[Game Dev] What do you want?

[legat0]

Hello, long time reader, and I believe first time poster (maybe once or twice before).

I am always reading the forums here because I like to see how the players react to new ideas and changes to the MMO genre. As a developer I am constantly tossing around ideas with my buddies and of course, like most developers at the current time, we are striving to come up with new ideas that could take the genre to the next level.

While I see a lot of posts here always coming down on what fails to hook players when a new game comes out, or just plain out fails as a feature, there is a bit of a lacking discussion about what you guys would like to see, and some of your ideas for change.

Well, in light of this I would like to hear what you guys have on your mind, any new systems (diplomacy from Vanguard for instance, good idea, mediocre execution, imho), advancement types (something that strays from experience? a class-less system based on ability selection by acquiring points? whatever you have planned out). I know as an avid MMO player myself I constantly find myself thinking "if I had made this game, I would have done that more like this...", so I assume that's something we have in common.

If anyone would like to be heard, you have an eager ear from within the development community here listening. Any other forum I have made any posts like this I always get a few messages from people saying that they don't want to publicly post their ideas so sending them in a PM is more than acceptable and even encouraged for the sake of intellectual property.

I look forward to seeing what you all have to say and to the conversations that we might have about the current state of the genre.

Thanks for your time!

[Kodylan]

It's hard to say. I was speaking with a few editors recently after our Age of Conan Hands-On, and we pretty much all agreed that most developers right now are trying to clone the wrong things from World of Warcraft. In terms of game design, there isn't a single thing that makes WoW successful or unique -- it's their dedication to quality and perfection that makes the game successful, yet developers try to mimic the mechanics systems. If a developer were to mimic even a single thing from the game, the first thing I would suggest is World of Warcraft's beta process -- introducing content chunks at a time, in linear order rather than going back and forth between high level and low level content for different races.

I want to see a game designed in the same spirit as World of Warcraft, that's actually willing to take risks when it comes to game mechanics. It's about proper testing and taking baby steps with introducing content in beta, ensuring it's perfect before moving on to something else. That is your best bet of having a solid game. Well that and having game designers that understand the concept of enjoyable content.

More to the point about specifics, I'll be completely honest. I don't know what the hell I want in an MMO anymore as a gamer, and I think a lot of people feel the same way -- there have been too many failures lately that looked like they could have been promising and usher in a new era of concepts, yet somehow dropped the ball and collapsed during the development process.

The only thing I think I can say without a doubt that I don't want anymore is EverQuest. I'll see if I can think up some things though.

[Ninajrr]

To make this short and to the point...time travel.

First, just as a note, we've all seen the advantages of capitalizing on nostalgia, and we've all experienced the excitement of nostalgia.

Now to the meat of the problem and my idea:

We all know that the environment of an MMO(RPG) completely directs the audience of the game. Being limited by this factor is a terrible burden on the industry. IMO, this is easily overcome with a bit of ingenuity, though I personally haven't seen it present itself in any significant manner.

What I would like to see is a culmination of the prime environments (High Fantasy, Steampunk, Prehistoric, Post Apocalyptic...) in a single game through use of time travel. Allowing for a game to have nostalgia within itself, as well as a living "history". The expansion of a game in this way allows for much more creativity in story, environment, and encounters. No long are you strictly held to the conventional "races", but now can explore "era-races". Additionally, the same applies for "classes", you open an opportunity for different "classes" to exist based on the era the character evolves in.

Now, this extension is far deeper than gameplay mechanics. Different game environments attract different audiences, as I mentioned. In having multiple settings in one game you allow for multiple communities to develop within the game which become the eras' societies, just as you as a developer would like to artificially create.

This idea really opens the doors for game design. Anywhere from "butterfly effect" expansions to "time quests", the game becomes an open canvas.

[Twobit Whore]

I want WoW... in space. You could have some honorable aliens with advanced technology, some divided humans and some xenomorphic slimy aliens who want to colonize and destroy everything. Can't think of a good name atm, but that's the jist of it.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Hey, it's been like 2 months since we last had one of these!

First off, read the other 6 threads by 'developers' looking for insight into the gaming mind.

