This is not in response to the two previous posts, which I haven''t read or digested yet.
One thing I neglected to mention is that for MMO to work as a paradigm, it has to lessen the impact of persistence. Current MMORPGs require you to find a safe place to hide out and "sleep" (I''m told), and while in that state you''re susceptible to anybody passing by. In the games I''m proposing, you log in and play then log out and don''t have to worry about your possessions or whatever being lost. The only "addictive" motivation to play is ranking/score.
Okay, I''m off to class.
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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!
MMO as a paradigm?
You were told wrong. You log out and are impervious to everything, cease to exist in the world for all intents and purposes.
This is a very intriguing idea, and lends itself well to an article I read recently about pay-to-enter gaming tournaments...
Here''s a potential solution to the ''subscription fee'' problem: Rather than making the clients pay to connect to the server, make the server pay for added client capacity. That way, you could distribute 10-client servers, and make it so that anyone who want to run a large server (i.e. professional hosts like WON or MSN Gaming Zone) has to buy extra ''slots.'' What do people think of this?
Maybe Persistance isn''t the answer. What if, for, say, that puzzle MMOG, you had a ''user account'' that you logged into, played a game with a few other people, then logged out again? As long as the games aren''t continous, you can log in for a ''session,'' and still talk to people in the lobbies. My analogy - I guess - is of a building, where people can collect in the large atrium (split into several sections, so the place doesn''t get too crowded), and can go off into side-rooms to play games. This is what Microsoft refer to as a ''lobby'' system in the DXSDK (I don''t know how widespread the terminology is, I''ll probably look like an idiot for telling everyone something they already know ).
Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net
Here''s a potential solution to the ''subscription fee'' problem: Rather than making the clients pay to connect to the server, make the server pay for added client capacity. That way, you could distribute 10-client servers, and make it so that anyone who want to run a large server (i.e. professional hosts like WON or MSN Gaming Zone) has to buy extra ''slots.'' What do people think of this?
Maybe Persistance isn''t the answer. What if, for, say, that puzzle MMOG, you had a ''user account'' that you logged into, played a game with a few other people, then logged out again? As long as the games aren''t continous, you can log in for a ''session,'' and still talk to people in the lobbies. My analogy - I guess - is of a building, where people can collect in the large atrium (split into several sections, so the place doesn''t get too crowded), and can go off into side-rooms to play games. This is what Microsoft refer to as a ''lobby'' system in the DXSDK (I don''t know how widespread the terminology is, I''ll probably look like an idiot for telling everyone something they already know ).
Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net
Richard "Superpig" Fine - saving pigs from untimely fates - Microsoft DirectX MVP 2006/2007/2008/2009
"Shaders are not meant to do everything. Of course you can try to use it for everything, but it's like playing football using cabbage." - MickeyMouse
quote: Original post by solinear
You were told wrong. You log out and are impervious to everything, cease to exist in the world for all intents and purposes.
Pardon my error, m''lord.
quote: Original post by superpig
Here''s a potential solution to the ''subscription fee'' problem: Rather than making the clients pay to connect to the server, make the server pay for added client capacity. That way, you could distribute 10-client servers, and make it so that anyone who want to run a large server (i.e. professional hosts like WON or MSN Gaming Zone) has to buy extra ''slots.'' What do people think of this?
I think it''s a fascinating idea, but not one I''m likely to personally explore - at least, not now. This puts the onus on the developer to somehow limit client capacity in server versions. It works until you have those "mutliple private servers hosting one world" scenarios and one of the servers can''t handle as many connections as others, which means "virtual visas" get denied...
I''m totally with you on alternatives to persistence, though.
(And now, My Signature v1.4...)
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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!
quote: Pardon my error, m''lord
Wasn''t meant to chastise you, but those who told you that. I don''t think that I''ve ever run into an MMOG where the characters actually stayed in the game after the player logged out.
Some neat ideas being tossed around here.
quote: Original post by Oluseyi
I think it''s a fascinating idea, but not one I''m likely to personally explore - at least, not now. This puts the onus on the developer to somehow limit client capacity in server versions. It works until you have those "mutliple private servers hosting one world" scenarios and one of the servers can''t handle as many connections as others, which means "virtual visas" get denied...
When the number of client slots are small enough - say, 10 or 20, like you might get on a LAN - then the problem is moot. Only one server. You can buy ''slot packs'' to allow the server to run extra clients. As for onus - don''t most games have a ''max players'' setting?
Maybe it would be better if rather than assigning slots to a server, you assign them to a ''world.'' So that all servers running the same world divide the available slots between them.
I''m thinking that somehow the developer/publisher would need to run a cluster of machines to track the servers... not sure how that fits in though. Maybe this will inspire someone?
