Guild Wars 2

Sooo,

Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear. However… the only problem is, MMORPG’s are made all the same.

So guild wars 2 is no exception. It is undoubtedly a grind to acquire even one piece of dungeon gear. But why?

So here is where it lies “you must earn it, work for it”…

However surely, is not completing challenging content, battling through bosses not enough to earn it? You have proven your worth and your ability. Why then must you essentially “grind” for reward and kill the same boss you just killed again, and again. There may be three explore modes but I am nothing more than confused on why you have to run at least one of them more than once to gain the gear you so desire.
I will give you an example no grind then. A game that will undoubtedly be enjoyable. My Example here is skyrim or fable or any other single player RPG – soo, you kill something challenging and you instantly gain the treasure. You fight your way through a cave and gain the treasure. Why must all these MMORPG games be soooo different… sooo grindy? I would find this game alot more enjoyable if they made it soo completely dungeons gave you awesome treasure then you can “choose” to go back there if you enjoyed it rather than having to go back there again and again because you want the gear but you dislike the dungeon.

Anyway making the content challenging then rewarding for completion is definitely the way forward. Rewarding for multiple completion is definitely the way backwards.

How will this make the game playable for long durations of time? Well, keep the legendary gear for that but also make the content fun. Give it a reason to be replayed. There is WvWvW for multiplayer enjoyment. This is what should make the game have replay value and not… the “carrot on a stick”.

I am not here to ask for free gear. Actually the opposite. I want a hardcore challenge but I don’t want to do something I dislike over and over again because I know at the end I will love the reward. Don’t say “Ohh you just don’t want to earn it, work for it” because this should be enough to earn it in a fantasy game. I would find nothing in reality worth more than fighting through a cavern of giant spiders. I don’t understand why the game should be any different.

Thank you.

There is no MMO, and there will prolly never be during our life, that gives you unique content every single time you play it.
Sorry OP, it would take terabytes of terabytes of space and decades to be completed.

You can have a varied challenge with different difficulties (which lead to different spawns etc), with many differenth paths etc…. but there is no such thing as unlimited new content in PvE.

It has to be a balance. Like Red Falcon said creating content requires a lot more then it takes to consume it! Think about a dungeon for example. You have to model actual objects in the dungeon be it say a statue or an alter etc.. you have to create texture for them, then you have to place them in the world, model and create the surrounding be it a temple or a huge cavern. You need to create and set particle effects be it smoke rising from the ground or lava splashing around. You then need to create the mobs and the npcs, create the story for them, animate them, script them to behave a certain way, perhaps code AI if they engage in a new behavor that isnt yet available in game, you have to create goals the npcs are trying to achieve, You have to create traps and other mechanics, script them etc.., create travel paths. you also have to create the sound effects, possibly music or decide which existing once you’re going to use. Create NPC dialog, do the voice overs etc… Then you have to test out the whole thing, fix bugs, improve / smooth rough areas. Suffice to say it takes weeks of work to create a single dungeon.

On the other hand a player goes through it in what 45 mins? And if that wasnt bad enough an MMO should be designed to keep you interested indefinitely, its a game designed to never end. So thats where repetition comes in. But like you correctly say repetition is boring so you have to strike some form of balance there. Gw2 tries to do that by offering some variation, you have 3 explorable paths with each having different dynamic events that might trigger. Obviously the dynamic events dont really change the feel of the particular path but they help make it feel slighly less repetitive. Beyond that you have other content you can play that still rewards you with the same stats essentially enabiling you to take a break when trying to get a specific dungeon set without any negative impact.

Repetion in an MMO is unavoidable but a big variety of things to do can make it a lot less harsh then otherwise it can be!

The perfect MMO is Devil May Cry 3 Online.

Sadly Capcom have not responded to my numerous death threats to develop it. Although these days, I’m not sure I want them to.

I’ll settle for a Dark Souls MMO though.

A good way to rapidly generate additional content is to host player generated content as exemplified by the Neverwinter Nights toolset or Architect Entertainment in City of Heroes. I believe some other MMOs (EQ2? STO?) also leverage this feature.

Of course, AE in CoH was also an example of players abusing this feature to gain unexpected amounts of xp and currency and needed to be checked, so a token/currency system would still probably work better then awarding singular items. The real appeal there is the novelty of different scripted experiences and player storytelling. Free content.

In theory, a robust system of cascading dynamic events and meta events that breadcrumb through the world and/or randomized instanced dungeons a la Diablo or City of Heroes could also provide a great deal of replayable content that remains somewhat fresher.

Jordan.6157:

Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.

Stopped reading here. I don’t give that many kittens about gear.

I mostly care about depth in character builds. GW2 does fail pretty badly compared to GW1 in that department, but is far better than other MMOs like WoW and RIFT.

Jordan.6157:

people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.

Yup, and it’s really depressing, because it won’t get us very far in the global evolution.

The perfect MMO will be the one who stops focusing on gear and content consumption speed, but who will start to focus fully on what makes this gear grinding bearable : combat mechanics diversity.

I’m sorry if I’m constantly bashing with this argument, but it really seems gamers don’t care that much about such a pilar of how we interact with the world. MMOs main interaction being fights, indeed. Gear is just static numbers and static looks. On the other hand, mechanics are dynamic, and are supposed to invest you, as gamer, every second of every fight. They are what is supposed to prevent you from falling asleep after a thousand fights.
On the other side, what does invest you directly once you equipped your super shiny armor ? Even more, how do you think you are interacting with the game during the journey to this very gear ?

Currently all MMOs are going the opposite, by simplifying to the extreme all the possible layers of strategies one class can have during one single fight. They all try to normalize the gameplay complexity.

