Hi all, I been playing Dark Age of Camelot and was thinking I''d open some discussion regarding MMORPG issues in general, with a focus on DAoC (becuase I''ve only played AC and EQ besides). First of all, it seems like a great game. Very entertaining and involving, but I think there are a few mistakes that they, and other MMORPG designers, have made and are continuing to make. 1) Not easily accessible. How come these games can''t be sat down and played for 15-30 mins like a normal game? It''s a rule of design in every other genre of game that a game is easily accessible. Not these MMORPGs. If you don''t have at least an hour to sit and play, you''ll never get anywhere and it becomes incredible boring since you don''t level, advance, see new monsters or areas, etc... What happened to this design principle? 2) Travelling across the land. I understand the desire to make it realistic and all, but you''ve got a great action/adventure game until you want to go to the next town over. There is no, zero, no quick way to do it. Even if you buy a horse in DAoC, it takes twenty minutes to get across a continent. TWENTY MINUTES! When you can''t do anything. No gameplay, no pracitcing skills, NOTHING. You have to sit and read a book while your computer rides across the landscape. Is this retarded or what? How could something like this slip through? What is the point of a computer GAME that you can''t play during certain points? 3) Nothing to do. I mean that seriously. I was on the public beta team for Everquest and I hated it right from the start. I stopped playing after a few days because it was a hack and slash fest, only the computer did the hacking a slashing. It became a sort of joke in all of the game publications. Going out to kill rats, la dee da. DAoC has improved upon this, but only because there are combat styles so you have to be paying attention to the battle to choose the appropriate style/spell/etc... Other than that....? I get online and spend all my time looking for a group, gathering that group together, and then killing things. That''s it. There are a few quests, but they''re hardly time fillers and only good for about 1/4th of a level every 5 levels or so. There are ''tasks'' but those either involve killing something or that twenty minute horse ride I discussed earlier (and the quests usually require that ride also.. ugh). What else to do? Practice crafting??? Even worse! Press a button, wait 1 minute, repeat. Two or three THOUSAND times (I am not exagerating). Your choices are kill or.. uhh.. play a different game. It was just bothering me so I thought I''d open the discussion board up here regarding these things. I''d like to hear what everyone has to say. --Ben

I''ve been playing DAoC for about 5 months now. It was the first MMORPG that I played. Since then, I''ve played Earth & Beyond (good idea, poorly executed... Star Wars Galaxies will no doubt put this game out of its misery) and The Sims Online (this was more of a research project).

I agree with a lot of what you say about DAoC. My biggest gripe is the running around and waiting for horses. When I''m playing a game I want to play the game, not run around testing my abilities to read a map and use a compass. The rest of the game is what I expected considering I''ve watched my roommates swim in it for weeks before I finally dove in. Overall I think the game is well executed. It''s aesthetically pleasing (especially with the Shrouded Isles expansion pack), the premise is solid and the worlds are large. I''m not a big RPG player, so I can''t really comment much on the gameplay compared to other RPGs.

As for all MMORPGs, one of the biggest inherent inadequacies is that the games are involved. This is why hardcore gamers know what MMORPGs are and casual gamers have no clue. If you want to have a real successful MMORPG I think you have to find a way to bridge the gap between hardcore and casual gamers. Casual gamers need to be able to log on, play for 15 minutes and accomplish something. To do this, you have to break out of the D&D mode of thinking about RPGs and perhaps cross genres.

Jon

Well, on your last point I''d like to contend.

I don''t believe the ''D&D RPG'' aspect of these games is what prevents casual gamers from playing. Baldur''s Gate, EQ, and Torment are all games that brought a ton of new players to the genre without dispersing of much of the ''RPG'' element. DAoC, and probably the others although I couldn''t say from experience, are simply poorly documented and poorly explained. A more responsive user interface, and a more responsive environment could help bridge the gap of understanding. I consider myself an intelligent person, and a BIG fan of RPGs, both Pen n Paper and Computer, and it''s taken me the better part of a month to learn the in''s and out''s of DAoC. You can have a complex environment with many user choices and still attract casual gamers. The gameplay of these games simply don''t lend themselves to a casual gamer.

