I don''t think anyone dislikes the concept of MMORPGs (and, trust me, I don''t think anyone here thinks they''re easy to make) -- I think the chief problem is that with all of them that have come out, except for better graphics and better networking, none have really escaped the mold that Ultima Online set oh so many years ago (after they realized that people didn''t want to be shopkeepers -- they wanted to be heroes -- EQ and dang near every other MMORPG has dropped all but the "hero" elements from their games) -- granted, MUDs did it first, but UO was the first system where so many people were hitting it at once.

I think the problem stems from the fact that nobody ever sat down and had a role-playing session with thousands of their closest friends. From the pen and paper games, RPGs have always been small-party affairs, and there is no truly clean way to make that accessible when you have thousands of people running around. So, you end up with a thousand people all wanting to quest, and a finite number of quests... something has to give (which means that the same quests are handed out a thousand times, and one person completing it has absolutely no bearing on someone else completing it).

Realistically, the only way this will work is to have a small number of small parties running in the large world. This would give the people who like interaction with others what they want (a world where you can meet, quest with, and possibly compete against other "real" people), and those that like the single-player RPGs what they want (a seemingly limitless world where you actually make a difference, your deeds are remembered, and things such as "item spawning" play very little part because you don''t have 500 people looking for the same item at the same time).

The main thing that''s needed to make this work is a great deal of customization when determining which "world" (server/thread) to place someone in so that they can find like-minded people so they have more fun.

-Chris

>> I think the problem stems from the fact that nobody ever sat down and had a role-playing session with thousands of their closest friends. >>

Well, LARPs (Live-Action Roleplaying games) with 1000s of people do happen now and then so it certainly is possible to do some actual roleplaying with that many players in one world. I also think it is relevant to consider LARPs in a discussion about roleplaying since the stuff you use pen and paper for in tabletop roleplaying games really has more to do with game mechanics than actual roleplaying. In fact, it is the game mechanics and spatial limitations of tabletop RPGs that make them unpractical for sessions with 1000s of players at a time, and MMRPGs solve both those problems (the computer handles all the game mechanics and the internet removes the spatial limitations).

>> So, you end up with a thousand people all wanting to quest, and a finite number of quests... >>

This is certainly a problem, but I don''t think the solution is to trash the concept of massive multiplayer games and create games that are only played by small numbers of people. Massive multiplayer games offer an opportunity to make the world so much more ''intelligent'' by populating it with actual people instead of stupid NPCs and allowing the world to be shaped by the actions of many different people. For instance, who says you need to have a finite number of ready-made quests? That sounds like single-player-think to me and is admittedly not very fun in a MMRPG.

Anarchy Online solved the problem by having a quest generator randomly generate quests with different locations and rewards. Even though their generator was a bit too simplistic to be really fun (or original), I still think it was a step in the right direction (I do prefer AO''s approach to that of EQ or DAoC).

Henry

quote: Posted by: Anonymous Poster named Henry
I think this problem has its roots in the fact that every player in a MMRPG is a hero. When you have 2000 heroes running around the status of being a hero is devalued to that of ''just another adventurer''. The only real solution to this problem that I can imagine is based on creating a world where people can both win and lose, but the problem then is that it probably sucks to be a loser.

Yes, I understand your point regarding everyone wanting to be a hero. I think this is a well know issue with designers of MMORPGs but what, if anything, is the solution?

People do enjoy socializing in MMORPGs in fact there are but a few different styles of players (there is a paper somewhere on the net that discusses this in more detail) and socializing is one of the keys to a successful MMORPG.

Taking my previous post where I said: How about when the player creates a character they are also given a Life Quest. What if something like 50% of the people are given a Life Quest and the other 50% make up the party members who support them in some way.

Would this force role-play?

Would the folks that didn’t get Life Quest participate as a party member of those that did receive them?


One other issue that we threw around was permanent death (permadeath) and aging. Permadeath has not been introduced for various reasons but the most prominent reason for it not is that of the player is paying 10+ dollars (or equivalent currency) to play the game. The player takes great pride in the fact that they have a level 600 wizard that has more gold than Donald Trump does. Aging is another issue that we tossed about. Essentially we were going to start the player off at 16 or so and as the game time ticked away, your character would age right along with the game. When the character died the possessions would be given to the next character that the player created, basically it would be a family will of sorts. After many debates, I think we decided that again, this wouldn’t go over well for a paying customer.

