The List: Most Overused MMO Conventions
Finding the MMO space a little bit repetitive these days? MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy writes this list of seven of what he feels are the most over-used conventions in the genre.
Column By William Murphy on February 04, 2010
Now, I'm not writing this list to start fights. In fact, "The Most Overused MMO Conventions" could just as easily be a list of what makes an MMO tick. But if we couldn't point out faults or redundancies in our entertainment, we'd be blind fanatics. Like poking fun at oneself, poking fun at the things we love serves a valuable purpose... it keeps everything in perspective. I love LOST, but I know just how ridiculous the show is based on its need to keep preempting every season with a lengthy recap of what shenanigans the passengers have been up to. Similarly, I love MMO gaming, but I'd be glad to see some old habits of the industry and the players change in the coming years. I warn you, this whole thing is going to sound like one giant complaint, but trust me I'm just having a bit of fun. Here then, are seven of what I consider to be the most overused MMO conventions.
advertisement #7 Kill Ten Rats
This trapping is nearly as old as the MMORPG itself. How many times must we be ordered to go out and kill ten of anything while being told it's a heroic deed? True enough I've come to expect this form of quest from any new game on the market, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Not to pick on Champions Online, but it was a drag logging into the game for the first time and being asked to go kill some alien pods right from the word go. Sure it was part of the game's tutorial, but it certainly set the tone for the rest of the things I'd be doing as a superhero in Millennium City.
I'd love to offer a way to avoid this particular trend, but I can't think of anything that doesn't mean fundamentally redesigning ninety percent of all MMO quests. There are plenty of examples already in most of our existing games that diverge from this common rodent-clubbing exercise, but one gets the feeling that the "KTR" quest type is used so often because it's so easy to implement. Still, I wouldn't mind one day going through the entirety of a game's content and not finding one NPC asking me to clear a forest of boars or foozles or whateveryoucallems. Especially considering the necessary respawn of said foozles makes my efforts seem pointless at best.
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#6 The Holy Trinity
This is one I'm tossing into the list, even though I've come to accept it as an inevitability of design. Maybe one day some brilliant designer will really find a way around this, but until they do I think it's safe to say we'll be spamming chat channels seeking healers and tanks until the end of our gaming time. I suppose the "RP" is for Role-Playing, but when I think of playing a role I think of taking on the persona of a different character. Instead because of the trinity role-playing can be summed up as "I'm a tank" or "I'm a healer". I can see it now: Hell for an MMO player is going to be nine million DPS classes and not a healer in site. I'd better start living virtuously and roll a priest.
#5 Fed-Ex Quests
There are two oft-used quest designs that we've become more than familiar with over the years. The first is the aforementioned "Kill Ten Rats". The second is easily the more annoying of the two. There's nothing more impeding to my enjoyment of an afternoon spent questing than finding an out of the way Fed-Ex quest which offers me little to no experience and strives only to suck away my time. Yes I know I can skip them, but asking me to skip a quest is like asking Balki Bartokomous to stop annoying the bejesus out of me. And yes, I've been watching a lot of Perfect Strangers reruns.
Okay, so they help point players in the direction of a new area, but some might argue that this only adds to the increasing trend of hand-holding in our MMOs. Not only that, but more often than not the Fed-Ex Quests make the player feel less like a hero and more like a union-sanctioned delivery driver. It's not exactly thrilling gameplay and neither is it actually necessary.
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#4 Fantasy
I love elves, dwarves, goblins, and orcs as much as the next guy. But come on, folks. Global Agenda's marketing department got it right: at this point the fact that a new game might not have elves in it is actually a potential selling point. I may even be saying the exact same thing next year about Science Fiction as a setting for our MMOs, but right now I'll just focus on the obvious. I've had enough of D&D inspired gaming. Though it's not an MMO, I actually had trouble getting through Dragon Age, so sick I am to death of all things sword and board. Also worth mentioning? Blizzard's got fantasy covered. Like it or not, any new game released with familiar trappings of medieval fantasy is going to be directly compared to World of Warcraft, and as we've seen in the past... that's not always a good thing.
#3 Oversized Armor and Weapons
Tying into the above, there's a disturbing trend of making characters' armor and weaponry seemingly impossible to wield and yet somehow the three-foot gnome named Gigglespork manages to slice and dice without toppling over. Look at some of Blizzard's armor designs, for instance. Put on some of the top tier shoulders in World of Warcraft and watch as your hero shrugs. How is his or her head not impaled simply by stretching their neck?
I won't deny that the designs are cool looking, but I don't think armor and weapons need to be comically oversized in order to be effective in design. Take the distinctive look of Global Agenda's four classes, or Team Fortress 2 and you have a pretty good indication of how effective art design doesn't need to rely on size to capture cool.
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#2 Levels
As old as pen and paper gaming itself, leveling is a wonderful indicator of character growth. It's almost too perfect in fact. So easy it is to convey advancement through levels, that many players spend the entirety of their playtime focusing on the little number next to their character portrait. I've fallen prey to this pathway to ennui myself. The problem with a player's level being so indicative of success is that the level becomes the only thing worth striving to. Soon the game isn't so much about playing as it is about achieving the next highest number. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I'd like there to be more to my games than climbing the ladder.
#1 Acronyms
LFG, DPS, LFM, OMW, WTF, MT, SC, DM, EQ, WOW, LOTRO, WAR, SWTOR, FTW, MMORPG... really? I mean, do we need to shorten everything? Maybe this complaint should be more directed to the Internet as a whole, but I've seen in my ten years playing a distinct rise in the sheer amount of acronyms we use to get by in our daily chats within whatever game world we might inhabit. It's almost the point where I think developers should stop bothering to name everything when creating their lore and instead just assign arbitrary or witty acronyms to everything. I think from here on out I'm going to make a concerted effort to type everything out word for word... I'm betting I last an hour.
QFT. Oh well. I tried.
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I can agree with that whole list except for acronyms and fantasy. Yes they are used but not overused.
My reason for saying that is simple. First acronyms are used in every aspect of life, always have been, always will be. We like to save time when we can.
Second if a game isn't fantasy it normally means it has guns. If it has guns I only want it to be a FPS, if it's an FPS it's tough to make it an MMO because ping matters so much more now. Also there are so many FPS that are doing it right, doing it fun, and are a box sale and that's it.
When it comes to MMOs I actually prefer fantasy. Larger scale melee combat is interesting. It also makes more sense as far as being a hero is concerned. Let's face it the sword fighting days were littered with heroes because it came down to skill and one on one fighting. Modern day we don't have heroes because one lucky bullet is all it takes, so it's all about group tactics and being careful.
I've tried many of the non-fantasy MMOs that have come out and they're never as fun. Having a gun work on a dice roll is as unintersting as it gets, so does having cooldowns on shots and 3rd person perspective.
The thing that can change is the fantasy creatures/worlds. Currently most of them are the same creatures, same classes, same basic world, same basic plot line. Asheron's Call is the only one I've played that made all it's own creatures, no classes, and unique plot line.
EDIT: And as for your example of Global Agenda, I disagree. I think everything about that game is done all wrong, and having a fee to play is ridiculous. It has less features, less players, smaller match sizes, and is less interesting then all the big name FPS titles out there. It will have a small community and will never get large. It literally tried to take regular FPS multiplayer gaming and stick an MMO pricing scheme on it. Sure they can market saying it has no elves, but it has no interest either.
The worst quest type is where you have to retrieve some body part drop from a certain mob. For example, "collect ten <random body part here> from the grey spotted wolves in area X". You go to area X and the white spotted wolves, white wolves, grey wolves, and tan wolves, that look exactly like the grey spotted wolves except for the name floating over the mobs' heads, simply will not drop the body parts. When you actually find the grey spotted wolves, only some of the mobs actually have the random body part. With enough of these quests, you end up fighting blind, deaf, mute, earless, tongueless, bloodless, spineless, gutless, tail-less, clawless, toothless, skinless, boneless, quadraplegic animals that can still find you and kill you somehow.
The guy who invented random+rare drops from random+rare mobs should be virtually drawn and quartered in every mmo town square for eternity.
The worst gameplay element in MMO's is the complete lack of physicality to combat. Two opponents face off and we end up watching two sponges slowly whacking the water out of each other with wet noodles. Little numbers popping up over their heads, an animation of a swing that doesn't connect, and their health bars slowly dropping towards empty are the only indications that anything is happening. When a 500 pound minotaur hits a 50 pound gnome with an hammer head the size of a volkswagon bug, the gnome should be following the trajectory of a golf ball, not standing there with a little number popping up over his head. If the equivalent of a big bag full of dynamite explodes in a small room full of players and mobs, everyone should be plastered against the wall with blood coming out of every orifice and anything flammable should either be smoking or on fire. Instead, a fireball selectively targets my opponents and little numbers pop up over their heads. whee.