Like if we all just discovered our first MMO, if not our first videogame.

Apathy.6430:

Jordan.6157:

Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.

Stopped reading here. I don’t give that many kittens about gear.

I mostly care about depth in character builds. GW2 does fail pretty badly compared to GW1 in that department, but is far better than other MMOs like WoW and RIFT.

I also don’t really care for equipment other than looks. I play the game to have fun playing the game.

I disagree about the depth of character builds. While you have less skills to work with, you have traits to mess around with. I spend a great deal of time in build editors fooling around.

Well, if they made challenging content that would take people a while to complete, you know what those people would do?

“Too hard! Boss is OP. I’ve tried it five times and lost, this game sucks, I’m leaving.” etc….

I’d be all for harder content to complete.

Numot.3965:

Apathy.6430:

Jordan.6157:

Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.

Stopped reading here. I don’t give that many kittens about gear.

I mostly care about depth in character builds. GW2 does fail pretty badly compared to GW1 in that department, but is far better than other MMOs like WoW and RIFT.

I also don’t really care for equipment other than looks. I play the game to have fun playing the game.

I disagree about the depth of character builds. While you have less skills to work with, you have traits to mess around with. I spend a great deal of time in build editors fooling around.

Yeah, but most traits are horrible and or broken, and half of all weapon sets aren’t worth using.

At least the terrible skills in GW1 could possibly be used to complement other skills. In GW2 you’re just pretty much stuck, you can’t make up for a weak weapon set with utility skills…you just simply don’t use that weapon set.

Numot.3965:

I disagree about the depth of character builds. While you have less skills to work with, you have traits to mess around with. I spend a great deal of time in build editors fooling around.

But once you tried them all, you end up seeing that your final gameplay didn’t change that much.

I agree with Apathy though, GW2 does have far better tools than others for making a huge step in mmo fight mechanics evolution.
They have the tools, but stopped at 30% of exploiting them, which is kind of frustrating, especially since most mmo veterans have been waiting for a refreshment in mechanics for ages.

edit : Apathy’s post above clearly sums it up.

Jairyn.6913:

A good way to rapidly generate additional content is to host player generated content as exemplified by the Neverwinter Nights toolset or Architect Entertainment in City of Heroes. I believe some other MMOs (EQ2? STO?) also leverage this feature.

Of course, AE in CoH was also an example of players abusing this feature to gain unexpected amounts of xp and currency and needed to be checked, so a token/currency system would still probably work better then awarding singular items. The real appeal there is the novelty of different scripted experiences and player storytelling. Free content.

In theory, a robust system of cascading dynamic events and meta events that breadcrumb through the world and/or randomized instanced dungeons a la Diablo or City of Heroes could also provide a great deal of replayable content that remains somewhat fresher.

That is boatloads of programming and Neverwinter was a series of games they let people run on their servers via a toolset. Making this game open source would be a big mistake, its not a single player RPG. As for the random dungeons..I think FoTM basically is discovering the possibilities with that.

Ditton.3149:

That is boatloads of programming and Neverwinter was a series of games they let people run on their servers via a toolset. Making this game open source would be a big mistake, its not a single player RPG. As for the random dungeons..I think FoTM basically is discovering the possibilities with that.

While FotM is new and pretty refreshing (the jumping puzzle type of things, and the “dungeon” aspect are great), it will lose it’s luster and just become going through the motions. I’m sure people delving into level 20+ are already bored out of their minds regards the laser ramp thing and the harpy platform jumping.

Not to say FotM is flawed, it is a great jumping off point. It allows them to easily add in new set pieces to keep things fresh, and being “in the mists”, they aren’t exactly tied to the lore of Tyria or the location, which is fantastic…it lets them design everything from a clean slate.

But yeah, it will never truly be random. It will just be different orders of set pieces in which each set piece loses it’s luster. That said, expecting a truly random dungeon that is interesting every time is a pipe dream at this point in time. It just isn’t possible with current technology.

Red Falcon.8257:

There is no MMO, and there will prolly never be during our life, that gives you unique content every single time you play it.
Sorry OP, it would take terabytes of terabytes of space and decades to be completed.

You can have a varied challenge with different difficulties (which lead to different spawns etc), with many differenth paths etc…. but there is no such thing as unlimited new content in PvE.

Well, “unique content” is an odd statement. Do you mean to say it’s content you never saw before? Then a procedural-generated world would technically fill that, owing to the fact it would be different every time you played. Still the same game, with a limited pool of items/monsters/possible actions.

However it may be what engineers would jokingly call a “nontrivial task” to make a game where it was new with more than that each time you started it up. I don’t think that is currently possible, except by taking a very narrow definition of “new content” to mean “consistent world shape and item distribution”.

Apathy.6430:

Ditton.3149:

That is boatloads of programming and Neverwinter was a series of games they let people run on their servers via a toolset. Making this game open source would be a big mistake, its not a single player RPG. As for the random dungeons..I think FoTM basically is discovering the possibilities with that.

While FotM is new and pretty refreshing (the jumping puzzle type of things, and the “dungeon” aspect are great), it will lose it’s luster and just become going through the motions. I’m sure people delving into level 20+ are already bored out of their minds regards the laser ramp thing and the harpy platform jumping.

Not to say FotM is flawed, it is a great jumping off point. It allows them to easily add in new set pieces to keep things fresh, and being “in the mists”, they aren’t exactly tied to the lore of Tyria or the location, which is fantastic…it lets them design everything from a clean slate.

