Mythic PKs Microsoft. Gets Phat Lewt.

[AOFanboi]

but then, it's like playing a single player game.

Hardly as long as you can team up with other players in supergroups and teams. And in real life you mostly interact with a few people at a time anyway - heck, relatively speaking I hardly know any of the half a million people living in the same city as me. And there is no need for me to interact with all of them in order to feel that I live in a city with half a million inhabitants.

Instancing isn't there to make it less multiplayer, but to make the GAMEPLAY better since we're ALL "single players" sharing one game world. The effect is less competition for what is in effect the only resourc in these games: the mobs you whack for exp. Meaning less camping, downtime and other shit that takes away from the part that should be entertainment.

[HRose]

Hehe, and you never mentioned why you thought MMOGs were a failure.

Because it's hard and complex to explain this problem. If you read the post above yours you'll see listed some of the issues of current "massive" games.

Here  you can find a long thread about WoW where I tried to discuss this issue just by looking at what happens in the current beta.

If you read my inaccurate ideas (two different links) where I'm starting to build my ideal mmorpg, you can see where I think the genre should aim.

On another thread I discussed the two ideal paths to follow. One going toward the quick fun and a massive use of the instances to polish both the PvP and PvE experience. The other aimed to build a concrete world. Where the massive aspect is a strenght.

The basic idea about why I said that mmorpgs have failed is just because they simply don't take advantage of the massive aspect. This aspect is just a way to be included in a popular genre but it's obvious that even huge projects like WoW don't have A CLUE about why they should be massive instead of cooperative/instanced.

We have a bunch of mmorpgs that don't know why they are mmorpgs. Like a case of lost identity.

And by looking at the concete examples I just see how this fact of being "massive", in general, it's not a strenght. But a problem.

So I notice that the easy road is to go back to a model of gameplay that FITS better with these games. The fact is that noone is really developing a mmorpg and now these games are pushing to go back at their origin.

Also, I agree completely with Haemish, even if he seems to explain something exactly at the opposite side of what I write here. But it's only because I have in my mind a different path to reach the exact same objective he points.

[Righ]

Pug's railroading of this thread into an argument about whether instancing is appropriate to MMOGs turned up a couple of good perpectives. I think that it is significant that MMOGs even if including MUDs, are a comparatively recent gaming genre, with a fairly long development cycle. If anything, early marketed MMOGs have been fairly successful. Now that we're seeing a larger number of them released, we'll see more failures, and should also expect more games that eclipse the current offerings.

Technically, we're still a long way from either virtual worlds or even online games that deserve the term massive applied to them in any meritorious manner. However, these are still early days - how many hideous platform games surrounded the occasional gem? The gems were not created in a vacuum - their development teams brought good ideas from former failures (both their own, and others) to the table when they went to their next project. The exact same thing is happening in the online games market, but because MMOGs are considerably more complex the lead times are... massive.

[anyuzer]

stuff

Perhaps, but it feels to me like a single player game. With every zone effectively instanced with a max of 120 people, you miss the super laggy hubs where people would travel through in other MMOGs. Better gaming experience? Yeah. Better community? From what I've seen of the City of Heroes community, no.

Everybody I know plays the game mainly like a single player game. The people I know only play with the people they know and nobody else. In 20 levels or so I've managed to avoid talking to anybody I didn't know, as well as avoided being annoyed by dumbasses. After all, why would I talk to anybody? I group with friends or I solo, I have absolutely no use for anybody, and with the instanced zones, I don't even run into the same people a lot of times.

Basically it comes down to this, I'm not making an argument against instancing, especially here. Personally I think it negatively affects community in a somewhat intangible way, and therefore I think it's bad and will negatively affect player subscription retention, which as we know, is what it's all about. That's my 'guess' and I have various reasons why I make that guess, but none I'd be willing to bet on until we see it fleshed out a bit more.

What's sad here is this. Pug has some decent points and I know what he's getting at, but it's too bad he sucks at communicating them (no offense, but it's true), which means he is promptly being bent over and broomhandle violated.

[eldaec]

Regarding CoH city zone instancing - I think the real issue is lack of appropriate communication tools, rather than the instancing itself.

LFG tool needs to work across instances (and zones for matter).

Broadcast channels should probably work across instances.

Free form SWG/ATITD style chat groups wouldn't hurt either.

For what it's worth though, I've found running pick up groups in CoH to be *far* more effective than any other pve MMOG, simply because...

