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The MMO Rant

Started by catch Aug 9, 2007 at 6:31 PM 16 replies 2.4k views

Original Post

Aug 9, 2007 at 6:31 PM

I've been a big fan of MMOs for a while. My first was a mac-only game (at the time), Clan Lord. It's graphics were terrible, but to me, it was the first game without a fixed player limit of 10 or less. I played it for a while but came to realize the game was skewed toward people who spent so much more time on it than me. No matter what, it was just a time sink or a game of favorites with the people who ran the game. I played Guild Wars for a while. I liked it, but it felt like a watered down version of Diablo 2. Something was unappealing about it. It had no hook to it. For an MMO, it was the least MM game I've ever seen. To me, it was diablo 2 without the lobby/chat, but you stood in town, instead. Same thing, basically. World of Warcraft was my last major endeavor. I played it until burning crusade with doing very little raiding. I did some 20 mans, and a few of the big 40 mans, but I really hated it. The time sink was exponentially larger than any other game before. I had to eat, sleep, and live the stupid game, and I grew to resent it. In addition, MMOs like these tend to bring a great deal of social baggage with them. Everyone seems to try to get fitted with the right guild, to suit themselves up as it were, to be spoon fed items or status or, whatever. I can't explain, as a raiding guild master, the stupid and utter tripe I had to deal with on a daily basis. Just sheer high-school type drama. I hated it. Well, I've cancelled all my subscriptions, and lately have been coding more to pursue some goals I've had (just to make games, nothing fancy). And I got to thinking. When I played MMOs I rarely exploited the "mass" nature of it. I hated playing with other random people. Hell, I thought most people were stupid and annoying, most the time. How many of you know what a PUG is? If that's the case, why is "mass" even necessary? The only thing I found remotely interesting about MMOs was random world PvP. The pre-set battlegrounds were just another form of grinding. Mildly entertaining, but it gets old and boring fairly quickly. Then I began playing d2 again... even in d2, I still only play with a small hand full of friends. If each new game of diablo 2 is basically an "instance," what really is the benefit of all that massive engineering and architecture that comes along with a full fledged MMO? I don't know. The most current game I'm working on with my partner is a hark back to SuperNES days. We were thinking of doing a smaller scale MMO-type networking (100-500 players, tops). But the more I think about it, the more I wonder. What was really wrong with just playing with people you WANTED to play with? 99% of my experience playing with random people in WOW and Guild Wars was frustrating and I wished I reclaim my lost time after pulling my hair out. What are your thoughts on mass multiple player versus choosen-smaller scale networking? To me it seems like Guild Wars was the glue between Diablo 2's battle.net and World of Warcraft. Towns are mostly just lounges where you put together a group, a meeting spot, much like a chat lobby, but taken a step further (you're in the game!) However, when you leave town it's your own instance. Just you and your party. The older I get and the more experience i have playing these games, I continually find myself having more FUN with the non-mmo games, because really, I just want to play with only the people I know.

pinacolada

Aug 9, 2007 at 7:50 PM

Why don't you just play the game the way you want to play it?

Most of my real-world friends that play WoW absolutely detest playing with strangers. So.. they don't. We schedule sessions and we only play with each other. It works great.

Also, I was in a huge WoW guild for a while. Most of those guys absolutely hated doing PUGs. So.. they didn't. Brilliant, isn't it!

If you only want to do world PvP, then.. just do world PvP. You could spend all day flying around Outlands hitting the various PvP objectives.

Quote:
I did some 20 mans, and a few of the big 40 mans, but I really hated it. The time sink was exponentially larger than any other game before. I had to eat, sleep, and live the stupid game, and I grew to resent it.

Why why why why why? Why do these things if you hate them?

Deleter

Aug 9, 2007 at 8:57 PM

Wow, I've had some identical thoughts. However I am a bit different, for one, like the poster above me said, I play the way I want to. In Guild Wars, I just started playing again because someone I know from real life asked me if I wanted to. Thats what I like about GW I can pick it up every 6 months without worrying about fees and such. Anyway to get back on-topic...

Quote:
What was really wrong with just playing with people you WANTED to play with? 99% of my experience playing with random people in WOW and Guild Wars was frustrating and I wished I reclaim my lost time after pulling my hair out.

