Warhammer Online

[Merauk]

If I recall correctly the main problem with the UO ecology system was the drain it caused on server resources and that is why it got clipped.

While it didn't work for them I think the future of MMORPG's has to be more dynamic worlds. The main reason why people play UO today is because it is highly dynamic with housing, trade skills, etc.

EQ while I still find it entertaining is exactly the same product as it was day one of release. You still sit at a spot, fight an orc, take its loot, and do it again. Albeit now it takes 60 people to kill a much bigger orc. Nothing in your actions changes the world or your character really. To me the next game has to offer an opportunity to not only change the world through my actions but have the world change itself based on the actions of others and by the world itself. UO has dabbled with it as has AC (with their monthly content patches) but I don’t think anyone has gotten it yet. Hopefully Warhammer/WOW will deliver on it, EQ2 seems to only be EQ with new graphics which I think is going to be bad news for SOE.

[Ukerric]

I spoke at length (well, at least half an hour, before we moved onto other things) on that subject with one of the original UO programmers back when he was doing a consulting job on MMORPG production and design at my previous company. That's exactly what he said: the ecology was producing good results... until players went in.

Ask Raph anytime about it, he'll tell you about the same thing. They had to put so much things "hidden" from the players (have orcs spawn outside of the world so they couldn't be killed, etc) that in the end, it was better to randomly spawn stuff: it looked the same to players.

But altering worlds doesn't require an ecology. What it requires is flexibility. In spawn tables, so that, once every single wild animal wandering is dead (before respawn) in the small valley, bandits set up camp. In world geometry, so that when the ruined has been finally cleared of its undeads, it gets rebuilt, and vendors and a couple guards move in (don't worry, monsters of the same level you hunted in the tower ruin areas are still there just a little further along). Basically, triggers that change things.

One of my favorite personal designs (not that it'll be ever used professionally) included these things. A flexible geometry, so that the tower at the crossroads is ruined on server A, is full of cranes and tents (being rebuilt) on server B, and fully repaired on server C. A quest system with randomly generated quests. I'm not talking AO-type missions, or designed DAoC quests with 3 steps shuffled at random, but a real, honest, system that can generate enormously intricate quests with dozens and dozens of steps, ranging from the fex-ex "give this message to our ally X" to "gather an army and fight to the deep end of dungeon Y, and kill the boss" (and, unlike EQ quests, possibility of failure. Even designed failure, in which you are in fact not supposed to complete the step given to you). Spread within these quests, you'd get world-altering quest steps (cleanse the area of all wolves - if you, and only you, succeed, spawn is altered forever), or steps that tie with the "current event" a-la-Asheron's Call.

Ultimately, recreating the classic CRPG experience (with the story tailored to your character) tied into a MMOG setting (quests that require help, or even quest steps that ask you to contact Soandso, which is a player, for help, because Soandso has been determined - by the game - to be an expert on killing werewolves - and plays roughly at the same time frame as you do)

But one day, this kind of scheme is going to see light, and we'll see the real 3rd gen MMORPG.

Because so far, all MMORPG have been evolutionary, but not revolutionary. Since the UO->EQ change (and even people disagree), no MMORPG has really innovated in the PvE arena.

[Baelron]

So True

[Jukax]

I've been hoping for a Shadowrun PC game for years - a MMPORG setting for Shadowrun would be amazing, and the possibilities are damn near endless. Lots of adventure but people who like tradeskills and quests in EQ could enjoy playing a fixer or fence.....soooo much possibility here. The books got me hooked and into the RPG side of it. I still dig out my old Sega Genesis from time to time to play the console version