1) You can /invite people directly over any distance without /tell nonsense to get people into the same place.

2) CoH community etiquette says
  i) It's ok to just invite someone at random if they are on the lfg list.
  ii) Group leader picks the mission and people don't piss and moan about which order we do them in.

3) Mission structure and waypoint navigation means people can go sell/train/see contacts etc at sensible intervals without causing the group problems. Waypoints also mean no more 'how do I use /loc?' converssations.

[HRose]

Personally I think it negatively affects community in a somewhat intangible way

So true.

[schild]

I don't think instancing negatively affects community. I think some of the ways it's implemented does however. Perhaps it should only be used in ACTUAL quest missions. Or maybe it should only be used to defeat camping an arch villain (not just talking about City of Heroes here). But it's definately a necessary evil. It removes a lot of the problems in games today, particularly the most annoying one - lag due to overcrowding.

Not having instancing in your MMO is a stupid, stupid choice and your server had better be able to scale like a motherfucker.

[Venkman]

That's exactly where I'm at as well.

As a function of game-driven goals, instantiated quest missions are perfect. They allow the quest for that player to be driven entirely by that player. None of this nonsense about contested spawn just to finish a quest started two years ago. That isn't fun, no matter how much spin is put on it.

Instancing should be use conservatively, to help achieve a key part of a single goal. The original EQ2 promised use was the best one I've read: multiple instances of Lady Vox et al. Bards need White Scales and a few dozen other things for their Epic. I didn't like being held back because I was number 25 on the list for spawn rotation. Instancing can solve that while not diminishing the fact that I still need the other dozens of things from the static world-wide content.

But making all content, or even just the "best" stuff, is wrong. That guts communities, particularly if it is part of the launch of a game.

It's not the tool that should be rated. It's the use. It takes talent to use it right.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

No.

You are suffering from faulty cause and effect.

The lawsuit was settled because the game was cancelled.

how do you NOT cancel a product whose name you know longer own, and whose internet website you no longer own? Before you answer, remember that at this stage of development, Mythica was little more than a name and a website.

[Mesozoic]

My understanding is that they

1) announced the game
2) went to court with Mythic
3) decided that the market wouldn't sustain Mythica
4) cancelled the project
5) said "fuck it" and gave the suit to Mythic.

[Alluvian]

how do you NOT cancel a product whose name you know longer own, and whose internet website you no longer own? Before you answer, remember that at this stage of development, Mythica was little more than a name and a website.

Not really.  A friend of mine at MS actually had played it in a sort of inhouse alpha testing.  He said the combat engine was functional and fun (he compares it now to "Like CoH, but more active"), the grouping worked, missions worked, but most of the 'hub' stuff was still being added in.  That is a LOT more than a website and a name.

MS either decided to drop it's mmog budget, or didn't want two competing projects in the same genre (mmog fantasy).  They went with the team that had more 'experience'.  Or possibly the one they had a signed contract with.  I don't know any of the decision making details.  It came as a big surprise to my friend though, who admittedly was not working on the mythica team.

They picked the wrong one I think.

[Venkman]

Erm, they had this thing very playable last E3. The suit followed months later.

[Venkman]

In discussing the relevance of instancing in MMOGs, we all pretty much realize we're living an example now through CoH. While the game is fun as hell, I actually do have some big issues with it, mostly with the compartmentalized playerbase, the lack of anything else to do but combat and the fact they're charging a monthly fee for it at all.

What started as a reply to Pug and Hrose though turned into a a critique of CoH. But this is my distillation of the major issue with instancing:

On the one hand, it's a great way to focus objectives and ensure players aren't stepping all over each other to try and interact with the same bit of content. On the other hand though, over use of instancing can compartmentalize a playerbase so much so that they don't need the thousands of other players who co-habit the server. The perceptual result is comparable to smaller MUDs, with the money the company spends to host the thousands of folks a simple academic value lost on the paying subscribers.

In effect, I agree that it may not work for all MMOGs, but maintain, as do many, that it can work, if done right and exemplify the very purpose of this genre at the same time.

[eldaec]

Again though, the problem is the compartmentalised design present in EQ, DAoC, CoH and any other game based on killing mobs in co-operation with exactly 5 or 7 other people, the problem isn't instancing itself.

