Sorry Scott, but I completely disagree with you in many cases, mostly because the MMOG workarounds haven''t been developed into the game(s) is/are the reason for the difficulty in their production and further upkeep, not so much cost though that''s always an issue with anything.

I believe, if given enough to produce a good project, a team would have a very good chance at working towards a MMORPG like what I''ve had in mind. Yes it seems very complex in many areas, but if the engine I want for it is worked out the way I plan, then the finished design would eliminate about 89% of the main concerns with MMOGs, including support/pirating and lag issues which account for most of the concerns with any MMOG.

Complexity through simplistic means and some obvious reshaping of the wheel, coupled with some innovated gameplay and technical elements is all it''s about. Besides, whatever I can''t afford to find help doing I can do myself, I just need to apply some effort and some ol'' fashioned elbow grease to make it slide

Oh, and I''ll point out the vision here, but not the work behind it, that''s only for those who''ve signed NDA''s (Or I know their addresses, hehe > ).

Either way, IMHO, both the games you guys (Haro, Usser) are arguing over could use some much appreciated improvement, but they both serve the purposes they were developed for. They just didn''t delve deeper into player satisfaction, that''s my goal

- Chris

Hmm, I realize now that we are discussing different things when we say technically advanced. My definition of this is how difficult it is to create the actual code handling all the player interaction and server logic. And creating a MMO that can create server groups for broadcasting packets between players and simulating a huge vast of parameters is to me a big feat of the UO team. It all gets much much easier in a MUD where you at least have the players confined in rooms/areas.

I believe that our definition differs and some are instead pointing at the complexity of the gameplay (i.e. monsters working in groups, advanced barter/trading systems). So if anyone misinterpreted me, i'll just make it clear that in my opinion, all MUDs that I played (and that is alot more than I would ever admit) have had more advanced gameplay than UO or EQ.

Well I realize that there still is alot more that I don't agree with Haro on, but I just feel I dont have the energy to answer all the points that he mentions, although most of them would make for some very interesting discussions! Hopefully they will be adressed in future MMORPGs.

[edit: some clarifications ]


[edited by - usser on April 29, 2003 7:15:14 PM]

Why aren''t MMORPGs more dynamic?? Because people are incorrigibly stupid. You cannot design to make people better players. The players themselves have to become smarter players. Most developers see “dynamic” as some form of chaos that could get out of hand and weaken their bottom line (money) so they never risk anything they do not have to. This is the way it will be until someone proves them otherwise.

I consider AlphaWorld to be a MMOCR (Massively Multiplayer Online Chat Room) and well as IRC. When I come away from those experiences I am almost begging for some structure.

Whoa I wrote some more crap. Oh well throw it on the pile anyways. Enjoy.

irbrian-
My point wasn''t that people are stupid (mostly), but that they simply don''t care or understand about roleplaying. It would be like expecting most people to like playing sports. I for one, could care less about sports...I hate sports. In that sense, I''m in the small minority of American males. But many people have the same attitude about roleplaying. Or, their concept of roleplaying isn''t what we think of as roleplaying.

I don''t have a lot of experience with MMORPG''s, but I''ve played PPRPG''s longer than alot of people here on these forums have been alive (about 20 years). I used to be a GM for many PPRPG''s for over 10 years, and I went to many conventions to eventually meet hundreds of roleplayers. And only a minority of roleplayers actually understood and enjoyed to truly roleplay. Meaning that they enjoyed telling a story through their character. Most people played roleplaying games to kill things, get rich, or be more powerful. And I''m not the only one who thinks this way or had these experiences. There''s a Dragon magazine I have from a way back that even came up with the term, "Role playing vs. Roll playing".

I think the greatest reason that there aren''t more roleplayers out there isn''t so much a lack of an intriguing game world, and a setting which is rich in roleplaying events, but rather a social stigma. In my experience, women in general make better roleplayers than men because they care about their character more and understand their role, but perhaps more importantly, they don''t seem fazed by any stigma attached to "roleplaying". In my high school, if you admitted to playing D&D, you were more geeky than the chess club. Heck, my mom practically freaked out when she saw my White Wolf game of Vampire. And I see how others ostracize roleplaying gamers. One guy at work loved MMORPG''s (mainly Everquest and DAOC), and people would always talk behind his back about how geeky he was and how he wasted his life on playing those games.

