1 million of you are keeping Blizzard in money hats.

[WindupAtheist]

Is there some huge difference between grinding up skills and grinding levels that makes one inherently more fun than the other?

Yes, there is.
No, I haven't figured out what it is yet.

Schild, a little help?  You're a level-hater, right?

Day 1, you log on. You find yourself in a big clearing with a bunch of other people. All you have is some shoes and clothing. Around you is a forest, and in the forest are some bad guys.

Please don't post things like this where Raph might see them.  He'll take one look and go "Yes! YES! It'll have oxen-breeding and pottery-making and player justice and it'll be GREAT!"  Then he'll run off to make Sitting In The Woods Online, and our chances of getting a real workable MMO out of him in the next five years will drop to nil.   

[schild]

I hate any sort of level. Skill levels. Character Levels.

The only thing I don't mind levels in is actual spell/weapon types. That's to say - tiers. Like the Master Sword system in Zelda. Or Mario, Super Mario, Fire Flower Mario, Racoon Mario, Frog Mario, Tanooki Mario and Invincible Mario.

You'd get bigger support from me about dropping the hotkey system. I'd prefer the mouse-clicking fest of Diablo to hotkeys.

[Llava]

Hell, they were planning to institute a /pray command, so people could invent their own religions - the more people /prayed, the more powerful their religion became.

Awesome idea, but the most powerful religion would of course be something dumb as hell.  First Church Of Our Lady Burrito or something equally asinine.

(btw, for everyone on this forum, asinine is spelled with one S)

[WindupAtheist]

Hrm.  I'll think on it then.  Something to do with instantaneous micro-advancements, instead of a work/reward cycle.  In the meantime, screw this, I'm going to bed.

And people, quit talking about Dawn.  It doesn't even deserve to be mentioned as something that was once a potential game.  My sanity is at steak.

[Ironwood]

That's fine. I'm sorry 90+% of the gamers in the world don't give a flying rats ass about computers and at this rate I'll be among them within a year or two. My computer at the moment serves as a console for real time strategy games and first person shooters. In fact I have a seperate PS2 hooked up to the monitor that I can switch over to when I actually want to play GAMES. Your future of spreadsheet wars is bleak, and I'm sorry your hands get tired after playing a console game for 3 hours. But the problem doesn't lie with me. People want to know how to beat Blizzard. Beat them where they don't exist. Consoles. No one has been able to beat Blizzard in the past on the PC and it isn't going to start with SOE, NCSoft, Webzen, Turbine, Funcom, Mythic or whoever. It just won't fucking happen. Their vision of the future is plagued with tunnelvision. At this point the only ones who stand a chance out of that group are Webzen with games like Huxley on the 360 and even then they Must Get Microsoft to release a Keyboard/Mouse for it since it's an FPS. But what do I know, Halo 2 sold hojillion copies.

Edit since you responded twice: Stop being a douche. I can only assume you suck ass at console games from what you've said because describing MMOG combat as "hitting 1 and waiting to attack" is what is known as exaggeration. Unfortunately it's not very exaggerated.

Um.  Once again you're hitting me right where I don't care.  My main point is that I don't yet think the maturity of online consoles will support what you think you need to do.  That's all.  It might be fine where you are to look around and see great games on console that you love and some online play options, but that's a far different proposition to what I see here; which is everyone with a PC and BB in the house and hardly anyone with online consoles.  It's about the marketplace, not what I personally think of gaming.

For what it's worth, yes, I have consoles, yes I play them and, yes, marathon sessions of Caliber happen in my household.  No idea where you suddenly start bashing my console hate strawman, but it's really, really silly.  My point was that to replace every move in WoW with a corresponding combo joystick move would be totally RSI Ass.  A point that only Haem seemed to follow.

Beat Blizzard where they don't exist, you say.  Don't be a noob.  Right now the market isn't ready for that competition, I say, and WHEN IT IS, they'll just come over there and beat you there too.  Rock and Roll racing FTW.