In single-instance MMOGs if you do not co-operate with the rest of your realm, and you only compete with them in OOC and unfun ways (spawn competition and so on), your gaming experience is just as compartmentalised as it is in CoH. Is is not instancing that introduces that compartmentalisation, instancing just removes some of the negative impact of it.

In effect instancing solves some of the problems that occur when you write a massively multiplayer co-operative game, but then don't design it around massively multiplayer co-operation.

I'd love to see a combat based MMOG that did find a way to set massively mutiplayer co-operative pve tasks that are also fun. I've never seen such a thing happen though, and I have no idea how you could design such a thing.

_________

Interesting thought experiment.

If, in CoH...

- all buildings were enterable with fixed single instance interior maps.

- the server tracked which buildings contained missions, and only populated a building when a hero was assigned a mission in it.

- there were enough buildings to assume the chance of a passer by finding missions by entering buildings at random could be considered reasonably small.

Would you still consider CoH design to be unnacceptable as a MMOG for the anti-instancing reasons people have stated above?

Technically this would have no instancing, but it would play exactly as it does today. It would still feel compartmentalised. But it would have no multi-instance zones.

Compared with this alternative design, the only thing visible to the player that instancing is doing is helping to balance encounters and reduce griefing/kill-stealing potential.

If the mechanics of character growth and goals say you must work in small groups without being influenced by other groups, you will always be playing a compartmentalised game. If you can design a fun MMOG around some alternative method of advancement where interaction matters on a server community level, rather than a 6-8 person group level, then perhaps the subject of instancing becomes worth revisiting.

SWG attempted some things on this level (economic/resource systems, and the future light side jedi system come to mind), mid-high level ATITD operates very much on the server scale. But nothing I've seen ever managed to do so in the mainstream pve combat arena.

[Pug]

How is a game with instancing not massively multiplayer?

Instancing solves the problems associated with massively multi-player games by removing the other players.

A hub-based instanced solution keeps the good things about mmogs while losing a lot of the negatives.

The only good of MMOG worlds that I can think of was the promise of creating persistent virtual worlds that were to be shared with hundreds of other players who could interact and role-play their characters' lives.

Massively multi-player games were not designed to be huge RPG combat arenas and quest launching areas; those are just the activities that players tend to focus on. We already had combat and questing games before massively multi-player games became a reality. The only thing that massively multi-player games brought to RPGs were the massive number of players that could interact in a single instance of a persistent world.

Hub based instanced games do not attempt to create a shared persistent world. The hubs are little more than a gathering area. The game's content is then accessed through instanced areas that are designed to be played with very few players.

CoH may be fun as hell to play but does it feel like you are an actual super hero who is protecting other players? Does playing CoH feel like you are role-playing a super hero in a player inhabited virtual world or does it feel more like an action based multi-player video game?

[HaemishM]

How is a game with instancing not massively multiplayer?

Instancing solves the problems associated with massively multi-player games by removing the other players.

Only if you choose to. You don't HAVE to distance yourself from other players in CoH. They are still there. But if you as the player WISH to remove yourself from most of them, that's your choice. I find that a much more "realistic" world simulation than other multiplayer persistant worlds where not only can I NOT remove myself from interaction with players I don't want, they can intrude upon my most private places in the game. I have no recourse to stop them other than /ignore, which doesn't do the job.

Hub based instanced games do not attempt to create a shared persistent world. The hubs are little more than a gathering area. The game's content is then accessed through instanced areas that are designed to be played with very few players.

Other than the instanced part, how is that different from other MMOG's? I don't group with 600 people in EQ or DAoC, I group with 6. Or 8. Even if you add in raidgroup capability such as EQ did, you're still only with another 40 or 50 people, which quickly becomes unmanageable. Even leading raids in EQ or Shadowbane, I still rarely interacted with everyone there. Hell, most of them could be NPC's for all the effect they had on me. They were chess pieces I manuevered into place.

CoH may be fun as hell to play but does it feel like you are an actual super hero who is protecting other players? Does playing CoH feel like you are role-playing a super hero in a player inhabited virtual world or does it feel more like an action based multi-player video game?

No, I'm not protecting other PLAYERS, unless they are in my group. But really, in persistant worlds, the PLAYERS themselves don't need my protection, because they are all meant to be EXTRAORDINARY people. That's the biggest problem with "virtual worlds" IMO, the players are meant to be special because no one (or very few people) want to be helpless sheep. You don't play pen-n-paper RPG's to be townsperson_006 who must watch screaming while his village is burned down by the marauders. If you do, you are very, very rare, so rare that the totality of people who like that sort of experience couldn't fill an NWN-sized server if a monthly fee was required.