Done? Good. Now go read the 300 threads by players regarding your question. I suggest the Eve thread for good reading on what 'innovation' really is. Then go read the Green Monster Games (or whatever the hell they're calling themselve snow) for more insight. Finally, go read every post by Aradune from during his days at Sigil so you learn what it means to fail at keeping promises. The LOTRO and Tabula Rasa threads are a great source of information on how to make a relatively interesting low end game but fail considerably at high end games.

Now go over to Elitist Jerks and read all the threads there. Tons of information on how and why to make your end game entertaining. Bring a cup of coffee as people tend to get long winded and aren't nearly as entertaining as the content they discuss.

Done?

Alright, now on to business.

Who are you and who do you work for? I don't mind waxing intellectual about MMO's...but I wasted 4~5 hours doing the same shit with Brad back during the Sigil days and we all know how that turned out. Wasting good ideas on a shitty development team makes me sick.

<3

[Vatoreus]

Just saying your a dev won't net you any points here. Throw out some meat and potatoes, give us some creds.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Five bucks says if you PM him he responds with a site that's filled with keyloggers. Spam bots are getting smarter every day! What better way to trap forum goers then to ask them what they're thinking.

>_> <_<

[legat0]

To be honest Ninjarr that is not far from things we have considered. A lot of talk has gone on about things like that and personally I feel that it would be a great experience if it were pulled off correctly, and it definately allows for a wide range of people to interact and try different things than they are used to. The trick as I'm sure you're aware of pulling it off in some natural feeling way, and balancing wouldn't be far from a nightmare.

As for Zehn, unfortunately it looks like you have the ability to jump to quite a lot of conclusions.

Vatoreus, I'm not trying to score 'points.'

I was perfectly aware that some of the personalities on this board would see my post in this light, and missing out on a few people's ideas isn't hurting me any. As I said, I'm here listening to player feedback, so before jumping to all of your conclusions because of what past developers have done (which believe me I have read allllllll about) think about the opportunity given, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. If you didn't like MMO's you wouldn't be hanging around this forum, and you wouldn't be taking the time to read my posts, the only way to make some changes is to speak up, no matter how many times you have to do it.

[Grumpy Old Fart]

1) Do not *EVER*, fucking *EVER EVER EVER* make that god damned "You have been afflicted by Dazed." a part of any MMORPG ever again. Ever. We all fucking hate it. Some douchebag higher-level dev at Blizzard that was one of those power-mad 15 year old D&D DMs that liked killing his players to get a hard-on insists on this stupid thing being kept in the game, even though I'm sure every other employee there hates his guts (I know the Blizzard forum mods do a "/sigh, yes we know it's fucking stupid, but this dev will take his toys and go home if we remove Dazed from the game" every time it's posted about).

2) Do copy the Vanguard spellcasting sytems, with mana usage, channeling, ability to cast while moving (at a reduced rate), etc. If you use anything even approaching the horrid DAoC spell-casting system, we'll trash your game on every game forum ever made until it dies.

3) Copy and improve the Vanguard diplomacy system.

4) Do not use the retarded, simplistic, lazy-assed system of "98% of all mobs in the world are auto-aggro on players" shit that WoW has. And for those mobs that would naturally be aggro to players, don't make it another retarded, simplistic, lazy-assed system basing aggro distance solely on level difference between the NPC and PC.

5) Do use the queueing of hotkey commands that EQ2 has.

6) Do not have any "auto-invisible", non-spellcaster classes in your game. "Stealth" can be implemented a lot better these days than allowing some "rogue" class to just go *POOF* in the middle of a grassy field at high noon.

7) No crowd control spells in PvP that last longer than about 10 seconds. Obviously, having your character mezzed/stunned in DAoC RvR for 2 minutes at a time was a key factor in them losing tens of thousands of subscribers. So, don't do it.

8) Spend a lot of time making sure the 87% of your playerbase that wants to make mangina characters will be happy. This includes hot-looking faces, hair, animated boob bouncing, etc. This one is important. I mean, look at Lineage 2. What does it offer other than DE boob bounce and HE panty shots? That's right, nothing.

[Makata]

Step 1: Never listen to what Makata has to say.

Step 2: In fact, whatever he says, the opposite is probably infallible truth.