Aggro is also a stupid idea. I'm a big mob with a warrior in full platemail in my face swinging a huge axe at me and calling my mother nasty names. However, I'm going to go squash the little gnome some 30 feet behind the warrior, with the warrior still whacking on my back, because I magically know the gnome waggled his fingers just a little too much and did more "threat" than the warrior. If the mob has any intelligence at all, he should squash the healers first - every single time.
on your last note:
you forgot "TLDR" ;-)
Actually the article was fairly humorous.
I agree on the acronmyms. Can't stand them. CAN'T!
Heck, half the time in Warhammer I just don't know what they are talking about because there are acronyms for every damn skill.
The Fed Ex quest is another one. I stopped Playing Spellborn because the first quest I was given was to run around to some towers to get reports. I felt something break inside and uninstalled the game. Could be the greatest game in history but something in that moment just put its hand over mine and said "stop, go watch a movie".
Giant Rats?
www.youtube.com/watch (go to :31)
As far as fantasy, I prefer fantasy mmo's, I tend to lose interest in the sci-fi. I think for me there is something more iconic or romanticized about hefting a sword or summoning demons over shooting a gun.
Levels I enjoy so there is no issue with that. Alternate advancement would be fine as well.
I like your articles, Bill. When I read most gaming blogs, it feels like the author's sole point is to either educate me on the gaming industry or steer me to the 'right path' of thinking regarding game design.
You write to entertain and you do that very well. It's a refreshing and enjoyable change of pace from the usual gaming site editorial or blog.
Keep 'em coming!
7. I find "kill ten rats" quests are often a result of a mismatch between the story and the world - you've created a world with rats and you're trying to create a story arc that people follow ... so you wedge in "kill some rats" to justify the rats being there.
6. The holy trinity isn't a failing of the design, it's just the mathematics of game theory - no matter how many options you put in the game, when you shake it, it will degenerate into one best strategy or a rock-paper-scissors (you can get more complex webs, but they're more and more unstable to any tweaks). You can get some inspiration from predator-prey relationships in nature, but even there, things really boil down to dps/trap vs tank/evade/poison vs regenerate/out-reproduce.
5. The fed-ex quests make up for the fact that there's no fundamental reason to know which direction to head (yes, you could rely on people to pay close attention to the story arc to walk in the right direction, but we all have our limit to how much fantasy geography we want to research/memorize before getting started).
4. I like to keep my fantasy separate from my reality - and most of what passes for sci-fi is really just a glossy skin on fantasy, full of its own wizards and trolls anyways.
3. Not a problem I've encountered in games - but if you're going to make the equipment matter, it's nice to be able to see it.
2. Like it or not, one of the big draws of MMOs is the illusion of ever-increasing wealth and power. I have noticed though that in a lot of MMOs, levels are really just a fed-ex quest in disguise - they get you moving from zone to zone, following an arc of foes gaining power at the same rate you are. I was always fascinated by the old Traveller sci-fi pencil-and-paper RPG because it was one of the few level-free games out there in that early wave of games - once you made your character, it was your character for the rest of the campaign, no advancement.
1. Every field needs new words to express core ideas more compactly - if it wasn't acronyms it would be nonsense-word jargon.
My biggest pet peeve with MMOs is that almost all of them are not "worlds" - the same quest gets repeated by a thousands of different people and the NPC never seems to notice. That's all fine and well in single-player games and novels where everyone has their own private universe in their imagination, but it grates on me when it's a shared, persistent universe.
In reading through your list, Bill, I couldn't help but think that Pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies went a long way towards steering away from most of the issues you listed. All the devs had to do was keep working on the gameplay. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spend some quality time with my Collector's Edition.
I hope next week, or whenever, you'll have a list of underused mmo conventions, because as a stand alone article this is really kinda lacking, imho.
You forgot one thing regarding armour:
when it comes to female characters, the armour is often rather "undersized". The more powerfull the armour, the less body surface seems to be covered....
i agree with the author..
Dustin
EVERYTHING in this post made me laugh, while at the same time, making me want to cry because of the sheer, unparalleled and awful TRUTH of it all.
I also truly enjoyed the OP. I can pretty much agree on everything said, with the usual exceptions to each rule, but yes....some things have become the "staple" of MMOs, for better or sometimes...for worse.
slow week?
I agree for the most part, but the problem is that list isn't just conventions, it defines the whole genre.
Good Article Stradden, I'm a little confused by Acronyms being on the list as it's basically just shorthand. But this makes me wonder, is Second Life the only MMO for you
? Haw haw.
OOM medding, pop, add, train, boat, wtb/wts fbss pst, sow plz, breeze plz, buffs, dps, dots, kite, aggro, mobs, lfg...
Those are the ones I can recall offhand from just EQ classic alone... some shorthand name uses weren't as bad, but EQ1 was definetly the beginning of mainstream shorthand sp33k.
You should play EVE.
#7: There are no ktr missions. You will have to kill npc, but not in ktr style. You will be dropped in the middle of a conflict, and you will have to be smart or clear the field.
#6: There are no classes, and obviously no trinity.
#5: There are Fed-Ex missions, but you can choose agents, which never give you any.
#4: There Are No Elves. Period.
#3: There are no fancy stuff on your ship, thus no oversized ones.
#2: Levels? Haha.
#1: EVE. You can shorten it to E, if you want :), but I think it is short enough for the most stroppy ppl, as well.
I have a solution for every single one of your complaints. hmm... What should I do...
There are mining and fedex missions for mazochists. You can choose which type of agents you are working with.
The funny thing about this list is that the original Ultima Online didn't have any of these "conventions" except it was semi-fantasy based.
I'm going to have to go "plus one" here (though I hate that).
The MMO community is the best at saying what sucks, but guess what? Coming up with the alternative is the tricky part.
The alternatives to these overused conventions are hard to find, and practically impossible to find done right.
I like a good abbreviation for anything that is unwieldy when used casually.
Initializing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to ALS or National Aeronautics and Space Administration to NASA seems quite reasonable, especially in verbal communication.
Monk abbreviated to MNK is not. It's one word composed of four characters and you've removed one. Holy shit. Not to mention that whilst the word is one syllable, your 'abbreviation' is three.
lol u got Gigglesporked
Ive waited for 6 years to play Darkfall and one of my biggest dissapointments was kill 10 gobs or deliver this package in same town to other npc bah:(
Bud Dungeons and dragons?, i thought almost all games where moddeled after tolkien book ?
I have feeling most roleplaying games(no acronyms right) are lord of the rings copys lol.
Its sells mass loved it thats why:(
I'm going to have to go "plus one" here (though I hate that).
The MMO community is the best at saying what sucks, but guess what? Coming up with the alternative is the tricky part.
The alternatives to these overused conventions are hard to find, and practically impossible to find done right.
Sigh... the article could have, and possibly should have been called "Trademarks of MMORPGs". At least this was the intention of the author. IMHO ;) , he unnecessarily used such a negative title :S
I agree entirely with the article, on the Fantasy one you should have added that killing undead, any undead is also way over done.
Global Agenda fanboi?
I'm pretty tired of blind, deaf and dumb NPC mobs, especially when they are humanoid.
How many times have you killed a camp of goblins and as long as you pull them carefully, none of the other ones can see your attack and they let you pick them off one by one.
I much prefer BAF mechanics where the entire camp would come (which forces your to have crowd control) and fits into the story better. (but isn't real great for solo play I'll grant you.)
HAHA good list. Only thing is I thought KTR quest would be much higher on the list, probably number 1 or 2 (under 8 year old kids thinking they're big and bad, since they can kill a single person in a party of 20!). That quest is waaaay overused. That's the only thing that kept me playing WoW (damn acronyms!) so long. It seemed with every update there was at least one quest that was an odd ball, that usually noone outside of Blizzard had even thought of. I finally quit that though hehe.
I agree with this. Warhammer is sort of notorious for this. There will be two npc's facing each other, talking (in context to their actions) and you could pull one an the other wouldn't notice.
What the heck is up with that!?!?!?!
speaking of shortening everything in MMO's.
the one thing that always made me laugh is when people shorten Shaman to Shammy
I love fantasy games, keep them coming!
Oh the oversized weapon things seems more targeted at games coming out of eastern asia which is stylistic, not my style mind you. I think it's silly too, but not enough to keep me from playing.
Skill or levels, classes or tasks or equipment... whatever works I say. No real dislike here for me.
An enjoyable article, but one I feel ignores the 'why's of why these 'issues' have come around.
Let's explore a bit deeper.
7. Grocery list quests. Well shoot. This is nothing more than a timesink. It's an excuse to redundancy. This obviously needs to go. Killing a swarm of invading insects that threaten the town's safety and keeping a tally of baddies downed isn't a bad thing, and to receive due credit for efforts... provided the senario isn't ongoing, and that the same senario doesn't repeat itself throughout space (in uncountable other locations in the game world) and time (from picking up the game until quitting it).