The use of instancing is a tradeoff, depending completely on the implementation. It's a tradeoff between virtual world and multiplayer game. Again, I think instancing can be used in a virtual world situation to remove the very real problems that such virtual worlds have. You seem to believe any use of instancing destroys the massively multiplayer part.

I disagree with what you said.

[eldaec]

CoH may be fun as hell to play but does it feel like you are an actual super hero who is protecting other players? Does playing CoH feel like you are role-playing a super hero in a player inhabited virtual world or does it feel more like an action based multi-player video game?

More so than I feel I'm in a player inhabited world in EQ or DAOC. It also has far more scope to role play.

Why?

Because instancing is used to increase the amount of landscape to the extent that we can do what should be trivial things like make progress though buildings, follow a story arc, and actually put a context to all the killin' (save the hostage, defuse the bomb etc). Perhaps most importantly it means I will never see a dead guy rematerialise in front of me.

Witness all the hand-wringing when people realised there was a way to *shock* kill Dr. Vahz more than once. In single-instance games, the concept of camping a mob for multiple kills is standard practice, but the fact that a way had been found to do so in a CoH mission was considered worthy of note, and the general community feeling was that to use this loophole is poor form at best, actual cheating at worst.

Imagine someone telling you it is cheap to kill the same mob after it respawns in EQ.

I agree CoH isn't the dream MMORPG yet, just as EQ and DAOC etc weren't. But it isn't becuase of instancing - it's mostly because of shared limitations that both single-instance and multi-instance pve combat games currently have.

Hub based instanced games do not attempt to create a shared persistent world. The hubs are little more than a gathering area. The game's content is then accessed through instanced areas that are designed to be played with very few players.

True, but on the other hand I could also say...

Static single-instanced games do not attempt to create a shared persistent world. The safe areas are little more than a gathering area. The game's content is then accessed through static dungeon areas that are designed to be played with very few players. Unfortunately, you will be forced to play through them with other people irrelvant to your gaming experience also wandering about getting in your way and not adding anything to your game.

Until the other people in a zone are interacting with you and having a positive effect on gameplay, whats the point of them being there?

Incidentally - the hub & instance based model doesn't stop you designing in ways for any random player to join or affect the workings of an instance, it just forces you to think of an actual reason to do it first (for example, the concept for CoV suggests that the opposing faction will be free to enter content instances you are in to disrupt your progress). All the hub and instance model does do is allow you to scale the size of the landscape dynamically to match demand; and put a hard cap on zerging.

[HRose]

Darniaq, what eldaec said. Instancing not "bad" because it's a wrong solution. Instancing is the OPTIMAL solution for a type of design. Instancing is the (best) consequence of that type of game.

I don't like what happened before instancing. I criticize the design that brought to instancing as an optimal solution. This is why I say that the genre has lost its identity.

There are other solutions. No, not in the market it seems. If you simply observe what we have now I agree that instancing is the way to go. But if you look toward a new model you could see how much instancing is the result of a flawed genre.

The fact that another example isn't present doesn't mean it is impossible. Or not.

[geldonyetich]

Exactly what is this fascination with determining what's massively multiplayer and what's not anyway and then lambasting something that's not absolutely massively multiplayer?

Here's a clue for you: True massively multiplayer sucks.   There, I said it.

Here's why it sucks:

Are you, personally, capable of interacting productively with more than a dozen people at once?   For most of us, the answer is no.    Why then, do I need to have several hundred people on the same map with me?   Some of which are competing for/stealing my kills.   Some of which have no other way to enjoy the game than finding a way to PK and/or grief my ass.   A few of which who are annoying l33t d00ds who appear to type solely by masterbating on their keyboard.  

Lets face it, any player outside of group is serving no useful purpose for me other than to spam my chat channels, lower my frame rate, and generally be a pain in the ass to anything resembling an enjoyable game experience.  

Maybe once in awhile somebody'll dive to my rescue, but that's a gross exception to the norm.    Maybe once in awhile I want to trade something with them, but out in the field where combat takes place is not the place for it.