But yeah, it will never truly be random. It will just be different orders of set pieces in which each set piece loses it’s luster. That said, expecting a truly random dungeon that is interesting every time is a pipe dream at this point in time. It just isn’t possible with current technology.

that is why I say discovering possibilities..I think it would be interesting if every dungeon had a bit of that mechanic in it. say..3 different random endings for each path taken or something to that effect.

Hello all,

The best MMO ever will use extensively player designed content and will allow players to have a real impact in the world around them. Will be a permanently changeable world, with immense maps for exploration/adventure and permanent conflict areas directly impacting the players life in-game like not having access to cities/areas/dungeons/etc unless you conquer them.

Will allow players to be whatever they like, to develop the skills they want with no defined classes or weapons or gear. You can develop any skills and train in whatever weapon suits you and wear whatever armor gives you advantage for your chosen skills/weapon combat style.

Will have land, sea and aerial combat (on vessels, mounts or creatures).

The crafting system will allow you to create an infinity of armor and weapons skins (combining partial skins from a in-game library always in constant evolution) with adequate stats to balance the game.

Will have GM’s permanently in-game, playing the game alongside players and starting out a multitude of events with variable rewards, kicking bots and being part of the community. Why do we generally have permanent staff managing the forums and do not have permanent staff playing the game identified as GM’s? After all the game is the top priority.

This will demand a huge team of permanent staff for the game to be always fresh and continuously renewed.

The only way of doing it is to introduce a new model of business for MMO’s, that I forecast will be the future: Subscription + Gem shop.

With both options, the company will guarantee a constant revenue plus a variable revenue that hopefully (if the game keeps high standards) will fund my proposed model.

This model will balance the unique currency of any MMO: available TIME.

Thank you and best regards,

Red

The only way to create “unique” content is playing with other people.

Doing the same content with two different groups can be VASTLY different experiences. Even more so if different professions and specs actually brought different things to the table rather than just more or less damage.

Trying to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of your group and min/max them to overcome difficult challenges is great. But everything is generally too easy, and other people generally too incompetent to have that kind of situation. You’ll have runs that you just blow through everything without stopping, then the runs where you’d have to try to counterbalance your strengths and weaknesses just becomes a frustrating chore.

Gear balance also adds onto this significantly. If content is a joke with decently geared people, it is just going to be frustrating with undergeared people.

RedBaron.6058:

Hello all,

The best MMO ever will use extensively player designed content and will allow players to have a real impact in the world around them. Will be a permanently changeable world, with immense maps for exploration/adventure and permanent conflict areas directly impacting the players life in-game like not having access to cities/areas/dungeons/etc unless you conquer them.

Will allow players to be whatever they like, to develop the skills they want with no defined classes or weapons or gear. You can develop any skills and train in whatever weapon suits you and wear whatever armor gives you advantage for your chosen skills/weapon combat style.

Will have land, sea and aerial combat (on vessels, mounts or creatures).

The crafting system will allow you to create an infinity of armor and weapons skins (combining partial skins from a in-game library always in constant evolution) with adequate stats to balance the game.

Will have GM’s permanently in-game, playing the game alongside players and starting out a multitude of events with variable rewards, kicking bots and being part of the community. Why do we generally have permanent staff managing the forums and do not have permanent staff playing the game identified as GM’s? After all the game is the top priority.

This will demand a huge team of permanent staff for the game to be always fresh and continuously renewed.

The only way of doing it is to introduce a new model of business for MMO’s, that I forecast will be the future: Subscription + Gem shop.

With both options, the company will guarantee a constant revenue plus a variable revenue that hopefully (if the game keeps high standards) will fund my proposed model.

This model will balance the unique currency of any MMO: available TIME.

Thank you and best regards,

Red

This is like a 200 million dollar capitalist venture here…and the sub would need to be more than other games..something like 30/month.

RedBaron.6058:

Hello all,

The best MMO ever will use extensively player designed content and will allow players to have a real impact in the world around them. Will be a permanently changeable world, with immense maps for exploration/adventure and permanent conflict areas directly impacting the players life in-game like not having access to cities/areas/dungeons/etc unless you conquer them.

Will allow players to be whatever they like, to develop the skills they want with no defined classes or weapons or gear. You can develop any skills and train in whatever weapon suits you and wear whatever armor gives you advantage for your chosen skills/weapon combat style.

Will have land, sea and aerial combat (on vessels, mounts or creatures).

The crafting system will allow you to create an infinity of armor and weapons skins (combining partial skins from a in-game library always in constant evolution) with adequate stats to balance the game.

Will have GM’s permanently in-game, playing the game alongside players and starting out a multitude of events with variable rewards, kicking bots and being part of the community. Why do we generally have permanent staff managing the forums and do not have permanent staff playing the game identified as GM’s? After all the game is the top priority.

This will demand a huge team of permanent staff for the game to be always fresh and continuously renewed.

The only way of doing it is to introduce a new model of business for MMO’s, that I forecast will be the future: Subscription + Gem shop.

With both options, the company will guarantee a constant revenue plus a variable revenue that hopefully (if the game keeps high standards) will fund my proposed model.

This model will balance the unique currency of any MMO: available TIME.

Thank you and best regards,

Red

There isn’t enough time in the world to provide it.

There’s three obvious/big limiting factors for game development: the time you have to work on it, and the amount of money you have to throw at it, and the amount of staff available to write it.

Even if you assumed they had all the funding they could need, and as much time as was needed to put this out . . . the staff requirement would be astronomical to get it out within any sane timeframe. And then the staff requirement to actually run the game actually increases over time.

And I really doubt there is a way to secure all three in limitless amounts – time, money, and personnel. So, any game on this list of criteria is very likely impossible and is going to compromise somewhere . . . and then it won’t be perfect.