This fact is extremely apparent to me. I have loved and hated GW, and after some self-reflection, I realized the times I loved was with friends, and the times I hated were with random idiots.

However my solution to this problem is two-fold. Step one, is to simply play the like. GW could be a sp game for all I know. My character (who I have been playing since probably the first or second public beta), currently has a crush on the healer henchmen, and he figures out ways of getting close to her while not being seen. He's kinda shy you see. Occasionally he will run off with her on a quest, but then get shy and run back into the mission area. Sometimes he just looks at from a distance. I won't go any further as that already makes me look like I'm losing it, but I'm just trying to prove a point. You play a game how you want to play it.

Now, as far as the game creation goes...Currently I am only working on a sp project, but my dreams of MP aren't of huge servers and massive player counts. In my experience intelligence is inversely proportional to the number of people you are playing with. This had lead me to what to me seems like an obvious solution. Co-op. What really gets me is that all games have single player modes, and big mp modes, and massive modes, yet they all seem to neglect co-op. If you think co-op rpgs aren't fun, I point you to this small game called D&D. Sure there are problems with co-op, but I don't think they are big enough to neglect this mode. Its in my list of todos to make a game that is exclusively co-op, to try and recreate that personal yet group atmosphere that you get with table-top RPGs. I think that by focusing on this mode, you could really tap into what makes playing with others fun, while avoiding the idiocy of mmos. Now such a game probably isn't going to appeal to as many people, because it requires more dedication. If you need at least some of the same people to go on at the same time and play, that requires more than just say joining a CS server and counting up the headshots, or logging onto a MMO and slaying orcs. However I do believe there are enough people out there who want to play games with others but find themselves frustrated with mmos. Your post just adds to this suspicion, as I see someone with at least some of the same thoughts as myself.

So yeah definitely, I really think smaller scale networking is a better way to go, or at least an alternate route that should be available to players. Just because I don't want to deal with hordes of individuals with the collective IQ of a frog doesn't mean I want to be forced to play with myself. Give me a good co-op game I can play on the weekends with my group and I'd be set.

sunandshadow

Aug 9, 2007 at 9:10 PM

I think that mass multiplayer could be good if designers designed making-friends activities into the game and made dungeons and raids easy to play as pick-up spontaneous activities rather than requiring agonizing planning and party-recruiting. There are a lot of things I hate about current MMOs (storyless grinding) but I think the idea of a persistent gameworld where an arbitrarily large number of players can interact is a fundamentally good one.

Telastyn

Aug 9, 2007 at 9:44 PM

This is kinda odd, since Guild Wars and Puzzle Pirates are the only vaguely MMO games I'll play. But then again I never had to come to any realization; I've pretty much always known that the vast majority of people are asshats.

Machineman

Aug 10, 2007 at 10:30 AM

You guys are overlooking one major area of MMO implementation and, therefore, gameplay: the Economy.

You need large numbers of people to make the economy robust and provide enough variety that interaction with it (and other players) feels like more of a world, a place.

No, you don't need more than a handful of players to "play" the game, but to fully exploit the genre you sure as hell do need the mass. It has little to do with combat.

juanpaco

Aug 10, 2007 at 10:45 AM

One aspect that I feel is lacking from MMOs (though I don't how how to fix it or even if anyone would like it fixed) is the ability to actually make change in the world. Ogrimmar in Wow is an Orc city. But what if the alliance could lay siege to it and take it over? That would be pretty cool to me. Then it would really feel like a world torn by war. Of course, that might also force full-time PvP, which ain't so much fun if you don't play the game 8 hours/day. What do you guys think?

catch

Aug 10, 2007 at 11:00 AM

Quote:
Original post by pinacolada
Why don't you just play the game the way you want to play it?

Most of my real-world friends that play WoW absolutely detest playing with strangers. So.. they don't. We schedule sessions and we only play with each other. It works great.

Also, I was in a huge WoW guild for a while. Most of those guys absolutely hated doing PUGs. So.. they didn't. Brilliant, isn't it!

If you only want to do world PvP, then.. just do world PvP. You could spend all day flying around Outlands hitting the various PvP objectives.