One of the things that impressed me about Guild Wars is they realized this and so use instancing to a massive degree.   Want to fight alone PvE?  No problem, you have your own map for that.   Want to fight in a group PvE?  Great, they have specially built scenarios for that with their own maps, just group up at the grouping points and head on in.  Want to fight PvP?   Choose your poison, there's multiple types available and they're all instanced in such a way as to assure a relatively fair fight.  Want to trade?  Great, you can do that in one of several city zones that each have about a hundred or so players on them you can meet and haggle with.

But is Guild Wars truly massively multiplayer?   Here's where people tell me "NO! It's not any more massively multiplayer than Phantasy Star Online!".   They're mostly right, the games are organized in a similar fashion, except some events have a few more players on them.   The game won't even have a monthy subscription cost.   But the thing is, I would say that Guild Wars is Massively Multiplayer where it counts, and not massively multiplayer where it shouldn't be.

So I say it's time to move on.   True massively multiplayer just can't be done right.    It'd be nice if it could, but it can't be because you can either have it a disorganized mess or a compartmentalized game.   If playing a disorganized mess is more exciting for you, be my guest.    I think the best comprimise on the market right now would be City of Heroes having both truly massively multiplayer maps and instanced maps.    That's a comprimise I think most of us can enjoy.

[HRose]

So I say it's time to move on.   True massively multiplayer just can't be done right.

More or less we agree again. You observe the situation and you draw a conclusion. I share this conclusion.

Where I have a different opinion is about the design level. I think that true massive world are possible and with what we have now, not fancy resources. I agree that what is available now doesn't show any good sign toward this direction but it's here that I accuse the clueless design and the lack of ideas.

[geldonyetich]

Sometimes innovation happens in little steps.  Sometimes it happens in big steps.   Technology in general has either happen often.   In particular, I have observed this many times in the Computer Game field.    

Big steps of innovation often result in what appears to be cloning.  For example, Dune II implemented a nice GUI to execute real time strategy that has become a standard for real time strategy games now.

Little steps in innovation are far more common, and I think that's what we are seeing in terms of instancing in MMORPGs today.    The instancing technology is old - I've seen it used way back in The Realm with the dungeons and player housing.   This should not be surprising because the very way computer programs are built is very instancing friendly.   However, game developers are not entirely sure what the best way to use it is yet, so they are experimenting.   That's what these small steps are.   The Realm, Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, Guild Wars - all are merely experiments built in previous experiments.    Sooner or later they'll figure out the right way to go about building MMORPGs based on this, if such a thing truly exists.

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Isaac Newton

"In computing, we mostly stand on each other's feet." - Attributed to Richard Wesley Hamming, Brian K. Reid, Dan Ingalls and Larry Tesler?.

[eldaec]

I'd disagree with the notion that genuine massively multiplayer automatically sucks.

I'd even go as far as to say it has been done well outside of the pve combat world.

ATITD, SWG and EVE all have genuinely massively multiplayer economic/crafting components, and they do fill a niche for people determined to find a way to play MMMULE.

Other people are trying to make it work in pvp.

The DAoC 1.70 patch is bringing a metric asstonne of changes deisgned to make people RvR 'massively'; for instance you'll be able to gain a quarter of the xp for every level by capturing the level-appropriate battleground keep (which will now be available at levels 1-44), and 'grown-up' rvr is being redesigned around encouraging set piece battles over gank group roaming. Keeps are even getting PS style RP rewards for their capture.

PS is also already a genuinely massively multiplayer pvp title, and fun, if a little repetitive.

I find it hard to believe someone can't think of some way to do a genuinely massively co-operative combat experience (and not in the sense of uber mobs that take 600 ppl on autoattack to kill them).

[HRose]

No Geldon, it's not about a technologic innovation, it's about a dry design. The genre has hit a wall and now it's going back to rediscover old technology. Instanced is everything cooperative you already play, from Doom to Counterstrike.

This is Diablo with NOTHING different aside that you have a graphical chat instead of a textual chat.

I don't see an innovation, nor progress. I see a natural collapse of a situation that hasn't found an effective way to develop. We are going back because the technology ALREADY supports massive worlds. But the *ideas* still don't support them.

We are underdeveloped on the ideas, not the technology. We are taking the easy path to dumb down everything and this strategy doesn't apply just to the gaming industry but pretty much everywhere.

[AOFanboi]

CoH may be fun as hell to play but does it feel like you are an actual super hero who is protecting other players?

Yes.

