How can devs put the RPG back in MMORPG? And by that I mean, how can devs re-emphasize the importance of setting in their games and encourage players to remain engaged with each other within that setting rather than within a layer of interaction external to it, i.e. through websites and other programs, and the metagame overall?
Let's face it, once MMORPGs became neck-deep in redesigning themselves for metagaming, they stopped being about role playing. No one playing MMORPGs these days cares or even knows about role playing and the games hardly resemble RPGs at all anymore, and the reason for that is because the games are designed to encourage players to engage with the games' setting as little as possible. If the setting is nothing more than shallow set dressing for an ongoing competition between players, then it's not a proper setting and no role playing can be done. Player competition is actually completely irrelevant to role playing and could even be said to be antithetical to it. So how can these games be redesigned to make them about role playing again? Is it possible at a larger scale, or can it only ever be managed on private servers with a select few?
>re-emphasize the importance of setting in their games and encourage players to remain engaged with each other within that setting rather than within a layer of interaction external to it, i.e. through websites and other programs, and the metagame overall? I do think it's too easy nowadays to look up online and find info on rpg builds, locations to go, secret stuff in general. That's a really big hurdle to overcome in my opinion because well, picture a map. People wandering around like chickens is eventually going to fully explore the map and find everything of worth. Maybe introduce random elements? Though I'm not sure how or what
Hunter Martin
just make it like the original everquest or swg. if you are worried about people using wiki's and solving the game and shit then just force separate servers and distribute the content differently in each server like how randomizer romhacks work basically. The key is to make the game still relatively easy to get into, but also making the systems so that they discourage people being able to do everything on their own, but excel at things that fit their roles.
Samuel Carter
OP here, to bump the thread and keep it going, I'll expand a bit on the above and give some ideas on this.
I think the game world has to become a more overwhelming force on players. By that, I mean that it has to be genuinely hazardous and dangerous to players, and it has to be highly interactive / reactive to player inputs. Endless spawning mobs that just wander in a controlled zone are not threatening, and a lack of meaningful survival mechanics means players don't have to factor in the environment almost ever. If more sandbox elements and more complex AI were introduced to the games (not necessarily combat-oriented AI, either: complex AI can take the form of a strategic AI, like enemy factions working behind the scenes and altering trade routes / NPC vendor supplies, taking over forts and growing in power, that sort of thing), then players would have to remain engaged with the setting far more than they currently are. Increasing the pressure from the environment would make the environment take additional precedence in the attention spans of players during gameplay, in other words.
Another way to encourage more role playing in MMOs is world persistence, which there is none of in theme park MMOs by their design. Without world persistence, how can you say there's even a world? Every player having their own instanced world is effectively the same as there not being any world at all. There has to be ways for players to cause PERMANENT change to the world for ALL players in that world; OR, there has to be ways for the world to react to player behavior, which then has an effect on all players. For example, if enough players hunt down a certain type of enemy for whatever reason, then perhaps that enemy type temporarily disappears from the region, and on account of that, a different enemy type moves in, and gets stronger and more dangerous as a result. That's just a really simple example, there are tons of other ways to implement persistent world design like this.
Kayden Parker
your first mistake was posting on Any Forums - video games
Levi Young
>Maybe introduce random elements? Though I'm not sure how or what Yes, I'm actually surprised how few MMOs seem to have leveraged procedural generation in their design so far. It could be a great way to encourage more dynamic exploration and take away the usefulness of internet guides. For example, perhaps major cities are static, but the wilderness between them is entirely procedurally generated in terms of layout and what enemies and hazards are in them. So you're given the task to hunt down a certain kind of monster, but when things are procedurally generated like this, you can't just go to the popular farming spot that everyone knows about. In my opinion, as much instanced content as possible should strive to be procedurally generated.
Josiah Gray
>So you're given the task to hunt down a certain kind of monster let me stop you right there. if we are going into this with the idea to redesign mmos to be better about immersion and actual roleplaying then we need to get rid of shit like this or at least severely minimize it.
Jaxson Powell
procedural content is hard to do well while still feeling like it's handmade and engaging. it is fine in roguelites and roguelikes but you'd have to put a lot of thought and effort into it if you wanted it front and center in your mmo. plus i don't like the idea of instancing, procedural is fine, maybe have parts of the wilderness change every few days or every week or something, but keep all the players on a server together in the same world. don't split them up into their own private islands.
Easton Diaz
Agreed. It was just an example. But even that type of task could become more immersive if the games were designed differently. Devs give players a high number of monsters to kill because they also just give players spots to farm them in. If the wilderness was procedurally generated, it would be awful to have players try to hunt down 150+ of a certain monster. So instead, give tasks of only like 5 monsters to kill, but now you have to actively look for those monsters yourself, ON TOP OF avoiding the additional reactive / oppressive world design elements I suggested here . Now the task of hunting X number of monsters is going to be a lot more varied and adventurous for players overall.
>plus i don't like the idea of instancing, procedural is fine, maybe have parts of the wilderness change every few days or every week or something, but keep all the players on a server together in the same world. I think some instancing can be combined with sandbox design in an interesting way. I find that the reason why instancing isn't that fun is because of the context it's done in. The foundation of most MMOs is too simplistic and boring, so the instancing is too. But this is mostly just speculation and in practice it could be either not doable or not enjoyable.
Nicholas Hall
everquest next had some cool ideas (obviously on paper only) about what they envisioned for their faction systems between players and the environment. Things like factions being mobile in the game world and being able to take over areas, if they are allowed to linger they will begin to send out raiding forces into neighboring areas and even towns, destroying or occupying them and then impacting the larger cities in various ways. That would hypothetically generate an organic system for (at least part of) the content structure in the game. If the goblin forces are neglected they will impact the people around them, those people would give out quests and incentives to help push back the invaders. You get not only the gameplay incentive but you get visual tangible changes to the game world. If everyone is fighting in the goblin war though what is going on with the gnolls on the other side of the city? Could introduce a lot of interesting dynamics with a system like that. The only issue is that it would be incredibly difficult to implement in a way that worked.