NB - I don't care.  Really.  Don't get in a tizzy about my posts if you really want to get so very, very, very pretentious - See "This is known as exaggeration, my good man, I own a message board dontcha know.  You peasant".

Heh.

Penfold - What game are you describing.  I am interested in it's views and wish to subscribe to it's newsletter.  Or are we just ONCE AGAIN playing the 'oooh, wishing I had a pony' game.

[schild]

Um.  Once again you're hitting me right where I don't care.  My main point is that I don't yet think the maturity of online consoles will support what you think you need to do.  That's all.  It might be fine where you are to look around and see great games on console that you love and some online play options, but that's a far different proposition to what I see here; which is everyone with a PC and BB in the house and hardly anyone with online consoles.  It's about the marketplace, not what I personally think of gaming.

Final Fantasy XI proves that consoles can do what I want them to do. The only hurdle is the harddrive. Also, DOA2 Online was glorious and DOA4 sounds like it's going to have a full MMORPG feel. Housing with trophies, items and shit. Accessories you can get through winning teh moneyz in victory. It's good stuff.

For what it's worth, yes, I have consoles, yes I play them and, yes, marathon sessions of Caliber happen in my household.  No idea where you suddenly start bashing my console hate strawman, but it's really, really silly.  My point was that to replace every move in WoW with a corresponding combo joystick move would be totally RSI Ass.

If you think WoW with Zelda style gameplay would be ass, you're positively nuts. Get rid of the melee combat skills and base it on items and your own reflex skills. It would be love. I'd even play that on the Revolution controller.

Beat Blizzard where they don't exist, you say.  Don't be a noob.  Right now the market isn't ready for that competition, I say, and WHEN IT IS, they'll just come over there and beat you there too.  Rock and Roll racing FTW.

The installed base of PS2s on the market is over 10 times the size of the entire MMORPG industry. There's room for competition and the market is ready. Publishers just aren't willing to drop the dollars into it - though with WoW dominating the PC end, they should be. Also, Rock n Roll racing? I don't know why you're calling me a noob, but it would take Blizzard a decade to make another MMOG.

[Ironwood]

But it's been proven time and time again that, with the right vision and the right people, throwing money at the problem makes it go away.

Blizzard HAS the right vision and people, as they've proved time and time again.  And now they have enough money to make global warming go away.

I'm not sure it would take them a decade if push came to shove.

Oh, and I put it to you that if you put Zelda style control on WoW you would still not play it.  And why on earth would people come to play a single player type game in a Mmorg environment.   It would be like having a birthday party and inviting the local Psychiatric ward.  And the problems inherint in the game would still be there.  I see them as threefold :  The Grind, the speed of play and, oh dear God, above all; THE OTHER PEOPLE.

Don't mess up my Zelda experience by putting Toban or Tigole in there.

Control and environment are secondary considerations for me (though perhaps not for you) at the moment.  I'm burned out on WoW not due to the control, since Rogue Combat IS a mini-game and a damn fun one, but due to the fact that I'm required to group at my level with LARGE amounts of total slap-dicks.  I'm hoping that D&D will combat this, since everything points to yes, but there it looks as if the combat and control will be a total dissappointment.

I dunno.  To be honest with you, and myself, you guys are all looking forward far too much whereas I'm sitting here thinking - well, this is where we are and we're gonna be here quite a while.

Nothing will change in the next five years, minimum.  The days of direct competition are gone and all we can hope for at this stage is some kind of niche revolution.

[schild]

Hotkey, Hotkey, Hotkey, Finishing move. Whoop.

Other people claimed it was me, but it wasn't. Some people just don't like fun. I, on the other hand, do.

Ironwood, you should really be looking forward more, because really - that attitude is why the market is the way it is. People are comfortable and willing to plop down money for rehashed diku derived shit. I'm Not.

