Edit 4562452: This is a purely theorhetical piece, but it's supposed to express concepts that will be governing the development of my current project. The feel that the game creates for the players is of critical importance to me, and it's infinitely harder to pin down than more tangible technological problemes. It's long, it was written in a sporadic moment, and I'm looking for people to point out the agriegious flaws in my theory. In a respectful tone, preferably. I'll have relavent game information up on my website once development is far enough along, but thankfully, this piece isn't specific to this particular game. If your first reaction to reading this is “Wow, you’re a stupid idiot who obviously knows nothing about game design, and is probably some twelve year old sitting at his computer fantasizing about some over-idealized set of cliché misconceptions,” take into account the fact that many people who may come off the wrong way actually have something good to say, though they may word it poorly. Take this into account before you go on a rant. I’ll provide details of the implementation of this kind of concept later, if need be. For now, remember that my idea is to provide a gameplay experience that allows the greatest number of players to have the fairest possible experience. I think we can all agree that any game has at least this goal in mind, even if the goal is profits. These are my ideas on what can be done to fulfill this goal. The most popular MMORPG’s have a few common traits. I’ll express what I think should be changed: Non-real time combat. Though some may argue that a combat system such as that in World of Warcraft is real time, and most people consider the system used in Diablo II to be real time (I’m aware that Diablo II isn’t and MMO, and that it has a completely different combat system than WoW. Bear with me for a second.), it fundamentally isn’t. You don’t physically sit around and wait for an attack to happen in Diablo in the same way that you would for Warcraft, but the combat is still flimsy. In RPG’s, it seems that the systems used are just as archaic as the board games they came from. In a board game setting, you have pre-calculated character stats, and you use simple math equations to determine damage, or you simply roll a die. Why is it that this same combat system still dominates RPG’s, even though that system is no longer necessary? For nostalgia and style, I could understand. But every offering seems to be dominated by the same concept. What if someone came along and developed an RPG with a world comparable to Lineage, World of Warcraft, or any other MMO, but included real time combat? Imagine having thousands of players hopping around the same way that they do in a game like Devil May Cry (I use this as an example a lot, but it’s a great action/adventure/hack ‘n slash/platformer), with a skill system as diverse as Diablo II, with the social aspects of World of Warcraft, the scalable graphics of the Source engine (It can appeal to a wide range of markets, a friend of mine plays Half Life 2 on a 5200 Ultra, and it doesn’t compromise graphical quality on higher end systems), and the production quality associated with most single player games. MMORPG’s are stretched too thin. It’s almost as if they just lather on extra crap just to meet production deadlines. The result has no personality, but is really addictive. Which is fine. The current games and genres are great at what they do. If only there was an MMO that did something different for a change. Every single game that tries to mix RPG and real time combat that I’ve played has watered down one or the other. Devil May Cry 3 has awesome gameplay and action, with a touch of character development. Which is great. However, that’s about as far as any game will take it. What about DMC style combat and a full regimen of skills, character customization, and MMO social interaction? How many more people would play Diablo II if you could jump, and play through five times as many acts? Those two changes would make a world of difference. But about the combat systems; they’re too basic. It gets frustrating to watch your character physically make contact with an enemy, and then have a message pop up on your screen: “Missed”, “Blocked”, “Parried”. How did this person just magically parry my attack? Of course, that’s an aspect of many games. However, I think that RPG’s could benefit if they gave the player a bit more control in those situations, but didn’t base your performance on twitch skill. You should be able to actively try and dodge your opponents attack. Your performance in RPG’s is too much based on chance. How well you build your character should determine every aspect of your game combat experience, in an INTUITIVE manner. So no more “You magically missed” messages, if you miss, it should be because your opponent’s character had enough agility to dodge, and the character only dodged BECAUSE THE PLAYER TOLD THEM TOO. Therein, combat is not based on as much luck. What is the competitive skill if some one lucks out of an encounter? In real life, chance is a factor in your performance. It’s often a frustrating one, and it’s rarely a validating experience to know that you’ve succeeded based on pure luck. So why should it be such a large factor in games? If I loose, I want to know that I lost fair and square, not because the server rolled a number too low. If my character is weak, don’t cheat me out of a fair loss by giving me some lucky number. Let me try and play, and let me loose proportionally to my character’s folly. Heh…I’ve tried to talk about combat systems and I’ve ended up going off on a tangent…twice. In any case, this is just a lot of ranting, so take what you can from it and post your thoughts on the concept of a complex character/real time combat based MMORPG, as I’ve tried to describe it above. Edit: Forgot to ad the AD supported stuff...oops: Finally, an MMORPG shouldn’t bind the player to an oppressive payment regiment. Why not display an ad on the login screen? People see that screen millions of times a day. What company wouldn’t pay to have ad space in a location like that? Let’s say you made a three cents per ad viewed on the login screen. Let’s also estimate that total monthly views of the login screen would be around 20 per user, and you had about 2 million users. With those figures, you’d make 1.2 million dollars off of ads per month. Obviously, they are a bit overestimated, but the point is that having an ad on the login screen wouldn’t be intrusive to game play, and assuming that each of your two million users (Lineage I peaked at almost 3.25 million) logged in twice a month, that would still be 120k in the bank every month. Three cents an add is what banner hosting websites get paid per click – an MMORPG has guaranteed viewer ship in the millions per month. Who could resist? Obviously, there’s probably something I’m missing since no wise company would let such a cash cow go to waste, but it seems to work in theory. [Edited by - Nytehauq on April 5, 2005 9:37:39 PM]

