Developing a good 3-D mmorpg is too hard?

[Saner]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg#Development

mew mew mewww.... so much for my incredible mmorpg ambitions. sigh....

offline games and online game skirmishes don't cut it anymore! even offline sandbox games
or co-op sandbox games aren't enough!

The better potential of gaming is found through virtual worlds that mmorpgs can offer!
but the mmorpg industry is corrupt and completely lacking in what would make them really fun, meaningful and rewarding!

well chances are DragonBall Online will show 'em how it's done. but even then, don't you find
it frustrating when you are in no position to be able to create your own mmorpg that looks on
par with ffxi and DBO, and make it as you see fit????

:burger:

[Monochrome]

What is it, exactly that you think would make them more fun, meaningful and rewarding? I guess I am asking: what is your strategy, if given the resources, to change MMORPGs for the better?

I'd rather make an offline RPG, myself.

[McLaughlin]

I'd prefer to gain experience working offline first before entering the MMO scene.

[Aisha379]

I'm interested in what Monochrome said as well. Though I have the feeling the answers are going to make me sigh and / or facepalm...


I'd much prefer making an offline RPG too, or even an offline action game.

[Rubius-sama]

MMORPGs need to borrow more from the "Action-RPG" genre, and less point-n-click crap, imo. They also need to add more interactivity with the environment. These are two things that are lacking in every MMO (as well as making attacks more dramatic, but that's a minor issue).

[Saner]

blah, I'd rather not explain, cause the fact that at this rate, there's no chance to make
an mmorpg how I want, or even a presentable 3-D offline rpg, are pretty much zippo. :p

it's pretty miffed up, even the developers out there that envision "great games" end up
with less than what they expected, and these are people WITH the teams, and the resources and the money to do it for at least something that could get at least an 8.0 in graphics. but they phail in gameplay and stuff. :p

hmmm... even making a OoE looking Castlevania type game with a solid story, multiple
playable characters and non-linear progression is really hard. hmmmm. well yea that's the
stuff programming and thingies involve but ya, it really is something that requires a team
to get done in a year. I mean the original Golden Axr took like a year and their team involved
like 6 people. and there was like at least 2 programmers. instead of wasting money
trying to learn something in college. maybe there's a 16-page how to make a cool game
booklet out there. :p

but the other thing is programming code. it would have to be done from scratch to be considered yours.

[Kent]

You have no idea how much it costs to develop an MMORPG, much less maintain one.

Those $15/month fees aren't just lining the publisher's pockets, you know. Just the last two, maybe three dollars on that are going toward profit... But when a customer buys just one game from you, the profit has to come from somewhere, right? The remainder of those fees are split up between server maintenance and upkeep, staff, and the production of new content.

The estimate of about $10 million to develop a competitive MMO is actually pretty accurate - for the sake of comparison, the average console game nowadays costs approximately $2 million to produce, start to finish.

I do agree that the notion of point-and-click stuff is getting a bit old in MMOs. However, it's not sticking around just because developers are lazy or anything - a good number of people still use dial-up, and not everyone has higher-end broadband connections. Thusly, to be able to appeal to the widest possible audience of consumers, you need to come up with a scheme that minimizes the amount of absolutely required data going between the server(s) and the clients... And the emphasis more toward point-and-click as opposed to more precise, user-generated actions that you'd find in a more action-oriented game sticks around, in order to make the experience smoother for everyone, and to allow people with connections that aren't exactly great to play (almost) just as well.

I don't think a fledgling developer should start and make an MMO right off the bat, however, lest you end up like all of those companies in Korea. Mass-produced, Zerg-rushed crap on the market, clogging the interwebs' series of tubes - however, this is where there's literally almost no offline game market, which is why they do that, in the first place.

Like I said before, I do agree that gameplay in MMOs needs to advance. However, for the most part, we're just being limited by internet technology.

[Sord]

I do agree that the notion of point-and-click stuff is getting a bit old in MMOs. However, it's not sticking around just because developers are lazy or anything - a good number of people still use dial-up, and not everyone has higher-end broadband connections. Thusly, to be able to appeal to the widest possible audience of consumers, you need to come up with a scheme that minimizes the amount of absolutely required data going between the server(s) and the clients... And the emphasis more toward point-and-click as opposed to more precise, user-generated actions that you'd find in a more action-oriented game sticks around, in order to make the experience smoother for everyone, and to allow people with connections that aren't exactly great to play (almost) just as well.

That explains a lot I never bothered to think about before. But god am I still getting sick of point and click MMOs. For me the one saving grace for PSU was the fact it's action oriented (ok, may not have saved the damn game, but you get my point.)

[Kent]

The reason that the action part "works" (and I use that term loosely) in Phantasy Star Universe is almost entirely because of the fact that the multiplayer portion is specifically non-massive, only allowing six people to partake in the gameplay together at once (with the obvious exception of intermittent lobbies, which are nothing more than 3D chat rooms between levels).

Unfortunately, for the time being, we may not see any actual MMO games like that, for better or for worse. It might be plausible for a place like South Korea, where the people that aren't on broadband at home, are on broadband and playing themselves to death at a cyber cafe, if we have some really brilliant netcode engineers... But the near-future outlook doesn't look so good. Maybe once everyone's on FiOS.