[Margalis]

Final Fantasy XI proves that consoles can do what I want them to do. The only hurdle is the harddrive. Also, DOA2 Online was glorious and DOA4 sounds like it's going to have a full MMORPG feel. Housing with trophies, items and shit. Accessories you can get through winning teh moneyz in victory. It's good stuff.

Except for the fighting, which will be as lousy as it ever was.  

Anyway FFXI played pretty well with a PS2 controller. I think MMORPGs have fallen into a local minima as far as control. I mean, I look at screenshots of various games and I see a screen with 2 rows of 20 hotbar items each, 4 other random open windows - it's just crazy. And the cost to performance ratio is absurd.

In 1993 you could play Street Fighter 2 with a stick and 6 buttons, and the fighting there is far better than in any MMORPG. No menus, no hotbars. Or take a game like Tekken, where the movelist is very deep with just 4 buttons. The idea that you need hundreds of icons all over the place and F1-F50 to do someone is crazy.

MMORPGs tend to have a lot more breadth than depth in fighting. Like, I have "fireball" level 1-20, "ice blast" level 1-20, etc etc etc ad nauseam. It really makes me ill to look at screenshots of people with advanced UI setups - that's stuff I don't want to touch with a ten foot pole. The actual screen (you know, the thing you are supposed to be watching!) is almost an afterthought after all the junky icons and windows are thrown everywhere on top of it.

IMO these games would be a lot better off if, instead of offering 20 levels of 20 types of spells, offered a smaller but more refined movelist with some actual depth.

By depth what I mean is if you look at a game like Go, the rules are very simple, but the game is still hard to learn and be good at. Then there is checkers, which has more complex rules than Go but is a much simpler game in the actual playing. Just adding more stuff you can do doesn't make the experience any better, deeper, or more skillfull.

The combat in MMORPGs is for the most part not any deeper than stomping on goombas. The fact that it takes 40 icons onscreen is just insane.

[schild]

The combat in MMORPGs is for the most part not any deeper than stomping on goombas. The fact that it takes 40 icons onscreen is just insane.

40 Icons and less skill. You don't have to "aim" in an MMORPG. That word doesn't even exist in them yet.

[Margalis]

When I played the E&B beta I was really amped until I actually got into combat. If that game had had real combat I would have probably loved it to death. I mean, it was really cool how I could customize my ship, outfit it with weapons and stuff...and then press A and auto-attack something to death, yeah! That's what I look for in ship to ship combat, sitting back and doing nothing.

BTW there are new screenshots of the Conan game. Pics of some guy slicing off some other guy's head. I think it looks pretty good actually. Very uncluttered screen, groups of enemies travelling in packs (guys riding evil elephant things and other guys milling around them). I think I'm actually looking forward to that because I thought AO was quite neat in some ways.

[Ironwood]

Ah, but is that active head-slicing or totally trivial graphical head-slicing ?

Schild - I'm Not either.  Apart from WoW I haven't bought a game in as long as I can remember.  The industry is fucked at the moment.  HL2 proved that to me (1 step forward, 2 steps back).  I plonked down for WoW and played it because I enjoyed it and it was fun.  Now, not so much.  Because of Raids.  Which, as we've done to death here, suck.

The only thing that anyone's had to say that's broke any fresh ground here is using the Real Physics for Magic, ala HL2.  Yeah.  Let's try that.  But I'm still not sure what you two are trying to say harking back to Street Fighter.  Really.

[schild]

I thought Ravenholm (the village area - 3rd or 4th area into HL2) was 5 steps forward in terms of atmosphere and level design.

Half-Life 2 did lots of things very well. It did a couple things perfectly. It made a new weapon - the gravity gun - a cliche in less than 24 hours. But 2 steps back it was not. Doom 3 was two steps back.

[Trippy]

Is there some huge difference between grinding up skills and grinding levels that makes one inherently more fun than the other?  They're both just character advancment systems that serve just about the same purpose.  You either put the time in to raise up a skill or you put the time in to raise up a level.  It's still just numbers going higher as you put more time in.