Consider the source: super-hero comic books. Now, let's take one instance: A recent issue of Ultimate Spiderman. Spiderman fights Dr. Octopus. There's Spiderman, and there's Doc Ock, and they're dishing it out. Where are the other Marvel heroes and villains? Shouldn't e.g. Daredevil come to his aid?

No, because superhero comics in general deal with a SUBSET of the universe in which the heroes exist. The "supergroup" X-Men rarely teams up with the "supergroup" Fantastic Four, though both exist in the Marvel universe. I think it's this separation into "sub-universes" that best can be used to defend instancing in CoH.

Making CoH truly multiplayer with no instancing would mean reducing relevant superhero comic books to Secret Wars and the like. And how fun was that?

[Alkiera]

No Geldon, it's not about a technologic innovation, it's about a dry design. The genre has hit a wall and now it's going back to rediscover old technology.
. . .
We are underdeveloped on the ideas, not the technology. We are taking the easy path to dumb down everything and this strategy doesn't apply just to the gaming industry but pretty much everywhere.

HRose, geldon was refering to innovation in design.  Not technology.  I think both he and I would agree that the problem is a lack of design innovation.  The real problem, tho, is that design innovation has been squelched for several years by the need for money from big execs who want to see another game as popular as EQ.
I'd much rather see more smaller, innovative projects than the handfull of clones we've mostly had up until recently.  CoH is different, PS is different, so we're starting to get some different ideas out there.  Hopefully this trend will continue.

--
Alkiera

[HRose]

The real problem, tho, is that design innovation has been squelched for several years by the need for money from big execs who want to see another game as popular as EQ.

This is another point where I disagree. It seems that popularity is always a sign of mediocrity. For me it's not. If EQ is popular is because, somewhere, it holds a value. Other minor projects can surely be valuable as well but striving for popularity isn't against the (possible) quality of a game.

And imho CoH and even WoW aren't innovative from this perspective. They are the good result of a company that was able to learn from the mistakes of others. It's about "polishing". In this case CoH offers PvE. PvE has nothing to share in a massive world and in fact they use instances.

As I said above the result is better and funnier because they brought the game where it belongs: in a cooperative experience. But CoH isn't a mmorpg from this point of view. Take Ultima Online and CoH and you see that, aside the setting, one strives to be a word, the other strives to be an arcade.

Now I don't say CoH isn't a good game because it is an arcade. I don't think that building a good game like that isn't noteworthy, but it's simply not what a mmorpg should be. Or where the true potential to discover is.

[geldonyetich]

No Geldon, it's not about a technologic innovation, it's about a dry design. The genre has hit a wall and now it's going back to rediscover old technology.

And imho CoH and even WoW aren't innovative from this perspective. They are the good result of a company that was able to learn from the mistakes of others. It's about "polishing". In this case CoH offers PvE. PvE has nothing to share in a massive world and in fact they use instances.

What does a dry design mean to you, and why do you think all games suffer from it?    I think it's because the big innovations are hard and little leaps of innovation are very hard to see unless you are watching for them.  

Little things like the Guards in Thief: Deadly Shadows who will often announce in vivid detail where they are going to search (i.e. near the bookcase, near the barrel).   Not terribly realistic, but the applications of that kind of design are limitless - imagine games where the NPCs know every object in their environment, how to talk about it, and how to interact with it?   More noticable things include the Havok Physics which, while not entirely balanced yet, are beginning to allow us to see virtual objects interacting in a virtual 3D world in a more realistic manner.   There is levels of artistic innovation such as you'll see in Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker or Resident Evil for the gamecube.

You can look at all these examples and say, "Bah! Same old dry design.  Mere new features and better technology use do not make for true progress."

And to that, my only reply is: Exactly how else are you expecting to people to rectify a dry design?  Magic?  Coming up with innovative new ideas is the process in which it is done.   Those new ideas end up being new features and better use of technology.   Slowly but steadily, things are improving.  

The only problem is, not quite fast enough for the hardcore gamers.   There really should be a better way.   Alkiera touches on part of the problem: investors investing only in popular ideas.

This is another point where I disagree. It seems that popularity is always a sign of mediocrity. For me it's not. If EQ is popular is because, somewhere, it holds a value. Other minor projects can surely be valuable as well but striving for popularity isn't against the (possible) quality of a game.