Superpig
- saving pigs from untimely fates
- sleeps in a ham-mock at www.thebinaryrefinery.cjb.net
Richard "Superpig" Fine - saving pigs from untimely fates - Microsoft DirectX MVP 2006/2007/2008/2009
"Shaders are not meant to do everything. Of course you can try to use it for everything, but it's like playing football using cabbage." - MickeyMouse
quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Excerpt 1:
Actually, I think the best chance to beat [Verant at the MMORPG game] is to provide variations on the theme. MMO should become a distribution/interaction model, allowing for a variety of genres to apply it. We'd see MMO sports games (World Baseball is the first I've heard of), MMO action shooters, MMO FPS (kinda like current deathmatch/CTF/etc, but on a much larger scale; imagine an entire war being fought by nations of FPS infantry and gunners and medics and...), MMO RTS and RTT...
As solinear said, the "genre" (and I use that word very loosely; paradigm is much more appropriate) is only going to grow. Heck, given enough time we might find MMO-Puzzle games...
...
quote:
So what do you think of MMO as a design/interaction/distribution paradigm? Theoretically, virtually any sort of game could be taken to massively multiplayer extents, so long as there were cooperative and competitive features (since the whole objective is social interaction and "conflict"). I find the idea fascinating and would like to see what derivations arise right here on these boards.
The truth of the MMO genre (or paradigm if you prefer) is that people do not want a zero return on their time investment. They want some reward in-game for their efforts. This implies persistence. This is why Everquest has continued to sit at the top of the North American MMO market so long. Content. They have much more of it than the nearest competitors. The players are constantly rewarded with new items in-game that signify status (horses!), or help their character to be more efficient. I must concede that some players are content with the social rewards of the MMO experience and do not require the more traditional item rewards. Most players require a little of both.
As far as beating Verant/SOE at the MMO game, I'd like to think it won't happen The victory will ultimately go the to contender with the most content. And EQ has loads of it.
Realistically though, SOE has MMO games in development that include just about everything but sports.
Planetside is a persistent FPS that looks awesome and implements treats such as vehicles, team-based play, and nice effects.
Sovereign is an RTS unlike anything else out there.
StarWars Galaxies looks incredible from the visual and gameplay standpoint. EverQuest2, well it looks awesome so far, I don't personally know a lot of details about that one. They even have an EverQuest game coming to the console market. I don't think anyone will seriously challenge Verant/SOE for a while yet.
Keep in mind that each new MMO that is released actually brings new players to the market. StarWars Galaxies will explode the genre, as will World of Warcraft IMHO. SWG isn't going to kill AC, DAoC and EQ all in one fell blow. Instead players will flow between the games over time, and bring new blood to each of them.
Successfully running a commercial MMO takes a huge corporate machine of marketing/sales, 24/7 network support, customer service (in-game as well as technical support), and continued development(content generation). This is why the MMO is out of reach for most amateur developers. A worthy, even noble goal, but for most it's a pipe dream.
[edited by - fingh on July 3, 2002 11:50:55 AM]
quote: They want some reward in-game for their efforts. This implies persistence. This is why Everquest has continued to sit at the top of the North American MMO market so long. Content. They have much more of it than the nearest competitors.
OK, you''rre talking about 2 completely different subject matters here. Obviously reward is needed for anyone who doesn''t simply want the social interaction from the game.
The content matter really is debatable. The problem with the other games is that they have a rather specific dearth of content and that content is rather bland. I''m not saying that EQ isn''t bland, just that the others are boring, predictable and generally lacking in anything which vaguely resembles a storyline. NPCs are there as nothing more than functionaries in most of the games. I''m not saying that the NPCs in EQ are much better, but sometimes they have more to say than just being a functional (merchant/quest) NPC.
quote: As far as beating Verant/SOE at the MMO game, I''d like to think it won''t happen
Well, that''s cause you work there
quote: The victory will ultimately go the to contender with the most content. And EQ has loads of it.
This really is true. The really bad thing is that the vast majority of content in EQ is largely irrelevant because nearly nobody is capable of seeing it (not high enough level, doesn''t belong to a rediculously large guild, etc...). SOE has really created a division among their customers, between the people who stick around the level < 40 zones and those who spend all their time in the level > 50 zones. As SOE expands the game, instead of adjusting the content to fit the characters and expanding upon the concept of the game, they simply made bigger, badder zones with bigger, badder critters. The result? It''s not an RPG above level 55, it''s a tactical game for most people.
Verant simply made their databases too... static. If they had made better databases they could have adjusted the game up to level 100 or higher if they wanted, allowing players to grow indefinitely... theoretically. Or provided multiclass options. Or whatever. Unfortunately nobody else has seen fit to make a game world that''s a game world with a good mix of the old fashioned hack n'' slash and roleplaying. Hopefully someone other than my team will be able to make a world that is a world.
quote: Successfully running a commercial MMO takes a huge corporate machine of marketing/sales, 24/7 network support, customer service (in-game as well as technical support), and continued development(content generation).
