One problem with fights in MMO''s is that they are bland. This is for more than just the go eat a sandwich method that most games have. What I''m proposing here is something that you can implement without changing the combat system of the game. Ok here''s the down and dirty idea for you. When a fight is taking place in the game, the client shows the fight in a high action sense...(think hollywood) This occurs on client side ONLY. And there is an option to turn it off and view it normally. It does not affect the game, only how it is viewed client side.

expound, I''m not sure I get what you mean

George D. Filiotis

I am a signature virus. Please add me to your signature so that I may multiply.

I think he wants some kind of flashy action movie style visuals for combat.

-----------------------------------------------------
Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

That would be great... if nothing else happened in the game while you were fighting and if combat in most MMOGs wasn''t about as frequent as most people blink their eyes.

you would have to make it very randomized. and i dont mean randomly pick from 5 differnt fight scenes, because as was said, fights hppen very often. well, it may improve over having one boring thing to see, but anyway... you could probably have the fight influenced by things in the surroundings plus some randomness. A problem though is having other clients see the same thing. if you do it procedurally and use the same seed on all the clients that see it, then it could work i guess.

Basically, i think it is a good idea overall, but it is not to be oversimplified. think about all the possibilities.

well, it''s baldur''s gate against final fantasy (more like grandia 2 in fact)
it''s easy to do and it''s rule, i''m noy designing a MMOs but i''m working on a animated style rpg, while combat is very deterministic in rpg and very predictable, because unlike an action you don''t have that much possibility of move, it''s very easy to make camera and other kind of candy, in real time without any flaws.
well i use to take actual 3D fighting game style combat camera to make an anime style rendering (rival school, tekken and dead or alive mostly) whith the plus of that i have no need for the habitual side scrolling camera they use to help quick reaction since in a rpg it''s slower and more command driven than action driven (my system can tell a character what to do without even seeing it, i''m not using the mouse)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I don''t think it even matters whether all the clients see the same thing, the point is that you''re seeing a glorified version of what is normally a very banal animation.

I would welcome less frequent fights in MMOGs if individual fights really meant more, like you really could die fighting a monster just a few levels behind you if you were stupid about it.

Getting off topic but this was one of my major irritations with Diablo II, 90% of the time, you don''t even think twice about how combat is going to go.

George D. Filiotis

I am a signature virus. Please add me to your signature so that I may multiply.

Well, the real reason for there being so many fights in MMOs is that there really is little else going on.

As for dying to monsters a few levels below you, you haven''t played EQ, have you? Dying to monsters a few levels below you is a common occurence and usually you will die to monsters only 80% of your level unless you''re very careful and REALLY know what you''re doing.

But like I said, the real problem is that there is little else to do in MMOGs. Sure, you can run around doing scripted ''quests'' (a better term would be tasks, since it''s almost always a "go get me" kind of thing), but those aren''t all that exciting and usually you will spend more than 1/2 of your time on that quest just fighting more anyway.

What needs to happen in MMOGs is that there needs to be better AI running the background events so that the game will create a story without outside intervention, though obviously the more complex storylines would have to be controlled by GMs, but there should be more going on in the game that allows for an interesting storyline without there being anything that the GMs have to develop. However, as I said, that requires better AI.

Sorry I was in a bit of a rush when i wrote that original post. I''ll expound more.

Imagine fights from any action movie past or present.

Pirates of the carribean
Matrix
LOTR
He-Man etc

Whenever a fight is instituted in the game, the server handles the mechanics of the fight just like any other. The client will then start a visual representation of the fight...as is normally done, however unlike its done now, it puts together a random fight that "fits" the action going on in the battle system.

I.e. Your character moves around on screen, dancing, if you will blocking blows, dodging and parrying..anytime an actual block or parry takes place the effect is "over the top" in the animation...just something to go along with the action.

The client has various options for the advance fight animations
Self
Group
ALL
None

Where you choose which group of people you see in the advanced fighting mode, and which you see doing just the normal boring fighting in the game. (the idea is similar to the options in EQ for what adv character models you wished to see)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic did this; even though the fights were turn-based the characters fought using several attacking/blocking/dodging animations. it made the fairly simple combat fun to watch, even after hours of playing it.

the only thing that bothered me was when a character "missed" it still sometimes looked like a hit, and sometimes they''d register a hit when the animation was clearly showing a parry.

i think this would be a damn neat feature in an online RPG, although it is not nearly as important as a fun game