Quote:
I did some 20 mans, and a few of the big 40 mans, but I really hated it. The time sink was exponentially larger than any other game before. I had to eat, sleep, and live the stupid game, and I grew to resent it.

Why why why why why? Why do these things if you hate them?

I didn't do them, that was my point!! Why play an "MMO" if you don't enjoy any of the "mass" elements? Did you read the post? I tried the things because they were there to try, and I even if I enjoyed them initially, I didn't in the end.

Did you see the part where I said I cancelled?? Sheesh!

catch

Aug 10, 2007 at 11:05 AM

Quote:
Original post by Deleter
Now, as far as the game creation goes...Currently I am only working on a sp project, but my dreams of MP aren't of huge servers and massive player counts. In my experience intelligence is inversely proportional to the number of people you are playing with. This had lead me to what to me seems like an obvious solution. Co-op. What really gets me is that all games have single player modes, and big mp modes, and massive modes, yet they all seem to neglect co-op. If you think co-op rpgs aren't fun, I point you to this small game called D&D. Sure there are problems with co-op, but I don't think they are big enough to neglect this mode. Its in my list of todos to make a game that is exclusively co-op, to try and recreate that personal yet group atmosphere that you get with table-top RPGs. I think that by focusing on this mode, you could really tap into what makes playing with others fun, while avoiding the idiocy of mmos. Now such a game probably isn't going to appeal to as many people, because it requires more dedication. If you need at least some of the same people to go on at the same time and play, that requires more than just say joining a CS server and counting up the headshots, or logging onto a MMO and slaying orcs. However I do believe there are enough people out there who want to play games with others but find themselves frustrated with mmos. Your post just adds to this suspicion, as I see someone with at least some of the same thoughts as myself.

So yeah definitely, I really think smaller scale networking is a better way to go, or at least an alternate route that should be available to players. Just because I don't want to deal with hordes of individuals with the collective IQ of a frog doesn't mean I want to be forced to play with myself. Give me a good co-op game I can play on the weekends with my group and I'd be set.

Well said! I especially agree about the co-op.

eedok

Aug 10, 2007 at 11:40 AM

To the original poster you're not the only one who feels this way, the last online RPG I enjoyed was Diablo 2.

H4L

Aug 10, 2007 at 12:42 PM

I too would prefer an emphasis on smaller groups. I played a few 40-man raids in WoW, and I did quite enjoy them actually, but my favourite moments in the whole game were just with me and one or two friends. I think one thing that seriously detracts from group play is the idea of class roles in parties. In every 5-man dungeon in WoW, you needed a healer and a tank or you had no chance of success. Lets say I started the game with the intention of playing exclusively with a few real life friends. At least two of us would be restricted on class choices. Why can't the classes be set up so that any combination has the potential of being a worthwhile team given the right tactics? Also, why is every dungeon specifically balanced for 5, 10, 20, or 40 people? Why aren't there dungeons specifically for 2, 3 or 4 people? Ok, so you could wait a few levels before attempting them, but then the rewards for doing so were less.

Versatility in the design is the real issue here. If you can generate quests procedurally then you can tailor the game to however the player(s) want to play it. Yeah, I've ranted about the benefits of procedural questing before, but this is one issue in which it has a stuperb abvantage.

sunandshadow

Aug 10, 2007 at 1:34 PM

Quote:
Original post by Machineman
You guys are overlooking one major area of MMO implementation and, therefore, gameplay: the Economy.

You need large numbers of people to make the economy robust and provide enough variety that interaction with it (and other players) feels like more of a world, a place.

No, you don't need more than a handful of players to "play" the game, but to fully exploit the genre you sure as hell do need the mass. It has little to do with combat.

Aside from the fact that most MMO economies are horrible? The only online game I've played which could really be said to have a great economy is Gaia Online which doesn't even really qualify as an MMO. Maplestory, Dofus, WOW, and A Tale in the Desert all have horrible economies mostly due lack of an automated world market, absurdly low npc buyback prices, heavy taxation on selling and storing items, and low drop rates preventing effective drop-farming.

rollo

Aug 10, 2007 at 1:57 PM

Quote:
Original post by H4L
Also, why is every dungeon specifically balanced for 5, 10, 20, or 40 people? Why aren't there dungeons specifically for 2, 3 or 4 people? Ok, so you could wait a few levels before attempting them, but then the rewards for doing so were less.

