I've seen over the years mostly came from modding communities, not development teams.

[01101010]

More user content creation options would be breaking the mold for me. Imagine what people's reaction would have been if it was Blizzard who launched the CoX Mission Architect to let people create their own 5-man dungeons with a simple to use UI and presets (mobs+boss, face off against a horde of mobs, puzzle-oriented dungeon). People would shit their pants.

Any sort of player building would be nice for a change.

Most the time now when I'm playing an MMO I just sit back and wonder what kind of retard designed some of this non-sense. Some of the most innovative ideas I've seen over the years mostly came from modding communities, not development teams.

I tend to agree with you on the modding point. However, for every gem you get, you also have hundreds of absolute shit designs. Dunno if I could suffer through playing/testing new maps and dungeons just trying to find the one that is fun. Christ, just saying that makes the grind alarm go off... ever so faintly.

[Venkman]

When you're alternative to quest grinding is mob grinding, that's not really a choice. It's still a game play mechanic unique to this genre. Well, unique in that it usually involves exactly the same action over and over.

There's certainly grinding in other games and genres. Heck, leveling up in CoD# is grindy. However, the wrapper around that feels very different because it's not the same chain of four skills against every single target there is in the game.

It's kinda funny there isn't many people complaining about grind in say, Mario. After all it's pretty much using the single skill to jump over the fucking mushrooms all day long. All way to next level castle.

This has been raised often. And I just did in this thread about CoD4. I've no problem spending dozens of hours playing team deathmatch hardcore mode on a private server playing through the same 20 maps while leveling up for new weapons and abilities. It's because while the game is the same, the play is constantly changing.

That is not something you can get in a static-content MMO. You can get it in PvP, like a Battleground/Scenario setup. I always enjoy those unless I'm cockblocked by some completely contradictory grind to get there.

More user content creation options would be breaking the mold for me. Imagine what people's reaction would have been if it was Blizzard who launched the CoX Mission Architect to let people create their own 5-man dungeons with a simple to use UI and presets (mobs+boss, face off against a horde of mobs, puzzle-oriented dungeon). People would shit their pants.

If I wanted more mods, I'd go play NWN and trade scenarios. There's a market for that, but it's more the D&D online one than the content-consumers who want the polish they're paying $60 to get. 30 years of people wanting customized content, 30 years of people having quite adequate tools to deliver it, and nowadays with entire content delivery services to make it easier than ever, and all I've seen as a result is the very best eventually get hired by Valve or Blizzard where their stuff then goes bigtime.

The problem has never been the tech nor the money. It's about the skill, talent, and persistence to see it through. I'm all about enabling the iteration, but I'm only going to pay for the polished high water marks.

[Ingmar]

It's going to take an action-y type MMOG to break the mold.  

I disagree.  I think that breaking the mold could also be done by someone artfully combining games like puzzle pirates (fun yet brief minigames), WoW (achievement + atmosphere), and ATiTD (building + societal dynamics).  There are a number of fantastic gaming aspects already available in current subscription games.  They just need to be streamlined and combined in a fashion that doesn't create yet another soul-sucking grind.

Actiony has been done to death in FPS and presents many technical problems in massive worlds.  The key, I believe, is to take the turn-based hybrid approach we see now in MMO's and make them feel more proactive/reactive to the player.  Coupling action-y to a character building, long-term model seems too difficult to balance and maintain.  

More user content creation options would be breaking the mold for me. Imagine what people's reaction would have been if it was Blizzard who launched the CoX Mission Architect to let people create their own 5-man dungeons with a simple to use UI and presets (mobs+boss, face off against a horde of mobs, puzzle-oriented dungeon). People would shit their pants.

Any sort of player building would be nice for a change.

Most the time now when I'm playing an MMO I just sit back and wonder what kind of retard designed some of this non-sense. Some of the most innovative ideas I've seen over the years mostly came from modding communities, not development teams.

CoH can do that because there's no expectation of bosses dropping specific pieces of loot. Games like NWN can do it because there's really no long term repercussions to an economy or to other players if some dude twinks out his home character. Letting players get their hands into the loot delivery process in a game like WoW, though, just means doom.

[UnSub]

To be fair, CoH/V really didn't handle rewards for player created content very well either. They created a new resource (tickets) that served instead of loot and let you trade them for random rolls on loot tables / certain things while also providing XP and in-game currency rewards. Players quickly found the best returns (which is on top of the fact that player-created missions have next-to-zero travel time, meaning they can be completed more quickly than conventional missions.

At the very least CoH/V needed a diminishing returns on rewards obtained from player created missions.