GW2 my friends…is nowhere near the perfect MMO. Can’t even live up to it’s name.

subseven.6950:

GW2 my friends…is nowhere near the perfect MMO. Can’t even live up to it’s name.

That is your opinion. I couldnt stand GW1 for anything but gvg with my guilds on weekends..the rest of the game bored me to tears.

subseven.6950:

GW2 my friends…is nowhere near the perfect MMO. Can’t even live up to it’s name.

. . . a perfect video game cannot exist. It is just that simple.

If I could just take Ragnarok online, Tera online and GW2 and smoosh them together, I would have the perfect MMO.

Also, I think you just described Second Life.

Hello Ditton,

SWOTR costed more than that..:)

A 15$/month plus a very good gem shop would probably fund it.

Anyway we can even think about a more developed business model where you pay for what you play (I am not proposing the chinese system where you pay per time played although that not seems so bad to me but it is not easily understood by the western MMO community) for example:

10$/month for PvE content.
15$/month for PvE+WvW.
20$/month for PvE+WvW+PvP.
extra 5$/month to have a fixed a Magical Find bonus instead of having to wear dedicated gear for it.
extra 5$/month to have a fixed XP bonus.

In my opinion players should be able to pay for what they want to use.

Thanks and best regards,

Red

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

subseven.6950:

GW2 my friends…is nowhere near the perfect MMO. Can’t even live up to it’s name.

. . . a perfect video game cannot exist. It is just that simple.

This is actually something I’ve came to realize in my many discussions with co-workers and fellow developers.

Every mechanic and system has aspects that are good and bad. Some good mechanics are polar opposites of other good mechanics.

It is a beautiful sight when a studio puts together complementing mechanics that mesh extraordinarily well together…but it will never be perfect, just like there will never be a perfect movie or a perfect painting.

“Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.”

This is the crux of all problems with modern MMO developement. Game designers, for some reason, cant get the idea out of their kitten that the only way to make a succesfull mmo is to focus on item gathering.

You can make content so fun that the reward of playing it would be enough for most people. Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

A perfect MMORPG in my mind would have been Skyrim with a multiplayer.(Obviosly additional feutures/adjustments would be needed but the core of the game is simply awesome and rewarding with minimum grind, except that you could do it with multiple people then.)

IMO, trying to make an MMO that’s ‘perfect’ when compared to other MMO’s is a futile exercise, because everyone’s perception of perfect is different. A casual player would find my ideal of a ‘perfect’ mmo to be very flawed, for example, because I enjoy complexity and effort-based progression.

rather, MMO developers should try to corner a certain ‘feel’ of gameplay they want to push for, and try to make the game ‘perfect’ for that initial vision. Gw2 tried to do this and partially succeeded. It succeeded in making an enjoyable MMO that felt unique and was just deep enough to satisfy MMO players while being accessible enough to satisfy casuals, but just like a lot of other ‘revolutionary’ MMO’s, it sacrificed tired and true staples of the genre in order to do so, creating an ultimately watered-down experience for players who compare it to other games.

Nabbis.5784:

“Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.”

This is the crux of all problems with modern MMO developement. Game designers, for some reason, cant get the idea out of their kitten that the only way to make a succesfull mmo is to focus on item gathering.

You can make content so fun that the reward of playing it would be enough for most people. Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

I’m happy to see more and more players voicing this fact. Thanks.

Simply, why do these devs actually focus on gear instead of mechanics ? Because everybody and their grandmother are talking/complaining/suggesting about gear (oh and big numbers on screen), instead of the way they play.
Look at this very forum .. 80% of new topics are about gear.. it’s depressing.

[Edit]

[Edited by CC: Frivolous part]

Apathy.6430:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

subseven.6950:

GW2 my friends…is nowhere near the perfect MMO. Can’t even live up to it’s name.

. . . a perfect video game cannot exist. It is just that simple.

This is actually something I’ve came to realize in my many discussions with co-workers and fellow developers.

Every mechanic and system has aspects that are good and bad. Some good mechanics are polar opposites of other good mechanics.

It is a beautiful sight when a studio puts together complementing mechanics that mesh extraordinarily well together…but it will never be perfect, just like there will never be a perfect movie or a perfect painting.

There can be a “technically” perfect movie, painting, or game. Where everything is executed with the proper timing, touch, finesse, and the pieces work together in harmony so great you never see the seams or the cracks to dispel your disbelief.

But perfect on the technical aspects does not make it perfect overall. Perfection is an ideal to strive for, not a reality.

kineticdamage.6279:

Nabbis.5784:

“Obviously you need to earn your gear in an MMORPG and people’s most favourite part of an MMORPG is the gear.”

This is the crux of all problems with modern MMO developement. Game designers, for some reason, cant get the idea out of their kitten that the only way to make a succesfull mmo is to focus on item gathering.

You can make content so fun that the reward of playing it would be enough for most people. Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

I’m happy to see more and more players voicing this fact. Thanks.

Simply, why do these devs actually focus on gear instead of mechanics ? Because everybody and their grandmother are talking/complaining/suggesting about gear (oh and big numbers on screen), instead of the way they play.
Look at this very forum .. 80% of new topics are about gear.. it’s depressing.

Because MMO players have been conditioned for this behavior. Who is this game targeted to? MMO players.(Yes im aware this game was promised to focus on fun, but the facts on design speak for itself. Also people need to keep in mind that other MMOS bled their own playerbase to this game, regardless of how it was marketed.)

The current implementation of ascended FOTM grind is a perfect example of people who do not wish to play a traditional MMO, complaining.

Nabbis.5784:

Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

The problem with this, is that RPG content can never continue being fun. CS, Battlefield, and CoD are “fun” (using this term loosely) because they are competitive, and no two enemies are always the same and encounters are different each and every time.