6. Ah, the much disputed holy trinity. The fact of the matter is this: you can't get rid of it. There is no 'brilliant designer' that will successfully breach the concept. It is the *lowest common denominator* of what makes games, real life war etc work.
How does it work? Let's examine:
I have health and you have health. We both have an ability pool that empowers us. The most basic way to phrase combat is: to reduce an opponent's health pool to 0, while retaining a health pool greater than 0, through the usage of one's abilities.
This most simple concept divides itself 3 ways: the ability to take away from someone's health (damage), the ability to restore someone's health (healing), and the ability to be the template for someone else's damage/healing (tanking).
Everything else comes down to these 3 concepts because they are the *lowest level of mechanics* possibly achieved. Buffers, debuffers, crowd control etc all serve these 3 purposes and are merely derivatives of the other 3 functions. If I crowd control someone, I in effect prevent them from tanking, or healing, or damaging, which in turn gives someone else *more of* an ability to tank/heal/damage because their contribution is nonexistant (ratios). This applies to all.
A good designer might color each role unique, making each a feel of its own, but there's no escaping the model, because it's already in its most perfected state.
As the old adege goes: 'if you can't get out of it, you might as well get into it'. Developpers should try harder at making the 'holy trinity' more interesting, rather than seeking ways to avoid it. The latter is futile.
5. Fedex quests.... spinoff of number 1. Timesinks. One or two could carry purpose. Repetition of the concept drains interest from its ingredients.
4. Fantasy. Sci-fi. Post-apocolyptic. Real-world... merely a backdrop. Granted, some variety would be nice. It's no so much fantasy that is bad, but the fact that so many developpers are going with 'Twilight' or 'Harry Potter' mediocre quality fantasy than a 'Tolkien' or 'Lewis' outstanding quality fantasy that is rich, insightful, fresh, and fun. It's the half-hearted attempts at the sector that ruin it for the rest. Typical of bandwagon mindsets, however.
3. Oversized items. There is nothing wrong with these. It involves a superior understanding of why.
How do people draw simple cubes? They draw them with a flat face, but a sideways, 45deg 3rd dimension. Why would an artist, ALL artists/mathmaticians draw cubes that aren't realisticly proportioned? Because it reads better on the eyes. The mind registers 2D concepts and translates them to a 3D environment. As such, artists understand certain details or aspects of artistry need to be downplayed and others emphasized.
Obviously, 1H weapons that clip the ground are a tad... over-exagerated...
2. Levels. Nothing wrong with this, provided it is done right, and properly reflects why levels were used in the first place. We've strayed from their meaning, much like the MMORPG genre has strayed from what makes it great. The old let's feed people sugar instead of hearty meals because it's cheaper and the taste is great. Eventually too much of a fabricated diet or concept leaves us without the means to properly enjoy the substance because of compounding.
Levels used to be indicative of quality. Because of the mind's processing of this concept, developpers have cheapened the meaning by giving it to everyone. Now, a max level is guaranteed, and the player feels like they've accomplished something. In reality, nothing was accomplished. The dev played off the knowledge of how the brain's reward system works and has fed the player sugar.
Give us levels with meaning again. Where someone who is lv99 actually was good enough to get there. Part of the problem is the concept of a 'max level' which leads to current concepts of 'endgame' which then further compounds, and distances, the level from its true meaning.
1. Well, I'm with you on this one, Bob. ROFLBURGERZOMGOSHLAZERSPEWPEW.
If there's one thing that ruins the e-social scene more, not just MMORPGs or gaming in general, it's conversations with improper grammar and vocab. Not being able to carry a simple and clean conversation with someone is again, something that compounds and drains the environment from what is hearty and wholesome.
Try having a mature conversation with nothing but acronyms. But why can't I just 'blow steam' and not? Sure, do that, and find out for yourself rather than play devil's advocate on a forum... and you'll know why.
Good article, however. I enjoyed it.
The concept of levels in MMOs goes back to the D&D levels which has its roots in veteran/elite tokens placed on units in wargames to indicate it had survived long enough to be considered battle-hardened.
What it sounds like what you want is a levelless system so that a character only gains skill by the player learning to play the game more effectively.
I 100% agree with hating levels.
Every game I've ever played with levels in it turned into me not being able to play with someone I talked into joining me later on. I was forced to start a new character to play with them. Then, a month later, another friend wants to play. Guess what, I gotta start over again. Now I've got two new characters at level with two separate friends who will probably never be able to play with each other and I'm in the middle of a tug of war for time.
Please, use some of the creativity that designers are supposed to possess to do away with this most hideous of methods.
I totally agree, it just annoys me that <insert npc> says "congratz at saving <insert place> from <insert thing>" throw in a clip with npc's cheering for you, then another guy does the same quest with the same result...WTF. Only thing in an mmo is that theres no way around it, which is almost as annoying.
The concept of levels in MMOs goes back to the D&D levels which has its roots in veteran/elite tokens placed on units in wargames to indicate it had survived long enough to be considered battle-hardened.
What it sounds like what you want is a levelless system so that a character only gains skill by the player learning to play the game more effectively.
I believe that talking on this would result in nothing more than talking past each other. We're saying the same thing.
Levels referenced a degree of skill, veteranship. The act of going from lv9 to lv10 wasn't a guarantee. When it's a guarantee, the levels themselves hold no meaning. They're abstract, and more like milemarkers. The US military offers the ranks of E1 through E4 as guarantees. But there is no guarantee in going from E4 to E5, although most do given sufficient time. There is less guarantee, and less actually do, go from E5 to E6 etc etc. Each number holds a significance. Just like in PnP DnD where rounding a corner and meeting an ogre's bash could potentially put you under at lv8 and you never see lv9. Actually going up in level holds significance.
A level-less system or not is actually outside the confines of the level system I touched on and you discussed. It's possible hold a level system inside of a seperate system that measures player effectiveness or the like. The concepts aren't mutually exclusive.
Acronyms come from the Pen & Paper days as every RPG tried to title itself into a snazzy acronym (D&D, V&V, T&T).
EQ2 Mentoring and CoX Sidekicking alleviated this well (I'm rather curious as to why WoW hasn't picked this one up). I'd say the biggest reason would be ...there's no reason to lower your level in WoW. Your partners still get minor xp (and at the kill-rate of an 80, well, its even faster for the lowbie).
EQ2 does it quite well that mentoring inreases the xp gained of the lower person, and for -most- people they can still grind out the AAs (which now cap at 200).
That said, something about EQ2 just didn't grab me. I wanted to love it, I really did, but everything I did felt meaningless (and with 90% of the server's population at cap, it can be awfully lonely). --Also, didn't you used to be a R&P poster? We have some real crazies there now and need a few more voices of reason :P
Yeah, S4 League is really bad for number 3. The handgun is the size of a freakin' flamethrower!!!
Hmm ... you are right that we may end up talking past each other. But I'd like to try to pursue this a little further ...
Normally when I see people make the "Incredibles argument" (if everyone is special then nobody is special), there's an implicit assumption that the person making the argument is one of those special people and that nobody else deserves the highest ranking in the game.
But it sounds like you're talking more about facing the risk of permadeath (or at least a cap you risk hitting that slows a character's progress to a stall)?
I do think that there is a niche out there for a game where you play a guild rather than a single character - and each adventure is a red shirt from your guild who gets to have a nice little career, but is doomed to eventually meet a grisly fate or retire on a comfortable pension. If you ever played the old XCOM game, I thought that was a wonderful squad-level game where you could get quite attached to individual characters and their advancement through the ranks, but they were all ultimately expendable and even your most experienced merc could get blown to bits by a random plasma blast to the head while your game as a whole continued on.
#7 Kill Ten Rats
I guess I could talk about this point and the fedex quests together, since they do come together in the point I am trying to make. I admit that I get rather bored with quests of the above variety, mainly because they're so monotonos. I'm basically clicking on the same skills ten times, and it bores me to tears. That's the main reason why I get so bored with the games I usually play. Though interestingly enough, if the gameplay mechanics are more than clicking the same skill ten times (like turn-based combat in Atlantica Online for example), I tend to play longer.
However, what I feel that Guild Wars did correctly is in this regard. Yes, you still have to kill monsters, but the quest is arranged in such a way that the mobs literally swarm around you, and the skills you click end up becoming less predictable. You actually have to adapt to the environment and use skills that most suit what you need to do. Though I have to admit that Guild Wars does a lot of fedex quests, but the fighting of 'rats' takes place while going from point A to B, and I feel that it is more interesting that way.
However, Guild Wars still has those extremely obvious 'kill 10 rats' quests, though thankfully, there isn't much of them.
#4 Fantasy
I have to agree with this as well. I'm getting rather bored with fantasy games lately, all the magic and swords and bows and arrows and all that. Perhaps I just need a change in environment, and that is why I'm really looking forward to KOTOR. I'm in the mood for a good science fiction MMO, and in addition to that, I had recently watched Star Wars as well, and it's brought a whole sledgehammer of memories for me. And, maybe it's time I tried my hand at first person shooters. My brother says that they are extremely addicting.