This is something I really enjoyed in City of Villains/Heroes. "Dungeons" will be scaled depending on how many are on your team, so there is no reason not to do a mission with 3 people isntead of 8 etc. They also didnt require you to be the same levels. You could "malefactor" a lever level character to one level (I think it was) below yours and they could tag along on high level quests, or you could downgrade your level and help them out on lower level quests. Trying to play with friends on WoW - everyone levelling at different speed is a lot of hassle compared to this system.

pinacolada

Aug 10, 2007 at 2:34 PM

Quote:
Original post by catch
Quote:
Original post by pinacolada
Why don't you just play the game the way you want to play it?

Most of my real-world friends that play WoW absolutely detest playing with strangers. So.. they don't. We schedule sessions and we only play with each other. It works great.

Also, I was in a huge WoW guild for a while. Most of those guys absolutely hated doing PUGs. So.. they didn't. Brilliant, isn't it!

If you only want to do world PvP, then.. just do world PvP. You could spend all day flying around Outlands hitting the various PvP objectives.

Quote:
I did some 20 mans, and a few of the big 40 mans, but I really hated it. The time sink was exponentially larger than any other game before. I had to eat, sleep, and live the stupid game, and I grew to resent it.

Why why why why why? Why do these things if you hate them?

I didn't do them, that was my point!! Why play an "MMO" if you don't enjoy any of the "mass" elements? Did you read the post? I tried the things because they were there to try, and I even if I enjoyed them initially, I didn't in the end.

Did you see the part where I said I cancelled?? Sheesh!

No, I didn't mean quit; I mean, if you know there's things about the game you enjoy (like playing with RL friends or doing world PvP), then why don't you stick to doing those things? There's no rule saying you have to do the "mass" (massive?) elements of the game; no rule saying you have to PUG or do raids. Just because it's there doesn't mean you need to do it.

Like I said, I have a bunch of real-life friends that never play the game except with each other. Their highest characters are 40, they've never heard of raiding, and they don't know what PUG stands for. And they have a ton of fun; they probably enjoy the game more than most raiders do.

You're saying you want a game where you can just play with people you know, I'm saying you can already do that :)

BCullis

Aug 10, 2007 at 4:24 PM

Quote:
Original post by Machineman
You guys are overlooking one major area of MMO implementation and, therefore, gameplay: the Economy.

You need large numbers of people to make the economy robust and provide enough variety that interaction with it (and other players) feels like more of a world, a place.

No, you don't need more than a handful of players to "play" the game, but to fully exploit the genre you sure as hell do need the mass. It has little to do with combat.

I think Machineman here hit it on the head, though I'll broaden that point a little bit. There are elements of the "living, breathing world" in whatever flavor you've picked that need thousands of players to actually function. I'll try to list a couple:

--Being able to sell things as a crafter (wider market of players increases your sale chance)

--Being able to sell rare finds that no one in your play-circle can use (let's say you're all fighters, with no mage friends, and you find an epic casting tool of...stuff)

--Being able to make new friends (hint: they aren't ALL jackasses. In fact, my wife and I made some friends in a WoW pick-up group that we still talk to outside the game, and we both quit playing before BC hit shelves)

--The feeling of an active world (I've played Oblivion, and while all the NPCs are interesting and have AI routines to path them around all over the place, the game still gets this feeling in town of emptiness...like mannequins or something)

--People to show off your latest treasures to (I can't tell you how often in single-player rpg's I've come across something that made me wish I had a friend in-game to show it to)

None of these really speak to the main reason these games are Massive, though: everyone has their own play preferences. Having a massive populace means that the people that want to play with large groups and guilds can, while the ones that want to spend time with a specific one or two friends can turn off the major chat channels and just explore the world on their own. The PVP'ers get a huge population ladder to fight on for rank, and the RP'ers get the feel that their character is a part of a real world.

I have to say though, nothing quite beats the feeling of playing an MMO, getting in over your head out in the middle of nowhere, and having some random helpful player run by on an errand and bail you out. That just doesn't happen in single-player scenarios.