Minecraft is fun in the same way that Lego’s are fun. It appeals to a different section of your psych than most other games, and that part likely cannot be appealed to in the scope of an MMO, though I’ve pitched a few ideas to my co-workers and other designers about how to translate it into an MMO, but nothing has come of it yet.

RPG content is stagnant and cannot continue being fun for the sake of fun. Gear grinds are intended to keep people hooked long enough for new content to be designed. You mention Skyrim in your post…how many hours did you play Skyrim? 100? 200?. I personally played it around 150 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed it…but there’s no reason to go back to playing it, even with the new DLCs.

The only way for this to be countered is user-generated content…but there’s many implications with that. EVE is the closest example to a successful user-generated game, but translating that into a standard MMO format is near impossible.

RedBaron.6058:

10$/month for PvE content.
15$/month for PvE+WvW.
20$/month for PvE+WvW+PvP.
extra 5$/month to have a fixed a Magical Find bonus instead of having to wear dedicated gear for it.
extra 5$/month to have a fixed XP bonus.

In my opinion players should be able to pay for what they want to use.

Thanks and best regards,

Red

Yeah, good luck with $30/month sub when buying a p2p game is $20 a couple months after release….

That aside…wait, where is that “gear grind” in GW2?! You don’t like running dungeons for tokens? Good, buy the gear with karma. Or craft it. Or buy it from the TP. Whatever floats your boat. Exotics are perfectly fine for any content(except higher lvls fotm, but to need to farm the gear, you need to already be into farming the dungeon) and just lvling to 80 will generate you enough gold for a decent set.

Lastly, there is no such thing as a perfect MMO. Because everybody has a different idea of what “perfect” is. Mine would be…6 games in one xD

Apathy.6430:

Nabbis.5784:

Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

The problem with this, is that RPG content can never continue being fun. CS, Battlefield, and CoD are “fun” (using this term loosely) because they are competitive, and no two enemies are always the same and encounters are different each and every time.

Minecraft is fun in the same way that Lego’s are fun. It appeals to a different section of your psych than most other games, and that part likely cannot be appealed to in the scope of an MMO, though I’ve pitched a few ideas to my co-workers and other designers about how to translate it into an MMO, but nothing has come of it yet.

RPG content is stagnant and cannot continue being fun for the sake of fun. Gear grinds are intended to keep people hooked long enough for new content to be designed. You mention Skyrim in your post…how many hours did you play Skyrim? 100? 200?. I personally played it around 150 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed it…but there’s no reason to go back to playing it, even with the new DLCs.

The only way for this to be countered is user-generated content…but there’s many implications with that. EVE is the closest example to a successful user-generated game, but translating that into a standard MMO format is near impossible.

Strange you mention Minecraft. The only way I go back to it now is if I want to build something in particular, I have a friend’s server to play on with them, or I try out the mods available.

Playing the game as is, straight from the box has lost the massive appeal to me it once had. Mostly due to about 75% of it being stuff I’ve already done and required an enormous amount of time investment to do safely. I’m still a good distance from doing the two boss fights currently in game :P

To create the so called perfect MMO you need a vision.

A vision for at least 10 years.

You need to plan the game to start with a core of things and keep evolving in all aspects. Players need to be part of that evolution.

The problem nowadays is that the cash cow model imperates. Develop a game for a few years with a relatively small team or in less time with a bigger team, with awesome PR generating enormous amounts of hype, launch it cashing in millions of games sold and maintaining it alive for 3 months until you reach break even plus a % of revenue and then decide if it is worthy to invest in the game or let it die slowly by having a reduced team and lots of automatic managing systems running it until servers closure.

Of course that to produce a good and enduring MMO you need firm funding and brave investors that share the vision and the belief in the game.

But right now, I feel the MMO community will play for 2 or 3 months almost all the games they can throw at us and the game companies are surfing that wave. When they feel the need to produce better and lasting games they will do it but it will be us that have to trigger that..:)

Best regards,

Red

RedBaron.6058:

To create the so called perfect MMO you need a vision.

A vision for at least 10 years.

You need to plan the game to start with a core of things and keep evolving in all aspects. Players need to be part of that evolution.

The problem nowadays is that the cash cow model imperates. Develop a game for a few years with a relatively small team or in less time with a bigger team, with awesome PR generating enormous amounts of hype, launch it cashing in millions of games sold and maintaining it alive for 3 months until you reach break even plus a % of revenue and then decide if it is worthy to invest in the game or let it die slowly by having a reduced team and lots of automatic managing systems running it until servers closure.

Of course that to produce a good and enduring MMO you need firm funding and brave investors that share the vision and the belief in the game.

But right now, I feel the MMO community will play for 2 or 3 months almost all the games they can throw at us and the game companies are surfing that wave. When they feel the need to produce better and lasting games they will do it but it will be us that have to trigger that..:)

Best regards,

Red

I think it’d take longer than ten years for a simple reason . . .

You can say 10 years to work out the material but the world still passes and evolves outside the box of the design group. You spend 10 years making a game and staying sequestered so you can get it done, you’re going to get a game which is out of date. A game started in 2002 and released this year would probably either reflect what idea started in 2002 and remained unchanged through the process . . . or something that was changed in the process as new tools / hardware / methods came along in the industry.

However, a 2 to 3 year leadtime would be just enough time to get the game finished before the next step on the “tech gear treadmill” which is the gaming industry’s pursuit of graphics and processing power

Jairyn.6913:

A good way to rapidly generate additional content is to host player generated content as exemplified by the Neverwinter Nights toolset or Architect Entertainment in City of Heroes. I believe some other MMOs (EQ2? STO?) also leverage this feature.