--Ben

Hm, let me put my salt into this discussion.

First - the horses. I dont think that basically the "large world and time consuming travel" are negative - you need to basically put some "large dimension" into this type of game - being able to access every stupid area of the map in a minute or two takes out all the "finding things out" stuff. OTOH, therer could be portals (instead of horses). But still, you need some type of "size factor". And if you give people some reason to stay in an area, this is not too bad. The quests hunting you through the map, though, without any reasoning or action, though, are boring and bad.

OTOH, the RPG thing - I really wonder what happened to the concepts of PnP games like Gurps, or Traveller, where you basically start with a complete character :-) Samn, this leveling is BAD, and the way it is implemented in most games makes it worse - I was pretty pissed when I played DAOC that the levels have such a devastating (!) effect. I lvl 12 warrior is NOT lets say 20% better than a lvl 10 warrior - he KICKS his but without a scratch. This makes it brutal :-) What really bothered me (so much I stopped playing) was that I was regularly playing with a group (not always together, but we managed to keep levels). I went to holidays for two week, they ganes 2-3 levels - and I could not even do anything again when I was hunting monsters with them. So, just a small holiday kicked me out of my friends :-(

IMHO one way to cure this and go in the way you suggested is:
(a) have a flatter learning curve. Lets say that your characters start at level 100 and can go up to level 150 - linear. Means a fully "filled" character is 50% better than a starter - which COULD make a hell of a difference if he puts all his experience in fighting etc. But this makes the starter not totally useless. Similar to traveller, where your char started AFTER completing his career in the normal services, or like GURPS where you started normally with (if I remember right) 75 points worth of character, SLOWLY going up, and the normal guy on the street was a 50 opoint equivalent.
(b) replace the powers with a structure of permissions and reputation. The non-regular player will never be king of a country, never be THE richest merchant of a settlement etc. Quests etc. help you gaining reputation, building wealtch, which you can spend on your own horse, housing etc. SUrely this means putting some meaning into all of this :-) Now, with friends this basically means they ould supply you with better weapons etc., but not with the reputation :-)
(c) give this whole thing some sensible quests. Which will become the main problem. But this is propably the only one thing which can put some substance into the worlds. NOW - the iregular player ill never be really part of the storyline, but - he will see the world created and catered for by the "regular players". Which is good. And, coming in, he might actually do something useful.


Regards

Thomas Tomiczek
THONA Consulting Ltd.
(Microsoft MVP C#/.NET)

quote: How come these games can''t be sat down and played for 15-30 mins like a normal game?

Because they focus mainly on long term. In my opinion, the only short term fun thing to do in Everquest was combat. As I didn''t care much for long term effects, I quit playing as soon as I stopped enjoying combat.

quote: What is the point of a computer GAME that you can''t play during certain points?

I understand the need for distances, but I agree: traveling is boring. Quick solution: at the start of each gaming session, let the player pick a starting position that the character could have reached if the character had walked (not ran) during the absence of the player. For example, if my last gaming session was 10 hours ago, and if a character can walk 1 mile an hour, let me pick a starting location 10 miles from the place where I logged off. This would retain consistent distances, while allowing me to quickly join friends within a 10 mile radius. If my friends are 15 miles away, I''ll still have to run for 5 miles, which will now only take me 1/3 of the time it would''ve taken me without the automated walking.

Quick idea on traveling:

Implement a portal system that is cost based. The further you teleport, the more it costs you. If you don''t have the money to port all the way, run or take a horse to somewhere that you do have the money. You could also scale it by level so higher level players pay more than lower level. This might help keep the economy more level.

Just a thought. I''d like to hear comments. I don''t recall seeing anything like this talked about recently.

To further explain my feelings regarding travel...