That being said... I think we do need more online action-RPGs like what PSO was but, of course, advancing the genre a little, and not going in the direction of PSU, where everything was being bugged, broken and unbalanced. There's a lot of potential in that market, I think, if the game were to be created and maintained by responsible and talented people, who weren't focusing on a platform that's already on its way to obsoletion, then porting it poorly to more current platforms.

[Neith]

You have no idea how much it costs to develop an MMORPG, much less maintain one.


This. I'm willing to bet Saner doesn't know too much about the games industry. I'm not trying to sound demeaning, but the amount of money and work that goes into producing an MMORPG is ridiculous. Protip: The public want your new game to be everything. You'll always disappoint, regardless of what you produce. PSU (though not an MMO) is a perfect example of this- when the game released, everyone complained that there was no PSO-related items. Now we have AoI which couldn't be much more stuffed full of PSO stuff, and people complain that 'PSU is trying to be PSO'. Like I said, you can never please everyone.

Most MMO's come down to the usual 'point and click on enemy, watch ensuing battle', so it's not surprising that a lot aren't successful- they're all trying to emulate each other. Ultimately, some do it better than others, or have a big-name attached (WoW is the main one I'm thinking of) and are hugely successful, others are not. As soon as a game tries to break away from this core gameplay mechanic, it gets attention for it. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, innovation is second to big cash payouts and developers will just milk a franchise for all it's worth (and then some), rather than start something new and interesting.

I'm looking squarely at you, Square-Enix.

[Outrider]

Actually, the interesting thing is that there's a procedurally-generated MMO named Love (http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html) being made by a single guy.

But, yeah, Saner, you've got a lot to learn about professional game development. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of it tends to come the hard way when people enter the industry.

[thematesV2]

yes indeed, the tiny bit of experimentation with mods and custom engines has wielded a frustrating truth. if you don't know programming (or have someone on your team who knows how to program) then 3-d is not the option for you. going from basic 2-d engine to basic 3-d engine (imo) is like going from making mac and cheese to making chicken alfredo with a roasted garlic glaze.. the ingredients get much more complex and the act of cooking up the game becomes much more detailed. things tend to not work together nearly as easily and can cause much glitching when 3-d objects are involved.

now, my focus is in design and visuals, not programming, so perhaps a programmer would understand it better than me. but in my area of knowledge it is also much more complex. when 2-d has one layer of color to create an image, 3-d can have numerous, a color map, a light map, a reflection map, a bump map... to create the final image.

anyhow, yes, one person without immense skill will have an extremely difficult time attempting a 3-d mmo.. even a person with immense skill would have a difficult time.

and the big time games coming out right now on the next gen consoles have million+ dollar budgets....

[amtalx]

Its nice to see people recognizing how difficult game development is (or any development for that matter). Its usually just "WHY CAN'T THEY DO THIS. ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS ADD *blahblahblah*" like its only a matter of commenting some code and adding a few more lines and textures.

[Saner]

I'm not against point and click. but for one tiny example, I'm against in how games like FFXI are so cruel with stuff like accuracy and overall how their stats rules work. Like I would make the accuracy % much more natural and fair that even a lv.1 person with a sword can damage a lv.50 monster depending on it's type and what it's made of (scales, skin, bone, shell, etc.)

but it wouldn't be something ridiculous like 0 damage or 1 damage.
or something stupid like missing more than 2 times in a row (unless it was a rabbit.) or even once if they are fighting a GIANT!

and also, stuff like job changes shouldn't affect the player's overall experience/base level. that's what FFXI lacked, a base level so people don't almost start from scratch when they level a new job. A master ranger shouldn't be acting like a lv.1 adventurer if they decided
to train as a warrior, they should at least keep most of their HP and raw attributes.

and the jobs should not be level based, but skill based in the sense that there would only be one level, the player's base level. that way, they would grow, and if they change jobs, then their skills with that job determines how good they are with it, that way they aren't forced to party in dunes again and again. of course, that must of been their original
scheme, force players back to 1 when training a new job, so the newcomers have more people to party with, but still, the whole soloing xp and drop rates are pretty much horrendous.

also, I don't agree with player run auction houses. bazaars are fine, but players should have the option to directly make a fair profit from NPCs instead of waiting for their stuff to sell or go down in price if people are overpricing things. and supplies should always be there at the AH so people don't feel trapped not finding the gear they need and wasting a day
doing nothing. another thing is the level gaps,

as well as players forced to sub something for a certain job because they are not as good subbing something else.

well ya there are tons of things but anyways, it's just too bad these games are in the wrong hands when it comes to laying down the rules. games like ffxi could have been 90% more fun than what they are now. but ya I had it with that game, and wow's art and lore and flavor doesn't interest me at all.

Champions Online might be good but I dunno,
I prefer something more anime-like , so I'm waiting for Dragonball Online. ^^

[Neith]

Its nice to see people recognizing how difficult game development is (or any development for that matter). Its usually just "WHY CAN'T THEY DO THIS. ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS ADD *blahblahblah*" like its only a matter of commenting some code and adding a few more lines and textures.