That''s another worry. One of my friends who likes computer games alot says he doesn''t want to play MMORPG''s because it takes too much of a time investment. He says he''ll be worried that he won''t be powerful enough because he can''t afford to put in more than 2 hours a day playing games. While I told him that wasn''t really the point behind a roleplaying game, his point made sense (from his viewpoint).


Do I think people are stupid, lazy and uncreative? To a degree yes. Look at the Matrix for example. I know very few people who were truly fascinated by the epistemological questions raised by the movie. Only a few of my friends and acquantainces were genuinely interested in the ethical and philosphical questions posed by the world. Most were just blown away by the special effects and cool action sequences. Do I think people can be smarter, harder working and imaginative? Yes I do, but the trick is, even if you lead the horse to water, that doesn''t mean you can make him drink. In other words, making the game world more interesting can encourage better roleplaying, but it won''t necessarily cause better roleplaying. I just had a conversation with my aunt a few days ago, and I told her about how astonished I was at the lack of curiosity in most people. I thought that people generally speaking aren''t curious about a great many things in the world. And she told me...."don''t be surprised, curiosity is a rare trait in the world."

Getting people interested is the first step in making them good roleplayers (and making them curious in general). But to get people interested, you have to provide not just an intriguing game world, you have to break down the barriers in their minds that prevents them from being open minded and inquisitive. And I think a huge barrier for that is the social stigma. Remove the social stigma, and I think you''ll see a renaissance of roleplaying because a new crowd of fresh minds will be introduced to the medium without fear of being ostracized. As long as the stigma is there, even with very interesting game worlds and opportunities, many people will pass it by out of fear or distaste.

quote: Original post by Silvermyst
Quantity != Quality

This applies not only to the number of rooms, but also to classes, races, weapons, items, spells, etc.

This is a very good point and begs the question....why does everyone want Massively Multiplayer Online Role Palying Games? The massive part may actually turn out to be more of a detriment than a boon for some players.

From my own GM''ing experiences with PPRPG''s, when the group got to be more than about 6-8 players, it wasn''t really that fun anymore. Not because it was harder to organize, but because not everyone had as much time to develop their character fully and devote time to. It''s kind of like going to parties. Up to a point, there''s too many people at the party, and it just gets too noisy. There''s a nice happy medium where the party isn''t too big or small (though some people love huge parties, and some people prefer small gatherings).

I''m guessing that the people who like MMO''s are the people who love huge parties. I''m more of a small to medium party person, because it allows me to interact with people on a more personal level without a lot of intrusions or distractions. While this can be done in MMO''s (size limits on certain areas), sometimes it''s nice to just have a group of the same people over and over again (like a club sort of).

I''ve always thought that roleplaying requires smaller groups of people who work together over time. That way they get to know one another (for better or worse) and they can talk on a more personal level. With MMO, you turn that upside down, and it seems like the selling point is being able to interact with as many people as possible. Some people like that (the more extroverted usually), but I think a smaller environment is more conducive to good roleplaying.

In my PPRPG sessions, you met once a week with about 6 other guys, and it was as much a party as a roleplaying session. We ate, we drank we went out to restaurants sometimes, and we talked about the game world or characters or just life in general. It was in many ways, a bonding session. In MMO style games, you''re constantly meeting strangers (or at least that seems to be the allure to many people) but then it gets hard to create bonds. And without creating those bonds, I think it''s harder to truly roleplay.

There''s something to be said for small tight knit groups that habitually meet together at a certain time.

To address the previous poster, in my experience with Ragnarok Online (a Korean MMORPG...more of a hack and slash deal, but anyhow), most people who had interests in anything but leveling tended to form close-knit groups. In general, I think that the massive amounts of people in an MMORPG is meant to parallel life; just as you can congregate with your friends in real life, there are countless people you could potentially meet. MMORPGs bring that potential to meet people to the table, but still keep possible interaction with a small group.