#1 Acronyms
I don't mind acronyms actually. Sometimes, when you're in a hurry and you really need to type fast, those come in very handy.
#7 It's kill one hundred ships. Over and over again, till you go mad with it. People do level 4s half-afk, that's how dull they are.
#6 Oh BS. Some clases are:
Logistic Ship, Intereceptor, HAC, Tackler, EWar ship, DPS, Bait. EvE has just as rigidly defined roles as in any other game. The classes are the ship types because they are designed to focus or be used for specific roles.
#5 There are only 3 or 4 types of missions in the entire universe, and most agents are a mix of types, with the choice usually being kill ten rats, mine useless rocks, or fed ex. The only way you can avoid fed ex is by picking a certain type of agent and doing combat only.
#4 Nope, no elves.
#3 Everyone has the same looking ship. If you have an Incursus, every single Incursus looks the same.
#2 You have levels, they are called SP-skill points. Same idea of progression, just tied to real time.
#1 SP HAC BoB DPS RR NOS KOS NBSI NRDS PLEX 0.0 are a few of the acronyms we use, off of the top of my head.
Hmm ... you are right that we may end up talking past each other. But I'd like to try to pursue this a little further ...
Normally when I see people make the "Incredibles argument" (if everyone is special then nobody is special), there's an implicit assumption that the person making the argument is one of those special people and that nobody else deserves the highest ranking in the game.
But it sounds like you're talking more about facing the risk of permadeath (or at least a cap you risk hitting that slows a character's progress to a stall)?
I do think that there is a niche out there for a game where you play a guild rather than a single character - and each adventure is a red shirt from your guild who gets to have a nice little career, but is doomed to eventually meet a grisly fate or retire on a comfortable pension. If you ever played the old XCOM game, I thought that was a wonderful squad-level game where you could get quite attached to individual characters and their advancement through the ranks, but they were all ultimately expendable and even your most experienced merc could get blown to bits by a random plasma blast to the head while your game as a whole continued on.
1. You are absolutely correct with your label of 'incredible' argument. In a world of black and white, I can wear red to 'stand out'. If everyone else wears red, it no longer stands out. Etc etc etc. Your assumption is halfway there. I'd label myself as an 'elite who supports the rank of highest elite'. My RL history is one of 97 percentile's during high school and college, national-level swimming, and in the MMO ranks, a 30th highest warrior dps posting on Brut. Meaning: I know what it takes to succeed, and I know the sacrifice and dedication involved, 'swim in the finals but don't make the podium'.
I don't make the claims for personal glory, but because I'm afforded the understanding of experience in how purpose and meaning are achieved, not given, and that these concepts are co-dependant.
2. Perma-death is an example of 1 limiter. You have 3 concepts at play: event-oriented (kill 10 rats), time-oriented (kill rats for 10min) and skill-oriented (the merging of an event with a time: kill 10 rats inside of 10min). These 3 concepts need to be orchestrated to enforce a value upon the number in question. If getting to lv10 required merely killing a total of 100 rats, of which each level required 10 rats, all of your 'levels' are void of purpose because there is nothing about them that is demanding.
You need a standard. That's what levels reflect, so that is what they should require. Now, I say 'reflect' but perhaps it would be more suitable to state 'reflected'. Risk is a derivative of standards. Achievements should require standards. These standards should involve risks in undertaking.
3. Can't say I can share your insight via XCOM, but believe to understand the concept you're trying to illustrate. The attachment is because of risk and standards, but yet those risks and standards weren't so involving that restarting wasn't unpleasant. Not that restarting wasn't unpleasant, but that it wasn't unpleasant *enough*.
Missed the one I hate the most. People's habit of calling their characters "toons". It might be the perception that people really don't take pride in their characters anymore, but that term really makes my reptilian brain hiss. It seriously make me want to throttle whoever said it. More often than not it's utterance earns an instant ignore from me.
I hopped in on the end of this discussion but I have to add that your point is only reinforcing the point you replied to.
Monkey Island example -
HP = number of rounds required to win with each round equaling 1 HP
Abilities = insults
William Murphy... dude...
You should play more Eve!
No, Kill 10 x
No levels
No Elfs
No Tank n spank.
Its almost as if your article is an advert for Eve, lol.
Acronyms are one of the things i love about MMORPGs and internet communication. I don't know, for some reason they are just fun to use.
Acronyms FTW!
I'm not sure if anyone has said this but as for leveling why not have them move across a board like in ff10 or learn abilities from equipment like ff9
Kill x and Fedex are 2nd generation concepts brought upon by wow and eq2. EQ1, to my recollection, had no kill x. It did indeed have some fedex quests.
I would add to the list "quests" in general. Quests are lineral task driven content in lieu of true player freedom and are on the top 5 list of bad design elements.
ps yes, play Eve its really good at being outside the box.
The only thing worse than knowing you have to kill 10 rats, is having to kill rats but NOT knowing how many.
And the only thing worse than having to kill rats but not knowing how many is a mission where you don't even know what you are supposed to kill.
or...play Mortal Online. :)
Combat, by any terms, whether in a game or real life is precisely as I described. Death is involved, which means people get injured, and die. Once either key locations or sufficient loss of life on one side has occurred, wars cease. Now, this is a grave simplification of the matter, because there are many tactics involved with combat, but ultimately it boils down to 3 concepts:
Having a main force that occupies the attention and abilities of an opposing force, a flanking body that strikes decisively, and a way to restore the bodies lost in conflict (recruitment etc). Whether on a grand scale or a individual scale, you need to be able to withstand harm, while dealing it, and to recover somehow to be back at your best for the next conflict.
FPS establish the baseline so that there is no 'two sides' to a single coin (the symmetry you spoke of) *during combat* but yet, out of combat people rez? That's masked 'healing'- the restoration of hit points. Besides, even if there were no restoration of hit points of any sort, would people play a game such as this? It's got very limited playability much less re-playability if restoration never occurred. Who wants a 2D game when 3D is just as easily developed? The reason why is that you break the most simple form that already exists- just like an atom is the last element holding the properties that make up its identity.
Your example of wits could easily be painted with other names for the variables. A insult is an attack, there exists somewhere the ability to withstand insults, and somewhere the ability to restore oneself to 'full pride' I'm more than assuming. The ability to turn around an insult is nothing more than a counter-attack.
Your rebuttals are ambitious, but don't provide any fresh insight because the design exists in its most simplified form already.
Hi!
I agree with you,because of that i recommend to take a look at a new game "Xsyon 2010" it will be listed soon here,in fact all the information was sent.It has no kill rats,no delivery quest,no oversize armor or weaponery,it has new characters look,and new features for a mmo.Soon the web will be improve with more information.
Thanks!
Sorry the name is "Xsyon 2012"... cya
Sadly there is no alternative for the linear design. You can phatom from genuine freedom but reaching such in an MMO hardly is plausible in foreseeable future. If you provide solely the physical rules that apply and allow a free creation of everything, you will have certainly more freedom but it will still be freedom limited by the physical ruleset. Obviously, allowing players to interact with their MMO in Scribblenauts fashion or having something akin to Crayon Physics Deluxe would be fine and dandy but it would relatively fast litter the entire world with countless objects. If you are then again allowed to destroy what others create the incentive to create something monolithic quickly wanes. Therefore, having linear tasks and limiting rulesets is mandatory for MMOs for as long as there are no ways to pose social sanctions akin to real life. Then again, who would want to play a game that would resemble real life to the letter?
Sandbox-design seems to be what everyone is raving for, but these MMO conventions listed by OP are actually there for a reason; they for the most part have been proved working and are, despite popular belief, rewarding and fun to most. You can mock generic quest design but their utmost purpose is likely to reward the player from the time spent, an element that is crucial for majority of people playing. If the sole purpose of a game is to grant its players with freedom it at the same time strips the game from any tangible goals, much like Noby Noby Boy. And even it has a goal of a sort that is collective, something which fights against your ideal of freedom. The imaginary heights of freedom that you think would derive from stripping the games from any pre-generated content is too immaterial for most: Why should I invest time on an online environment if it isn't rewarding and tangible on both short- and long-term? Kill X quests as well as Fed Ex quests fulfill both of these goals and that's why their position isn't endangered by more innovative designs any time soon.
A good list
I was laughing so hard about the 10 rats. I mean most MMO's have kill x number of this or that, and its a standard in all of them.
The fedx one I have to agree with. I would love to use this example of how silly it can get. While I read the part they use it to send you to the next location sometimes that is not the fact. In SOM in lotro there is a quest that you get when you get to ost galath the next area past haunted in. This quest is timed and requris you to go back to the haunted in, now this is just the area that yo completed and moved on from, and they send you backwards, Im like wtf should they not send you to from the haunted in to ost galath. There were 2 quests already at haunted inthat send you to the locations that you need to go next, and then they send you back. Lotro excells at the backwards fedx delivery system.