while I would love seeing a computer RPG with a real-time fighting system (and I share your concept about real-time fighting... heh, my offline rpg project is based on real-time fights, actually), it would be impossible to create in an MMORPG, and the reason is simple.

A game with a real-time fighting system (and even more if done as to make twitch part of it) requires of lots of data to be handled all the time, ie. character position, attacks, dodging, blocking, jumping, crouching, etc, as well as the usual MMORPG stuff like special abilities, item usage, etc.
Every single key press needs to be sent over to the server, which would be too much to be even playable, the lag would kill the game.
MMORPG's are still like that because their fighting system involves little data to be sent to the server, and therefore the connection can handle it and the game doesn't lag, and therefore it is playable.

For this to happen the game would need never-seen-before netcode with great performance on passing data over to the server, and definately faster internet connections (no dialup user would be able to play it)

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Original post by Nytehauq In RPG’s, it seems that the systems used are just as archaic as the board games they came from. In a board game setting, you have pre-calculated character stats, and you use simple math equations to determine damage, or you simply roll a die. Why is it that this same combat system still dominates RPG’s, even though that system is no longer necessary?

The advantage of simple math equations is that they are easy to understand for the user. If I fire an arrow at you, the system can generate a random number from 1-10, and if its above 5 mark it as a hit. It could also take into account how much sunlight is in my eyes, how far apart we are, how fatigued I am, the difference in height of where we're standing, how frantic the battle is, how big you are, the moisture in the air, ad infinitum and then generate whether I hit you or not. But if I, the player, haven't myself taken all those factors into account then it's still just a random number to me. And if I can't do anything about a factor (such as whether the sunlight is in my eyes) then it doesn't add anything to the game either. The distance between us would be a valid thing to consider: I can wait for you to get closer before shooting. The amount of light in my eyes wouldn't be, because I'm probably not going to be able to circle you before firing my bow, so its just an annoyance that doesn't change anything. The idea behind using simple formulas is that they're an abstraction. If the player isn't thinking about something (air moisture), then it doesn't matter whether you realisticly simulate it or not. If 10% of arrows are going to go astray because of air moisture, then it doesn't matter if you choose 10% of arrows out of random or select which 10% it will be to the player. Yes, there are additional things that can be taken into account (the distance again), and it is worth considering them. But even with things the player can control, if you throw too many variables at them you're going to turn off players. I want to think about how cool it is to be an archer while I'm playing, not whether the fact that that orc over there is on a hill should make me try to lob my shot or straighten it.

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What if someone came along and developed an RPG with a world comparable to Lineage, World of Warcraft, or any other MMO, but included real time combat? Imagine having thousands of players hopping around the same way that they do in a game like Devil May Cry (I use this as an example a lot, but it’s a great action/adventure/hack ‘n slash/platformer), with a skill system as diverse as Diablo II, with the social aspects of World of Warcraft, the scalable graphics of the Source engine (It can appeal to a wide range of markets, a friend of mine plays Half Life 2 on a 5200 Ultra, and it doesn’t compromise graphical quality on higher end systems), and the production quality associated with most single player games. MMORPG’s are stretched too thin. It’s almost as if they just lather on extra crap just to meet production deadlines.

Here is a contradiction in your theory. You say MMORPG's are stretched too thin, and they are. But adding all the things together you mention stretches them even thinner! Just creating a generic 3d MMORPG is already a massive undertaking. The more you add the tougher it gets. And with the money required to create an MMORPG, waiting longer to finish or hiring more staff is problematic. Yes, it would be nice to have great production quality and gameplay and realtime combat and be massively multiplayer, but in the real world you sometimes have to sacrifice one of those for the other.