Of course, AE in CoH was also an example of players abusing this feature to gain unexpected amounts of xp and currency and needed to be checked, so a token/currency system would still probably work better then awarding singular items. The real appeal there is the novelty of different scripted experiences and player storytelling. Free content.

In theory, a robust system of cascading dynamic events and meta events that breadcrumb through the world and/or randomized instanced dungeons a la Diablo or City of Heroes could also provide a great deal of replayable content that remains somewhat fresher.

ohh that would be soooooo amazing!

but fear the chaos it might cause as the same time

Apathy.6430:

Nabbis.5784:

Do you get anything in Counter-Strike, Battlefield 1942 or Minecraft for playing them? No. They are simply fun. I wait for the day when MMO developers will start taking risks and implement a system that will truly focus on fun instead of grind.

The problem with this, is that RPG content can never continue being fun. CS, Battlefield, and CoD are “fun” (using this term loosely) because they are competitive, and no two enemies are always the same and encounters are different each and every time.

Minecraft is fun in the same way that Lego’s are fun. It appeals to a different section of your psych than most other games, and that part likely cannot be appealed to in the scope of an MMO, though I’ve pitched a few ideas to my co-workers and other designers about how to translate it into an MMO, but nothing has come of it yet.

RPG content is stagnant and cannot continue being fun for the sake of fun. Gear grinds are intended to keep people hooked long enough for new content to be designed. You mention Skyrim in your post…how many hours did you play Skyrim? 100? 200?. I personally played it around 150 hours. I thoroughly enjoyed it…but there’s no reason to go back to playing it, even with the new DLCs.

The only way for this to be countered is user-generated content…but there’s many implications with that. EVE is the closest example to a successful user-generated game, but translating that into a standard MMO format is near impossible.

RPGs do not need to be stagnant. It is not a fact that you cannot implement features that will not have an appeal for a long time. Developers need to get this thru their skulls and abandon the conservatism that plagues them. And yes, those feutures need to different from grinding.

I continue to play skyrim as new content is generated, either by mods or official DLCs. If the game had a multiplayer with duels and group bosses i would be all over it even more.(Imagine the countless mods that could be build around that). Yes, perhaps it could not be called a MMORPG anymore when it would unrealistic to have the whole playerbase on a single server with all the different mods, but i would ditch any MMO for that kinda fun co-op experience with 5-20 people per server and massive customization options across servers.

GW1 was close to perfect.

Let’s see, as fun as it is to get new items with bigger numbers, for me the most fun part is in beating some good fun challenging content. Fun is in not doing some content because I don’t like it or because I’d rather do that other content I like better first.

Now, if that challenging content gives me new numbers, the next time I want to beat it, it’s not challenging anymore, it becomes easy so it’s not fun anymore. Then what happens? Beat content A cause I like it the best first, then get new stuff, then content B, C, D and E becomes easy, thus not interesting anymore? Or maybe B is too hard unless I got the A numbers, then I need the new B numbers for C etc… But then again, if I liked C the most and wanted to do it first I couldn’t.

GW2 had the seeds to be a perfect MMO, like GW1 but the later wasn’t MMO enough. Now it’s still an MMO but it’s heading in the wrong direction.

GW1 I had a whole world to have fun in it. Never did I feel like this starting zone was such a waste of my time to be in it.

GW2 past three (four now) maps I cannot get the best T6 mats while killing stuff which since the usual T6 = highest possible = expensive/ not T6 = cheap = practically no value applies means doing stuff outside of those three maps is “wasting time” it still got stuff to improve.

And now, we had the dungeons that were working more or less correctly, then the new dungeon breaks it. And now we are reminded that the level cap might very well change along with all the obsoleting of the old content that goes with it.

GW2 isn’t a perfect MMO and is going in the wrong direction for that :/

Galen Grey.4709:

Jairyn.6913:

A good way to rapidly generate additional content is to host player generated content as exemplified by the Neverwinter Nights toolset or Architect Entertainment in City of Heroes. I believe some other MMOs (EQ2? STO?) also leverage this feature.

Of course, AE in CoH was also an example of players abusing this feature to gain unexpected amounts of xp and currency and needed to be checked, so a token/currency system would still probably work better then awarding singular items. The real appeal there is the novelty of different scripted experiences and player storytelling. Free content.

In theory, a robust system of cascading dynamic events and meta events that breadcrumb through the world and/or randomized instanced dungeons a la Diablo or City of Heroes could also provide a great deal of replayable content that remains somewhat fresher.

ohh that would be soooooo amazing!

but fear the chaos it might cause as the same time

There’s a way to do it, but . . . it’s not easy.

Organize a guild or guild alliance across several servers to put together scripts and player-run dynamic events not based upon combat (except perhaps for a WvW presence if you can manage it – not recommended). Sink the time and money of players into generating what amounts to non-canon interpretations of lore and events and rewarding people for figuring out mysteries or such.

In short – start and actually seriously fund a roleplaying group.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

RedBaron.6058:

To create the so called perfect MMO you need a vision.

A vision for at least 10 years.

You need to plan the game to start with a core of things and keep evolving in all aspects. Players need to be part of that evolution.

The problem nowadays is that the cash cow model imperates. Develop a game for a few years with a relatively small team or in less time with a bigger team, with awesome PR generating enormous amounts of hype, launch it cashing in millions of games sold and maintaining it alive for 3 months until you reach break even plus a % of revenue and then decide if it is worthy to invest in the game or let it die slowly by having a reduced team and lots of automatic managing systems running it until servers closure.

Of course that to produce a good and enduring MMO you need firm funding and brave investors that share the vision and the belief in the game.