Cooper Long
>the focus needs to be on the journey, rather than the end game. >get rid of raiding and instances/instancing as we know it. Keep everything open world, ala Tyr's hands in WoW for example. Create only open world bosses. >make the "end game" about player interaction with the world and most importantly with other players. >get rid of player leveling and levels in general, and replace them with skills that you grind as you play ala Runescape. >Loosen the game rules to what they are in EvE where anything can go between players as long as no major glitches are abused, and no cheats are used. >allow open world housing and real time interaction with the world >skills that allow you to interact with and shape the environment and the world >plot of the game should be largely irrelevant, and merely in the background >no chosen one bullshit >yours and every other character in the game should be mere adventurers and nothing special >no instanced pvp battlegrounds or artifical zones created for just for pvp >sieges and castle system like in Lineage 2 where the players can tax merchants and such
David Allen
Don't have a boring leveling phase gatekeeping the "real game" from the player. (to then a skip for the price of the game) You can have some levels, but have every activities accessible from level 1. Yeah, I'm taking that peasant with his fork into my army to attack the undead horde because I need every hand possible and there is no limit because it's an MMO. Don't try to make it an RPG, make it an online world first, and add the progression and customization systems on top.
I have plenty of idea but the true MMORPG experience is too niche for it to be successful so I wouldn't even try to do it if I had the means. (but was expected to be profitable)
Ayden Lewis
>The only issue is that it would be incredibly difficult to implement in a way that worked. Expensive too I imagine, which is probably why it hasn't really been done unfortunately. I can't really think of any modern game that works like that besides Kenshi and a heavily modded Skyrim.
Jose Bell
the main issue is it ties together a lot of systems and disciplines. AI, level design, gameplay design, economy, quests/rewards systems, etc. you'd need a team of mega autists at the top of their game to pull something like that off.
Tyler Nelson
I came across this today when looking for game design books. This thread reminded me of it. Seems at lest tangentially relevant:
>Proteus, the mythical sea god who could alter his appearance at will, embodies one of the promises of online games: the ability to reinvent oneself. Yet inhabitants of virtual worlds rarely achieve this liberty, game researcher Nick Yee contends. Though online games evoke freedom and escapism, Yee shows that virtual spaces perpetuate social norms and stereotypes from the offline world, transform play into labor, and inspire racial scapegoating and superstitious thinking. And the change that does occur is often out of our control and effected by unparalleled―but rarely recognized―tools for controlling what players think and how they behave. Using player surveys, psychological experiments, and in-game data, Yee breaks down misconceptions about who plays fantasy games and the extent to which the online and offline worlds operate separately. With a wealth of entertaining and provocative examples, he explains what virtual worlds are about and why they matter, not only for entertainment but also for business and education. He uses gaming as a lens through which to examine the pressing question of what it means to be human in a digital world. His thought-provoking book is an invitation to think more deeply about virtual worlds and what they reveal to us about ourselves.
>Yeah, I'm taking that peasant with his fork into my army to attack the undead horde because I need every hand possible and there is no limit because it's an MMO. Eve does this reasonably well.
>like enemy factions working behind the scenes and altering trade routes / NPC vendor supplies, taking over forts and growing in power, that sort of thing), then players would have to remain engaged with the setting I like where you're going with this thinking, but it's a hard problem to solve. You need to think about it like a UX designer might - how are users engaging with your game, when and where does it fit into their life and habits. In this example, I'll say I've been unable to play for a month because of a major life event. When I come back the routes have changed. Thankfully players have put together a site where they enter the new trade routes in every time they change, so I'll just use that to get myself back into the gameplay loop I want to engage with. What's the saying? "Players will optimise the fun out of their own experience"?
Joshua Ortiz
>What's the saying? "Players will optimise the fun out of their own experience"? The solution to this is to cut out the incentives that encourage that type of player from playing the game in the first place. Those players are typically interested more in the competition between players. So what can be done to eliminate those incentives? For one, don't have any kind of leaderboards whatsoever. Two, don't arbitrarily reward players just for the amount of time they put into the game. Three, keep pvp to a minimum, existing in the game either solely for recreation with no attainable rewards from the activity like a sport, or only in order to enhance the setting, like players being able to become bounty hunters to go after certain players or something (all requiring that players engage with the setting's factions or whatever in order to unlock it). Those are just some of my thoughts on the matter.
Bentley Reed
Sounds like a potentially cool read, thanks for sharing. I'll have to check it out.
Samuel Perry
I think those are good ideas user. It makes me think of actual roleplaying games like D&D, or even SS13, or singleplayer games like Rimworld. They all have one thing in common: They're anecdote generators. The rewards are intrinsic rather than extrinsic (make numbers go up).
Kevin Howard
they can't you need a system where leveling up doesn't exist player knowledge is the most important commodity and quests aren't made or generated but are an individual outcome of a character existing in a living world
might as well just play DND or something, you'd need like a matrix tier world simulation to actually make the first good mmo game
A multiplayer pure dungeon crawler with some MMO players hubs would be cool honestly
Robert Green
ironically, be more like dark souls story in an MMO is the least important part of the game the only time I've seen story done well in an MMO is Guild Wars, which isn't even really an MMO to begin with when story becomes the reason a player goes from level 1 to max level, there is no reason to ever go back to where you came from everything you did was just a temporary scene, a set piece, instead of a world that feels alive