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The result has no personality, but is really addictive. Which is fine. The current games and genres are great at what they do. If only there was an MMO that did something different for a change. Every single game that tries to mix RPG and real time combat that I’ve played has watered down one or the other. Devil May Cry 3 has awesome gameplay and action, with a touch of character development. Which is great. However, that’s about as far as any game will take it. What about DMC style combat and a full regimen of skills, character customization, and MMO social interaction? How many more people would play Diablo II if you could jump, and play through five times as many acts? Those two changes would make a world of difference.

If we're talking strictly pipedreams, then yes, that'd be great. Ignoring reality that would be fun. I'd also add a realtime strategy game the players could optionally participate in, and hundreds more monsters and weapons and balance all the classes perfectly. Those two changes could make a world of difference, but the number of acts alone would require 5x the graphics! Quality 3d artists cost money. Sure, you can just reuse the same graphics and 2d maps are easier to make then 3d so you could pump out some more, but if the new acts don't add anythiing they won't be any fun. As for jumping, I'm not even sure what that means in a 2d enviroment? Would being able to jump over the fences really add anything?

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However, I think that RPG’s could benefit if they gave the player a bit more control in those situations, but didn’t base your performance on twitch skill. You should be able to actively try and dodge your opponents attack.

That's one of those things that sounds so easy in your head until you actually start thinking about the implementation. I've tried many times to come up with a system that works like that. If you've got one then props to you. By all means tell us and we'll revolutionize rpgs forever. But how are you going to implement the ability to dodge without twitch aspects? I'm going to dodge every attack that comes my way. If its not random and its not testing reflexes, what makes it succeed sometimes and fail other times? You can make it a puzzle, or you can make it strategic, but those usually require you to totally abstract the situation. I suppose you could have dodge have an accompanied penalty, and I have to select whether or not its worth it, but that's tough to do well. If its not perfectly balanced you'll end up with players dodging every attack or never dodging anything. If it succeeds or fails based on the opponents actions, then since I don't know what the opponent's action is it's the same as random to me. You can add more tactical decisions to gameplay (which are already there in most rpgs- use a healing potion now or wait? Engage those enemies or don't? Kill the orc first or the dragon? Run away or try to win the battle? use the sword that does more damage, or the sword that protects you from fire damage?) but its still going to boil down to random numbers.

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So why should it be such a large factor in games? If I loose, I want to know that I lost fair and square, not because the server rolled a number too low. If my character is weak, don’t cheat me out of a fair loss by giving me some lucky number. Let me try and play, and let me loose proportionally to my character’s folly.

The thing about luck is that it can give some weird results in the short run, but it evens out in the long run. You might get lucky and kill that uber-dragon, but the next 20 times you try you won't. It's the principal that poker is based on: you'll get lucky sometimes and you'll get unlucky sometimes, but if you're a better player then your opponent you're going to come out ahead. When I'm designing an rpg, that's usually the principal I aim for: Let chance take its course, but reward appropriately so that the best player will be the one best at risk-management. You've got to test something when players compete- twitch skill, strength, strategy: risk-management just turns out to be one of the easier ones to implement.

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Finally, an MMORPG shouldn’t bind the player to an oppressive payment regiment. Why not display an ad on the login screen? People see that screen millions of times a day. What company wouldn’t pay to have ad space in a location like that? Let’s say you made a three cents per ad viewed on the login screen. Let’s also estimate that total monthly views of the login screen would be around 20 per user, and you had about 2 million users. With those figures, you’d make 1.2 million dollars off of ads per month. Obviously, they are a bit overestimated, but the point is that having an ad on the login screen wouldn’t be intrusive to game play, and assuming that each of your two million users (Lineage I peaked at almost 3.25 million) logged in twice a month, that would still be 120k in the bank every month. Three cents an add is what banner hosting websites get paid per click – an MMORPG has guaranteed viewer ship in the millions per month. Who could resist? Obviously, there’s probably something I’m missing since no wise company would let such a cash cow go to waste, but it seems to work in theory.