The only reason I know is because I studied Games Design at University. I'm primarily a texture artist, though I'm able to 3D model too. I know from University just how long even a seemingly trivial thing can take. Don't even get me started on character modeling and such, that takes forever.

My Games Dev module at Uni was the first time I've had to work with programmers, but I seriously felt sorry for them at the end of the module. We got told numerous times that the programming team had stayed up for hours writing thousands of lines of code.

Meanwhile, the artist team which included me were playing pool. I kid, we worked our asses off too. :wacko:

I think people who haven't had their foot in the games industry don't really have an idea of how much work goes into a title. During the game our team made (a 2-D RPG), we worked some seriously long hours and still fell short of what we wanted altogether :disapprove:

[thematesV2]

I have recently learned from reading interviews and looking at final game releases and putting 2 and 2 together, that games ALWAYS fall short of what they wanted to accomplish. so do films, as do books and all other immense projects.

also, although tiring, the rush gained from partaking in a GameJam is fantastic, if anyone is interested in their local or regional game dev. check out the up and coming Global GameJam. HERE (http://www.globalgamejam.org/Home.html)

I've partaken in two GameJams and it's definitely a fun time. I'll be partaking in this one, hopefully with my wife along for the ride.

[amtalx]

The only reason I know is because I studied Games Design at University. I'm primarily a texture artist, though I'm able to 3D model too. I know from University just how long even a seemingly trivial thing can take. Don't even get me started on character modeling and such, that takes forever.

My Games Dev module at Uni was the first time I've had to work with programmers, but I seriously felt sorry for them at the end of the module. We got told numerous times that the programming team had stayed up for hours writing thousands of lines of code.

Meanwhile, the artist team which included me were playing pool. I kid, we worked our asses off too. :wacko:

I think people who haven't had their foot in the games industry don't really have an idea of how much work goes into a title. During the game our team made (a 2-D RPG), we worked some seriously long hours and still fell short of what we wanted altogether :disapprove:

I just switched jobs about 5 months ago, but before I was the QA lead for various projects, ranging from developers you will never hear of all the way up to EA, Capcom, Ubi, etc. There are a lot of reasons I changed professions, few of which I'll get into here. But I will say this:

Its an unimaginable amount of work if you want to 'make it'. Crunches before major milestones will destroy your will to live. At one point I was up around 80+ hour weeks and hadn't spent a day out of my office for almost 2 months. I see a lot of people play games in their spare time and think that working for a developer is like recess, then they try it and realize that its work before play.

[Outrider]

I just switched jobs about 5 months ago, but before I was the QA lead for various projects, ranging from developers you will never hear of all the way up to EA, Capcom, Ubi, etc. There are a lot of reasons I changed professions, few of which I'll get into here. But I will say this:

Its an unimaginable amount of work if you want to 'make it'. Crunches before major milestones will destroy your will to live. At one point I was up around 80+ hour weeks and hadn't spent a day out of my office for almost 2 months. I see a lot of people play games in their spare time and think that working for a developer is like recess, then they try it and realize that its work before play.

Ugh. I was working for a casual games company late last year and my current job still keeps me involved in some casual games stuff, and while entirely different from major releases, QA is still my least favorite part of any sort of development process.

[Kent]

I'm not against point and click. but for one tiny example, I'm against in how games like FFXI are so cruel with stuff like accuracy and overall how their stats rules work. Like I would make the accuracy % much more natural and fair that even a lv.1 person with a sword can damage a lv.50 monster depending on it's type and what it's made of (scales, skin, bone, shell, etc.)

but it wouldn't be something ridiculous like 0 damage or 1 damage.
or something stupid like missing more than 2 times in a row (unless it was a rabbit.) or even once if they are fighting a GIANT!

and also, stuff like job changes shouldn't affect the player's overall experience/base level. that's what FFXI lacked, a base level so people don't almost start from scratch when they level a new job. A master ranger shouldn't be acting like a lv.1 adventurer if they decided
to train as a warrior, they should at least keep most of their HP and raw attributes.

and the jobs should not be level based, but skill based in the sense that there would only be one level, the player's base level. that way, they would grow, and if they change jobs, then their skills with that job determines how good they are with it, that way they aren't forced to party in dunes again and again. of course, that must of been their original
scheme, force players back to 1 when training a new job, so the newcomers have more people to party with, but still, the whole soloing xp and drop rates are pretty much horrendous.

also, I don't agree with player run auction houses. bazaars are fine, but players should have the option to directly make a fair profit from NPCs instead of waiting for their stuff to sell or go down in price if people are overpricing things. and supplies should always be there at the AH so people don't feel trapped not finding the gear they need and wasting a day
doing nothing. another thing is the level gaps,

as well as players forced to sub something for a certain job because they are not as good subbing something else.

well ya there are tons of things but anyways, it's just too bad these games are in the wrong hands when it comes to laying down the rules. games like ffxi could have been 90% more fun than what they are now. but ya I had it with that game, and wow's art and lore and flavor doesn't interest me at all.