The end result over a long period of time is the same -- it's how some games handle the shorter periods of time that can make skill advancement feel different than level advancement. With experience points and levels as long as you are getting experience you feel like you are progressing. With skill points, depending on the "granularity" of the advancement it can sometimes feel like you are standing still. E.g. you might spend an hour beating on monsters and not see your weapon or other combat skills go up at all. In the PnP world there wasn't an easy way of fixing this without requiring a lot of book keeping. With computers the book keeping is not an issue so you can you can fix this problem in CRPGs by increasing the frequency of skill increases while decreasing the amount of each skill increase (i.e. allow for fractional point increases). Some CRPGs, however, still use(d) PnP-style skill point systems where skills only go up in increments of whole points (EQ was like this, for example).

Another more subtle difference between level-based games and skill-based games is that with skills you often end of doing strange things just to raise certain skills which can make the gameplay feel "artificial". Macroing is obviously one such technique. To give another more long-winded example, the Defense skill in EQ was not an easy skill to raise unless you were a tank class. If you weren't you probably weren't getting beat on enough to max your Defense skill for your particular level. What some people did to work around this problem was to duel a Magician who was roughly the same level (you couldn't get combat skill point increases from fighting things that were too low level). The Magician would summon a weak hitting pet (a la the Earth pet), the person needing the Defense skill raises would turn his or her back to the pet (to limit parries and blocks), and the Magician would sic the pet on that person. After a long while of getting beat on you might or might not get a skill point increase.

[Ironwood]

I thought Ravenholm (the village area - 3rd or 4th area into HL2) was 5 steps forward in terms of atmosphere and level design.

Half-Life 2 did lots of things very well. It did a couple things perfectly. It made a new weapon - the gravity gun - a cliche in less than 24 hours. But 2 steps back it was not. Doom 3 was two steps back.

Nope, again I'm gonna argue with you because I'm at work and bored as fuck :  DOOM3 didn't even acknowledge steps.  There were no steps.  It was like, let's take the original doom and slap some art on.  And, you're right, it sucked fucking donkeys.  Couple it with 'black screen TM - FOR IMMERSION' and you've got a right fucking stinker.

I think the original halflife already had atmosphere and level design OUT THE ASS.  So long as you ignored Xen.  Which I liked...  But what made HL2 such a dramatic dissafuckingpointment was the enormity of the suckitude of the AI.  That's where it went two steps back.  The rest was adding graphics and more imersion and better levels, but if you fill them with PUDDING HEADS who you wade through, then what's the fucking point ?

I wanted to be flushed out with grenades again.  I was ready for them this time.  Instead I got to shoot them in the face while they shuffled two steps right and then two steps left.  Fuck that.

But I do enjoy our conversations.

[schild]

See, I didn't care much for Half-Life 1 at all. I think Deus Ex did more for that genre. But this is about MMORPGs. And the only thing that's been shown to me in that sector of gaming is that WoW is the perfect iteration of Diku+Graphics and has proven that the entire idea is beautiful in theory and sucks knob in execution. The premise should be fun on paper. But rarely is - and when one part of it is finally fun (as is the case in the exploration of WoW, or the crafting of Horizons, or the economy of SW:G, etc) the rest of the game bites ass. The economy and crafting in WoW is Meh/Uninspired at best. Everything except the crafting in Horizons is an abortion, and the economy of SW:G fell to the complete drooling retardness that is your generic MMORPG gamer.

I hold the "don't treat your players like retards" flag high. Go freak power. Unfortunately your average player is retarded. And WoW is perfect for them.

That is what is known as a stalemate within a genre. The MMORPG genre is stagnant and boring. Companies won't fund new/interesting ideas unless they think it can make more money than WoW because the people with the money are tunnel-vision morons. And when something interesting finally does get made (ATiTD, Eve, Starport, etc) the production is such ass due to a lack of budget that even the most non-judgemental and accepting MMORPGer can't bring themselves to play it and the game will forever remain niche.