The only design that may be over used but is not really done properly is the tank n Spank.
This is because 99% of the games are solo,how can you say a game utilizes a certain aspect if it is just solo players running around?There is ONLY one game right now that promotes the TRUE Tank and spank theory and that is FFXI.All the other games only call for it in their cheap instance designs.One thing about FFXI however is the tank n spank is not locked in,to the creative players ,the game does allow for various combination of game play,it is just best suited to using the Tank N spank,because it utilizes a SUPPORT role design,rather than a ME ME design.
Also what FFXI does different is the go fetch 10 rats design of questing.It is all done utilizing a favor system,or a rank system is a better term.You do not go fetch 10 rats for some ridiculously lame XP reward,nor will you get 10 shiny gold pieces,so although the game might ask the same of you it is not for the same reasons.
I have no problem with Fantasy,because that is what it is,you cannot go around expecting to change definitions of genres.It would be like saying i am tired of hockey sticks in Hockey,or tired of baseball bats in Baseball,it is what it is and should not be changed.
Levels
Yes this part has been done the same in all games,i have no problem with levels IF they were treated like AGE,witch is actually the way it is designed but not implemented.Levels were meant to be a measuring stick on age,but players do not age,they just get new spells and abilities,this again is done poorly,players should always EARN abilities.I mean when you learn something in real life,you don't learn it just because you had a new birthday lol,otherwise we would all be Einstein's at the age of 40.SO yes i agree levels is way over used and improperly,and guess what?Square is going to remove them from FFXIV,so again Square shows they think a little smarter or outside the bubble than the rest of the SOE followers.
It is not only SOE that uses level, lets not forget wow, STO, CO, COX, any Tubine game. Just saying SOE is just but one of many almost the entire game comunity uses levels.
I agree with the writer. I find #6 Holy Trinity setup and #3 Oversized gear the most annoying.
Atm Im playing Fallen Earth, and while it has the kill x quests and fed ex quests. At least it takes a somewhat approach to the intro tutorial. For some players so new that they actually ask in the help channel if its a bug that they start as a level 40 lol.
Fallen Earth :
#7 Mutated Chickens replace the rats in FE. But the intro tutorial doesnt include this, but is actually a nice story. The extended tutorial after that included the kill x quests though. On the other hand, its also one of the few tutorials Ive played that actually gives you very usefull information. It is very easy to pick out the people in help chat who skipped that tutorial :)
#6 FE is classless, so anything is possible, even a tank, spank or heal class if you really would like that. But most players create effective hybrid toons.
#5 FED-EX quests, yep definately in FE.
#4 Post apocalyptic setting.
#3 Normal sized gear. Although some are still a little too much. Like a cemented pole lol. No way that anyone would be able to handle it like that in real life. But crossbows, pistols, swords, rifles and your armour etc are normal sized.
#2 FE has levels. But players are more interested in AP. Which you spend in the skills and stats. You get 2 AP every 10th of a level. They dont only come from levelling, but also in the form of extra AP from certain questchains. It basically makes players go all over the world and also come back to finish some storylines. Which are nicely written in FE btw.
#1 Acronyms. Yes, you will always see them in any form of chat in games. Personally I dont like the acronyms for places/dungeons in a game. You can notice in chat that FE has a fair share of RP'ers. They tend to write in nice full sentences (which I dont btw). Which is kind of amazing to see after playing a game where many players dont even know when to use their, they're or there.
Here is one that was missed: slash commands. ie, /sit, /say, /sitspin. This is not a MUDD or C++ programing class. I also hate the chat system in most WOW cookie cutter MMOs, and lack of built in voice coms. Another place where EVE has broken free from the mold.
Good list.
About the acronyms,I think that they are overused but should be had. Would you like to see people type out things like " Have you tried out that new Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game called "XX" yet?". Rather then not have them, it would be nice if you didn't see your chat box filled with them. So It could probably be annoying with and without acronyms...
About Levels. I don't know how they could exactly take this out of an RPG game... but they could do it differently to at least make it seem different. Like, if you see an level 60 "Y" you should think " Oh,that must mean he has done "Z" quest solo" not " He must have grinded on "V" mobs".
I like the over-sized weapons(Don't like big armour). It gives you the feel of your character being more wielding a weapon that big. Though, I do agree it is overused and they should make the smaller weapons just as good looking as the big two-handed swords,Axes,Scythes etc.
I hate the Fed-ex like quest. Just like you mentioned,I'm not going to skip it because I'm just not. Takes loads of time and unless you have the option of role-playing as a delivery-boy, you should not have these quest. I also know that they like to lead you to new places. But you shouldn't have an quest to want to go somewhere a little farther out then where you normally go. You should make the player want to go there by themselves.
I wonder if there are anyway to actually get rid of the Trinity. Even in an classless game, you could still be an "Healer","DPS" or "Tank".
Ah, the old "Kill ten Rats" quest-type. Really don't have anything to say about this,other then it is overused.
[quote][i]Originally posted by pojung[/i] [quote][i]Originally posted by maplestone[/i] [quote]Originally posted by pojung Levels referenced a degree of skill, veteranship. The act of going from lv9 to lv10 wasn't a guarantee. When it's a guarantee, the levels themselves hold no meaning. They're abstract, and more like milemarkers. The US military offers the ranks of E1 through E4 as guarantees. But there is no guarantee in going from E4 to E5, although most do given sufficient time. There is less guarantee, and less actually do, go from E5 to E6 etc etc. Each number holds a significance. Just like in PnP DnD where rounding a corner and meeting an ogre's bash could potentially put you under at lv8 and you never see lv9. Actually going up in level holds significance. [/quote] Hmm ... you are right that we may end up talking past each other. But I'd like to try to pursue this a little further ... Normally when I see people make the "Incredibles argument" (if everyone is special then nobody is special), there's an implicit assumption that the person making the argument is one of those special people and that nobody else deserves the highest ranking in the game. But it sounds like you're talking more about facing the risk of permadeath (or at least a cap you risk hitting that slows a character's progress to a stall)? I do think that there is a niche out there for a game where you play a guild rather than a single character - and each adventure is a red shirt from your guild who gets to have a nice little career, but is doomed to eventually meet a grisly fate or retire on a comfortable pension. If you ever played the old XCOM game, I thought that was a wonderful squad-level game where you could get quite attached to individual characters and their advancement through the ranks, but they were all ultimately expendable and even your most experienced merc could get blown to bits by a random plasma blast to the head while your game as a whole continued on. [/quote] 2. Perma-death is an example of 1 limiter. You have 3 concepts at play: event-oriented (kill 10 rats), time-oriented (kill rats for 10min) and skill-oriented (the merging of an event with a time: kill 10 rats inside of 10min). These 3 concepts need to be orchestrated to enforce a value upon the number in question. If getting to lv10 required merely killing a total of 100 rats, of which each level required 10 rats, all of your 'levels' are void of purpose because there is nothing about them that is demanding. You need a standard. That's what levels reflect, so that is what they should require. Now, I say 'reflect' but perhaps it would be more suitable to state 'reflected'. Risk is a derivative of standards. Achievements should require standards. These standards should involve risks in undertaking. [/quote]
I agree with this. "Level" in an MMO does not show or reflect someone's skill,abilities(etc.) Being at the Level cap should mean that your one to be feared.
This article is so true, especially with 'Kill the rats'. Of all the mmorpg's I've played, KTR quests is what turns me off from playing them. And if you think killing 10 rats was bad enough than go take a look at Nexon's Maple Story. I swear 90% of that game is made up of KTR quests. And what really drives you insane about these quests is that the rewards you recieve are not gratifying enough. It's mmo's like that which makes me want to 'Kill the Devs'. Seriously, couldn't they have come up with something better?
And then there are the levels. I always dreaded the long hours of exp grinding and its worst when that number means alot in a competitive gameplay, however, all mmorpg's can't do without some form of this aspect. One of the best solution to this that i've seen is a classless-skill based system, where what matters is your skills and your ability to utilize those skills efficiently. One of the best example of this is: Mabinogi. I don't want to go deep into detail about their system but it doesn't remove the dependency on leveling up. However, it does make leveling more gratifying compared to a dreaded constant grinding.
Acronyms are with us forever, unfortunately. The players come up with them, usually, and that's not something the game designers can control. So ... eh.
I -like- fantasy games. I want a fantasy game that isn't a pita to play. Reeeeeeeeally getting tired of that showing up on lists everywhere on MMORPG lately. Yes, we get it, some people want something different. Oh! Do I see a TON of sci fi genre games coming up on the horizon? Yes? There you go. Can we stop bashing people's genre choices now?
I definitely agree on the quest comments. I think you could combine the Kill 10 rats and the Fed Ex quests into one giant complaint. I think, in the end, what I want more of are quests that tell coherent stories. That seems to be rare in ALL the games except maybe LOTR Online.