Champions Online might be good but I dunno,
I prefer something more anime-like , so I'm waiting for Dragonball Online. ^^

Final Fantasy XI isn't rife with bad design decisions just because they don't appeal to you. It's holding a place of infamy among the hardest of the hardcore for a reason - the same reason that people who don't fit that description generally leave for something more forgiving, like WoW. Though I don't play the game any more, I do keep up with its development, being that it really is quite solidly-built and well-made.

Judging by all of your listed concerns, it sounds like you just want it to be another Ragnarok Online, in which case, I suggest you actually go and play it, since it appeals to every single one of your listed complaints here.

If you really think they're in the "wrong hands," I suggest you go get an education and years of practice in the field, making sure ideas can be balanced out correctly... And work on how easily it is to be excitable. >_>

[amtalx]

Ugh. I was working for a casual games company late last year and my current job still keeps me involved in some casual games stuff, and while entirely different from major releases, QA is still my least favorite part of any sort of development process.

QA for major releases changes A LOT. Imagine how much crap there is to go through for a game like Oblivion. D: QA sucks until you get out of the actual testing. Once you're running the show, its not so bad. I didn't do any of the grunt work at all really. You get to make cool decisions and bark orders at people, haha. Oddly enough, I started in dev and moved to QA...

[Nitro Vordex]

Like I would make the accuracy % much more natural and fair that even a lv.1 person with a sword can damage a lv.50 monster depending on it's type and what it's made of (scales, skin, bone, shell, etc.)
I lol'd hard at this.

If people are going for more realistic games, do you REALLY think they'll let some newbie with a sword kill or even scathe something like a dragon or cerebus?

Then again, it DOES depend on the scale of levels you use.

E.G. Killing level 40 monsters at level 15-20.

[Split]

They need to make an action MMORPG that is basically a deeper version of crackdown (with more melee moves!!). That game is siiicck

[Randomness]

QA for major releases changes A LOT. Imagine how much crap there is to go through for a game like Oblivion. D: QA sucks until you get out of the actual testing. Once you're running the show, its not so bad. I didn't do any of the grunt work at all really. You get to make cool decisions and bark orders at people, haha. Oddly enough, I started in dev and moved to QA...

Doesn't seem that odd to me. If I'm understanding you correctly, you just moved from writing the raw code to fixing the inevitable bugs.

I'm starting a computer degree myself, and the programming I've done so far is brief (Only on the scale of 300 lines at most) but even then tracking down the source of a single error can get way out of hand. (Okay, this is doing something wrong, but it could be any of 5 different things, each which can go wrong 5 different ways, ad nauseum)

[KodiaX987]

Oooooh shit, where do I even begin.

MMORPGS ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY REALISTIC
Just the fact that they have the letters RPG stamped on 'em removes any hope of logic correlating with the game's design. In real life, shoot a whole bunch of AK-47 bullets at a big burly guy and you are sure to hit him with some of them even if you are untrained. In a traditional RPG, a level 1 teenager attempting to do the same to a level 50 giant will somehow miss every single shot. For some reason, the big giant has more agility than the little dude. And what the hell is it about the endlessly spawning mobs roaming the countryside? You'd think the yellow chickens would get a clue after being slaughtered all the God damn time. But nope. They leave you in peace and quiet unless you attack them. Forget village attacks and base defense. Nope, ain't gonna happen here. Mobs are just content walking around 'till death ensues.

MMORPGS WORK TO APPEAL TO THE MASS
This means that every fucking MMO ever will be a point and click party circlejerk until someone comes along and spawns an unprecedented revolution - and good luck holding your breath on that one. People play point-and-click en masse because people want to point and click, and nothing else. MMOFPS? That idea was dead on arrival. MMO car combat? The damn thing closed off after a year. From a marketing standpoint, you're dooming yourself if you even inch away from the cookie cutter formula.

MMORPGS ARE TIMESINKS
You play for two hours. All you get out of these are a few hundred XP. You still have in excess of ten thousand to go before you can level up. And you have five or six levels to go before you can even use a better sword.

Conclusion: MMOs are meant for people who don't want to think.

Point at an enemy, wait 'till it dies, and repeat endlessly. It's easy. You get to watch cute sparks fly and bloom effects. A surprising lot of people are actually satisfied with that.

Now, technical details:

You want to make a different MMO, good luck getting a publisher willing to back you up. People don't want a radical newfangled thing. People want to point, and to click, in a universe where the only logic is the difference between two persons' levels.

You want to make something that'll be full of meaningful and varied content, you'll have to take out the first M out of your new game. Nothing good will ever come out of a massive-based design. Not with our current technology and internet speed. People imagine epic battles between thousands of people and monsters at one time like a medieval battlefield, but reproducing that on a computer is impossible.

You want to have a narrative and a story that follows, you'll need to convert your fetch quests into scripted missions in specifically designed dungeons. Killing ten wolves doesn't make the story advance one bit. What you need are scenarios, dialogue and cinematic content.

Here's what MMORPGs do. MMORPGs make you believe you'll be a hero, when in fact, you end up being just another swordsman among thousands more. You're a soldier in an army, you're just one more merchant in the marketplace, you're one more crafter - here's the news: interesting things happen to heroes. When you are just one more little fighter in a town, nothing interesting happens.

