Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[UnchainedAcolyte]

I know several people have made statements about "playing house", but at the same time there should be some form of social/interactive hubs in the gaming world. Instanced housing is decent enough, but loses any element of immersion because there is no element of socializing involved; basically it is a storage and private decorating zone. Non-instanced housing, while debatable due to UO's problems, has had merit with games like SWG where you not only had houses (and the architect class to play as), but cantinas, medical centers, city halls, guild halls, varieties of buildings to serve different purposes, and an actual city system in place that could grow large enough to have its own transportation.

Do I argue that combat, gameplay, class design, and lore/the world or realm design should be second to this? Absolutely not. However, if you're looking to add depth and some non-combat fun and interdependence to a game, SWG cities did it well, and were fun when cities were hostile against one another.

Finally, for argument's sake, if you want to discuss "social hubs" for downtime and functionality for a game, look at the scout/ranger camps in SWG pre-CU/NGE. Great for downtime, socializing, and a base while you fished, hunted, gathered, etc.

Something comparable for a fantasy genre would be inns with NPCs who might offer quests according to race, faction, level/skill level, or even class; offered minigames, cards, etc.; brawling as it was suggested for AoC; drinking contests, darts or other tests of skill; entertainers (PC or NPC) who give buffs through their performances, etc.

Secondary activities for socializing would be great with minigames (chess, checkers, cards and other forms of gambling that were mentioned earlier). To me one of the big differences in classifying some gaming elements is that some help to define a setting, while others try to develop worlds with social mechanics (SWG). I wouldn't use them as a model for content by any means, but their social mechanics, harvesting, housing/building ownership, and social interaction were very fun.

[Lleauaric~EW]

Ive kind of said it already...

But economic activity is the primary motivation for meaningful human interaction, that and getting laid.


Cities are economic entities, not purely social ones. If you want vibrant and alive settings, then give people motivation. Free Markets and Economic opportunity. What was true in 5,000 BC is true today of human nature.

[Traldan]

Originally Posted by Tuco

Slavery would be quite possibly the best MMO feature I've seen. Tyen could build a city with his guild mates, then as the city grows it has an NPC population living there.

Then Tyen talks shit to me on the forums and I come down with my brethern and pillage his city, taking his NPC population as slaves. Sell some of them, and force the others to work as guards, mercenaries, farmers etc. Shit that would work great in AoC.

Lol. Don't tell Jack Thompson.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Except in real life you don't have to worry about dicks with 2 million gold and nothing to lose creating cities shaped like a penis.

Oh wait...on second thought...

[UnchainedAcolyte]

Originally Posted by Lleauaric~EW

Ive kind of said it already...

But economic activity is the primary motivation for meaningful human interaction, that and getting laid.


Cities are economic entities, not purely social ones. If you want vibrant and alive settings, then give people motivation. Free Markets and Economic opportunity. What was true in 5,000 BC is true today of human nature.

True. Mercantile skills in SWG pre-CU/NGE were very interesting and allowed a person to own shops, tents, etc. and have NPC vendors to sell their wares. Another immersive and entertaining model Galaxies had.

I agree, most social city development revolves around economy, but that economy is typically based on need-based demand. While a controversial mechanic, I personally liked the SWG doctor/entertainer "jobs" of healing wounds and providing buffs since it helped to establish cities as social hubs, because there was a need/demand for interacting with those classes, as well as the typical buying/selling and so on.

Sorry if I sound like a shill. I just really enjoyed the social/city elements of early SWG and haven't seen a game do nearly as well with it since.

[Havelock]

One cool aspect of city building in SWG was the ability to build a city near a content hotspot (the krayts stand out as the big one, but there were other POIs on settleable worlds). These cities were intimately tied into the game economy and provide ready access to content for other players while reaping the rewards of a ton of visitors and immediate access to content for city residents. Making various places useful both for character advancement and economic purposes and letting players build settlements near said places can work wonders for a game.

[OneofOne]

Have to agree. Although the ghost towns did annoy later on (and that's something that can be easily fixed in future games) the idea and implementation was otherwise damn good. Ok, minus the combat exploits

[Faille]

Slight tangent, but how much does monthly cost factor into things? I know I wouldn't pay for more then 2 mmos at a time, even assuming I had the time to play 2. I think that is the cause of people assuming any new mmo has to be a wow killer, not so much because they will destroy wow, but they need to convince wow players to stop player and paying for wow and start playing paying for their game instead.


Single player games, or even just non subscription are not even close to that situation since people can easily move from one to another and back again at will.

So with that said, does 38S have any plan to be creative in terms of pricing?


ps, one of the great things I love about Eve is the fact I can effectively play for free, with the endorsement of the company, by virtue of their time card trading system.

[Agraza]

Yea, I play EVE for 'free' too. I hadn't considered the monogamous(sp?) subscription to be an issue. I would think so.

[Lonin]

I think allowing people to play for free is a big step in pushing the genre forward. No matter how good your game is, there's a huge market of people out there that balk at paying a monthly fee, no matter how small or reasonable it is. If 38 Studios really wants to dominate the MMO market, they need to look at a subscription-less option. I would think the easiest way to do this would be to have the free client have ads on the patcher/launcher or maybe make you watch a short video clip ad when you start the game, similar to some online video players. Then in addition to the free client you could have a standard $14.99 a month client with no ads.

[Grave]

Eh, I have no problem with the fee if it's justified by timely patches (WoW is too slow) and good content updates.

I say just make it enticing enough to make people only play your game. Hit that casual market hard with tons of fun solo and small group content, lots of side things to do, etc. If you look at it, WoW isn't currently offering those casual players all that much beyond endless badge farming and repetitive dailies once they hit 70. Most seem to create alts because the leveling content is more fun.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Grave

Eh, I have no problem with the fee if it's justified by timely patches (WoW is too slow) and good content updates.

I say just make it enticing enough to make people only play your game. Hit that casual market hard with tons of fun solo and small group content, lots of side things to do, etc. If you look at it, WoW isn't currently offering those casual players all that much beyond endless badge farming and repetitive dailies once they hit 70. Most seem to create alts because the leveling content is more fun.

I don't think anyone here has a problem with paying a fee, but we aren't the mass market, and they don't like to pay fees. I just don't see a reason to not have some sort of free client in the future. It seems to me that the potential player base would just be exponentially expanded.

[Grave]

Just make a really awesome trial server. Free unlimited access and level cap of 15.

Trial server would only consist of a few zones, one of which is an awesome solo instance that shows off their scripted encounters. Give em a taste of how the game plays, let them play there as long as they want, and then if they want to purchase the game and pay a fee, they get a free transfer off the trial server to a live server.

No gold spamming retards on our live servers, and allows them to tailor the content to make it enticing to someone who is unsure of the game.

Sure it doesn't answer the basic problem you bring up, that most people don't want to pay the fees, but I think it would sway more than a few people in that direction.

[Fog]

EVE's "free" play is clever; it harnesses the RMT market to actually do something nice for players.

[Grave]

How does it work exactly? I didn't even know about it.