If characters died and the player created a new character each time would this induce role-playing? I don’t think it would. Can role-playing be forced upon the players of MMORPGs? I don’t think it can.

What do we do to make MMORPGs fit their title of Role-Playing Games? Change the title? Sure you could do that, we even tossed that around. We came up with MMPOW (Massively Multi-player Persistent Online World) and all sorts of other acronyms but in the end we came back to MMORPG. Primarily because that is what (most) people understand. They know (to some extent) what to expect from an MMORPG. So, clearly changing the name isn’t the fix.

Going back to fact that socialization is a primary element to an MMORPG it would seem that this is the point at which you would start to introduce role-playing.

As for me, while playing UO for more than 4 years the in-game mechanisms for communication were dreadful. Most UO players used ICQ and UO in windowed mode as their major means of group communications.
The thing is, even with this hassle; I had the most enjoyable time playing UO over any other MMORPG. And the group that I played with (our guild) had many role-playing sessions. The founding members of our guild (me included) found ways to create our own in game quest. We go out and hide waiting for guild-mates to come to a certain location – when they arrived another member would pop in and play the role of a poor sole in need of help. We definitely made the most of what the folks at Origin had given us. We were not the only one that went to such lengths to add new flavor to the game.

EQ, AC and others have remedied the communications issues by allowing /tells as well as other forms of group communications. I played AC for some time – but it never really pulled me in like UO. The same goes for EQ and DAoC. Why did I not get into these games? I’m not sure, because unlike UO, which I stumbled around in for 2-3 months before meeting the folks that I played with for nearly four years. I had friends in DAoC. Friends that I knew locally, yet, the game never really pulled me in. Maybe it was because of the lame questing system or maybe it was because of the leveling... I’m not sure.

Hmm... ok, where am I going with all of this? I suppose I have spent the last five minutes babbling about socialization, which was suppose to be the place where we would start changing the game in a way to allow for more role-playing. Then it occurred to me. The thing that made UO so fun – was 1) it was new 2) it was very open-ended 3) I met people that I enjoyed playing the game with.

Now, having said that I played DAoC with real-life friends it would seem that I would have enjoyed that game. But DAoC didn’t have number 2 above. I still think that chasing levels in an MMORPG has an adverse affect on role-playing. UO with all it’s faults (and there have been many) was a leveless system... I’m not saying that this was the key to all the role-playing that we did in game but I never experienced any role-playing in EQ, AC or DAoC.

What is my point to all of this? Maybe, the role-playing cannot be induced in an MMORPG. Maybe it is in the people that you play with, and maybe the system that the designers give the game has some impact on the amount of role-play that takes place. Maybe it is you (me included), the individual player that determines role-play.

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

The secret is to "hide the stats." Stop making it "Gotta find the sword that does 1 more point of damage." to "Oooo! New sword. Let me try it out for awhile to see if it's better than my old sword. Yes, indeed, this mithril sword blows away my old rusty sword."

Current RPG's is just mathmatics, and the quest to make the final number bigger (lvl) by changing a ton of numbers to do that.

Have the stats, just remove them from the screen.

Instead of "lvl 9 wiz LFG" have it say "wizard needs companions. The toughest beast I've single handedly killed is an owlbear."

See! No more number crunching, you are forced to roleplay.

Edited by - joeyblow2 on December 28, 2001 11:02:33 AM

Why do people like MMORPG?

Because it gives them a chance to play a game online with thousands of other people in a D&D style role-play environment. The truth of the matter being that 90% of these gamers are action gamers and they don''t even know it.

I myself have played everquest before, and I was so happy when I finally bought it, thinking the name would give hinder to a good role-playing experience. Soon enough I realized that the game was action and combat.



But the truth of the matter is that game industries would make more profit on a game where you kill and gain weapons and experiece than a game where you get to calm down the bartender after her shoes have been stolen.

I predict that there are approximately 19 out of every 2000 people who are hard-core, like me..

Q: What is hard-core?
A: If you played D&D, you know what I am talking about. You have so many riddles that you''ve heard, you''d made Gollum (from the Hobbit) look feeble! You developed such a good attitude and style of talking to people through countless attempts at diplomacy that you make your therapist sound childish!