In all seriousness, 2 ideas that I thought of (maybe already exist in some game, no idea):

- Mana Fatigue. The concept of a finite mana bar in which with 150 mana you can cast a full power high damage fireball but with 149 you can't do anything is just rubbish. Theres plenty of ways to implement this but in general, casting increases your fatigue, the more fatigue you have the worse your spells get in some capacity and you lose fatigue based either on time or time spent not casting.

- Real Time Combat. I personally despise the hp system as well as it never made any sense to me that some mob could slam his swords into your flesh for several minutes and these heal spells all completely undo it regardless of how or where he hits you. Something along the lines of having to click buttons to manually avoid / dodge / parry each and every blow or else die (since being stabbed in the chest is lethal, period) might be twitch gameplay but far far more realistic.

[Aria]

I'd like a developer that talks to the players and listens for once. Also an honest company would be great. None of this Brad McQuaid shit with Vanguard ever again, please.

EDIT: Oh, and also (I am going to get burned for this) I would like to see a game where you can either solo to max level like WoW or choose to group and camp an area to grind. I'm aware you could do this in EQ2.. but let's face it, the game never really took off like WoW did. Just sometimes in WoW I am so sick of doing quests as fast as possible or running the same instance, I'd like the option to hang out with a party of friends and go to town on mobs in a camp for a few hours and still get the same exp as if I were soloing.

[Ninajrr]

To be honest Ninjarr that is not far from things we have considered. A lot of talk has gone on about things like that and personally I feel that it would be a great experience if it were pulled off correctly, and it definately allows for a wide range of people to interact and try different things than they are used to. The trick as I'm sure you're aware of pulling it off in some natural feeling way, and balancing wouldn't be far from a nightmare.

There is a huge problem with what you just said, and the way the industry has sculpted classes, and its based around a very fundamental idea: "balance is important."

First, consider the holy trinity: Tanks, Healers, Damage Dealers.

Here is a general example of what I am imagining for classes and the lack of need for balance:

Say I choose to be the tank class in the steampunk era. Now, as that specific branch, I have access to training against suitable foes that the steampunk era has conquered. For instance, a tank from this era would be highly resistive to physical damage due to metal armor (and would be a good tank in prehistoric setting), on the other hand he would not be very resistant to magic such as lightning which would penetrate the armor (and thus would not tank well against a magic high fantasy setting). The fun comes in when you have boss encounters that are aware of "time travel" and use it to their advantage, taking pieces from each and combining them into a unique encounter which requires strange combinations of players.

As the story of the game ages and new encounters are made to fit it, you have an ever changing set of "hot classes" which fit the encounters best. Its cool to be the "outsider" at times because eventually you may be needed. Who would have thought that there would be a need for a so-and-so? The same idea goes for healers with respect to what kind of damage they can prevent (armor repairs? physical healing? mana healing?), and damage dealers with damage they can deal.

[Wizerud]

What makes or breaks it for me is a decent combat system. I'm not too fond of the button-mashing persistent in most MMO games these days, although I do tolerate it. If anything I preferred the pace of EQ1's combat system.

I'd like to see a game where each fight took two to three minutes, even on xp/trash mobs, but gave a significantly higher reward to go along with it.

[sticktastic]

Originally Posted by Grumpy Old Fart

1) Do not *EVER*, fucking *EVER EVER EVER* make that god damned "You have been afflicted by Dazed." a part of any MMORPG ever again. Ever. We all fucking hate it. Some douchebag higher-level dev at Blizzard that was one of those power-mad 15 year old D&D DMs that liked killing his players to get a hard-on insists on this stupid thing being kept in the game, even though I'm sure every other employee there hates his guts (I know the Blizzard forum mods do a "/sigh, yes we know it's fucking stupid, but this dev will take his toys and go home if we remove Dazed from the game" every time it's posted about).

2) Do copy the Vanguard spellcasting sytems, with mana usage, channeling, ability to cast while moving (at a reduced rate), etc. If you use anything even approaching the horrid DAoC spell-casting system, we'll trash your game on every game forum ever made until it dies.

3) Copy and improve the Vanguard diplomacy system.