But would you pay to play a game where the most you could achieve was 2nd level while other people went around at 30th? If you want to stand out, that means you need a player base willing to pay to be lorded over. So I don't want to hear this idea from people who expect they will fall into the 97th percentile - there's only a business model if it's people who are in the 3rd percentile who see fun in it.
#1: Acronyms
Pretty useful in games to speed up chatting.
However, i dont really see why people have to use acronyms when they have the time.
For instance, why dont MMORPG.com enforce plain speech? Its not like its verry hard.
A couple of extra lines in http://www.mmorpg.com/disclaimers.cfm#conduct
Spell out youre words!
Avoid useage of acronyms, slang and leetspeak. Plain and simple.
Why should we need a "dictionary" to understand each other, just becouse people cant spell out theyre words?
Combine leetspeak and acronyms and things get messy.
Alternately add a rule like spelling out the words initialy in a post and adding the acronym in parentheses.
You may then use the acronym if you desire.
If that's going to be the rule we better force them to make the website www.massivelymultiplayerroleplayinggameonline.com so that we don't use any Acronyms at all.
Just to also be clear I moved the position of online so no one would input it and get to the probably unsafe site that actually has the acronym spelled out.
I agree with most of Mr. Murphy’s article and hope that Mr. Murphy takes the time to list some alternatives to the offensive “kill ten rats” or “fed-ex” style quests.
I don’t really mind number 1 as most acronyms are easy to follow. What I mind most is “Leet Speak.” I do not want to count the number of times I seen the number four (4) uses as a replacement for “For” or the letter U uses in place of you. Normally if a member of a group I am putting together starts using the “Leet Speak” I kick them. I have neither the time or inclination to figure out what they are trying to say. When they tell me is faster to type using Leet, I tell them to learn to type.
I agree with most of the article. I really hope that Mr. Murphy takes the time to list some alter
usage, your, don't, very, because, initially, they're (though should be their)
capitalization
Getting nit-picky about the use of acronyms, slang, colloquialisms, and 'leetspeak' opens one to the need to be punctual in one's preferred style of communication.
Though I'm just being a twit, so you can ignore this.
But would you pay to play a game where the most you could achieve was 2nd level while other people went around at 30th? If you want to stand out, that means you need a player base willing to pay to be lorded over. So I don't want to hear this idea from people who expect they will fall into the 97th percentile - there's only a business model if it's people who are in the 3rd percentile who see fun in it.
You missed the concept. It's not about greed from the top down, in desire of establishing dominion, and nor is it greed from the bottom up, wishing for something they don't have.
It's about comfort with self. Each level has a standard associated with it. What I achieve is mine. It matters not that there is someone higher, and matters not that someone is lower.
To be able to say 'I'm a level 10, which means I'm proven under circumstances x, y, z.'
The most I am able to achieve based on my own limitations is the standard. Standing out doesn't mean being at the top. Standing out means being able to call a niche home. All too often this gets confused with a progressive, goal-oriented society as 'being the best' [in a pool of many].
The percentile rating was viewed from an angle of greed. It's not about where I place. It's about knowing that no matter how hard I worked, I couldn't break into a podium on non-regional level. It establishes that I know how to work hard, how working hard pays off, but *that I understand not everything is given, and there are times the cards fall (or might always fall) against me*. It's worthless to ask someone in the lowest 3 percentile the values of work or reward. The system is modelled by the most stringent of factors, and those factors are understood by those at the highest level. It's not elitism, although often viewed as such by those who have never achieved self-satisfication with the model they argue.
TLDR: I absolutely would play a model where I am limited to only being 'one of the joes' as it were. So long as the limiter is myself, and not the system. Otherwise, the system is rigged. Example? I can't fire rounds downrange to save my life, despite many coaching sessions on it. At best I'm a 75% shot with a 5.56 round. I've seen first-time shooters pick up a rifle and nail 95%+ like they've been doing it all their life. I'm fine with that. But I'm fine with it because I understand the value in the system and that the 'fault' is my own for not performing. I was afforded this understanding through first being 'successful' in many other areas in life. But it is a *selfless* point of view to understand a system needs standards that aren't achieveable by all, and a *selfish* one to suggest it should. This isn't evident at first glance, and to many, never becomes apparent at all.
Well I fully agree with all the numbers on ur kount down as well with many of the replies made to it.
I'll focus on the leveling one though. Idling over the lil number next to ur avatar has lead to some sorry gaming over time. They are kalled GrindFests which play a big part in the drawn out "Kill # of <monster> and return to <npc>".
The best fix I've seen for this so far is a Chart System where u spend points to unlock new skills. I like the Circle charts but some are Tree like.
MY ADDITION: Ok so why did I focus on this one in place of others? Well simply put, I had another idea for the Skill Chart... 1) Have quest only mission that'll unlock other tiers, something special or unique. 2) Have Skills that you kan unlock that'll let u wear different or better types of armor ...that alone is enough to change the leveling and gaming word. Atleast in the Grind/Leveling department.
As for Quests. I say add in more crafting themes. Making ur owe stuff is always fun and u feel like u put ur own name on it. In some games it is on it :)
Interesting and makes me think what will happen in the next ten years of Massively multiplayer online role-playing games.
Will the style/genre really change much.............
Acronyms, a social development out of necessity is overused?
Its the only practical way to communicate sussinctly and expediously with a keyboard.
You're saying the same thing over and over again.
It happens in every part of life, psychology has a million of them. BIRF, Basking in reflected glory... Not even used too terribly much in psych but its got acronyms.
They exist because they make life better. Try to find something actually logical to bitch about next time, these articles of yours are really hit and miss.
well I attended a convention once in Akron....man it was unbearable...it was all accountants for dentists....does this count?
For SnarlingWolf and Devios.
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Discussing the url of MMORPG.com isnt particularly interresting. Urls are often acronyms, i dont really see why you even brought it up.
Â
I said Avoid useage of acronyms, slang and leetspeak.
I did not say Never use.
The reason i said it is becouse of posts that use it extensively, and i have to look it up somewere becouse its acronyms of some term or name that dont really tell me anything.
Once we start making acronyms of lots of 2-word names, titles, products, buissiness terms and techincal terms we suddenly have a verry cryptic lingo.
Slang is words used by a spesific group of people.
That means that someone whos not part of that group might not understand.
Shorting down words are fine as long as theyre common words the majority know.
Colloquialism and slang is not the same thing.
Leetspeak is what i associate with words consisting of numbers and symbols, used by rude little kids.
Interestingly, theres no rule against not speaking english. I guess the natives never considered that.
Guess it dont matter. "When in rome, do as the romans"
I agree with all the list.
The problem that encompasses most of the points is babysitting the players.
There's nothing wrong with killing rats and other fauna, neither is there about delivering things, the problem is that you can't choose where to do it and how many you want of the items... and also that there's no actual reason for doing it, it's completely pointless, the nonsense is covered with some empty blathering.
Also the chat channels are a disgrace for many reasons and are SO easily avoidable. With chat rooms MMO's are reduced to single player games with built-in IRC channels. This takes away the need to socialize inside the actual game. And the obvious way to avoid it is to create active places of gathering. A spot for market, one for combat training, one for politics, one for thievery etc. etc.... the game itself with its mechanics should offer coherent places to talk and discuss.
All these flaws contribute in breaking the suspension of disbelief and make MMO's constant meta-videogames
For the rest i literally pity those who say these game elements are inevitable part of the genre. The genre is just about a world that's online, persistant and has many people in. There's no other requirements for the genre and certainly right-cliking an NPC that hand-holds you to random spawn-locations isn't part of these requirements. How can anyone say PvE defines the genre when everyone knows Planetside had no such a thing? ISn't it an MMO?
You should try Darkfall OP!
The PvE doesn't revolve around questing so no need for your KTR quests or fedex quests.
No Levels
No Classes
No oversized weapons and armor, just realistic looking stuff
People use voicecomms instead of chatboxes to communicate
Ok.. it does have elves but 4 out of 5 isn't bad eh. :P
True, not that Im not a fan but it is a bit overused, if they want to go skimpy thats fine but perhaps they could cover logily vital parts; she will have her nipples covered of course with small shields but her heart, gut, etc completly bare is more or less completly exposed, massive sholder pads but waste down she is in a thong and boots.
You can go revealing or even slutty and still have some apperance of logicle armor factor, there are other options besides crome bikini
I'm sorry but this is just completely wrong. Fantasy is beloved by more people than you can imagine, including me. I am sick of seeing science fiction games, but I understand that there are a lot of people that go nuts for it. I wouldn't dismiss a whole genre just because I personally don't like it. Also, just because Blizzard has a stranglehold on easy, themepark fantasy doesn't mean that sandbox fantasy can't thrive. I am looking forward to The Elder Scrolls MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, and Mortal Online... let's see that's fantasy, fantasy, and... fantasy. I love fantasy, I live for fantasy, and you should really think before you type something so egregious and blatantly wrong.
