So now you have done everything, why continue paying?

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 7:50 pm

The purpose of this thread is to provide an initial layout of what I would like to see designed for an MMORPG.

The flaw seen in most MMORPGs, in terms of keeping players involved in the game, is the progression. After the player becomes familiar with the game system, the game then takes the player through a set progression path, usually in the form of a leveling system. What will keep a player in the game, and therefore paying for the game after the end level is reached?

Games like Everquest are set to encourage the player to try a different character class and level that class to the end. Then there are the raid dungeons seen in World of Warcraft, places where powerful items are acquired but require a team of end level players to get the items.

The reason why these concepts are flawed is because they are not solutions, they are just a means of delaying the inevitable. Their sole purpose is to create a grind that will cause players to keep paying for as long as possible. Grinding a different class will end when the player either gets bored grinding or has played every class. The raid dungeons, as seen in WoW are time delayed. You can only raid once a week no matter if you have a group waiting or not. Further, it is possible that you can eventually have everything that your character needs.

The solutions that companies like Sony Online Entertainment and Turbine have come up with is to offer expansions. About once a year they ship out a new expansion. These expansions usually add a few levels for players to grind out, new areas for players to explore and sometimes a new race/class to play. However, the expansions do not offer any new gameplay, instead they just continue to postpone the eventual cancellation.

I believe that there are three things needed to encourage players to stay with a MMORPG.

1. Immersion

The first and most important aspect needed is immersion into the game. Design the game to encourage players to relate to their avatars. The flaw of Everquest is the ability to have multiple avatars on a server. Every avatar that is created will fragment a bit of the players immersion.

However, limiting the player to only one avatar to a server is a little to limiting. I would suggest that a cap of 2 avatars per server is ideal. Having more than one avatar will allow players to experience other parts of the game (combat and non-combat).

2. Skill based system

With the introduction of levels into the game, you create an end game situation. If you create a goal for the players to reach, like a maximum level, then they will reach it. Generally before you are ready for them to reach it. People are competitive. You will see players rush to the max level as soon as possible, and then they will encourage, either through taunts or through envy, other players to rush through the levels as well.

You are helping to create an atmosphere where the destination is more important than the journey, and it should be the reverse.

This is where SWG (pre-CU era) excelled. Having a skill based system allowed the player to become more personally involved with their avatars, adding to immersion. Limiting the amount of skills you receive creates a situation where you could not have every skill in the game. Being able to acquire every skill in the game over time would just be an artificial max level. Finally, having the ability to change your skills at no cost (except the loss of skills you are removing) gave all the players an endless ability to adapt to what they want to be. There is still the possibility that the player could eventually have tried every skill in the game, however this leads to the last point.

3. Community/Interdependence

The entire purpose of MMORPGs should be to give a person access to players with similar interests while not being limited by your location. Developing friendships online, is the greatest potential aspect of these games, and should be encouraged. This was another area that SWG had the potential to excel at.

The wide open worlds, player housing, player cities, guilds, profession interdependence, etc. All of those acted towards building a community that has survived through the bitter loss of the game. It has been proven with the popularity of the SWG forums on MMORPG.com. If you go to the forums of other games, you will inevitably see a post asking if you are a SWG refugee. This site itself is a part of the community. Finally there are still people playing the NGE that do so only because of the friends they still have there.

The ideal MMORPG needs to tie all of these factors together. I certainly hope to see one in the future.

Edit: Clarified a statement above that was a little confusing.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:06 am

Regarding a skill based system, I always ran into a problem with the cap on skill points. It very much frustrated me. Stopping someone from being able to learn more is limiting. I am for unlimited skills.

How can you pull off unlimited skills? Won't that create an unbalanced situation? Let's forget for a moment that I have no respect for the word balance as it is thrown around today. Hard caps on offensive and defensive capabilities are one way to manage this. So even if, in the pre-CU model, one mastered every combat skill, he would be no better off than someone who capped out his offense and defense modifiers.

Such a person would have numerous different specials to use, and have great variety in gameplay available to him which is needed for an expert player. But when the rubber meets the road, this 16 profession master won't have an undue advantage over the 2 well-picked profession master.

And I can hear the other objection to such a system. Somebody could learn all the crafting skills and have no need to interact with other crafters, ruining the economy. First of all, I knew people with 5 or 6 accounts who did just that. The economy went along fine and these people had fun making sub-par things for themselves because they did not have the time to excel in any one skill.

Another system I have seen (Roma Victor I think) allows you to learn as many skills as you want, but if you do not use a skill for any amount of time, you lose some points in that skill. This is another way to mitigate the scenario of having Uber Powerful PvPers destroying the average Joe.