Yes, I too will point out that in order for a game to be popular, there really must be some kind of gameplay there that is worthwhile enough to enjoy.   Starcraft would never have taken off if it was genuinely painful to play.   Everquest's subscriber retention indicates that there is some worthwhile gameplay there for some.   (Of course, most of us are not playing Everquest because we've already played it out.  Besides, EQ is dated.  You want a good modern EQ, play FFXI, which has recently beat EQ's subscription numbers.   Innovation can be merciless.)

But that's not what Alkiera was saying.  Alkiera was saying that it is hard to find somebody willing to fund the development of your game if it is not based on a design that is already quite popular.  

If you announce to your investors, "I'm going to create a fascinating new game that is nothing like any game anyone has every seen before!!" what happens is the investor says, "Not interested, too risky."   This is actually a justified stance because several new concept games simply flop for no reason.

On the other hand, if you announce to your investors, "I'm going to make a better Real Time Strategy game!" the investors look at their records and say, "Hmm, real time strategy games are selling reasonably well.  Okay, that's a reasonable risk, you've got our investment: now make a good Real Time Strategy game that can compete on the market!"

In this way, innovation is stifled by the big execs.   It sucks for the gamer who wants something new and interesting because without some investors out there who are willing to take a chance, the market just fills up with clones.

[Pug]

Static single-instanced games do not attempt to create a shared persistent world. The safe areas are little more than a gathering area. The game's content is then accessed through static dungeon areas that are designed to be played with very few players. Unfortunately, you will be forced to play through them with other people irrelvant to your gaming experience also wandering about getting in your way and not adding anything to your game.

Until the other people in a zone are interacting with you and having a positive effect on gameplay, whats the point of them being there?

This is a great example of what is wrong with MMOG world design. I'm sure that a lot of MMOG developers share your view that MMOG worlds should be little more than a collection of safe areas that act as launching points into shared PvE areas. MMOG worlds are not conducive to this style of play because all that the other players can do is get in your way.

The original release of UO was an attempt at creating a game world, not an attempt at creating a collection of safe areas to launch PvE adventures. Unfortunately the original UO world was plagued with difficult design problems that have largely been answered by changing the focus from attempting to creat a world to just creating shared PvE adventures.

Pretty much what happened is a few guys tried to create a workable virtual world, it didn't work as planned, nobody could think of a way to fix it that has worked well, and now instead of trying to fix it they have given up and returned to an easier multi-player game design that doesn't attempt to create a virtual world. Instancing is perfect for cooperative PvE on a small scale which happens to be what MMOGs were/are devolving into.

[HRose]

What does a dry design mean to you, and why do you think all games suffer from it?    I think it's because the big innovations are hard and little leaps of innovation are very hard to see unless you are watching for them.  

Well, here the discussion isn't anymore about ideas, but about points of view. I rant about MMOGs and say they have failed because I'd like to be in the industry. I cannot and so I envy and criticize when I see potential that isn't used. I think I could do a better work but I'm not in the condition and so I keep criticizing. These communities are more or less that. You see a problem, point a problem and then rant when noone seems to fix it.

Dry design for me is a situation (a software house, a designer, a publisher or whatever) that doesn't react the best possible to a situation. So, in this case, I rant about "instances" because they killed the purpose of building on the strenght of the genre (the idea of a world).

But then you mess again the technology level with the level of the "ideas".

But that's not what Alkiera was saying. Alkiera was saying that it is hard to find somebody willing to fund the development of your game if it is not based on a design that is already quite popular.

Even here, I rant about the way the current possibilities are used. I don't fight for a completely absurd game. Even an EverQuest redone could improve a lot by developing a better and cohesive structure. Even the bland PvE could be improved and, again, with just the better use of ideas, with nothing about technology involved.

My point of view is distorted becuase I always see things from the perspective that I have something to say that I believe could be valuable. If I criticize the ideas it's because I have a different opinion about those ideas.

About this whole issue I just think that it could be easy to develop a successful game by exploiting the *strenghts* of a massive world and not just "reacting" passively to a situation that is the result of the design hitting a wall with no ideas about how to go further.

[Dark_MadMax]

You can look at all these examples and say, "Bah! Same old dry design. Mere new features and better technology use do not make for true progress."

And to that, my only reply is: Exactly how else are you expecting to people to rectify a dry design? Magic? Coming up with innovative new ideas is the process in which it is done. Those new ideas end up being new features and better use of technology. Slowly but steadily, things are improving.