I think one of the worst things ever introduced to mmorpgs is global chat.
Well said, and timely too. I view most of these as being "standard items" on an MMO design checklist now. Not because they're necessary or fun, but because they're held over from the days when that was about all the technology could accomplish. Interestingly, virtual environments (including those that are not games) have proved that you don't need to fill up a player's time with dreck quests. As long as there's some interactivity in the environment, players will create their own time-wasters in the game.
As proof, check out CoX's Costume Contests, which are player run, player funded, and happen about 30 times a day lol. Because it's fun to bring what you've made in the Costume Designer to a contest, and worth bonus points if you got a rare piece from a quest to put in your costume.
So frankly, I think designers should dump all of the deliberate time-wasters and just put in things that players can use creatively to make some fun happen.
Yes and no, makes a world feel less empty. You can turn it off. I think the easying of a game to push people to endgame fast is 100 times worse
Global chat was introduced to compensate for the retard design decision of limiting travel "to make the world seem bigger," as it did little else other than make it harder for players to congregate. Rather than admit they hosed travel, most developers added in clan houses or clan ownership locations, with recall or telport systems to get to them based on the false belief that the guild you join in a gear-dependent levelfest has any particular overlap with the people you choose to interact with ingame.
Yeah... I have no affinity for global chat in most MMOs :)
I love a good cliche. So do my toons :-)
Ken
You could have added "Crossroad"
There is a famous crossroad place in about every mmorpg :)
I don't think he meant to put it that way. I do love my fantasy games(also looking forward to an TES MMO) but like he said, its alittle over used as a genre. I just think that they should try to make other genre of games. Though, I don't most of the sci-fi games.(looking forward to Stargate Worlds and and StarWars MMo though*)
* Only because I'm a fan of those two series. :)
Funny how UO avoided 5 of your 7. EQ was the inventor of many of these. I still feel EQ hurt the genre more than any other game.
the "fedex" quests really piss me the F*&% off, and yes it is a hand holding tool.
"#6 The Holy Trinity
This is one I'm tossing into the list, even though I've come to accept it as an inevitability of design "
Smart man. Saying the archetypes of tank/healer/nuker are an overused convention is like saying wings on a plane are an overused convention. That is to say, when I think on the few games that went in for the "be anything you want to be" class design, all I can think of is that they SUCKED. ALL. DAY. LONG.
I beg to differ. I just think much of our thinking has been trapped into this mold and find it harder and harder to perceive a reality without it as more and more games utilize it. STO is a great example (and a bit ridiculous, at least in regards to spaceships), they practically utilize the trinity on their space combat, which to me is a bit absurd.
How about a game that allows everyone the ability to do great damage and decent tank (decent enough to utilize in an instance) and mixing/matching the roles a bit and not focus raids so hard on maximizing every detail in the encounter. The game could focus more on actually movement and coordination (I know they do this now, but the game doesn't entirely have to be about numbers, class/roles and a little bit of movement, I'm talking about a much greater emphasis).
When I think of it, the heroes in the books seem to be more than just an ass kicker or a guy who sits there and takes beatings all day for his teammates. They were smart too, resourceful when times were challenging and some were able to take damage and dish it out in equal proportions. I think this model is outdated and it should start evolving since if it stays the same, WoW will be around for the next 10 years as the number contender since they seem to do it best.
I loved this article and agree with just about the entire list. I started to tire of fantasy after playing LOTRO for some time and by the time of AOC and WAR and those games I was done with fantasy for some time though I did have a half hearted attempt at playing DDO.
And the funniest thing is I just used an entire slew of acronyms but am going to complain about them anyway haha. In the discussions on the boards about games in general it obviously doesn't bother me much but I have actually had games I just gave up on because I didn't really want to learn an entire new language that isn't useful anywhere but that particluar game. It's great that you touched on the fact that this is a trend in this "text" life so many live nowadays, I'll never use twitter simply because of what it represents in practice regardless of what the makers might have hoped for (though I suspect it is pretty close to what they wanted).
On the one hand I can understand the complaint about quests because I would like to see "something" different as well but at the same time it doesn't have the same negative effect on me that I know the majority of mmo players seem to feel. I tend to stick to games that have a rich lore that attracts me and that alleviates alot of that since I inherently want to experience that world I never have a problem reading the quests and what not but when it comes to games I may have never heard of they often don't create anything that I can get close enough to care about so I get that same negative feeling about questing.
But again nice article.
I beg to differ. I just think much of our thinking has been trapped into this mold and find it harder and harder to perceive a reality without it as more and more games utilize it. STO is a great example (and a bit ridiculous, at least in regards to spaceships), they practically utilize the trinity on their space combat, which to me is a bit absurd.
How about a game that allows everyone the ability to do great damage and decent tank (decent enough to utilize in an instance) and mixing/matching the roles a bit and not focus raids so hard on maximizing every detail in the encounter. The game could focus more on actually movement and coordination (I know they do this now, but the game doesn't entirely have to be about numbers, class/roles and a little bit of movement, I'm talking about a much greater emphasis).
When I think of it, the heroes in the books seem to be more than just an ass kicker or a guy who sits there and takes beatings all day for his teammates. They were smart too, resourceful when times were challenging and some were able to take damage and dish it out in equal proportions. I think this model is outdated and it should start evolving since if it stays the same, WoW will be around for the next 10 years as the number contender since they seem to do it best.
I beg to differ. Plenty of games do what you describe. They start tweaking the classes so that they can pull double duty. LotRo is a good example of that, and the game is poorer for it.
I beg to differ. Plenty of games do what you describe. They start tweaking the classes so that they can pull double duty. LotRo is a good example of that, and the game is poorer for it.
I want to believe your perception isn't solely based on the class functions within the game since a class system isn't what defines the whole game. The short sightedness is prominent just in this response and rather respond to the whole post, a piece was taken and a statement was made even though my idea was actually being presented in light of other things and I would of actually put greater emphasis on a game that doesn't revolve around the math and the roles/powers specifically.
The idea was to put more focus on other aspects of a game that can be utilized such as character movement and positioning. Again, just an idea that crossed my mind in a matter of minutes, but again, the emphasis was an idea that didn't HAVE to utilize the trinity by drawing some of the emphasis away from the class system itself and putting more emphasis into other aspects of the game. Thanks for becoming part of my example, in which my point I was trying to make from the first paragraph of my original post is proven. I think many players have been used to following this mold and it's just somethign we're all familiar with and many are also resistant towards change or being able to perceive something that isn't familiar.
These things are made worse by lazy MMO developers which have abused certain aspects of games just so they don't have to impliment other tatics, and play styles made by the wider variety of fantasy games.
7. Kill ten rats. These should aways be starting quests for the noobs, or those trying to gain trust for even bigger quests. I'm going to mix this one with 5. Fed Ex Quests. The idea is questing if these are an issue just throw out questing and story line progression all together. Fed Ex Quests should be allowing the player to travel to areas they wouldn't have discovered on their own.
6. The Holy Trinity. This was never set in stone when it came to fantasy, or gaming, so I don't know why MMOs tried to make it the standard. They even attempt to break out of this model by intrudicing random target attacks. In fantasy many large battles were won with cunning, skill, luck, and a well timed advancement on the targets weakness. Tank and spank I feel for most people is boring, and puts too much importance on a very limited set of classes.
5. Fed Ex Quests. I included this in 7.
4. Fantasy. There is no limit to fantasy. The basic races are just a start. Why some MMOs only pick these classes, or add one or two types more is a failure, and lazy on their part. There is an almost limitless number of races in the fantasy genre of games. Even Everquest had 16 playable races, and classes. The paper RPGs had it right I don't know why its changed.
3. Oversized Armor, and Weapons. You're trolling right? Should they wear a suit and carry a suitcase?
2. Levels. This is something that's easily abused. Originally it was used to show how experienced you are, but it has since become a ladder to indefinitely climb, which isn't possible. Once you're able to master your class, and demand the respect of your entire race that's it for the reason to level. Its needed, but I think most people feel maybe only in the lower levels, but later its a pain to have spent so much time getting the best there is to offer then the levels get raised, and someone is wearing something they found on the floor that's better then yours which dropped from the trans dimensional ruler of planes boss....
1. Acronyms. ROLFMAO!
Rolling on the floor laughing :) Oh my God it can be done :) laugh out load.
Just kidding seriously though i agree with the list i really want a game that is not level based i grind to max level and then I'm bored out of my mind I quite that MMO and go play another MMO that is exactly the same as the previous one its very boring all in all but what is a person to do.... I would very much like to see an MMO that uses purchasing of skills with EXP as opposed to the now very common grind to hit max level that we now have.