Another truth is that we are a dying race, us Hard-Core RPGers... It is sad, and I find my self sobbing in character when I think about it.

Q: How can you tell if you are a hard-core RPGer?
A: Well, its really opinion-based, but I would have to say that if you prefer the old table-top RPG style of gameplay, when you had to solve problems, think about situations, return lost artifacts, etc., I would assume that you are a good RPGer...

Anyone who plays EQ for the blood and guts is NOT an RPGer...

I hate when people say that they are good role-players and the first thing they ask is "so how much do you attack for?"

It''s rather annoying, but as I said, we are a dying race. We need to get together and take over the world...

If you want my personal opinion:

It is the mere fact that people are getting lazier and stupider that MMORPGs are more popular. People would rather sit back and chop someone up than think about a situation. If you stick them in a 50-foot well with a bucket of water (that refills everytime your poor it out), they would just quit the game and restart. Any of us would keep pouring the water out until we could swim out.

It is the population nowadays, and I have noticed this in school also. People dread education like it was sent from Hell. It wasn''t. But my foot still stands on this: If people like to think, solve problems, and use their head, they''re Hard-Core RPGers.. If people like to hack, slash, gain xp, and flame newbies, they are gamers, NOT RPGers.



Your friend,
~Dwarf

PS: Another reason I like to play a half-orc wizard in D&D (although I play a female monk in AD&D games) is because it adds to the role-play experience. A smart half-orc! Anyway, if people would realize that there are two parts to a human, physical AND mental, then maybe they would be better RPGers.

Personally I don''t really care for role-playing in MMRPGs and I would not, as Dwarf does, define role-playing as solving practical problems or putting up with boring scenarios (spending 157 hours filling a well with water). No, solving problems belongs in the same cathegory as hack n'' slash (heck, hack n'' slash is a perfectly valid way to solve many problems in fantasy games), roleplaying to me is to act out a role in a non-practical sense. Still, even though I don''t try to role-play in MMRPGs I do care about whether the game allows people to feel unique (feel like heroes rather than regular adventurers) and whether the quest system of the game sucks or not.

I think Dak Lozar is absolutely right about games being unable to induce role-playing through various features. The only successful online role-playing experiences that I have had, have happened through purely textual chat interfaces. I think those interfaces add a nice literary touch to the role-playing that you generally don''t get in normal tabletop RPG sessions.

Henry

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Well, LARPs (Live-Action Roleplaying games) with 1000s of people do happen now and then

I''m not familiar with LARPs, but I have a hunch that a group this big would either (A) have a lot of the crossover that is experienced in games like EQ or (B) these groups all run the same adventures as everyone else, and the actions of one group don''t affect the actions of another.

The thing is, the way that current MMs (I''m tired of typing MMORPG ) handle it is essentially having the small group concept -- there is no real interaction with the other people if you''re not part of their group, so why have more than a few groups of the people around to begin with? With the small group concept, it would be easier for teams to have an effect on the other groups and have it be noticed as such (rather than just have to sit there and wait for a spawn). Right now, each group is essentially running their own adventure, it just happens to be in an environment that looks like a JCPenney White Sale.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Anarchy Online solved the problem by having a quest generator randomly generate quests with different locations and rewards. Even though their generator was a bit too simplistic to be really fun (or original), I still think it was a step in the right direction (I do prefer AO''s approach to that of EQ or DAoC).

This definitely sounds like a step in the right direction. I guess my next question would be, can ANYBODY grab these quests when they come up, or are they tailor-made for one person or group (in which case, my question remains "why act like you''re in a multiplayer game when groups don''t affect each other, in which case you end up just have a lot of groups running small-group games")? If anyone can get them, is it possible for multiple groups to simultaneously get the quest, and basically whoever returns first "wins" (which begs the question "how many groups can simultaneously have the quest -- competing against 1-2 other groups is fun.... competing against 200 different groups -- not so fun")?

I''m sure in the next couple of years, we''ll see better and better games coming out in this field... Unfortunately, with the throngs of people praising games like EQ, it''s going to be hard to get them to change the field in anything more than small increments. I personally liked the concept of UO -- do whatever you want. Unfortunately, no matter how well-executed it was, it was short-sighted. People don''t want to be a shopkeeper -- they want to adventure.