So Raph, I finally have my list for you. It's really easy and I'd like to think you can do it.

1. Prove me wrong¹.




¹[in actions, not words].

[Ironwood]

Um.  I agree with your Stagnant and Boring paragraph, but I think you're personalising your views of WoW far, far too much (as usual, since you seem to hate it.)

[schild]

Um.  I agree with your Stagnant and Boring paragraph, but I think you're personalising your views of WoW far, far too much (as usual, since you seem to hate it.)

I paid my 80 fucking dollars and got a sped up version of goddamn Everquest with the exact same endgame and battle animations that didn't even compare to the one year old at the time City of Heroes. Fuck that.

The art book is nice.

WoW needs housing.

[Roac]

I suspect the issue is consistency of the openness; when you're "out there" you want to not come across a house. Is that accurate?

Yes.  Imagine a rural area with houses placed on 10 or 20 acres of land; you're still among civilization.  If it were me, I'd suggest a mix of strategies - but I have the luxury of not having to worry about costs.  For example, I would say that for city areas, you have pre-set building plots.  Build whatever house you like on your particular plot of land, so long as it fits within the boundaries.  That might mean you only get some sort of row house, or no back yard.  Hey, you live in the city - you're paying for location.  The "suburbia" around a town (tent camp, castle's village, whatever fits) is just a housing zone.  Sort of UOish, you can place anywhere, up to whatever building size limits apply.  Throw in a few housing zones outside this area if there are particular spots you want to be housing-enabled.  Beyond that, have the ability to setup your own town.  Something SB-like, where you drop a ToL ("city deed", or whatever) and it allows for housing around it.  Limit the number of such deeds. 

You wind up with some flexibility, mostly empty land, and a few different types of options for players depending on what they want to do. 

[penfold]

Penfold - What game are you describing.  I am interested in it's views and wish to subscribe to it's newsletter.  Or are we just ONCE AGAIN playing the 'oooh, wishing I had a pony' game.

Yeh, its theoretical, but its based on existing games, which is quite important. The assumption is of course, suitable technology, and suitable control method.

Run up behind dragon, leap on to its rear leg, jump off a spur and climb up its back, run up the spine, position yourself on its head, ride it as it bucks about, charge up your sword with the appropiate button, activate the right skill, bring the sword down into its skull, leap off the dying dragon as it falls, and greet your group - God of War (climb over boss bit), Thief, Jedi Knight series, Rune, Mario, Devil may Cry

the crossbow man whose been sending bolts into its mouth - FPS games. As someone whose played a ranger/hunter I dont want to stand 1 ft from a monster the size of an office block (or inside its model), hit fire, and then get told I missed.
 
some magic guy doing something creative * - HL2 physics mod and the like

the sword guy slashing at the tendons on its legs - Jedi Knight, God of War, Rune, Soul Calibur, Zelda, Devil May Cry etc

some pointy eared chick whose been firing off heals and positioning shields and wards on the others - HL2 physics mod, FPS games.

[Velorath]

Hrm.  I'll think on it then.  Something to do with instantaneous micro-advancements, instead of a work/reward cycle.  In the meantime, screw this, I'm going to bed.

And people, quit talking about Dawn.  It doesn't even deserve to be mentioned as something that was once a potential game.  My sanity is at steak.

Take the skill points in WoW.  You swing your sword at a monster and sometimes your sword skill goes up, so maybe now it's 184 instead of 183.  Is that kind of micro-advancement any better than levels?  Is grinding up my lockpicking skill better than grinding xp?  It all seems pretty much the same to me, as any form of character advancement be it levels, skills, or loot, are all just a matter of how much time you invest in your character.

[Ironwood]

You know, I must admit, lockpicking is a bug bear of mine.

I want lockpicking as it was in the old Gold games, or in Thief3 - summat that I have to phsyically do myself.  Sure, give me better lockpicks which give me more time, or a skill that goes up the more I do it, but the actual act of lockpicking I like much.


Sigh.

I'm never happy, am I ?