I don''t really think that it takes a ''corporate machine''. Mythic did it, the AC guys did it and they were so amateur it''s not even funny. I think that Mythic actually did it best (way better than SOE/Verant did and I remember EQ back to Beta) on the technical end. Sony did the marketing and content best. I just wish that someone would get their butts off the whole ''expanding requires a new product'' philosophy. They''re already sending $150/year... do you really need to suck them for another $15 (at the very most if you''re the developer) out of them? They''re paying for more than the continued development and support with their $12+/month anyway.
Support is just a matter of finding qualified support personnel and someone who actually knows something about the system (game) to head up support at the start so that there aren''t support personnel lying for a lack of knowledge. Most customer support is common sense anyway.
quote: This is why the MMO is out of reach for most amateur developers. A worthy, even noble goal, but for most it''s a pipe dream.
I think that the reason that MMOs are out of reach of the average amateur team is because they don''t know how to separate the tasks properly. It really isn''t that complex, you need some experienced server programmers (not game server either), some semi-knowledgeable AI programmers, some UI programmers, network (TCP/UDP/IP) programmers and graphics guys. Nothing is out of the reach of semi-amateurs. I''m not saying programming newbies or anything like that, but you don''t need people with 5 published games (or even 1 for that matter on anything other than maybe the UI programmers) to complete a project like this. Most of it really has nothing to do with games other than the UI and AI. It''s just 3d modeling and a bunch of programming for the rest of it.
The biggest problem with MMOGs that I see is the whole retail mindset of the industry. If it''s a retail game, they advertise the daylights out of it, if it''s not, then they just advertise online, as if the people who buy magazines don''t get online.
That''s crap. Make a non-retail MMORPG and you should still advertise the living daylights out of it in magazines, online zines and anywhere else. Let the press (online and print) have a free Beta accts, do everything that you can to push your game into the limelight and get visibility. Make sure that the press knows your character names (the developers and GMs) and run around with them showing them the cool stuff in the game, show off all of the storyline stuff. Make your game the coolest thing that they''ve ever seen, get them hooked and keep them there.
Once you get out of the whole retail mindset, you free yourself for many more options. You don''t have to come out with a new game to change the interface. You don''t have to send out an entirely new set of graphics to upgrade stuff. You can do it incrementally. You can add one zone at a time, every week. You can add a new race or class (skill set, whatever) a couple of times a year. Get rid of the whole retail mindset and you free your game to become whatever you and your team think it could become. Free your mind and you can free your game to become much more than the retail games out there are because you''re not stuck with most of whatever you stuck in the game a year ago on the CD that you still haven''t sold out of (originals).
quote: Original post by bishop_pass
Players design and script vehicles, bots, whatever to interact in worlds built by others. The idea of bot design and level design are merged into simultaneous gameplaying roles.
I always thought it would be cool if my character could stay active after I logged of.
while(!loggedin){
while(ratpelt<50) {
kill rat;
skin rat;
}
goto store;
sell pelts;
}
I almost hate to mention it because its fanciful to try to predict the future, but what about the coming revolution in processor speed and storage capacity? (carbon nonotube transistors and switches) Sure broadband has proven to be a bust today, but in 5 to 10 years what if grid computing is a reality? Would that make MMO inevitalble as a paradigm? Would the implementation be any different than it would be today?
Some amazing ideas here,... keep it comming...
I once thought of a RTS game where you have a command structure, as you have in real life (see diagram).
The general, the commanders and the soldiers are all human players (fighting their peers over a network).....
At the top the game would be a battle between 2 generals telling their commanders on which piece of land to advance and which tactics to use. The commanders in their turn would direct their soldiers to take specific buildings, etc.
For a general it would be a big game of stratego, for the commanders a RTS game and for the soldiers a FPS.....
I was actually planning on making such a game but realized it would be to big a project for one person
I hope this makes any sense, it''s very late over here......
-Crawl
I once thought of a RTS game where you have a command structure, as you have in real life (see diagram).
General | | /|\ / | \ / | \ Cmd1 Cmd2 Cmd3 (commander) | | /|\ / | \ Soldier | Soldier | Soldier
The general, the commanders and the soldiers are all human players (fighting their peers over a network).....
At the top the game would be a battle between 2 generals telling their commanders on which piece of land to advance and which tactics to use. The commanders in their turn would direct their soldiers to take specific buildings, etc.
For a general it would be a big game of stratego, for the commanders a RTS game and for the soldiers a FPS.....
I was actually planning on making such a game but realized it would be to big a project for one person
I hope this makes any sense, it''s very late over here......
-Crawl
--------<a href="http://www.icarusindie.com/rpc>Reverse Pop Culture
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