I've never run a website, so I'm not familiar with how much money the average website gets for every click, but assuming your 3 cents is accurate you've forgotten to take into account that if you're lucky you'll get maybe a 5% clickthrough rate. 2% is probably realistic. So multiply your figures by 5% (or 1% if you want to be conservative). Some sites do pay per ad-view as opposed to per click, but if your 3 cents is right, they're probably paying a fraction of a cent per view. The other problem is that getting enough companies to invest millions on your medium takes time. You're going to have to foot the bill while the game is being developed, foot the bill for all the servers, and then hope that you can get the revenue you need through ads. If the ad thing doesn't work out then you've just lost hundreds of thousands of dollars at least. It's a big gamble for something that's never been tried before. If an advertiser backs out, or fewer players join then you were predicting or a big advertiser goes bankrupt before you're well established then you're in big trouble. Add to this the fact that finding advertisers is a chore unto itself. I've seen plenty of games and sites with little banners that say "click here to advertise on this site!" instead of real banners. Neopets comes to mind as a game that succeeded with the ad route. However, they have ads all over the site, not just at login, and running a website is cheaper then a massive multiplayer 3d game. Plus they were able to start very small and slowly grow, which is harder to do with a MMORPG.

Then of course, there's the things zEROx pointed out. There aren't any 100,000 player FPS's that I know of. You'd probably be better off having a small multiplayer realtime combat game with 16 or so players max.

Sixteen is a lot for real-time melee combat. I used to play Rune, a swordfighting game based on the Unreal Tournament engine, and it was a bear of a thing in big games. You'd run down a hallway, turn to face your adversary, and your head would fall off as you teleported back to the corner that you didn't quite turn, apparently. Lag made that miserable.

It was fun, though, especially over a LAN.

I can't imagine something like your idea being developed in this decade. Neither the technology nor the industry can hope to shoulder such a burden now.

Beyond that, I think twitch RPGs tend to suck. Either my character is so weak that my own twitch skills aren't being properly expressed (Deus Ex) or I hit that plateau after which it's a straight twitch game, and a difference of ten or fifteen levels becomes meaningless if the player's twitch skill is superior. You can't have both genres active simultaneously without one eclipsing the other.

With regard to the outdated PnP combat systems, I would have agreed a few years ago, but having learned a little about the complexity, nuance and innovation present in PnP games, I'm going to say that CRPGs could benefit from a little more research into those dice-operated spreadsheets. Games today aren't emulating board games anymore; they're emulating older computer games.

2 million users (which no western online game has, WoW has 1.5m) generating a possible $1.2mil from ads or paying $10 a month and generating $20 mil a month. Is it hard to see why the subscription model is used? Oh and I think the figure for the current gen online rpg's is $20m in development costs, maybe more for some. The math just doesn't work. However expect to see advertisements in games that are also subscription in the near future.

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Original post by Nytehauq But about the combat systems; they’re too basic. (..) You should be able to actively try and dodge your opponents attack. Your performance in RPG’s is too much based on chance. How well you build your character should determine every aspect of your game combat experience, in an INTUITIVE manner. So no more “You magically missed” messages, if you miss, it should be because your opponent’s character had enough agility to dodge, and the character only dodged BECAUSE THE PLAYER TOLD THEM TOO. Therein, combat is not based on as much luck.

The Matrix Online tries similar approach with their combat system. Close range combat is broken into series of few seconds long 'rounds' and for each round players involved in it select tactics their character should use -- all-out attack, 'technical' attacks aimed at enemy's unprotected spots, counters intended to intercept enemy's attack, or full defense giving you some time to recover strength. These tactics together with characters' stats modify the random rolls done for each round and in consequence affect the outcome of it round and in long run, the outcome of the fight.

Turns out surprisingly large number of players _hate_ this system, as they find it "too complicated" and _counter-intuitive_. It might be the genre attracts certain type of the player who _doesn't_ actually want to be challenged, but is looking for quick and easy gratification they get from watching the numbers attached to their characters grow with little effort involved.

edit: as for the mmo with "real" real time combat, check Darkfall Online at http://www.darkfallonline.com/ ... that's exactly what they're trying to develop, i think.

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Finally, an MMORPG shouldn’t bind the player to an oppressive payment regiment. Why not display an ad on the login screen? People see that screen millions of times a day. What company wouldn’t pay to have ad space in a location like that? (..) Who could resist? Obviously, there’s probably something I’m missing since no wise company would let such a cash cow go to waste, but it seems to work in theory.

Funcom's Anarchy Online is currently trying this, taken one step further for that matter -- the real world ads are displayed on billboards in the game world, for those users who choose to not pay the monthly fee, but play the game for free instead. I guess it's too early yet to say if it works out as reasonable business model, though.

Thanks for the input everyone.

First things first, the ad system I talked about would charge per ad viewed, not based on clickthrough rate. Naturally, the amount that you would charge advertisers would have to be much lower, but I'm pretty sure that it could cover the cost of maintenance every month, assuming you have an eficiently designed server farm. As I stated, I'm pretty sure the math is wrong, otherwise every developer would be using the ad based system.