[edited by - Escherial on April 29, 2003 12:29:57 AM]

I started off skimming through this thread but man, I had to go back and read all of the posts. You guys are brutal. I did get a nice chuckle at haro's post about the 4 different zone types which I agree are in every rpg type game where leveling is involved. My opinion on the original question of why MMORPGs aren't more dynamic is based on the lack of money theory. Typicaly graphical MMORPGs require a large investment in time on the part of the developer especially once it goes live. Unlike the users, the developers have to keep a constant eye on the happenings of the game for reasons like cheating, bugs and other things that will drive players away. Time = money. Although I think money is the main reason behind the problem, it isn't the only one. As the OP stated, it is a pain in the ass to set all of this up for one and if you look around at the forums, lots of coders seem to have problems finishing what they start. Also, the technology to dynamicly push this data around just isn't there yet. When my cable modem becomes the low end equivilent of what dialup is today, then we will start to see much more dynamic content in games. Until then, your pretty much stuck with whats out there. As for MUDs, I still play them(for 8 years now!) and consider them 1000x more fun and interactive than everquest can ever be. When the day comes that computer graphics can beat what my imagination can come up with, then that will be the day I hang up my tintin++ file.

edit: ROFL!!! "DOOD, DIS ZONE SUX BIG SALTY NUTS!!"
had to get that out of my system, so funny yet, so true...

[edited by - evillive2 on April 30, 2003 1:26:42 AM]

quote: Original post by Dauntless
Look at the Matrix for example. I know very few people who were truly fascinated by the epistemological questions raised by the movie. Only a few of my friends and acquantainces were genuinely interested in the ethical and philosphical questions posed by the world.

If you really liked the philosophical edge of the matrix read: "Brains in a Vat" by Hillary Putnam. I''d swear the entire concept was stolen idea by idea from that paper.

On the other note, I tend to agree that the majority of people aren''t in general open to new ideas. However, I also think roleplaying takes a certain type of person. I tried a roleplay mud before, and though it was interesting.. It just never felt fun. The most fun I ever had in a D&D game was repeating the same campaign multiple times to get rings of wishing until my character had Cloud Giant strength, 20 dex, 23 int and all other stats at 18 (Except for 19 charisma). That was pretty much the end of that character and my experience with D&D. Nobody wanted to play with a god character. I just had more fun making my character insanely strong than I ever did bringing the fascinating fantasies to life in my mind, or interacting..

I feel roleplaying is alot like coding. You are completely passive towards it, or you love it.

Just a counter-opinion.

Haro, good point about roleplaying taking a special kind of person. That''s pretty much what I meant...it takes a certain kind of person to be good at roleplaying. Just like not everyone is good at sports, or FPS games, or puzzle games, only some people are good at roleplaying.

A dynamic world which stokes the creativity and imagination will allow the people who are good at and enjoy roleplaying more chances to express their creatvity, but it won''t make people who are not good at expressing themselves or being creative good roleplayers all of a sudden. It IS possible, as I''ve seen mediocre roleplayers turn into very good ones, but they have to be genuinely interested in their characters and the game world. So in that sense, I agree that games haven''t done enough to provide truly unique and interesting environments.

It''s not easy finding people who can bounce creatively off each other to weave an interesting story. I''ve always been more of a character-driven fan with the story as a motivator. But the focus on the character is more interesting to me than the focus on the story. The story to me, is more like a prop or background which allows the character to develop their personality and motivations. This requires player input to flesh out. As a game designer, when you tackle game design and playability, and the game world, mostly it concerns story-driven elements. While a game designer can think of ways to motivate or reward a character for fleshing out the character, ultimately, it''s down to the player to be that character and help weave a story.

I remember playing as a player in a rather drole 30''s pulp-fiction game (Justice Inc., a game under the Champions system), when a new player came into the campaign. This guy was freaking hilarious and he played a con-artist sleight of hand magician. Imagine a white guy with an Indian accent (he was raised by Indian mystics) who conned like Eddie Murphy or Chris Tucker with the acrobatic graces of Jackie Chan, and you''ve got an idea of his character. He turned an extremely boring campaign into a hilarious one and was a riot to play with. What made him so funny was that he played a fish out of water character so flawlessly, with a "what? what did I do?" look that''d just make you crack up after his shenanigans.