In the end, if you want any sort of substance to your game, you gotta change the massive part to it being full-instance and restrict whatever sort of massiveness you want to the lobby. You can't storyline when you have a hundred people out there in the killing fields. You, you, the character, have got to stand out and need to get the feeling that you are part of a special team being given a special mission. Taking on a "mega dangerous" quest when you know practically everyone talks to an NPC for the same damn quest sends immersion flying out the window.

And if you want something with realism, you'll have to take out the RPG part or, at the very least, downsize it to something much more in line with classical dungeons and dragons - meaning you pick your stats and they stay there. Sure, suit yourself up with slightly better armor, weapons and skills along the way, so the giant rat at the beginning is a little easier, but the player needs to get his ass kicked if he doesn't pay attention. If he can stand in the middle of a field, surrounded by twenty goblins and passively evade each and every attack, then there's a problem.

You can't ask anyone about the time when MMORPGs were good. MMORPGs were never good.

[Randomness]

You can't ask anyone about the time when MMORPGs were good. MMORPGs were never good.

I'm going to interject that the only thing that can make them remotely bearable is other people. That upgrades them a notch to somewhere between bearable and okay. But that's the draw. Solo, I agree wholeheartedly that every MMO is shit.

But that's what the real RPGs are for.

[Saner]

Oooooh shit, where do I even begin.

snip .


and it's this kind of thinking that's preventing mmorpgs from becoming better.



"You can't ask anyone about the time when MMORPGs were good. MMORPGs were never good. "

1. because developers choose timesinks and profit over fun and fairness and effectiveness.

2. the old-school fanatics want their mmos to feel like a full time job that's 1% fun, 80%
frustration, and 19% chat.

I'm not saying a mmorpg has to be hyper realistic to be fun, but heck even the offline rpg
classes put the mmorpg classes to shame with more reasonable accuracy and damage amounts. you never see 6 people getting creamed by a little crab, unless it's a crab possessed by Chuck Norris.

mmorpgs make adventurers suck too much. and cause they suck, they have to farm, cheat, betray, and leech off of others to progress. there are no heroes in mmorpgs, only material mice.


ah nevermind, the devs won't fix a wheel as long as the money is pouring in, and the people who live and breathe mmorpgs that have level capped mules are allergic to change and want everyone else to take their licks. of course a mmorpg shouldn't hand everything over to them
but really, making the accuracy and damage more natural/realistic regardless of level, would be a really good start. at least against beasts, if it's more intelligent enemies that fight like
warriors/mages, that's a different story, but still, multiple misses and zero or single digit damage
numbers is retarded, especially on larger/slower enemies

and that isn't the only way it could be an rpg, that is simply one way an rpg can set it's rules.

[Sord]

of course a mmorpg shouldn't hand everything over to them
but really, making the accuracy and damage more natural/realistic regardless of level, would be a really good start. at least against beasts, if it's more intelligent enemies that fight like
warriors/mages, that's a different story, but still, multiple misses and zero or single digit damage
numbers is retarded, especially on larger/slower enemies

Let's flip this around shall we? You're fighting a stone golem, held together by magic (something that's non-physical and can't be struck by normal means.) A very common dungeon crawling enemy. Realistically, your swords and ammo shouldn't do a damn fucking thing. All you should see is zeros. How about you're fighting a huge monster, several buildings tall, such as a dragon or a titan of sorts. Guess what, your sword is a fucking splinter, it would never take the damn thing down. Your arrows? Assuming they can even penetrate the skin or whatever natural armor there is you aren't gonna do shit unless you nail that sucker right in the eye or some tiny weak spot. Of course, while you're trying to stand there and aim your arrow up at this monster with it's moving head several stories above you, and it's trying to crush you at the same time, you honestly think you can knock that arrow and get a bulls eye? Yeah right. What you want isn't realism, you might be under the delusion (which as it's pretty obvious to plenty of people on this board you are either under a lot of those or just a huge troll, I personally think the latter,) that it is, but it sure as fuck isn't.

[Saner]

Let's flip this around shall we? You're fighting a stone golem, held together by magic (something that's non-physical and can't be struck by normal means.) A very common dungeon crawling enemy. Realistically, your swords and ammo shouldn't do a damn fucking thing. All you should see is zeros. How about you're fighting a huge monster, several buildings tall, such as a dragon or a titan of sorts. Guess what, your sword is a fucking splinter, it would never take the damn thing down. Your arrows? Assuming they can even penetrate the skin or whatever natural armor there is you aren't gonna do shit unless you nail that sucker right in the eye or some tiny weak spot. Of course, while you're trying to stand there and aim your arrow up at this monster with it's moving head several stories above you, and it's trying to crush you at the same time, you honestly think you can knock that arrow and get a bulls eye? fuck isn't.


well not if the swords and ammo are enchanted with lightning or something that will dissipate its magic with each hit. :p

but there just is a happier medium between stats and realism that mmorpgs haven't explored yet.

also, weak spots players would manually have to hit would be kind of troublesome for even
an offline rpg, unless the combat is like zelda or something.

an Mmorpg could technically have a auto-attack, menu/hotkey driven version of Vagrant Story's
body part target system (no gameplay pause when opening the targeting sphere),
but anyways, mmos haven't bothered to get that far. I don't think even Champions Online will
have some kind of weak spots for some enemies. it's just a hassle depending on what type
of battle system they are using.