-Chris

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Anarchy Online solved the problem by having a quest generator randomly generate quests with different locations and rewards. Even though their generator was a bit too simplistic to be really fun (or original), I still think it was a step in the right direction (I do prefer AO''s approach to that of EQ or DAoC).

This is one game that I haven’t personally played but one of my partners played it for a few weeks or so. From his conversions with me regarding the game they messed up on the multi-player portion of the game. I’m not talking about the networking code (that’s an entirely different issue). I’m referring to times when you enter a cave or some structure and you’re by yourself. Ack! This cannot create role-playing... at least in my mind.

As I have previously stated, we are giving the players the ability to create quest. These quests can’t be created by just anyone – they are available to quild-master and other leaders of groups. Basically, our take on a MMORPG is to give the players as much ownership in the game as we can. Allowing player run quest will give guilds the ability to create entrance quest or quest to prove the players strength, valor etc...

If you haven''t heard of or seen our game take a look here

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Well, I have to agree and disagree with some things here.

1. Most companies are in the market to make money. So if they do not have to introduce real role playing into their game to sell 10 million copies, they wont. I will never create a game for the money, I will make it because it will be a game people will enjoy, and its content will be based on my knowledge of good game play, not financial/time restraints.

2. Programming MMORPGs is not easy, programming most of anything is not easy. But the companies producing the games have the hard parts down. They were able to connect a crap load of people efficiently in the same 3D environment. Its just what they do when they get in thats the problem. In my opinion, this would be easier to programm then the infrustructure / networking / interface for a game like EQ or DAoC.

3. I see where you are coming from Dwarf. I feel I am a hardcore RPGer as well. I am all about retaining the importance of your actions in games. Here is an example. I tried to conceptualize a MMORPG that went turnbased as soon as combat was initiated. I feel that when you go hack and slash (Diablo 2, EQ, DAoC) the meaning of your attack means less. This seems combat less important, and it just about ruined combat for the mage class. Remember in DnD when it was the mages turn? Combat wasnt fast, but it was strategic, and you affect on combat actually mattered. In games like DAoC, with any class its the same thing. Hit miss hit hit hit mis hit hit - combat over. Thats no fun. After playing POR2 (which sucked) I found turn based got too monotonous. So I will have to find the middle ground.

4. I think there can be Role Playing in MMORPGs. Here is an example how. Anyone remember the interaction interface for Hero QUest 1? Ill break it down for those who dont. You could type in anything you want, and based upon its contents, a NPC would respond differently. It the AI was awesome, you didnt get stupid responses ike you do from EQ and DAoC, they were always different from NPC to NPC. So imagine a database of responses for every character in the game. This would make NPCs seems real, and not some generic set of polygons someone stuck in a hut. Next, change the questing system. Never make a specific quest that more than one person could do, thats no fun. If you do have a quest that can be done over and over, make it reflect that. i.e. a clan of orcs lives near a road to town. They keep terrorizing the people that come along the road. Go kill the leader. If he dies, their morale will be broken, and they wont attack under they elect another leader which may happen once every 4 days (real life days) Heres another one. Have monster NPCs, that attact back. Imagine a game where if the orc population got high enough, they would attack a town! Or try and take over an area! Random or intelligent actions by bad NPCs = fun. Here is the most key change. MAKE CHARACTER CLASSES ADHERE TO THE "OLD SCHOOL" RULES OF THE CLASS. I think you all know what I mean. i.e. the thief class is not the person who leads the party into combat against a dragon. Go even a step further, and give him the ability to gain levels by doing what thieves do (picking locks, robbing someones house, steathing to AVOID combat, arming/disarming traps, picking pockets)

Phew! Anyway, there are some ideas for everyone to throw around. I will implement them very soon...

Noods

I think one of the biggest problems with nowadays game designers is they are scared to let the player lose. Take AC for example, although UO was my all-together favorite game, my favorite experience in gaming is when AC first came out and they did they thing where the shadows were trying to take over the world. I remember I spent an hour stuck inside a 3 story tower with a bunch of shadows trying to rush in and kill us, this was pure hack and slash, but the fact that I was serously under attack was breath-taking.

Now, in the end the devs of AC made a quest to kill all of the shadows that was beat within about 15 minutes of being put into the world, and that rather sucked.

To sum up all of this rambling, large scale battles and actully losing (w/o dieing) are two things that could serously improve games.



Let''''s go shampoo us some aliens!