But right now, I feel the MMO community will play for 2 or 3 months almost all the games they can throw at us and the game companies are surfing that wave. When they feel the need to produce better and lasting games they will do it but it will be us that have to trigger that..:)

Best regards,

Red

I think it’d take longer than ten years for a simple reason . . .

You can say 10 years to work out the material but the world still passes and evolves outside the box of the design group. You spend 10 years making a game and staying sequestered so you can get it done, you’re going to get a game which is out of date. A game started in 2002 and released this year would probably either reflect what idea started in 2002 and remained unchanged through the process . . . or something that was changed in the process as new tools / hardware / methods came along in the industry.

However, a 2 to 3 year leadtime would be just enough time to get the game finished before the next step on the “tech gear treadmill” which is the gaming industry’s pursuit of graphics and processing power

Runescape has proven that technology is largely irrelevant for the success of a game. Regardless of what you think about the game, its a MMO with crap graphics and a very large playerbase.

Hello Tobias Trueflight,

Sorry, I was not clear. A vision for at least 10 years of game existence, not counting development and testing..:)

A vison is precise enough to provide strategic guidance but also flexible enough to allow for new tools and hardware change. You can even plan to have the introduction of a new game engine as a mid-life update but allowing the players to move everything to the new game version.

Long term planning and a balanced business model where the company gets the funds and the players get the fun…:)

Best regards,

Red

Nabbis.5784:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

RedBaron.6058:

To create the so called perfect MMO you need a vision.

A vision for at least 10 years.

You need to plan the game to start with a core of things and keep evolving in all aspects. Players need to be part of that evolution.

The problem nowadays is that the cash cow model imperates. Develop a game for a few years with a relatively small team or in less time with a bigger team, with awesome PR generating enormous amounts of hype, launch it cashing in millions of games sold and maintaining it alive for 3 months until you reach break even plus a % of revenue and then decide if it is worthy to invest in the game or let it die slowly by having a reduced team and lots of automatic managing systems running it until servers closure.

Of course that to produce a good and enduring MMO you need firm funding and brave investors that share the vision and the belief in the game.

But right now, I feel the MMO community will play for 2 or 3 months almost all the games they can throw at us and the game companies are surfing that wave. When they feel the need to produce better and lasting games they will do it but it will be us that have to trigger that..:)

Best regards,

Red

I think it’d take longer than ten years for a simple reason . . .

You can say 10 years to work out the material but the world still passes and evolves outside the box of the design group. You spend 10 years making a game and staying sequestered so you can get it done, you’re going to get a game which is out of date. A game started in 2002 and released this year would probably either reflect what idea started in 2002 and remained unchanged through the process . . . or something that was changed in the process as new tools / hardware / methods came along in the industry.

However, a 2 to 3 year leadtime would be just enough time to get the game finished before the next step on the “tech gear treadmill” which is the gaming industry’s pursuit of graphics and processing power

Runescape has proven that technology is largely irrelevant for the success of a game. Regardless of what you think about the game, its a MMO with crap graphics and a very large playerbase.

Not just Runescape, Minecraft has . . . and this is said by a lot . . . crap graphics but is immensely popular. BUT . . . it’s one of those things which can collect negative notations enough until it is seen as a problem by a wider audience.

And I bring it up . . . yet again . . . Nethack has NOT changed technology wise since it was released into the wild. On the other hand, that game does not have the widespread success of this theoretically perfect MMORPG. Probably because it is a roguelike and that means many . . . many . . . many people aren’t going to succeed at it.

I had hoped that GW2 would actually focus on the RPG part of MMORPG, this worked out only partially and was further diminished by the introduction of the FotM and agony gear checks. With ANet investing effort in balancing PvP and breaking PvE on the other hand instead of completely separating the two game modes, the game is becoming more and more a typical substitute of its genre, attracting a playerbase that couldn’t be less interested in actually playing an RPG.

OP, your missing some key differences between single player RPG’s and MMO’s. For one a certain amount of player retention is needed even in a game that has no subscription fees because your continued involvement with the game is my content. Content need to stay relevant beyond the first time you run it so it remains relevant for you to share the experience with other player s more than once.

Quests, Missions, Events … are all designed to be run more than once so we have the opportunity to play together. Since we all can’t be on at the same set time every day but we all need there to be players interested in the same content as us they can not have “Play Once and Reward” content. It just wouldn’t work.

The key is finding a balance where a player gets rewarded a bit each time but also has a predictable golden-ring reward the player can visualizes at the end of the road.
More importantly however I think MMO’s need to find a way to reward players commonly for all activities in the game.

The Karma currency came very close to meeting this. If players are rewarded for dynamic events, jumping puzzles, discovering crafting recipes, completing daily and monthly achievements, running a dungeon, killing an open world champion mobs, and that currency is used to trade for the top end rewards in the game then players would spontaneously work their way into the top rewards by just doing what they found to be the most fun, or by doing a mix of everything.

The idea that one play style being rewarded over another and that play style usually is related to grinding the same content over and over is one of the reasons vertical gear procreation gets such a bad rap.

When player choice leaves the game and you are forced into one activity and need to repeat that over and over to coax a reward out of the game that’s when it becomes a Grind.

an example of the flaws of “work for it” theory is this:

Player a is completely selfish, spent all his time farming the same mob because he found a loot too generous (or a minor exploit in a dungeon to make it easy).
If he goes to a dungeon he insults everyone if they dont manage to do speed runs or they helps him with his exploit to be “more efficient”.

Plyer A is rewarded

Player B helps actively community, helping low levels in dynamic events, attending to wvwvw, and helps guildmates (but also strangers) to learn how to play in a dungeon, and helps people to gear.