[Kent]

There are quite a few very good reasons that some things haven't been explored in MMOs yet - the majority of those reasons boil down to technology issues. The rest are pretty much due to user-unfriendliness, or just being clunky in general.

Additionally, there are very good reasons that stats are the basis of everything in games - it takes after the fact that there's one thing that governs the real universe, that being math and numerics, but applies it in a different fashion. If online RPGs were vested in realism, nobody would have magic, and nobody would conquer any lumbering beasts like dragons and whatnot - not just because they don't exist, but because it would be physically impossible, what with the number stacked against you.

And, yes, the numbers can work against you in a very different way when applied like they are in Final Fantasy XI, which is a hardcore math geek's wet dream of an MMO.

The idea of balance within a game boils down to a player being of X level being on relatively-even grounds to another player of X level. The idea of being a "hero," is that a player of X level is, quite simply, just better than Average McCitizen of X level.

Maybe because this "hero" is so much more powerful than Averageman McDudeguy, that he'd be able to take on the dragon that's slightly taller than he and be on, at least, equal footing. People like to feel powerful - this is why levels of realism in MMORPGs don't go all that high - because if they did, everyone would just kinda be "there," and nothing and nobody special would arise, because of it.

In other words, you could say that too much realism detracts from how fun a game is, and ultimately, detracts from how many people will actually play it. If nobody's playing a game... It ceases to be.

So we've covered how too much relying in real number is bad - and potentially just as bad as relying too much in stats is bad. As a general rule, extremes are bad anyway.

Another variable that needs to be examined in design, is the matter of skill. I'm not talking about numbers your character has to represent how good they are with a specific weapon - I'm talking about the actual skill of the player involved. Heavily-automated systems are a lot more lax on this, because they have the player surrender direct control in favor of letting the stats do the talking, which works, to some extent. It makes most of the skill lay in resource management, as opposed to instincts and reaction in combat... And suddenly, we're playing an entirely different game.

In other words, the key here is to strike some sort of a balance between the "realism" that, say, swords are sharp and put holes in people easily, and the "stats" part that says that a seasoned, veteran warrior will be better at making people turn into a malleable red paste using a giant hammer, than the farmhand who just happens to win the grand prize at those carnival strength tests, with the hammer and hitting the thing. It should make sense that a guy that's been doing it all his life should be better at hitting things hard than the guy who hasn't, despite that they're of a similar build - at least, in respects to being fair (a concept that, realistically, may as well not exist).

It's not really a black-and-white decision as to how far to lean, between having a series of numbers dictate all of your actions, and having real-world sense taking over. The reason things lean toward stats so much is that they work, they provide a fun experience for players, and it lets them deal more in the realm of fantasy, which is what most RPGs are all about anyway.

[Outrider]

QA for major releases changes A LOT. Imagine how much crap there is to go through for a game like Oblivion. D: QA sucks until you get out of the actual testing. Once you're running the show, its not so bad. I didn't do any of the grunt work at all really. You get to make cool decisions and bark orders at people, haha. Oddly enough, I started in dev and moved to QA...

Oh, of course, I assumed as much. And to be fair, we didn't have the most effective tracking system or work pipeline, so I'm sure my situation was much worse than other companies may have had to deal with.

It was... an interesting company to work for. Certainly a learning experience in more ways than one.

[KodiaX987]

1. because developers choose timesinks and profit over fun and fairness and effectiveness.

We'll get this one out of the way quickly. Any decision that decreases profit and/or the company's public image is automatically rejected. All patches and all content additions are made to attract more buyers and subscribers. The ideal situation is to have a large fanbase that is willing to pay top money for your game while maintaining a high public image with the lowest possible expenses. Not a single line of code is made "for the gamers". There are no favors to be had.


2. the old-school fanatics want their mmos to feel like a full time job that's 1% fun, 80%
frustration, and 19% chat.
That's because the average MMORPG player has a ludicrous amount of time to waste and nothing to do, so he seeks to kill time in something he can easily pour hours in. MMORPGs are perfect for that because they rely on your time being worthless in your eyes.


I'm not saying a mmorpg has to be hyper realistic to be fun, but heck even the offline rpg
classes put the mmorpg classes to shame with more reasonable accuracy and damage amounts. you never see 6 people getting creamed by a little crab, unless it's a crab possessed by Chuck Norris.

mmorpgs make adventurers suck too much. and cause they suck, they have to farm, cheat, betray, and leech off of others to progress. there are no heroes in mmorpgs, only material mice.

ah nevermind, the devs won't fix a wheel as long as the money is pouring in, and the people who live and breathe mmorpgs that have level capped mules are allergic to change and want everyone else to take their licks. of course a mmorpg shouldn't hand everything over to them
but really, making the accuracy and damage more natural/realistic regardless of level, would be a really good start. at least against beasts, if it's more intelligent enemies that fight like
warriors/mages, that's a different story, but still, multiple misses and zero or single digit damage
numbers is retarded, especially on larger/slower enemies

and that isn't the only way it could be an rpg, that is simply one way an rpg can set it's rules.