His creativity stoked my own, and I asked the GM if I could change my character. I created a character called Michael Chance who had a obsessive compulsive gambling addiction. Basically, he was a daredevil, who literally had no fear of dying (which believe it or not, I took as a disadvantage, as I did some rather insane things). He several times challenged people to russian roulette (we both rolled dice, and if we rolled the same number...blammo). I played about a dozen times and never lost. I did the whackiest things like leap from rooftop to rooftop, and people were always amazed that I never got killed, despite some rather harrowing odds. The funny thing was, in the beginning, I didn''t care if my player died because that''s how my character was...fearless. But towards the end, after pulling off some amazing stunts, I started becoming fearful for his life...but then I remembered that just wasn''t his character. Ultimately he died one day while trying to leap from car to car, but he sure was a fun character to play.

In essence, good players will feed off each other and turn even mundane worlds into fun ones. As a result the campaign got more fun over time to, as the GM tried to cater to our playing styles. That''s why I say that ultimately, good roleplaying is more about the player than the game.

GO DEEPER!!!!

I also agree that the idea of roleplaying comes from the player who's involved, but in respect to that, an intriguing story can only help to bring out the inner character.

My best experiences with PPRPGs comes from Legend of the 5 Rings, a japanese version of D&D that focuses on respect and admiration among true heros and their lives, so much in fact that a well respected character gains better stats through the honor that they build. Myself, I ended up playing the part of the least respected clans, the Scorpions, which due to their mysterious ways are looked down upon by the other clans, yet my character had a severe problem - a compulsive urge to set objects ablaze, mostly fireworks, in the most stealthy of situations! So picture a small, shadowy figure, decietful and coniving, yet with child-like pyromaniac tendancies, and you've got Etti Bayushi of the Scorpion Clan! I had a blast (pun intended) roleplaying this character!

So you see, though it can always remain an option to the player, a setting which encourages roleplaying and rewards those who do can gain mass appeal.

Now, about the whole MMO part, if when you first start off into a game's atmosphere you are presented with a small party who want's to roleplay and introduces you to it within the game, then it will be reguarded as a very creative standard, and as such, players will _want_ to follow suit... Of course, there are some additional encouragements that will come into play, one being an 'honor' or karma system that benifits all alignments, another being a contextive chat interface which will remove alot of the,"DOOD, DIS ZONE SUX BIG SALTY NUTS!!", and replace it with,"My Friend, this world wreaks of chaos!", then there will also be the enhanced and ever-present ability to be as creative a character as possible with an almost bottomless skill tree which allows a 2-Handed Sword Smith to be as specialized as a Deathmagery Scribe, and both be significant to the world.

Quickly, on the subject of the skill tree so you have a better understanding of how it will be designed to work, players will start off as Level 1 at the roots of the tree, the exception being the slight paths they have decided upon when creating their character, which will be enough to say they have some slight experience already in that area of ability, just not specialized. As a player grows in experience, they will be allowed to plot the course they wish to travel in order to 'learn' more developed skills. In this sense it will not only be a more realistic characterization, but also more satisfying to the player. Now remember, just because you can smith a sword don't mean you can smith a shield or any other armor, it all takes some learning, _but_ you won't be restricted from trying and any success gains some appreciated experience towards that ability. But, another thing to keep the focus of the player more on roleplaying will be the automatic roleplaying they are presented when they gain new levels of experience! Whenever a player gains a level in the field they're persuing, they will 'learn' how to be more productive with the materials they are using, or the tools, or how to be more efficient, or a number of other possibilities, and it will be noted in their journal as well!

Anywho, it's all about psychology in most respects. Toss out a bone, and if the dog wants to play, they fetch it and try to play back, if not they simply see the other dogs having fun playing along. The thing is, once they start playing, and they find it's a game made for them, and they like it?! You won't get them to stop!

Eh? Maybe a little too off the wall on that one, but what the hell, I hope you see my point

Gee, 5 A.M., I must be tired, 'nite!

- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus

(ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz..........)


[edited by - Ronixus on April 30, 2003 5:03:54 AM]