mmorpg chart

Post by **Xest** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:05 am

Argyleyn wrote:And Xest, I think you might have been trying to level in one area specifically and run out of quests, after level 10 there are 2-3 areas that are at the same level and you will run out of quests unless you visit 2 of those at least.

No I think you're right, but with the northern route out too high level and the southern route out from where I was camped 24/7 by a hoarde zerg and no flight routes, or at least no affordable ones I was left with little choice.

Argyleyn wrote:Part of what you are describing is real, if you don't know what quests are around there might be some overlapsing, i.e. someone asks you to kill 15 furbolgs then you find out there is a quest to get 15 furbolg claws and another to kill the furbolg chieftain and you go 'duh, should have done them together'.

Well I'm usually pretty tactical with quests, I grab everyone I see in a population centre like a village and around the area before going out and doing them so I can do them together, I don't just grab one and do it, come back grab another etc. It's not so much overlap that was an issue as I say I'm used to working round that from DAoC quests when I used to do all the ToA/SI quests for XP in each different area, it's just the genericness of the quests I find dull and again that goes for pretty much every MMOGs quest system still.

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:08 am

Nedo wrote:How can someone ruin Guildwars or Diablo for you...theyre both "instanced". Play with friends like you most likelly do/have done in Daoc and you wont have any probs with GW or Diablo. Hard to ruin PvP in GW to as its instanced... I dont get youre arguement tbh.

And thats why I personally don't concider those two to be mmorpg

(well, diablo was a well known fact...but guildwars is listed as mmorpg). If I wanted to play in a personal dungeon I wouldnt have any need for a mmorpg but could instead stick to a normal offline game

but thats ofc my personal opinion!

/Ankh

Nedo · Post by **Nedo** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:17 am

<ankh> wrote:And thats why I personally don't concider those two to be mmorpg (well, diablo was a well known fact...but guildwars is listed as mmorpg). If I wanted to play in a personal dungeon I wouldnt have any need for a mmorpg but could instead stick to a normal offline game but thats ofc my personal opinion!

/Ankh

Naw I agree 100%, GW was made for pure PvP and they then added the PvE part 1 month prior to release if I get it right. Diablo is more arcade like

That said the PvE campaign in GW was rather funny (did I just say that

) and the henchmen concept worked nice once you got the hang of it.

Amazed at the 6.3 % RuneScape in the chart....I mean wtf?

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:25 am

Nedo wrote:Naw I agree 100%, GW was made for pure PvP and they then added the PvE part 1 month prior to release if I get it right. Diablo is more arcade like
That said the PvE campaign in GW was rather funny (did I just say that ) and the henchmen concept worked nice once you got the hang of it.

Amazed at the 6.3 % RuneScape in the chart....I mean wtf?

I think that the henchman idea is good, and could well be the basis for creating more group friendly instances, as per discussion in another thread.

No healer wanting to do the instance,nevermind have a healing henchman, the same can apply to other required positions. As soon as a PC decides to do the instance, bye bye henchman. The PC leaves, no problem, poof a henchman appears to take his place.

Whilst it is no replacement for a proper balanced group, it should be good enough to keep the enjoyment levels up, and reduce some of the complications in balancing the instances.

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:27 am

Nedo wrote:Naw I agree 100%, GW was made for pure PvP and they then added the PvE part 1 month prior to release if I get it right. Diablo is more arcade like

Must have been earlier, cos at the E3 Beta version you could do PvE.

/Ankh

Nedo · Post by **Nedo** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:30 am

Ovi wrote:I think that the henchman idea is good, and could well be the basis for creating more group friendly instances, as per discussion in another thread.

No healer wanting to do the instance,nevermind have a healing henchman, the same can apply to other required positions. As soon as a PC decides to do the instance, bye bye henchman. The PC leaves, no problem, poof a henchman appears to take his place.

Whilst it is no replacement for a proper balanced group, it should be good enough to keep the enjoyment levels up, and reduce some of the complications in balancing the instances.

Ye the concept was good. Suicidal priest henchies and stuff like that made it bit hard to play with them though but with a bit of work its a very good part of a MMORPG. Gives you the choice to group or not at least.

Cryn · Post by **Cryn** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 7:48 pm

I think there are various games with some neat ideas that should be included in upcoming MMORPGs. Henchmen is one - it allows healer specs to still solo when they need/want. Another is the lackey/sidekick idea from CoH, that allows people to form groups with people higher than themselves.

Post by **Xest** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:34 pm

Sidekick idea exists in DAoC too btw Cryn they stuck it in some patch ages ago, DAoC's implementation isn't fantastic though but then I've never tried CoH's

One thing to note is that a lot of these ideas posted are working largely on the assumption games follow the linear system of levelling that DAoC, WoW etc. use, UO's horizontal levelling method where there are no levels, you just get 700 skill points and can fill them up with a choice of about 30 different skills by actually using those skills - things like healing, poisoning, stealing, magery, tinkering, archery, swords, barding, taming, parrying etc. Meant you could have a far more diverse range of characters yet a newbie character with immensly high skill at the game could still beat a crappy longer term player using his low level spells because they didn't outright miss or fail to effect people higher than them, they just did like 5% - 10% damage instead of like 40% that some of the higher level spells did, other things like having fixed cast speeds giving people time to think, i.e. chuck a fast casting small low damage fireball at someone to try and interrupt their slow casting high damage spell etc. It had all the novelty skills WoW stole too like fishing which was pretty amusing at high levels cos you could go sea fishing and sometimes accidently drag up a sea monster which had decent loot on it and such

Another favourite was the tinkering skill let you do amusing stuff like attach an explosive trap to a box.

I'm not really much of a fan of the linear levelling system in DAoC/WoW etc. but it seems the only choice in most games now. Levelling skills like in UO by actually making use of them meant you could play the game and have fun from the off - none of this spending months to be competitive bs yet without leaving you no way to progress your character - there was still a perfect balance of that. It's just a shame EA broke UO with it's ninja's and whatever, they tried to squeeze classes (that made no sense in UO's lore even) into a non-class based game.

Nedo · Post by **Nedo** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:02 am

<ankh> wrote:Must have been earlier, cos at the E3 Beta version you could do PvE.

/Ankh

Ye my bad, it existed but you could create a PvP char with all skills and runes unlocked without playing any PvE, at actual release you had to "unlock" them to use them in PvP.

Cryn · Post by **Cryn** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:15 pm

Linearity vs non- is a huge debate of its own, but I agree with you on it - I am not a fan.

I had a discussion with someone some years ago about the future of MMORPGs (and his opening gambit was about how WoW would not be a license to print money, so you can see how wrong he was) and even then I thought eventually the level treadmill will be replaced by something more sophisticated and exciting.

Buying skills is just part of it. UO still uses the same level progression model in that Killing = experience = progress. One day I am hoping a viable title will be created without this whole idea of getting more powerful as you progress. It's just a hook to keep people playing, but it is ultimately a dead-end and not satisfying for the player. If a game had truly engaging content and gameplay, people would keep coming back without the carrot of the next ding being necessary.

A game where people played because they enjoyed the adventure or found RvR engrossing is very achievable without levels, in my opinion. Imagine being able to build any character skill set you like as soon as you roll and *GASP* your fancy sword just being a cool showpiece, not a fight winner.