I'll restate a previous paragraph of mine in another way.

The main wall that prevents MMOs from evolving is the network architecture we have at the moment. Because the MMO's design requires many things on screen at once, and interaction with many, many different clients, you need to make concessions to speed up rendering and avoid lag as much as possible. Even in this day and age, shitty netcode can screw up the combat between just two persons - now imagine if there are several dozen in a particular location.

Let's say we want a "genuine" MMO experience where enemies behave with some sort of organization and it's really something like army VS army, castle sieges and all those bells and whistles. You'd need a LAN for the connections and a supercomputer to do the pathfinding and decision making for the numerous AI entities in the game, and I wouldn't guarantee even this would be enough. The best I have ever witnessed in terms of player VS player was EVE Online in which the maximum amount of persons in a single node was maxed at about 200. More than this, and lag ensued, up 'till the node crashed. Some players actually used this to their advantage - if they were fighting a losing battle, they spammed the node with people to force it to crash and thus stop the fighting dead in its tracks.

Which brings up the next problem: an MMORPG assumes that you can play at any time you wish. EVE Online showed this a lot in the fact that the average PvP operation lasted upwards of three hours, and if you had the misfortune to have a need to leave, you'd end up either logging out in the middle of enemy territory or being forced to suicide in order not to let the enemy capture your ride and/or possessions. PVP operations were even timed around people not being logged on, with some organizations playing on the timezone difference in order to get the upper hand in wars. That just doesn't work... but there's no real way around it.

A MMO is built around the concept that it's a second life. But it's not. The MMO model works only on consequenceless worlds that are purely social - only then does it make sense. But as soon as you introduce a form of conflict, everyone will use the MMO's loopholes against it, with disastrous results.

So at the end of the day, you want an instanced environment for all things combat. This allows you to build scenarios around specific numbers of players, restrict lag and rendering issues, and allow a person who's being called by real life matters to log out and make it like he simply turned his system off in the middle of any old arcade game: the next time, he'll simply restart the level from the beginning and it'll be that, which is much less stressful than wondering about what's going to you while you are offline.

[Sord]

well not if the swords and ammo are enchanted with lightning or something that will dissipate its magic with each hit. :p

even then, lightning isn't going to do much to rock, nor is water, fire (unless it's intense to the point of magma, in which case it should kill nearly everything) wind sure as fuck isn't going to cut it. You'd have to come up with an enchantment that is meant to directly fight against inorganic constructs. Which, is technically possible, and could lead to some interesting ideas.

Though if you want a really realist MMO (with the exception of magic or superscience and monsters,) I'd say first you'd have to call it quits with the idea of a base stats for the characters themselves. Take a thing from monster hunter, where your hunter themselves is completely irrelevant to your output/input. Instead, your strength and your defense is based entirely on your equipment. Instead you grind for materials to make better equipment, rather than better yourself, because, let's face it, as a human you can only be so strong. Once you hit the high protein diet with steroids and plenty of time in the weight room, you just cannot physically get any stronger. Even with skill in wielding a weapon, you can still only get so far when you're going against a monster 5 times your size. But we humans have something much more handy and efficient, our brains. We can build and invent crap that does shit for us.

So instead of grinding to level our character, lets have you level your equipment and/or magic abilities. You grind for materials to enhance your current weapons, armors, magic, and possibly vehicles (why not have the ability to make a tank that you can control yourself, etc?) To make this more actiony, lets not bother with point and click and borrow another page from the realm of monster hunter (And also PSO/U.) We play in small groups to take down something epic since we already know we don't have the computing power for mass army vs mass army in an actiony control scheme, this is the next best thing and actually a lot closer to being a "hero" because it's more personal in small groups instead of one little man in a hundread

In an attempt to add weak points, lets go ahead and make accuracy somewhat of a stat. You choose which spots of your enemy you are aiming for similar to how Crackdown does. There's a little broken up silhouette of body parts for you to auto-aim at, and selecting that part will automatically aim your gun at it and orient your camera appropriately. All your hits are then dedicated to that part and only that part. The computer decides wether your shot (be it magic, bullet, superscience beam or whatever) actually hits or not and does damage.

On bigger enemies you might want to take down their legs first, to disable them, then take down other parts. Maybe even their eyes to blind them. On smaller enemies you might just go straight for the head or chest to take them out, or maybe not even bother splitting them up. Maybe you could just implement that feature on "bosses" or something. Each "part" of the monster has it's own stats as to it's HP before it's disabled and it's own defense based on whatever natural armor is there (so lets say an exposed belly would be a good weak spot to hit instead of an armored leg. You get to choose to aim for the weak spot or take more time to cripple the enemy, giving you more variety in strategy.)

