Profile: sfc1971
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• • Would you play a MMORPG were you died?

  • In the Everquest clones you create an avatar of unspecified age, start a level 1, rise to the level cap, wait for an expansion to raise the lvl cap, rise to the level cap and wait for the next expansion.

    Your avatar remains unchanged apart from the level, never aging, never maturing. The world itself barely changes. If you roll an alt they will experience the exact same world, the same quests, the world unaware of your previous progress through the world.

    This is the way most MMO's work, a notable exception to this was Star Wars Galaxies. It only allowed ONE character per server (no alts) and its proffesion system allowed you to respec your character any time you wanted to. The game, pre-nge, had no levels, just skills. You could learn a max amount of skills but how you did that was up to you. Tired of being a swords-man? Roll a pistoleer, with some scout mixed in. This allowed you to start over BUT with the full resources your avatar had accumulated before.

    The problem

    What happens in these games is that the developers constantly have to come up with new HIGH level content to challenge players. This is expensive and it is clear by looking at western MMORPG's that NO development house so far is capable of keeping up with players speed at levelling up or playing through content. Even Lord of the Rings Online that has been releasing new content every couple of months can't keep up, new content lasts players maybe two weeks and then it is back to waiting.

    Part of the problem is that it is hard to come up with new things to challenge a near god-like end level player.  This problem is extreme in the Dungeon&Dragons universe, a level 20 is as close to a god as possible so how can a never winter nights expansion be fun by asking a near god to kill some bandits?

    The other problem is coming up with new skills for the new levels. Everquest and World of Warcraft cop out on this by just giving you improvement of existing skills but even they can only do this so often. Just how many spells/skills can a class have anyway? Imagine what a lvl 120 rogue in WoW would have to be like? Imagine what a lvl 120 raid instance would have to be like to challenge this lvl 12 rogue?

     

    The solution

    Now for the fix. Your avatar gets a new attribute, age.

    At creation, your avatar gets a random and hidden number, representing her life force. Time spend in game, dying, fighting decrease this life force, certain actions slightly increase the life force or slow the degredation but on the whole as you game, the life force decreases.

    Getting older, your avatar gets more powerful, just as in a regular game BUT death is coming ever closer, eventually the life force just runs out and your avatar dies. An epic quest could be created where you tie up the various threads of your life or attempt a do-or-die instance.

    On your death, you start a new avatar, only this is not a new alt but rather a relative of your previous avatar, son/daughter (adopted or natural), apprentice etc etc. This new avatar inherits from her ancestor, money, status, skills. Not everything, but enough to make this new character a bit more powerful then a completely new avatar.

    This way, the first time you play the game, you start at lvl 1. Lvl 1 to 10 are the tutorial levels, where you learn the game. From say lvl 10 to lvl 50 you age, growing from a young person starting out to a wise warrior until you die. Along the route, you create a child, or hire an apprentice. Then you undertake your final quest, die and your succesor takes over from lvl 10 to forge her own path. And so on, for generation after generation.

    What is fixes

    So what does this change? Simple, extra content now doesn't need to bolted on top of the game, new content can be added anywhere the developers want. A new lvl 10-20 zone, to be experienced by everyone. It is a LOT easier to come up with challenging quests if a player is NOT yet super powerful.

    The top lvl of the game can remain the top lvl and so it can be a true top lvl. Yes, this game would allow a persom at the lvl cap to be truly god like because they won't be there for long. You could be a general commanding an army because it would only be for a couple of quests before you are back as your son, the soldier.

     

    Why it might not work

     

    Part of the appeal of MMO's is to show of your avatar top lvl gear. With my idea this would be far less, after all, you are constantly starting over. A certain amount of status could pass over and people would know you by your families last name but this game would need a different focus then endless grinding for items. Granted, the hope is that by allowing new content to created for a lower lvl's you would have more content and less need to grind but still, could people get used to this different mindset?

    The question

    So, what do you think? Would you play a game where rather then the current method of rising to the top, grinding the same instances for items, while waiting for the next expansion is the only way to go OR would you be willing to play a game where you know that your avatar is going to die near the top lvl and you would have to start over from near the beginning, experiencing the same world from a different angle?

    The way I see it, my system would allow for content to more easily created, but there are other side effects that would also be intresting for a long term MMORPG.

    There would be NO dead zones, since veterans would constantly be starting over, all the zones would be filled with people questing. Same for crafting, all tiers would have customers and suppliers. No longer would you start an alt and not see a single soul until you are near the top.

    Let me know what you think, remember that this is NOT suggestion to change WoW or the like, they are the games they are. Rather this is just a brain storm for a game that would be far closer to SWG although with more questing and a more epic storyline. 

  • Posted: 10/14/08 8:16 AM
    Developers Corner
• • Customer care, so rarely reviewed

  • [quote][i]Originally posted by beaverz[/i] Its ok dont cry. Hear of /ingnore or take screenshots send to support? I personally never had any problems with ppl in lotro. (cant say the same about most mmos i played). And most ppl are good, but there is always the on f***** that will annoy people, this is why you can ignore him and not inv him into grps.He cant kill you ingame. The disconnect problem might be due to a lot of factors so pointing fingers isnt the most intelligent thing to do. However do post in the official forums, detaield posts telling what you were doing during crash. I dont know if your just trying to flame lotro a bit, but if you had played other mmos before lotro you would know that none of them are perfect. And if lotro had quite a few major problems everything is usually fixed pretty fast. Anyway here is you minor troll award [/quote]

    You apprently don't play PvMP in the game. Someone pulling every NPC onto you can most definitly kill you.  