[Pococurante]

vs Run up behind dragon, leap on to its rear leg (...)

Well sure I want that game too - nothing I would love more than to play out that scene in Starship Troopers and run all over the pathing grid of a moving mob/Artillery Beetle.



But that's got nothing to do with console vs. PC or a keyboard '1-2-3' vs. console 'X,O,<twiddle>'.  I think too many of you all are confusing platforms/marketing with compelling game mechanics.  The fact we haven't yet seen these sort of cool mechanics is simply that the technology curve isn't quite there yet.  Yes the engineers/devs should be pushing that curve.  But none of that has anything to do with MMOGs, consoles, PCs, keyboards, controllers, or your left foot.

[Merusk]

I suspect the issue is consistency of the openness; when you're "out there" you want to not come across a house. Is that accurate?

Yes and no.  'A house" isn't urban sprawl..  The exact same house as every other one on the planet, in a new and unique location is.  Having only a few key planets you could build on was also a bit of a bugger.  (I don't recall anyone going to moons except RPers because they were a PITA to get to.  Moon>planet1>planet2>moon. Not to mention that made NO sense from a space travel standpoint.  It was worse than flying the Airlines. but I digress.)

Also, since cities were the hub of activity a lot of the complaints in the early game were that you had this 100m raidus around the 'starting cities' that was empty and then you'd hit the end of that invisible wall and BAM tons of houses.  I realize you all wanted people to spread-out, but that was the most blatant example of an immersion killer in the whole game.  

 If people want to spread out they will, so long as travel isn't a pain in the ass.  It was for a LONG time because running was the only method.. so cities formed fairly close together.   However, easy travel also means waaaay too many people sprout up on that 'unique' spot on the beach you'd explored to, so it's a two-edged sword.  

Then on top of that you have the layer of harvesters.  Huge fields of mechanical devices everywhere across the planet, usually only a few hundred meters between one field and the next.   I don't recall seeing such fields of moisture vaporators on the Skywalker farm, because it'd deplete the resources too quick.  Gameplay vs griefplay, I suppose.

  Sprawl was even worse if one of the 'rich' veins of that week happened to be in or around a housing plot.   I remember quite vividly stepping out of my house one login to discover a field of loud, noisy heavy ore harvesters surrounding me.  Glee.   Giving the players 10 lots was good.. disallowing them to 'buy up' the lots surrounding their new home to create some kind of yard with the remainder was bad.  Heck, doing so would have allowed 'families' to create estates.  Instead their 'mansion' had another 'mansion' 15' away in the great Texas cluster suburb tradition.  (Production housing in Texas currently follows a 45'-50' wide lot with a 35-40' house planted on it.  This makes for fantastic urban sprawl and wonderful scenarios where you look out your picture window into your neighbor's bathroom. )

[MrHat]

Can you guys just invent a new genre?

I want my MMORPG lazy and slow, with minimal involvement.  If I wanted a twitchy game that requires concentration, I'd play counterstrike.

[WindupAtheist]

[Pococurante]

Priceless.

[Nija]

I thought Ravenholm (the village area - 3rd or 4th area into HL2) was 5 steps forward in terms of atmosphere and level design.

Half-Life 2 did lots of things very well. It did a couple things perfectly. It made a new weapon - the gravity gun - a cliche in less than 24 hours. But 2 steps back it was not. Doom 3 was two steps back.

This is way off topic but this is what I was messing with in HL2 last night. -

http://media.putfile.com/mexi_container and if that doesn't work, a direct link is http://s2.putfile.com/videos/25723563817.avi.

A combination of http://www.garry.tv/garrysmod/ + http://www.garry.tv/garrysmod/reaperswe/

Eventually I'd like to try Wooden Wars but my vehicle creation skills aren't that great yet.

[Righ]

Companies won't fund new/interesting ideas unless they think it can make more money than WoW because the people with the money are tunnel-vision morons.