A good example of this in a game format would be the original vampire the masquerade redemption though outdated the game had the right idea for versatile character advancement more in line with the original pen and paper. Though i would like to see less of an pawn come out of it than in that game. I want someone to go study the warhammer 40k pen and paper game rogue trader or dark heresy and use that system to build characters around in an MMO only removing the proffession rank max then throw it into a world as big as eve-online with better questing for nubs and a more advanced system for controlling territory as a guild/alliance/corp/etc... than is in eve (notice i said more advanced not more complicated or time consuming eve has plenty of that as is).
I don't know its possible I am just asking to much of game designers.
Thanks for reading.
Adacanavar
There are probably hundreds of group-based games out there that require cooperation that don't pigeon-hole a person into either a tank, healer, or a dps. Such games range from schoolyard stuff, to sports, to board games, to P&P RPGs, to many computers games. The idea that "every game must be HT" is laughable.
Of course, you get the guys who confuse the tanking role with "ability to take damage", when it is actually a mechanics wherein one person takes the vast majority of the damage and that's pretty much his sole job (everything he does is around him taking damage and working to make sure it stays that way). They confuse the healing role with the idea of recovering health, when actually it is a role where someone's sole function is to ONLY heal in DURING combat. They confuse the DPS role with "the ability to deal damage" when in actuality it in the HT it is someone whose sole function is to supply damage (to various sources). Sure, HT games modify this SLIGHTLY by having debuffing clearing and some CC, but overall this specialization into the above 3 roles is what people who complain about the HT are talking about. It was what the people in this thread complaining about it are talking about. (I don't mean to beat on you about this, I just read the first couple pages and the last page, but I recognize some names of people who think like the above).
Also, real life combat doesn't act like the HT at all, for what it is worth. There ARE specializations, just like MANY games have specializations, but they aren't composed of HT roles by any means (even if some terms like "tank" are used in both, they have very different meanings). Yes, there is healing, but they don't fully patch you up in battle...they stabilize your condition and send you to heal outside of battle (over a long time). Overall, things are VASTLY different, but it isn't like the tactics or strategy of real life combat are degenerate or simple (as some in this thread have claimed).
Heh, I saw one post early on claiming that all systems are either paper-rock-scissors or degenerate into a "best strategy." For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true (it isn't). Guess what? The Holy Trinity ISN'T paper-rock-scissors (where x beasts y, y beats z, and z beats x). Just because two systems have 3 roles doesn't mean those roles are the same. Also, just because HT has 3 roles doesn't mean all games can only have 3 roles without missing something or adding something that doesn't matter or doesn't work.
Anyhow...
Probably the worst damage the HT systems have ever done is make people think they are the only systems that make sense or that can exist.
'Tis why I said I was just being a twit Regen. My commentary was just a mindless jab.
But since you pressed it, I included colloquialisms, you included the rest. And I'm aware of the differences, otherwise the word would have been used in lieu, not in addition to 'slang'.
My comment with that post was that if you are to promote or prefer a particular mode of speech or communique, then you should be capable of using it correctly. Whether that's due to English not being a primary or not may influence such condition, but then it'd go to wonder the point of persistent banter on a non-native forum.
Onto another unrelated point.
I really really don't like the 'trinity'. Or any overly clear cut classes. It goes to the problem of comparing Chess to Go for me. Most games have gone the route of Chess. You have differentiated classes with differentiated functions to do a finite set of things. Now that's fine and dandy for Chess, because you have all those things at your disposal at once. In games though, where you're playing only one of those specialized classes, it's a rather big difference though. Strategies change dramatically, and overall become painfully simple and boring.
I don't care how much some one says it takes strategy to work with different character builds and classes in any game to do raids or otherwise. I have played them, and they have been found wanting. Severely so.
It's also a fault of the origin in part for me. A class based system to begin with limits the potential range of formula and strategy to the potential amount of combined patterns available with the set you have compared to the available set and placement of the enemy. That's why any halfway decent Chess player can see where a game is going only a move or two into a game.
I much prefer the depth of strategy involved in the need of overcoming the hidden variables in a game. A classless system is the only way to perform such an engaging task. Hence my preference for Go. It's the same piece used time and again, no special attributes differentiate it from the next piece, only your understanding of strategy and your ability to out think and out perform your opponent lets you win, not by doing the same formulaic movement sets again and again.
It's a system that allows for learning and adapting. Pac Man figured that one out, you couldn't keep doing the same thing over and over because the AI was wise enough to alter behavior to circumvent your prior strategy. I am still confused why it was an aspect of games that seems to have fallen by the wayside.
I beg to differ. I just think much of our thinking has been trapped into this mold and find it harder and harder to perceive a reality without it as more and more games utilize it.
The Holy Trinity exists because of the way most MMOs are designed. Hunting prey, reconnaisance/intel, and any semblance of need to be aware of your surrounding has been removed right down the the absence of collision detection. If these things were present, gameplay would be very different.
In most MMOs the mobs are just pinatas that spawn at a specific location, walk a specific path and rarely ever actively hunt players. This is true of both open world and dungeons. Battle does not start until you specifically trigger the beginning of combat. You will notice that MMOs where hunting is possible is where there are tactics and player behavior above and beyond the simplistic trinity setup.
LOL, I actually believe in the opposite.
Sure games I play a lot, I can go to their forums and read all the acronyms and understand them. But what about games You and I are NOT playing. The worst thing for me is start to play a game thats been out awhile and have to weed through all the acronyms and try and figure out what the heck people are trying to tell me.
You say "meet me at the DDY to pick up a PRI so we can then head to BYU"? If I am new I have to look up all those acronyms............................. oh wait they don't have a MMO nerd dictionary for every game.
So instead I have to look through maps and books to see name of the city matches DDY, and what item name matched PRI, and what Dungeon BYU is. I ask for help on where BYU and somebody answers its in the far northeast of GRP" ......Gee thanks that helps.
As for fantasy in MMO's? With 90% of all MMO's being fantasy games is kind of hard to argue that fantasy is NOT being overused. Especially since ther are some many other setting an MMO can be set in. MMO's are rpg's at its core soyou can make a goth, western, space, prehistoric, post apopcalyptic, and hundreds of other settings. Basically if there was a book, comic, or movie about a setting, it can be done in an MMO.
So ith all these choices in settings why is there 90% fantasy in MMO's? YEars ago I would argue its beucase of all the sword and baord gamers that moved over to MMO's. These are the gamers MMO's were targeting.
But now, after wow made MMO's so mainstream devs should be branching out. The good thing is they are starting too. With minor successes like EVE and COH. DEV's should no longer be trapped in fantsy settings.
Luckily however, game makers are trying to get away from the fantasy themes. with recent sci fi releases and couple big names in sci fi like Star trek releasing, hoepfully the fantasy prefrence will change. Especially when we finally get a AAA title by a AAA game maker with SWTOR. I also think Blizz will anounce shortly after Cataclysm a sci-fi mmo.
I agree with your reference to acronyms and their usage inside of games. It makes it that much harder for a game to attract new blood, due to a communication dysfunct.
90% mass doesn't mean anything. It means relative abundance, but nothing beyond this.
WoW made MMOs mainstream, sure, but the 'branching out' by EvE amongst others never took place. They preceded WoW. Your opinions are based on 'facts' that aren't entirely straight.
I am suprised the most over used convention is not the "Us versus Them" convention where MMOs just make there be 2 sides to every story (eg. Horde vs Alliance) as opposed to multiple sides to a look on things (eg. Amarr, Gallante,Minmatar, Caldari) mostly this is because they want PvP mini-games to be easily determined by 2 sides, but really they are just too lazy to come up with alternative PvP strategies.
I think this might be partly to do with time. I'd think 3 factions would be a bit difficult if you weren't artificial about it. You could easily get 2v1 situations which wouldn't be a lot of fun. Four factions would fix this in multi-faction battles, but that's a lot harder to make that just two.
Great list. You certainly nailed alot of 'em.
I got another one for you: Equality.
Everyone has the "right" to craft just as well as the next guy. Everyone has the "right" to slay just as well as the next guy. Everyone has the "right" to achieve all the same things. The tools vary, but they're all just flavour. In the end, we're all champions in every way.
Not only is this a major design headache that puts severe limitations on the creative side of things, but it also makes everything extremely boring for the players.
People may think they want to be able to pwn in whatever field they choose to focus on at the time, but they don't realize that the price they pay is much higher than the reward. In the wake of debates like: Soloplay in MMORPG's, risk vs reward and actions vs consequence and meaning, the equality plague plays into all of them and more.
The illusory realm of a MMORPG becomes an illusion also within the game itself and we find that it's the differences that makes us who we are and gives us a chance to actually be someone.
If we all matter the same, none of us matters. We become the borg.
Game designers must think we're stupid, and maybe we are. But that doesn't mean that they can't use their professional insight to enlighten us and thereby actually developing the genre.
If you ask me, it's high time someone did something major and started adding dimensions instead of removing them.
I apologize for the graverobbery, but I came across this post and I can not allow this stand unanswered.