Deleter

Aug 10, 2007 at 5:07 PM

Quote:
I have to say though, nothing quite beats the feeling of playing an MMO, getting in over your head out in the middle of nowhere, and having some random helpful player run by on an errand and bail you out. That just doesn't happen in single-player scenarios.

Yeah, but it doesn't always happen in a mmo either. And you get the added possibility of a random person coming by and pking you as well. MMOs may have some benefits, but they have equally deep pitfalls as well. For some people these detract enough from what the mmo offers that its no longer fun. And although I agree with your comments about oblivion, I think with better npcs, and perhaps a co-op mode, most of these issues would be solved.

catch

Aug 10, 2007 at 5:19 PM

Quote:
Original post by pinacolada
No, I didn't mean quit; I mean, if you know there's things about the game you enjoy (like playing with RL friends or doing world PvP), then why don't you stick to doing those things? There's no rule saying you have to do the "mass" (massive?) elements of the game; no rule saying you have to PUG or do raids. Just because it's there doesn't mean you need to do it.

Like I said, I have a bunch of real-life friends that never play the game except with each other. Their highest characters are 40, they've never heard of raiding, and they don't know what PUG stands for. And they have a ton of fun; they probably enjoy the game more than most raiders do.

You're saying you want a game where you can just play with people you know, I'm saying you can already do that :)

The point being, for that, I can get it with non-pay to play games. Diablo 2, Guild Wars, for example. If you're paying for the MMO experience, yet you never want to take advantage of that experience, why do it?

Like you said, don't do it. So I won't. And I don't, now. I tried it. Didn't like it.

But wouldn't your friends be equally happy in Diablo 2 or Guild Wars, and not have a monthly fee?

Stani R

Aug 10, 2007 at 6:56 PM

Quote:
Original post by H4L
In every 5-man dungeon in WoW, you needed a healer and a tank or you had no chance of success.

Well, that's not entirely true. I've done WoW instances (thinking Scarlet Monastery, Uldaman. It got much harder to do this in Burning Crusade) where my paladin was the only tank, or the only healer. Sometimes I was both the only tank and healer :D - those went quite slow. Paladins and Druids were great in that regard in that they could adjust to the needed role, but there weren't enough skill points around to properly specialize in both trees, which made them not quite as powerful at their secondary roles. Generally, having a proper healer and proper tank along did help quite a bit.

Quote:
Original post by H4L
Why aren't there dungeons specifically for 2, 3 or 4 people?

Dungeon Runners also scales depending on number of players, so you can go in with 1, 2, 3, or more and it will adjust as people join/part.

Quote:
Original post by H4L
Versatility in the design is the real issue here. If you can generate quests procedurally then you can tailor the game to however the player(s) want to play it.

Procedural quests can only help you so far, I think. Granted, it's better than the usual breed of Korean MMO's where all you do is grind and any quests are mostly afterthoughts. Even WoW mostly had fetch/deliver and collection/grinding quests, and these are well suited for procedural generation. But I'd rather see more interesting quests in MMO's, if possible (think Oblivion type of quests, like accidentally slaughtering a village while under the influence of a drug, or helping some farmers defend their land - alongside them). And these are hard enough to add without being procedurally generated.

Anyway, I agree with most of what's been said. Too much grinding, too many little kids playing, PUG's and raiding are seldom fun. The thing is, if you wanted halfway-decent equipment, you had to grind a lot in Diablo 2, also (think Pindle runs or Baal runs), so that aspect hasn't changed much (except that to do proper grinding you had to first find good Magic Find gear - at least we're rid of that concept now). Dungeon Siege followed the same multiplayer style as Diablo 2, incidentally enough, but was way too linear to be fun in my opinion.

I'd like to see more emphasis on tools enabling community interaction and slightly less emphasis on combat. I usually find it difficult to find even PUG's to play with, and unless I find some normal people and get into a guild early on, I end up playing in the MMO-Solo-RPG style. At the same time, as others have pointed out previously, there is really very little justification for all the genocide we end up doing on our way to the top levels. Plus, most combat systems based on throwing dice are just not fun.

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