    As for screenshots, I send them plenty, so did others, even a fraps made movie. No action, no response. Oh wait, that is wrong, those who petition for this guy to removed a bit to often get threathened with a ban.

    Those who get a bit to harsh in their words get banned. If you actually read my post you should have noted that I have this guy on ignore, doesn't stop him from requesting invites to an open raid (standard practice in the ettens) and the window pops up asking for permission to join regardless of ignore.

    So, congrats on not reading the post at all, you missed every single point. So here is my own reward for you.

    

    To repeat myself, this is NOT about a spammer or general asshat, this is about a person who OUTSIDE the group tags others and then pulls NPC's on top of the raid, running out of the way to try and get the raid to kill them for him so he can get the loot and/or cause the raid to fight both npc's and enemy players at the same time. /ignore and such do NOT work against him. I once managed to get a response from a GM who basically said they know what he is doing but won't do anything because their policy is that players should just remove themselves from the area.

    Lotro is indeed a fairly decent MMORPG, but Codemaster has made their customer support a bit of a mess. They deal fast with bugs, although that they themselves admit they are starting to dream about the tentacles suggest that Turbine hardly fixes problems fast. Helcham has always had bugs.

    The CM customer support in other areas however is less then stellar.

       

     

     

     

  • Posted: 10/07/08 5:18 AM
    Lord of the Rings Online
• • Customer care, so rarely reviewed

  • Originally posted by Lazer7
    

    While I am not saying what you typed is not true, I have not had the same experience. The support team online have been very fast to respond, and helped out a lot. There was recently a change to the squiddie fight in Carn Dum, and it caused the boss to bug. The response I got was fast, and explained it is being worked on, and a description of how to avoid the bug.

    The support in LotRO is one of the best I have experienced. The forums are full of complainers that want things easy, however. I would not recommend focusing on them for the true situation. Thus the take over of Populs. Long Live Populs!

    I mention the three different types of support people need. First bugs in quests, this is as said fast.

    Bugs in the game itself resulting in disconnects and being unable to obtain loot. It was known for a long time post book14 there was a bug with the RAT that caused massive disconnects, nonetheless, nothing was changed in their stance to account for this.

    But the harrasment handling is a joke, reports go unanswered, mails go unanwsered, screenshots? How about a recorded video of the event? No response.

    Yet people who in the heat of the moment lash out at this particular guy get banned. File to many complaints, at one point a dozen players filed a petition in the Ettens and you get threathened with a ban.

    So, well done on ignoring the point of my post. I did not claim they do not respond to bug petitions, it is the harrasment handling that fails.

    Do me a favor, open the ticket window and read the things you need to do before you can file a ticket. Remove yourself from the situation. Basically, let the griefer pester you out.

    Is that what you look for in support?

     

     

  • Posted: 10/07/08 5:06 AM
    Lord of the Rings Online
• • Producers Note Oct 2 2008

  • Originally posted by Squal'Zell
    

    first they copy WoW

    now they copy GW

    GW has had holyday events since launch, every halloween/christmas/valentines, you name it, its like a tradition in GW to celebrate and redecorate Lion's Arch on any possible occation.

    To be fair, SOE has done holidays for a LONG time, long before GW or WoW launched. Copy WoW? Sorry, WoW copied SOE's Everquest. WoW ain't called EQ Lite for nothing.
     

    For some reason it has gotten to be a tradition in games to include the holidays, this goes so far as asian games including christmas. How logical is that?

    SOE has done many things wrong and getting Jabba the Hut to throw a party doesn't even deserve to be on their top 10 of worsed mistakes. If the game was a success it would have been a small wrinkle, not something to moan about.

     

  • Posted: 10/06/08 2:49 AM
    Star Wars Galaxies
• • AoC vs LotRO

  • The games are totally different.

    AoC is far smaller in most places and heavily instanced, this makes the area different, you can't ride from one end of the world to the other.

    Graphics in AoC are 'better'. I personally liked that my characters face in AoC didn't look like everyone elses, but it was let down by the armour, with everyone wearing the same thing.

    But the gameplay is TOTALLY different. More or less, all the classes in AoC play the game, go in, pull the number of enemies you can deal with and AoE them to death with pseudo-twitch gameplay style.

    Lotro is un-ashamedly EQ style, skills with Cooldowns and a random number generator determinng wether you hit or not. But the number of skills and variety makes selecting what skill you use the trick.

    AoC fans LOVE the twitch, they want to smack things and twist and turn and say that doing this requires the greatest skill.

    EQ/Lotro/WoW fans love the skills, they want to known their class, learn what skills to use and think that using the right skills at the right time requires the greatest skill.

    You can't compare the two. If would like trying to compare  Doom vs Thief. Both are FPS, but totally different nonetheless.

    More important for the gamer who wants a good MMORPG however is that Lotro worked at launch and continues to work. AoC is pretty much a disaster, with its director now having been asked to leave. It might survive, Anarchy Online did, but still.

    Lotro is another also ran MMORPG. Never had the number to worry Blizzard or even Funcom, but a good steady performer that makes Funcom enough to fund their next middle of the road title.

    AoC director said that AoC was stead and wine, yes Lotro is Hamburger and Coke. It is McD. There is a reason why McD has 'a million served' outside its restaurants, because however 'standard' it might be it is a nice solid meal that tastes plenty good for most.

    Be honest, if you need a quick snack, do you go in to McD or some dank steakhouse with rats in the kitchen? 

  • Posted: 10/05/08 7:56 PM
    Lord of the Rings Online