Purpose in MMORPG's

Nytehauq · 2005-06-16T05:37:52

This starts off with a tangent about combat - but it gets where it's going :) A thought has just occured to me. In the PS2 game Devil May Cry 3, you level up different fighting styles by acquiring style points. You get style points for defeating enemies. The more complex and daring the moves you perform, the more style points you gain. The more mundane and repetetive your moves are, the less you gain overall. Duh! Why not make the experience gains in RPG's (Online and/or otherwise) tied to the player's performance? Not neccesarily in a 'style' based way, but in some way or form? That would greately add to the satisfaction factor. If you were rewarded for performing better in fights, this would create a motive to suffer through hours of repetetive grinding. But wait...why even suffer through hours of grinding? How many MMORPG's force you to grind to level? When you enter the game world, what is your purpose? Why are you just killing things for days? Why are you even going on quests? (This ties together, bear with me) If a person were to play a game like World of Warcraft alone, the experience would excruciatingly boring. The world is dependent on the players that inhabit it, and has little to no personality otherwise. You may be thinking, "Well duh. It's a MMORPG." But this is no excuse. The game world gives the player no meaning, purpose, or reason. The players populate the world - but they do nothing to advance the cohesiveness of the plot or gameplay. They just alleiviate social boredom. The games, at their core, are rather aimless. If you look at Diablo II, designed as both a single and multiplayer experience, you realize that the game has appeal because of the fact that it was designed to support solo play as well. The multiplayer aspect has that much more depth because it doesn't rely on the fact that you have others around you to build the cohesiveness of the world. Now, when you have games with no clear purpose (In Diablo II, you knew from the beginning that you had to kill Diablo and his brothers. Simple.), you run into problems. It's absurd to spend hours just killing things. What decent single player game requires you to grind before you can get to the next stage? Can you imagine having to kill things for a few days before you could beat Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? Or if you had to kill 1000 elites to advance past the Silent Cartographer in Halo? I know that those games are not RPG's, but why should that matter? Why should RPG's be entitled to wasting profuse amounts of the player's time? It's shameful. This now leads back into combat. Enemies in games are traditionally placed as obstacles between you and your goal. You kill them because you have to - and if you so choose, you kill them for fun. In many MMORPG's, they are both the means and the end. It's illogical. MMORPG's should be roleplaying games played online with lots of players. Role Playing games should be games where you play a role and develop your character. That should not involve participating in boring combat situations and leveling ad infinitum. Therein, when you travel the line all the way up to MMORPG, all these things should still hold true. Ironically enough, grinding would be less of a hassle if the combat was fun. I wouldn't mind grinding as much if it was as fast paced and fun as combat in an FPS or in a game such as Devil May Cry. In fact, I often play Devil May Cry and kill enemies repeatedly in order to improve my skills and obtain items. Why is this more tolerable than it is in an MMORPG? I have a purpose, and it's damn fun. In contrast, when you're thrown into a world with no particular purpose, one that doesn't react to your achievements (You kill a boss and they respawn later. Big whoop.), one where the NPC's are lame and the world doesn't pull you in, and one where the interactions, leveling (Even leveling is up for debate - But that's for another post), and fighting are weak and boring when compared to other games - it is boring as all hell. So, in conclusion, what MMORPG's tend to lack is true immersion (E.g. not half assed "You are in a huge world! FEEL IMMERSED!") and purpose - in interactions, in the combat, in NPC and locations, and even in player interaction. It just isn't very detailed. Methinks developers would benefit if they developed MMO's more like deathmatch shooters with interconnected maps. The gameplay should be about combat, the world should only enhance that. Wow...I went off on alot of tangents here. My two hundred cents :)