Player B is punished having worse drops, higher repair costs, less incomes and logistic costs….(see waypoint).

Player A meets player B in a dungeon OR wvwvw…one of them is profiting of equipment…

Player B leaves the game

LordByron.8369:

an example of the flaws of “work for it” theory is this:

Player a is completely selfish, spent all his 3 hours farming the same mob beccause he found a loot too generous (or a minor exploit in a dungeon to make it easy).
If he goes to a dungeon he insults everyoen if they dont manage to do peed runs.

Plyer A gets rewarded

Player B helps actively community, helping low levels in dynamic events, attendingto wvwvw, and helps guildmates (but also strangers) to learn how to play in a dungeon, and helps people to gear.

Player B is punished because having worse drops, higher repair costs, less incomes and logistic costs….(see waypoint).

Player A meets player B in a dungeon OR wvwvw…one of them is profiting of equipment…

Player B leave the game
Player A goes on the forum saying AC is too easy and L2P etc etc etc….and he already got his legendary and is bored…..

Simple as that.

Well, one difference, does Player B realize he’s pretty much sacrificing “being the top dog” for how he chooses to do things? And if so, does he do it willingly or grudgingly?

Cause Player B pretty much encompasses me except for that higher repair costs bit – I rarely have to do full repairs outside of the two dungeon runs where I “lern 2 dodge traps” and hot action in WvW.

Actually, Minecraft has progressive gear and grinding too, for whoever brought it up as an example.

Lifelike.5862:

Actually, Minecraft has progressive gear and grinding too, for whoever brought it up as an example.

. . . explain it for the class please? Because I think I know what you refer to as “grinding” in that game and I tentatively agree it exists.

LordByron.8369:

an example of the flaws of “work for it” theory is this:

Player a is completely selfish, spent all his time farming the same mob because he found a loot too generous (or a minor exploit in a dungeon to make it easy).
If he goes to a dungeon he insults everyone if they dont manage to do speed runs or they helps him with his exploit to be “more efficient”.

Plyer A is rewarded

Player B helps actively community, helping low levels in dynamic events, attending to wvwvw, and helps guildmates (but also strangers) to learn how to play in a dungeon, and helps people to gear.

Player B is punished having worse drops, higher repair costs, less incomes and logistic costs….(see waypoint).

Player A meets player B in a dungeon OR wvwvw…one of them is profiting of equipment…

Player B leaves the game

Or, Player A could simply be a dedicated player, not necessarily rude, but someone who knows how to play efficiently and who decides to focus on hunting, making gold, and progression.

Player A is rewarded.

Player B is extremily lazy, and spends all their time hanging around in town instances spamming the global chat. They expect to be able to jump into PVP and win based solely on ‘skill’.

Player A and Player B meet in WvWvW, and Player A wins the duel because he’s actually been working for his gear.

Player B then complains that they are not being rewarded, and that player A ‘has no life’, and then writes a post on the forum complaining about how the game rewards people who grind over the poor casual player who only has 2 hours a day of play time…

See, it goes both ways.

Also, as par my minecraft example. Say you just started your game and you spawn near a witch hut. Yay, free potions, and you want to go to the Nether so that you can kill a blaze and make yourself a potion rack. You also want to make yourself a nice brick house like the one your friend has.

You’re going to need to spend a lot of time digging at bedrock to find diamond, which is completely RNG based, as diamond spawns rarely in random chunks. You’re also going to have to walk all the way out to some swamp, dig up clay, bake the clay into bricks for your house, and you’re going to need a LOT of clay.

Once you do end up getting into potions and enchanting so that you can have shiny feather touch pickaxes for farming interesting things like ice blocks, and swords that rarely break, you have to start farming for EXP. If you don’t find a skeleton dungeon you can exploit for infinate experience with a well-made trap, you’ll have to go out and kill a lot of mobs at night, or spend ages baking rock in a furnace from a cobblestone generator, and you still need coal, which will require you to build a tree farm. Finally, when you do have enough experience to enchant a weapon, it’s completely random.

So yeah, minecraft is actually farming for fun at it’s best, and a really bad example for an ‘anti farm’ game, just saying XD I consider minecraft to be allll about collect, farm and grind. It takes what hardcore gamers actually enjoy in a grind and makes do with it in a way that comes off as fun and satisfying.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LordByron.8369:

an example of the flaws of “work for it” theory is this:

Player a is completely selfish, spent all his 3 hours farming the same mob beccause he found a loot too generous (or a minor exploit in a dungeon to make it easy).
If he goes to a dungeon he insults everyoen if they dont manage to do peed runs.

Plyer A gets rewarded

Player B helps actively community, helping low levels in dynamic events, attendingto wvwvw, and helps guildmates (but also strangers) to learn how to play in a dungeon, and helps people to gear.

Player B is punished because having worse drops, higher repair costs, less incomes and logistic costs….(see waypoint).

Player A meets player B in a dungeon OR wvwvw…one of them is profiting of equipment…

Player B leave the game
Player A goes on the forum saying AC is too easy and L2P etc etc etc….and he already got his legendary and is bored…..

Simple as that.

Well, one difference, does Player B realize he’s pretty much sacrificing “being the top dog” for how he chooses to do things? And if so, does he do it willingly or grudgingly?

Cause Player B pretty much encompasses me except for that higher repair costs bit – I rarely have to do full repairs outside of the two dungeon runs where I “lern 2 dodge traps” and hot action in WvW.

i do it quite happily……unless some elitist come son the forum insulting everyone and asking for nerfing ac drops and making it harder or because vertical progression is required….

I mean is like being fined because you help people…..that is too much for a GAME.