[Gunzwei]

It was more the XP than anything that caused the flood of tickets. If you had the right AT's and knew how to work the level bridges you could powerlevel players extremely fast. This resulted in a mass accumulation of tickets which about every 2-3 hours hit the max you could hold as a byproduct. Even after the comm officer Xp correction (which I never personally did) you could power level a level 1 to 50 in a few days.

I didn't find the rewards to be gamebreaking though. Lot of players were making money, getting the high level toons they always wanted, and for the most part enjoying the game.

Letting players get their hands into the loot delivery process in a game like WoW, though, just means doom.

Never said user-created dungeons should drop specific pieces of loot made by its creator. I just mentioned the layout/theme should be user created. Blizzard could easily just throw together a big list of randomly generated BoP items with a few specifically itemized pieces of gear tossed in that mobs could drop (Diablo).

[Ratman_tf]

Player made dungeons can be set up with templates and restrictions so they're not loot pinatas or heinous deathtraps with no real purpose. (Must have at least one exit, lawl.)

Letting people "Second Life" the average MMOG would be stupid. Letting them play with a dungeon editor can be fine.

[DLRiley]

The lolz no exit is to be expected and designed out. But if players first instinct is to make infinite xp loops than something is wrong with your xp system not the generated dungeons.

[ShenMolo]

Fuck it right in it's ear. This shit just makes me want to go back to Hellgate London where I don't have to pay a monthy fee for a shitty single player game.

If some random jackass NPC wants me to collect 10 rat tails for him, I'm going to punch a dev right in the face.  

This rant was brought to you by the Lord of the Rings Online free trial.

I concur.

[Mrbloodworth]

Player made dungeons can be set up with templates and restrictions so they're not loot pinatas or heinous deathtraps with no real purpose. (Must have at least one exit, lawl.)

Letting people "Second Life" the average MMOG would be stupid. Letting them play with a dungeon editor can be fine.

www.ryzom.com

[Lantyssa]

If drops were more Diablo-ish and less set loot tables, it'd be easy to let player made dungeons handle loot drops.  Have the game figure out the monster's loot level and it handles it like any other chance for a drop.

[Ingmar]

The other issue is WoW bosses are all scripted to high heaven. How did CoH handle this for player-created enemies? I guess a boss fight in WoW is a bit of a different animal than an archvillain in CoH anyway.

[Gunzwei]

Mission Architect system - Video Trailer for AE, covers some of the features.

AE let you pick out a mob type (minion, lt, boss, AV) then pick from an powerpool list. You set a difficulty which determined which powers would be availble from the powerpool. All mobs were required to have at least 1 ranged attack, but I can't remember if they were required to have a melee attack. Also You could add a few conditionals to an objective boss and their prefered fighting style (melee/range). Difficulty ranges were pretty varied depending on mob-type and their powerpools but melee mobs in particular hit ridiculously hard in comparison to standard CoX mobs. Some people made missions that were just meant to be insanely hard since most the mobs were using powerpool combos that rip through most standard characters.

For heavy scripted games like WoW/Eq you would have to use presets that people just choose from when it comes to the boss and just let players flavor it (name, model, dialog). Something like Create Dungeon->Pick Coliseum Theme->Select from Coliseum Boss Battle Presets/Templates if that makes sense.

[Ratman_tf]

www.ryzom.com

Is Ryzom any good? I haven't really followed it.

[rattran]

No, but for some reason it won't stay dead. It's the Jean Grey of mmogs.

[Ratman_tf]

No, but for some reason it won't stay dead. It's the Jean Grey of mmogs.

Oh well. Back to raiding then! 

[Mrbloodworth]

www.ryzom.com

Is Ryzom any good? I haven't really followed it.

I have always thought it was excellent for what it is. Interesting skill/ability system (you make your skills), lovely art work, mob migrations, sandbox like game play, and the first MMO editor (Some would say where CoH got the idea, or at least patterned theirs after, but the CoH ones is much more limited) that fits to a "T" what you described as a good mmo editor.

[Venkman]

Ryzom was a good idea that suffered first from being generic sci-fi/fantasy hybird then through a series of business models that didn't really stick too well. Iirc,it originated as a technology proof-of-concept from Nevrax to peddle their technology suite, and during that development they thought it became big enough to rival other games for users' time and money.

The bricks system is probably the most unique thing it had at launch: the ability to customize your skills a fair number of ways, from whether it had a dot, how it was ranged, etc. Never got too far with that but it seemed like a good idea on paper.

Then later they finally settled on something like a build-your-own adventure kit thing as MrB mentioned.

[UnSub]

How did CoH handle this for player-created enemies?

99% of CoH/V giant monster / AV fights are tank and spank. A small number have a bit more of a trick to them, but it is much more free form than WoW's boss fights.