This horse is long dead. I know you want to believe that WoW has ruined MMOGs for ever, but saying it in every thread doesn't make it so. Good games and successful games have not stopped progress in the past. What is making it less likely that big bucks get pumped into original ideas has nothing to do with games or ideas out there, but polarisation in the industry. Just as with the music industry, there have been a huge spate of mergers and aquistitions recently which has left us very dependant on tiny underfunded labels for original ideas. It has nothing to do with WoW, and everything to do with EA and Vivendi.

And you can't type "Thy pantaloons are ablaze." with a D-pad either.

[Numtini]

Taking WOW, the big thing I'd like is more incentive to group at the low end other than instances. Right now, you're pretty actively penalized for grouping. I'd like more small group things higher on as well, but it seems like they're hearing that now.

Crafting? Crafting is hard because if you make it meaningful, you take the hatred players have towards the devs and double it, with half directed at crafters and half directed at the devs. The phat loot squad hates crafters more than anything. I love the whole crafter dependent, run your own little shop, thing in SWG, but most players seem to really hate it. I don't know how you balance. I don't think you can. At least in WOW I can craft and sell some things without other players denouncing me as a predator and denouncing the devs for letting me be one. It's not a bad system. It also gives you at least some ability to use/sell items before you reach "the end game."

Housing? I'd love to see some housing added to WOW. And yes, absolutely, AC1 got it right. It was perfect. Everything from little villages in the right places to a few lone and very expensive "hermit" plots to the instanced apartments so the have-nots could have something too. And enough upkeep that you needed to care to keep your house, but not so much that it was impossible or burdensome. That also requires an absurdly large world though.

Skill/Level. I really prefer level systems because I have had better experiences with them. I don't grind. I don't ever want to grind. I just play the game and with a level system I advance and if I get bored I quit. In UO combat skills were fine because it went up as I killed things. Yes, I knew to hunt earthies to max my gains just like I know to get into sarnak groups in LOIO to xp in EQ. But I was actually playing. On the other side is taming in UO. The single most miserable experience I've ever had with advancement in a game. The basic game action of a tamer is to use a pet in combat. To raise the skill though, you go to some bizarre place and repeatedly tame and release the same creatures for hundreds of hours. Skill systems seem to end up with a lot of division between "playing" and "skilling." I think WOW's talent system is a pretty good compromise. I liked Shadowbane's system too, I felt like I had options in how to build a character. And big plusses for allowing more than one base class to feed into the same end class (mage/assassin, thief/assassin). You need to have respecs available though if you're going to have people picking and choosing skills within a class.

Graphics. I like cartoony like WOWs. I liked THERE's graphics for a less "camp" cartoony feel even more.

[Merusk]

. I love the whole crafter dependent, run your own little shop, thing in SWG, but most players seem to really hate it. I don't know how you balance.

Players hated it in SWG because crafters price gouge.  In SWG the tradeskill Catasses made it to the end of the crafting mill in a week or two by exploiting the factory XP mechanics. They then were the exclusive outlet for ANY products for a good while, letting them amass huge fortunes.  Those fortunes then let them buy-up all the best resources as others caught-up, so now they were STILL the only outlet for the best product.  It's a fully free-market economy with no protections to the consumer outside of /petition.

Plus, since they're crafter catass their hours /played meant they became one of the only reliable sources.  It sucked to go someplace and not see an item you wanted on the vendor, so you learned who sold the boadest products and bought from them, despite the inflated prices.

Then, as a further kick in the nuts to combat types, if devs see a lot of money changing-hands or too much money in the economy they turn-down the 'faucet' which directly affects the combat players more than the crafters due to equipment wear & tear and the costs of HAM wounds.  Crafting prices dropped, but they were slower than the rate the income decreased.

[Bunk]

You know what I want in a MMORPG? The following:

Day 1, you log on. You find yourself in a big clearing with a bunch of other people. All you have is some shoes and clothing. Around you is a forest, and in the forest are some bad guys.