4) Do not use the retarded, simplistic, lazy-assed system of "98% of all mobs in the world are auto-aggro on players" shit that WoW has. And for those mobs that would naturally be aggro to players, don't make it another retarded, simplistic, lazy-assed system basing aggro distance solely on level difference between the NPC and PC.

5) Do use the queueing of hotkey commands that EQ2 has.

6) Do not have any "auto-invisible", non-spellcaster classes in your game. "Stealth" can be implemented a lot better these days than allowing some "rogue" class to just go *POOF* in the middle of a grassy field at high noon.

7) No crowd control spells in PvP that last longer than about 10 seconds. Obviously, having your character mezzed/stunned in DAoC RvR for 2 minutes at a time was a key factor in them losing tens of thousands of subscribers. So, don't do it.

8) Spend a lot of time making sure the 87% of your playerbase that wants to make mangina characters will be happy. This includes hot-looking faces, hair, animated boob bouncing, etc. This one is important. I mean, look at Lineage 2. What does it offer other than DE boob bounce and HE panty shots? That's right, nothing.

I like alot of that, let me attempt to throw myself under the bus with some ideas as well.

1. Look at what UO and EQ did right and improve on it with the technology now available, regardless of what people bitch and fight about, the dungeon system in EQ worked, and forced people to know how to play their class. Being able to "grind" in dungeons with guildies/groups/friends for hours as an option is always better than being forced to do quests of "kill 10 of x and come to me!" or collect x, y, z and bring it back.

2. Do not reward players with high end items for doing nothing other than spending time in a pvp zone. This is just flat out a bad idea. Instead im sure most people who would rather do something a long the lines of a long *in depth* quest line to receieve items. Also, make those said items somewhat compareable to high end raid items, that way your taking care of weekend warrior casual joe, and the hardcore raider group wont complain that the solo quests epic items are better than their "dedicated hardcore" raid style.

3. Do not hire a female to be your relay to the playerbase. Daoc tried that with sonya..and yeah we all know how that worked, she didnt know any of the games forumlas to improve character progression based on items and item stats. She also was proven unable to go find someone who could give her the answer either.

4. Dont post alpha/beta screenshots of your game of things you will never actually see in the game. Instead, invite members from a certain group that you can rely on to give you a honest un-fan boi opinion, regardless of how harsh it may be at times.

5. Hire a "live" team. This team would be in charge of all in game class/quest/encounter situations, these people should know more about the game than you do, the ins and outs as well as able to provide an abundance of information to the people who really get into character progression to mathematically make their toon superior.

6. As we all know, servers will crash, players will be pissy hot fixes will be needed etc, but whatever you do COMMUNICATE IMMEDIATLY to your player base why their game isnt working and give a accurate eta hell better yet, give a time that exceeds what your actually thinking it will take, that way when they are running back up your customers are happy because they think its early...it amazes me that this isnt done. Nothing is more frustrating than a server crash and no information from the company on what happened.

7. Make a game that is cutting edge graphics wise....but not over the top melt your pc. As Im sure you know, pc enthusiasts are rarely the hard core gamers, so keep that in mind when you make a game. Dont make it crap looking like wow, but dont melt processors like vg did. Most casual gamers are jobless wonders who dont upgrade every 6 months.


I could go on for hours now that I am thinking about it , but if your interested in more let me know and Ill spare everyone else the forum space :P.

[UnchainedAcolyte]

Originally Posted by Aria

I'd like a developer that talks to the players and listens for once. Also an honest company would be great. None of this Brad McQuaid shit with Vanguard ever again, please.

Yes... please don't promise the sun and the moon unless you intend to deliver it.

Don't discuss a game concept without also discussing likely implementation.

When you make design decisions of any type, be prepared to explain why you made that decision, and how it factors in to the player's enjoyment/benefit.

Develop the game around fun - see WoW.

Find investors/backing that don't expect to see WoW results or change the game to be a WoW clone.

Have a great Q&A department, and release a polished game.

Hire your staff based on skill and passion.

I'm sure I'll think of other things.

EDIT: Look at the early models of UO for player freedom, and get away from using a level-based system to decide class/abilities. Just my input, but I'd rather play one character capable of learning more or changing their skills than play multiple alts.