Of course, this is assuming that a developer is

A) Not bogged down by strict publishing standards, and free to invest in developing technology that will last longer than the average engine. (E.g. Valve has lots of money to spend on Source, as well as time.)

Oops...out of time...more later

imo deus ex combat was perfect.

planetside handles the netcode quite well.

MMORPG's are obsessed with levelling up. When you watch a film, actors playing roles and their characters making decisions, please tell me, where is the levelling up?

Of course the characters still learn throughout the film but it isnt the back bone of the film.

If you play a role in a story you should be changing the out come based on your decisions and not based on Math.random();

Levelling up should not be the main aspect of mmorpg's. Interacting with the environment and other players should be the main goal of any mmorpg.

The morrowind combat would work perfectly imo.

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Original post by Riviera Kid MMORPG's are obsessed with levelling up. When you watch a film, actors playing roles and their characters making decisions, please tell me, where is the levelling up?

"Wax on, wax off" -.^

Hmmm. Why does it seem that everyone that has an opinion that runs contrary to the ingrained concepts and standards of the game industry gets rated down? Esh. It's foolish, the industry is well too young to have these ingrained standards. A game like counter strike source has more detailed netcode than would be neccesary for the type of game I'm planning. It consumes more bandwidth. And independent players often foot the bill for servers that have forty players on them, and my latency is often around 50-60 ms. I really don't think bandwidth consumption for a more real time MMO is as insurmountable a problem as it seems. Gamasutra has some feature articles posted about designing more efficient netocde, developers have used unorthodox systems to achieve a 90% reduction in lag. Ninety percent. I'd be suprised if it was technologically impossible.

By the way, by 'real time', I mean actual "press a buton, character reacts console game like action", the game world functions in the same way real situations do, without any breaks, or arbritrary rounds in combat. Like Devil May Cry 3. No MMORPG has done this before.

The key is to simply do the important processing server side, and only send keystrokes to clients. Essentially, packets will contain staggered update data, to counter entropy. The idea is that each client's computer will recreate the scene based solely on keystrokes, or, in the case of enemies, commands. Each client will have all the neccesary information to generate a scene identical to each other client, and the staggered update data in packets will keep everyone in check without costing too much bandwidth. It'll function in much the same way as a multiplayer FPS, just from a different perspective.

While certain implementations of a real time combat system may be flawed, that doesn't demerit the concept in itself.

I've looked at Darkfall, and it seems that they've got alot planned, although their combat descriptions are quite vague. Personally, I think they're aiming too high. Giving players control of government might seem like a good idea, but that's only if you're in control. The key is to find the perfect balance between the game world laying down the rules for the player, and the player being able to experiment. You don't want to overload people with too many options, you can only have so many choices in life. But you don't want to limit them to anything too mundane, such as the half-assed combat systems in most RPG's. Their project seems to be based on alot of idealistic concepts, which is good...to an extent. Look at a successful game like Halo. Lots of games aimed higher, bigger, faster, or had bigger ideologies. But Halo was ported to the XBOX and finished in six months. And it was great. A good game isn't determined by how BIG your ideals are, it's determined by the QUALITY of your goals and how well you can strive to achieve them.
Looking at the storyline, it doesn't seem to be too inspired. The world is laid out too perfectly, and there's not enough serendipitous action. Creative geniuses like Tolkien created multiple languages for their worlds, and developed complex interactions between characters. I've assesed the flaws that I find in most videogames, and I've realized that it comes down to a few correctable problems:

1.) Not enough time invested in development. Investing time in creating a reusable, scalable, and above all, efficient engine is key to longlasting success. Companies would save oodles on content creation if their engines were more efficient.

2.) Flimsy storyline. I can safely say that there is no game whose storyline can attest to the literary genius of Tolkien. This is an extreme goal, but writing just seems to be looked at as unimportant in many games. That, and there is often a very limited supply of talented writers. I applaud Bungie, once again, for writing 900 years of backstory for the Halo universe. Brilliant.

3.) Orthodox Gameplay. The difference between a good game and an awesome game is often in the gameplay. Half Life 2 was reknowned because of its graphics, and the fact that it was hyped as the sequel to the legendary Half Life. But if you look at the game, it has some really unorthodox gameplay concepts. The gravity gun, the first person view continuous throughout the game, and the various, almost platformer-esque challenges it puts you through. So many games are just uninspired on this level.

Therein, what it takes to build a successful game is time and energy. Money is a factor when developing while confined to a timescale, publisher enforced or finance enforced. The game I'm working on has been at the conceptual stage for quite a few years now. It's incubating while I gather the skills neccesary to put it in action.

I'm quite sure that what I have planned is possible with enough work. And I've got nothing but time :)