 While I agree that  new features and better tehcnologies are often prerequsites for new design I would say we alredy have everything in place for a perfect persistnet world for thousands of player engaged in competetive interaction.

 - Database and server structure for massvie persistent worlds are  already well developped

 - We already have technology(both server and client side)  to have large amounts of people in the same palce at the same time  

 - UI design ,player tools , AI are nothing hard or new to implement  ( in the same amoutnas in needed for perfect mmorpg). -Those elements in fact are alredy implmented balanced and polished  multiple of times in other genres.

 What we don't have though is single well thought out design document , professional team and publisher investing their money . - When there is money and professional team design document sucks balls    ( SWG, WoW , EQ2 ,Eve, CoH,Lineage) .  Sometimes there is no money , nor conscious desing ,nor team ( Shadowbane, RoT) .

 And sometimes it looks like there is good design document ( Darkfall) but there is a feel that they are missing professional developers  and money -e.g vaporware.

[Rasix]

Can you give your typing a little more effort? Please?

If you're foreign, I can understand.

[eldaec]

 I'm sure that a lot of MMOG developers share your view that MMOG worlds should be little more than a collection of safe areas that act as launching points into shared PvE areas. MMOG worlds are not conducive to this style of play because all that the other players can do is get in your way.

.......

Pretty much what happened is a few guys tried to create a workable virtual world, it didn't work as planned, nobody could think of a way to fix it that has worked well, and now instead of trying to fix it they have given up and returned to an easier multi-player game design that doesn't attempt to create a virtual world. Instancing is perfect for cooperative PvE on a small scale which happens to be what MMOGs were/are devolving into.

Just to be clear, the first bit I quoted above is not my view on what is preferable, it's my observation of what has actually happened in every pve combat MMOG evar. Even UO.

And it's also my observation that instancing doesn't reinforce or weaken the effect, all instancing does is dynamically scale the size of the landscape. If you wanted to, you could let any player enter any instance without limit - though obviously you wouldn't choose to do so until you have worked out how the extra players can enhance gameplay; equally there is nothing to stop events in one instance having some impact on events on other instances, both current and future.

If you aren't choosing to let players alter the landscape directly (often a valid choice even in truly massively multiplayer experiences such as PS), you might as well have that facility to scale the landscape for the sake of playability.

As I said above, people have created massively cooperative experiences, both in pvp combat (PS) and in economic games (SWG, ATITD, EVE). My point was that nobody has ever even tried to do this in the pve combat space, and that instancing is irrelevant, you could use the hub & instance model no matter what scale of interaction and influence you intend to give your players.

[Phred]

I'd love to see a combat based MMOG that did find a way to set massively mutiplayer co-operative pve tasks that are also fun. I've never seen such a thing happen though, and I have no idea how you could design such a thing.

EQ's 10th ring war would probably be a good example. Unfortunately, at least for EQ programmers, it seems to be too difficult for them to make other events like this. In fact, for quite a while they managed to bug the existing one about every second patch.

[HaemishM]

- Database and server structure for massvie persistent worlds are  already well developped

 - We already have technology(both server and client side)  to have large amounts of people in the same palce at the same time  

 - UI design ,player tools , AI are nothing hard or new to implement  ( in the same amoutnas in needed for perfect mmorpg). -Those elements in fact are alredy implmented balanced and polished  multiple of times in other genres.

No, no and no.

Just to prove the point, I'll use Star Wars Galaxies as an example. They used one of the most (according to them and the manufacturer) advanced databases (Oracle). It fucked up royally and I think is still giving players problems. It used some of the most advanced AI routines for mob behaviour. None of these things are set in stone technologies, and the progress on these areas for MMOG's is actually at a quite nascent state. For single-player games, AI is quite advanced, but can't be for MMOG's because they haven't figured out ways to make AI that good work on such a grand scale. Similarly, even advanced MMOG clients like SWG with all its graphics horsepower can't properly render too many players on screen without bringing server and client to their knees.

Instancing can get around lots of those issues just by not having to stress the servers out.

[Sky]

As a side note,

For single-player games, AI is quite advanced

I disagree with what you said. I feel AI is largely an ignored portion of gaming and needs to become the new focus now that games are so shiny. I've been wanting a dedicated AI processor for years. AI processing and architecture is the field I'd go into if I wasn't such a lazy stupid bastard.

With the state of audio and graphics, I feel AI is far behind comparitively.