[Zetor]

In my experience, custom mobs created via the COH mission architect tend to just use their abilities (either copies of player abilities, or sometimes more powerful versions of player abilities) "on cooldown" whenever they're available with some rudimentary melee/ranged power selection AI. This, combined with uneven power scaling, also means that some powersets are absolutely devastating on custom mobs; finding out which ones these are is half the fun when creating a MA arc.  

(anecdote: after testing and review feedback, I ended up changing powersets of almost all custom mobs in my arc at one point, except for 2 minions)

[Khaldun]

I think in the end an important question is, "Why do people hate to group and prefer to solo in a multiplayer game, often especially if they've played games of this kind before?" That's what drives the questing systems that are following WoW (and diku) templates.

I don't think it's a deep-seated preference for solo play or a generic aversion to grouping, for the most part. It's a collision of three design principles:

1) using time as the basic index for difficulty of gameplay. E.g., the most difficult or challenging tasks with the highest rewards are typically the most time-consuming to complete
2) making the main unit of progression in a persistent gameworld the power or capacity of individual characters
3) making accumulation of environmental objects, e.g., loot, the main differential between characters who have the same amount of time invested and the same progression achieved.

That's a perfect storm in terms of driving most players away from groups or making them hate the need to group.  Time: when the most demanding tasks are time-intensive but also require groups, you have very strong needs to coordinate your schedule with other players and to build trusting connections so that you know that when you commit to a long time investment, others will be equally committed. Those kinds of connections are hard to build and hard to sustain. If there's an alternative (time-intensive tasks which can be completely without exposure to the risk of grouping with other players or the difficulty of building trusted social networks), most players will prefer the alternative even IF a good group experience is more fun.

Individual progression: disincentivizes working a group, because you get nothing from it.

Loot accumulation as source of differential success: makes grouping a major risk.

----------

There's small tweaks that push back on some of this. Make the most group-necessary tasks the least time-intensive and make grouping an automatic mechanic in those areas. Public quests or the way Toontown handles grouping are good examples. Individual progression: emphasize guild progression as a more rewarding mechanic than individual levelling. Shadowbane, Eve, even Warhammer tried for that. Loot accumulation: there are systems which take some of the risk of grouping out a bit.

But really, the only way to make a gameworld more fundamentally social is to make it more sandboxy and player-driven, like Eve. Even there you can retain plenty of OCD-type solo-friendly activities for players to drop into when they're not in the mood for more interactive gameplay, but you can't break away from the paradox of people demanding soloabilty in a multiplayer game until you really look hard at why grouping is so risky and inconvenient in the dominant paradigm.

[Nebu]

If time is your metric then solo play should take longer to accomplish the same task as group play.  I'm fine with this.  Sadly, this will never happen because subscription retention is closely tied to the development of social bonding.  The only way to reinforce social networks are to force grouping to accomplish significant milestones within the game. 

Grouping --> social networks --> retention. 

Games require grouping either because they believe it enhances the revenue stream or because it is such a core to gameplay that players would revolt if you could obtain top tier gear without some imposed cockblock. 

In some ways I hate MMO players for the demands they place on MMOs.  It's making me doubtful that I'll ever be able to enjoy another MMO that isn't built for a smaller, niche market.

[ghost]

If time is your metric then solo play should take longer to accomplish the same task as group play.  I'm fine with this.  Sadly, this will never happen because subscription retention is closely tied to the development of social bonding.  The only way to reinforce social networks are to force grouping to accomplish significant milestones within the game. 

Is it the only way?  Wow seems to have "soloized" the MMO experience, to a large extent.  You can play the whole game solo if you want, although some of the very high end content does require grouping.  You don't have to raid to enjoy Wow.  Arena is a nice point in the middle, in that you can participate with only one or two partners.  In the end, it seems to me that social bonding develops social bonding.  Make guilds easy and accessible and chat functions usable-there you will have your answer.

[pxib]

If soloing is less efficient than grouping, people will play in groups. Designers don't have to "force" anybody to do anything... players will automatically gravitate towards efficiency whether it's fun (or even explicitly designed) or not.

[Khaldun]

But that's only if grouping doesn't leave one highly exposed to risk of lost time or resources. E.g., if levelling by group is more efficient in a side-by-side comparison but the soloer has less aggregate exposure to uncompleted tasks (uncompleted because of people dropping out or because other people are stupid and incompetent), then it doesn't matter that the grouping XP rate gain is technically more efficient. If the grouping mechanism is 'casual-friendly' because the risk exposure is low and the social networks don't require serious effort to maintain, people will readily group.