I agree that to give the feeling of immensity and involvement IS an important aspect of these games. You cannot make the entire world so easily accessible that everyone is crowded on top of one another, and there need to be clear boundaries that expand as your character advances in the game. The first time I rode a horse from Jordheim to Gna Faste in DAoC, I was jawed. Amazed. Dazzled at the beauty and immensity of the world. The seventeenth time I did it, I was sick to my stomach at having to wait so long for the horse ride to complete.

If it were up to me, I would implement a ''teleport'' system, with a few different rules and restrictions. I would allow a player character to have a set number of ''binds'' that could be placed anywhere in the game world. At early stages a character might only have a few binds, and as they increase (in game story, experience, whatever) they gain more binds. The only restrictions would be restrictions on certain areas that you simply didn''t want the PC to teleport to. So at level 20, a PC might have five binds which they could place and remove at will. The only rule would be that a character would have to BE at the location they wished to place a bind. This means that the first time they would have to manually travel there, and then they could place their bind and teleport from then on.

In this manner binds then become a currency in the game world and can be awarded for finshing quests, gaining levels, or whatever else. You remove this idiotic horse-travel method and have a system that retains some playability.

--Ben

I respond by posting my usual link - for anything, absolutely anything, related to MUD or MMO*** game design, do a search on the MUD-dev mailing list archives. It includes thoughts from the designers of most MMORPGs and major MUDs, including DAoC, EQ, SW:G and UO and many many others.

If you like what you see, join the mailing list. It''s a moderated list where all sorts of discussions related to MUD/MMO game design is welcome. I''d say it''s the one forum that beats the gamedev.net forums for an aspect of game design. You can subscirbe to a digest version so the list doesn''t pop in a new mail every hour but one every few days (works great).

List archives.

Also be sure to check out its FAQ. (on the same site)

---




(My projects and ramblings...)

You can't just sit down an play for 15-30 minutes because of

(a) the traveling .... not a bad thing, traveling, but there should be ways around it if you don't need to do it, or want to do it.

(b) the time involved in making a character kickin' is an investment, an investment that a lot of people can't let go of, which means on a pay for play game, the creators get more money.


I personally don't like MMORPGs because to do anything, you have to become powerful, and to become powerful you have to sacrifce an enormously large amount of your time to leveling your character. In sacrificing the enormously large amount of time to level your character to max you give up (probably) at LEAST 3 times the amount of cash you paid for the game (somewhere around 40-70 $$), to the games creators. I just can't see paying that much to spend that much time walking to get to max, and then having nothing else to do besides killing things.

Theres not really even a story. I mean...sure 'defend your kingdom' or something like that...but bleh. Thats not a story thats a never-ending mission. I want "closure" to a game. If theres no closure, its not a game, its a time and money sync.


But from a design stand-point...lots-o-potential, at least from my point of view. If the games start getting off the whole time-sync , kill-tons-of-things theme (not saying how to do this, just 'if' they do...) then it would be the start of a Massively cool story in which thousands of players can partake.

[edited by - Inanis Serpens on January 13, 2003 5:49:51 PM]

quote: Original post by Inanis Serpens

Theres not really even a story. I mean...sure ''defend your kingdom'' or something like that...but bleh. Thats not a story thats a never-ending mission. I want "closure" to a game. If theres no closure, its not a game, its a time and money sync.

[edited by - Inanis Serpens on January 13, 2003 5:49:51 PM]

How about a closure option for the closure gurus? Say something world altering or so intelnely difficult to be called an ending. Then you are given the choice to retire your character to the game and can even be provided with an ending FMV of your characters younger years and expolits.

I would think it entirely possible for a design to implement a feature that would allow a player to be an NPC master to be remembered by all. Granted thousands of thousands of people would take this path of closure and that would be the most difficult.

On another note, the majority of people who choose the games do so because 1) there is so much to explore and 2) you get to actually do some stuff with other players; other than compete against them. Most people are aware of the no closure act employed in MMORPGs. Yet, I still think there is a way to allow closure.

Maybe not the make-your-character-an-npc idea, but some grand finaly, some final slightly custom tailored mission that will forever leave a mark by that character on the world (defeating a creature for a final quest and having an item named after you comes to mind).


Webby