First thing you do is grab a stick and beat on a bad guy or something. He kills you. Then, a bunch of people team up and beat on a bad guy with their sticks, kill him, and one of them grabs his knife. With that knife you skin an animal, and start the process of making twine, bow strings, etc.

Over time you build fences, houses, then one day you manage to fight your way to a mine and from there you can start to create more advanced weapons. Etc etc...

That is what is meant by "explorer" gameplay. Exploring is not just wandering into a new zone. Exploring is discovering and creating, not just observing.

There's one major problem with this - it only works for that first group of people. If I join the game two months after it starts, I don't get that newbie experience you had, and it might as well just be any other game.

[HaemishM]

6. Voice-to-text.  I like the somewhat more twitchy and definitely more demanding nature of WoW’s high end game vs EQ.  But this demands quick communication while your fingers are occupied, which means typing doesn’t work so well.  You also lose the ability to shoot the breeze, which is really one of the main reasons to play.  I find voice communication to be immersion-breaking and cuts me off from the real world too much (with headphones on, I can’t talk to my wife or listen to the radio while playing).  Voice comm also sucks in large groups, because everyone cannot talk at once.  Voice-to-chat seems to me the ideal solution.

As I've said before, the biggest problem in WoW isn't even that it's hard to type in these situations, it's almost as hard to READ the text in these situations. I miss guild chat often because I'm focusing on what's happening in the window. Unlike EQ1, I don't have to ever look at (and don't) my combat spam, I can tell what's going on from the onscreen action. Reading the guild/party chat is a separate distraction. The popup bubbles WoW has added don't seem to work as well as they should for this.

Voice comm with sound fonts (to aid immersion) and some form of prioritization options (allow a raid leader to override every other voice at any time, etc.) is really the way to go. But the problem isn't just that there are too many voices, because even our hearing in real life would have problems tracking all the voices we'd get in a full-on voice comm system in a 40-man raid.

[Bunk]

Ok, so Schild - you don't want leveling in any form - skills or levels. So essentially you want to remove the ding,gratz! from the game. It could be done, but you'll have to provide a whole lot of something else to inspire people to keep playing. The problem I see with removing levels right now, is that levels are what determine where you can go in the game.

Designers currently build area of the game based on what level of character will adventure there. Without that, I can see one of two results.

1) All areas of the game can be accessed by anyone, which really kind of spoils any accomplishment of making your way in to a new area or "stage" of the game.
 or
2) The game design forces you to progress through areas one after another, which gives you a progression, but also makes the game feel like a train ride - which is probably even worse.

I'll throw in another comment on what I'd like to see taken from WoW and expanded on - differing storylines. Right now, you get dramatically different stories based on if you start as Undead, Human, Elf, etc. The game however, in the name of not preventing people from playing together, pretty much lets anyone do any of the story lines within thier Good/Evil faction.

WoW achieved something by seperating the population in to two factions like that, in that you can restart as the other side and have a whole new experience. I'd like to see that expanded on though - Don't make things quite so black and White. Have core quests and plots that only Undead can do, but also have over arching plots that different races can group together for. There should be more over arching quests in total, but give each race its own specific plots.

Then, give us branches within our plots. I'll use WoW for example. I'm a human Paladin in Westfall - I go smash the Defias Brotherhood and feel all happy. Yay for me. Or, I'm a human rogue in Westfall. Why can't I join the Defias Brotherhood and make fat loots? Don't force me to do something bad like that, maybe I'm a good hearted rogue that want to do nice things, but don't force me down that path - give me some options.

[MrHat]

As I've said before, the biggest problem in WoW isn't even that it's hard to type in these situations, it's almost as hard to READ the text in these situations. I miss guild chat often because I'm focusing on what's happening in the window. Unlike EQ1, I don't have to ever look at (and don't) my combat spam, I can tell what's going on from the onscreen action. Reading the guild/party chat is a separate distraction. The popup bubbles WoW has added don't seem to work as well as they should for this.

Why are you watching the combat window in WoW?