Definitely lack of meaningful interaction. To me, this is exemplified by lack of actual RP.

I don't wanna be playing with Fred the 1337 d00d and Joey the guy with a snake fetish who keeps telling me I'm h0t. I wanna be playing with Delthor the Barbarian and Suneliki the mysterious wizard who talks to plants. I want there to be kings and knights and political maneuvering. I want people to do things because that's what their character would do, not because it's the fastest way to get uber. Basically, I want it to be like living in a totally different world, where every action you take has consequences, and the interaction of all the people and factions makes the future unpredictable.

Give me something like that, and I wouldn't mind paying a monthly fee.

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Original post by silverRohan Don't you realize the time sink is the big selling point of a MMORPG. From a company standpoint, the more time a person invests in a game, the more time they are going to continue investing. This is where the whole monthly fees comes into play. If we can make the players feel that they have to continue and stopping would make it a waste of time then we can get more money from our product.

So rather than giving consumers incentive to play, you're giving disincentive to stop playing? And you don't see anything wrong with this?


Personally, MMORPGs strike me as insanely boring. But, then again, I'm hardly a gamer.

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Original post by Aurvandil All of what has been said is good material, the problem is not all opinions are going to agree. I dont think there can nor will there ever be a "holy grail" as you put it. Otherwise here are a few (more) of my opinions on the matter: *Time, the time sink as stated is definitely a big thing for me *Money, again, already mentioned *The ability to play alone without much penalty in productivity *More variety- of monsters, of people, of things to do, no more changing color scheme and calling it a different monster All just my humble opinions of course. So are you asking because you want to make the "Holy Grail?" Well you are off to a good start, you are listening.

Well thank you. Ive been playing games for over 20 years and hope to always keep listening.

The game we are working on is a post-apocalyptic MMORPG - part PvP with city-building and resource gathering, Part PvE with Tom Clancy SplinterCell style missions that have DEEP interactivity...and a heavy mystery storyline storyarc...with integrated mini-games like gambling, vehicle modification, and melee fighting like in a console game. There's more to say, but at a later date.

Ive spent a fair amount of my own money on hiring an investment solicitor for this project and he wants me to come up with a "silver bullet"/"holy grail" to take to investors to market our game as the clear choice for investment money.

Im coming to the conclusion that it can't and can be simply stated in one word: world-building. That is to say if you have great gameplay, an engaging, super-deep storyline, amazing graphics, and a world that gives players multiple reasons to play and multiple methods of playing it should be a success.

But simply saying "we're great world-builders" doesnt quite cut it :)

Thanks

Most of them dont have role-playing of any kind. People are too focused on building their characters. Either force people to build characters through social interaction, or take out the whole building / levelling mechanism and just make it a sim.

Of the few I've tried:
Too hard to solo past level XX.. sometime's you can't find or don't want to group.
Too much emphasis on fighting. Bring questing more to the forefront. I want adventure, not camping.
They all seem to be Knights and Dwarves, etc... how about something different (yeah I know about COH, haven't tried it).

I'm going to make a MMORPG about sheep!

You definitly need to put something into your game that no one has seen before, and I would say you need to do things quite differently then anything that has been done before..

One think that would be quite different would be to say there is no currency in the game, you just get what you find and there is no basic form of currency, this would make it a trade game rather then a game where everything has a specific value to it.

one thing that I noticed when playing a MMORPG is in the end it really doesn't matter what the story of the game is, people are going to roleplay what they want.. you create a world for things to happen and then others will make things that they want to happen.. An example of this is in Ultima Online, they have a server where PvP is allowed all over, no real safe spots.. well this doesn't mean that everyone attacks everyone it actually means that other repect people and you learn who is a friend and who isn't.. On this server there is a player run town that has a tavern, if you ever wanted to talk to someone you could just go there and people would just be hanging around..

What I'm trying to say, is you could make up the best stories ever but your game isn't really going to stay with that story, people are going to do what they want, thats part of the fun.. And you story is going to have to progress constantly to keep people interested with new things to explore.

I would say you need to find a certain type of system that is totally new.. maybe you could make a new why to deal with death, or a new way of housing, or anything thats not see anywhere

oooh and do away with levels, skill per use is alot better.. more realistic and better when your want to make crafting people or non fighting characters

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Original post by onyxflame Definitely lack of meaningful interaction. To me, this is exemplified by lack of actual RP. I don't wanna be playing with Fred the 1337 d00d and Joey the guy with a snake fetish who keeps telling me I'm h0t. I wanna be playing with Delthor the Barbarian and Suneliki the mysterious wizard who talks to plants. I want there to be kings and knights and political maneuvering. I want people to do things because that's what their character would do, not because it's the fastest way to get uber. Basically, I want it to be like living in a totally different world, where every action you take has consequences, and the interaction of all the people and factions makes the future unpredictable. Give me something like that, and I wouldn't mind paying a monthly fee.

Have you ever tried A Tale in the Desert. Right up your alley. [smile]

To me the time-sink issue isn't all there is to it. All games are time-sinks, the only thing that matters to me is if it was a fun time-sink.

Make crafting more fun, make combat more fun, make story involvement more fun. Balance the single-player involvement and the multi-player involvement. As of now, from all the games I've played, it's as if an actual individual player is considered useless and retarded.

MMORPGs are too slow. They are so big that you simply spend more time running around looking for stuff to do than actually doing anything. People don't play games for the scenery and it seems like the designers spend 90% of their time designing this gigantic, scenic world that when it comes down to it is only a lesser fraction of the ultimate game enjoyment experience.

The combat tends to drag. It's usually semi-turn based with minimal input from the player except for when to disengage the opponent and toggling between skills. The camera also can be annoying. In order to respond to an attack from behind or to the side you have to swivel the camera around to see your attacker, sometimes (WoW) you have to face your opponent to even be able to attack. The game isn't smart enough to automatically turn you to face? Yuck. It all adds up to lack of excitement and frustration. This is one of the reasons I never understood people denigrating "click-fests". At least they keep you on you toes and make for better action.

I've been doing the last stress-test beta for World of Warcraft and honestly, I don't see myself paying a monthly fee for something as slow paced as that. I also have done the Guild Wars alpha/beta tests a few times and it isn't any better. In fact it's the same. Graphics, graphics, graphics and slow, slow, slow. I have been known to spend 12 hours at a pop playing an on-line game (or more). That would NEVER happen with the MMORPGs out there today.

So, my complaints are:
1. Big worlds with everything too spread out.
2. Slow and boring combat.
3. Slow going all around.
4. The current camera systems detract a lot from the action aspect, pretty graphics not withstanding.

There is no major storyline.

I want to come in to an MMORPG, and have it say, "You have entered the world on the 27th day of the 13th year after the fall of the King Alexander." And then it should show a timeline of the world in which you have entered, which shows events like "the throne of Mallon usurped by the Dark Lord" or "the One mentioned in the Prophecies has been revealed to be the Knight Tron." And these events ACTUALLY HAPPENED in the game world before you started playing. See, players should be a big part of these events - eg. the One might be a randomly selected player, and the Dark Lord also.

For example, I think the coolest thing in World of Warcraft is how you can gather an army and invade the world of your enemies. The players are basically creating a storyline of their own.