One small problem with going equipment based though, is that there's not much emphasis on race and such. So for that purpose I would propose a world that has a mix of both magic and super science. At the most basic, that would give you at least three races to throw out there, one that excels for magic, one that excels for superscience (building advanced weaponry and machinery,) and one that's a middleman. Magic users could hunt for spellbooks and catalyst items to cast large heavy duty spells. Superscience users can hunt for schematics/blueprints and materials to build and enhance them. You could perhaps even make quests oriented around finding the spellbooks and schematics and the grind of killing monsters more around collecting catalyst items and construction materials. Also, within each Magic and Superscience, you also have more specific splits, such as healers, damage dealers, ranged users, AoE (in this case it hits multiple parts of an enemy rather than so many square feet per level of the attack) users, etc.

No matter how you look at it, if we're going to make this much stuff look decent in 3D, your going to need a heavy duty PC or a console (either 360 or PS3.) Not to mention action MMORPGs (such as PSO, PSU, and Monster Hunter) all fit better on a controller than they do a keyboard and mouse. So if there's a PC version, you'll probably want a gamepad. So I could really only see this being a console title or for incredibly high end PCs, because you will have to have good and reliable processing power and a damn good connection.

Thing is, not many companies are going to want to put that much money into a high end game, because you get a lot more money catering to a low-end market (look at WoW for example.) So chances are, you won't have the high end PC on there, it would have to be a console. But then you looks at incredibly successful console MMORPGs... *crickets chirp* Yeah, not many companies are going to want to invest in that either. So good luck finding a dev.

However, let's say you do find one. Something that massive, even with the world split up into sections like PSO/U or Monster Hunter with a main lobby, is still going to take a really freaking long time to build. You'll be doing art direction for what is essentially both a sci-fi and a heavily induced magical world, so you're gonna have a ton of investment there as well. Then you have to make a world with at least a basic history and purpose for existence, including one for each race. Then also have some story for quests and such (hopefully much much better ones than PSU's) or go for no real point other than "this thing is terrorizing us, go kill it." Last but definitely not least, you have to balance all this shit. I really don't want to even think of the math involved in that one. Then once that's all done and decided, you must code the fucker. Good god I would not want to be on that team even if I was an expert in game coding. In the end, this title is probably going to take that $10 mil investment, probably break it, and then you are going to have to have high end servers to support and hold the shit, so happy high subscription fees as well.

But really, what company wants to invest that much money on what would be a niche game that might work, rather than a simple timesink nearly anyone could play with a game model they know will work and keep people around for a good long time?

[HAYABUSA-FMW-]

Its an unimaginable amount of work if you want to 'make it'. Crunches before major milestones will destroy your will to live. At one point I was up around 80+ hour weeks and hadn't spent a day out of my office for almost 2 months. I see a lot of people play games in their spare time and think that working for a developer is like recess, then they try it and realize that its work before play.
Again a quick re-iterate, forget MMORPG's and their models.

Just developing a GOOD GAME is too hard, err & squee squee squishy squeegee trail off sentence catch phrase - Role play post text quoting... crazy :cat:

Not just deadlines to meet, but entirety of code needing rehauls a month before firm release date? IE: make a new game, new system from what was already being done, coders (& already months of put in work) be damned? Yes. All the time.

Developers pushing in a new must have feature after the game is 90% done, yeah. That too. Fixing one problem = 10 new problems, or adding in that feature = 10 new problems/bugs; don't say you've never heard of this.

Plan out your game stories individually all you want, how gameplay should work perfectly and the system balanced on every "dotted i" and non-overlooked "crossed t." You'll still need load of start up development costs, an entire dedicated team (which will have faults and never be pefect) to put together a game and send it out to Gold copy before the current hardware cycle(and if early in it, have to learn the new kits and internals) is over (5 ish years) or so.

You could be Superman with the Neo Matrix hacks and still not do it all yourself. Even some Superman & Matrix games have been really bad, indirectly proves some kinda point, that fact.

At that, text pen and paper RPG's are hard to go and run yourself, add in exponents to the 10th or 100 or more for how difficult game development is.

[Kylie]

You'll always disappoint, regardless of what you produce. PSU (though not an MMO) is a perfect example of this- when the game released, everyone complained that there was no PSO-related items. Now we have AoI which couldn't be much more stuffed full of PSO stuff, and people complain that 'PSU is trying to be PSO'. Like I said, you can never please everyone.I think most mistakes are made when too much fan service is put into a game. The loudest players are usually only a handful in the community, and if you seek to please them, other elements that should be paid more attention to suffer in quality. I also want to agree that games (MMORPG's in this case) are hard to make, but I'd also say that there's really no excuses they can make for losing to the competition. There's always room to improve (SEGA/Sonic Team :wacko:).

[Shadowpawn]

You know, it's amazing how many posts a Saner topic can garner. All he has to do is post an opinion and BOOM.

Anyway, I guess it's true that a lot of MMORPGs do seem rather formulaic but honestly that's what appeals to most of the hardcore crowd.

[Sharkyland]

I liked Lunia. ^_^ (for an MMORPG those parties are up to 4 only, and it's not point and click :D Now I want to play it again :/ )

I do agree with everything said by Kent, KodiaX, etc. I don't think there is anything I need to add or comment. It feels like Graphic vs Gameplay debate all over again in some conversations. I also thought bandwidth is also a HUGE money eater.