So consider the ability to learn as many skills as you would like with a hard cap on combat capabilities and see if it fits in your vision. It fits in mine, and is a central point to the game I will be developing in the future.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:07 am

BTW, good post Kenshu.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:27 am

jrscott wrote:

Another system I have seen (Roma Victor I think) allows you to learn as many skills as you want, but if you do not use a skill for any amount of time, you lose some points in that skill. This is another way to mitigate the scenario of having Uber Powerful PvPers destroying the average Joe.

I really, really like the open skill system idea with decay.

It logically makes sense that if you don't do something often, your skill in it should decay. Therefore something you do all the time would be a strong skill for you, and something you only do every once in a while would never progress to a quality level.

It makes sense and it reflects reality. The only arguments you would get from this would be people complaining that they can't or shouldn't have to grind their skills to maintain a useable level. My argument to that is simple...the system is doing it's job. You aren't SUPPOSED to be able to be a skill whore.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:44 am

jrscott wrote:

So consider the ability to learn as many skills as you would like with a hard cap on combat capabilities and see if it fits in your vision. It fits in mine, and is a central point to the game I will be developing in the future.

Well, in terms of this post, I consider the ability to learn every skill in the game as just an artificial max level. The goal that players see will be to learn every skill, just like how getting to the max level is seen in level based games.

Ultimately, once you have learned every skill there is, you have beat the game. Time to cancel.

Now, time to go astray from the original post. As for having a hard cap on defensive and offensive capabilities, I'm not certain what to think of it. I am going to assume that the game you are designing would have crafters. Would they be able to craft items that can modify those capabilities?

If so, then what is the point of crafting said items if the players can merely learn the skills to eventually reach the cap?

In a limited skill point system, I DO favor a hard cap. Skills are much more valuable at that time, which in turn makes crafted modifiers equally valuable. Obviously, this brings the desire for combatants and non-combatants to interact with each other.

In an unlimited skill point system, if there isn't already a cap in place, it will be met once the player learns all that there needs to be learned.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:52 am

Delzo wrote:

jrscott wrote:

Another system I have seen (Roma Victor I think) allows you to learn as many skills as you want, but if you do not use a skill for any amount of time, you lose some points in that skill. This is another way to mitigate the scenario of having Uber Powerful PvPers destroying the average Joe.

I really, really like the open skill system idea with decay.

It logically makes sense that if you don't do something often, your skill in it should decay. Therefore something you do all the time would be a strong skill for you, and something you only do every once in a while would never progress to a quality level.

It makes sense and it reflects reality. The only arguments you would get from this would be people complaining that they can't or shouldn't have to grind their skills to maintain a useable level. My argument to that is simple...the system is doing it's job. You aren't SUPPOSED to be able to be a skill whore.

Actually, I do like the idea of skill decay. But there is another problem that can be seen with it. The casual gamer or the military gamer.

Will skills decay in real time or game time? If the casual gamer has to go out of town for two weeks for business, should they have skills removed? If you are in the military and are looking at a tour in Iraq, should you come back to the game just to see that you chacter can only craft a stick with a rock and only knows how to swing that stick?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:19 am

Oh. In case I didn't make myself clear. I welcome all critiques, provided you explain your reasoning. Wink

I love to debate my ideas, and I have an open mind.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:43 am

Kenshu Ani wrote:

[size=15]The purpose of this thread is to provide an initial layout of what I would like to see designed for an MMORPG.

Great post Kenshu

Do want to maybe translate this into an article for RealMMO?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:43 am

Kenshu Ani wrote:

Ultimately, once you have learned every skill there is, you have beat the game. Time to cancel.

If so, then what is the point of crafting said items if the players can merely learn the skills to eventually reach the cap?

Hopefully in the game I want to put together there will be enough skills to make it very difficult to learn all of them in any sane amount of time. So "beating" the game once you get all the skills should not be an issue really, especially given the fact my plan is to roll out new skills periodically to keep the list growing.

And I like your thinking regarding crafting. In the case of weapons and armor, their modifiers would be calculated outside of that cap for sure. I suppose that any modifiers on CRAFTED items could be done outside that cap as well.

But looted items is another can of worms altogether. I want to discourage loot camping as much as possible so if there was something like the A'akuan ring I would not want high skilled players to keep lower skilled players from acquiring it, like what happened in SWG. By not allowing the stacking of looted attributes onto the hard cap, you end up not encouraging loot camping for specific loot. Though in an RE driven crafting system, if said game had one, loot camping might still exist unless great care was taken to distribute loot throught the game world.

Eh, thanks for making me think this out. Got more things to consider now. BTW, are you thinking of making your own game by chance? Just curious.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:40 am

jrscott wrote:

Eh, thanks for making me think this out. Got more things to consider now. BTW, are you thinking of making your own game by chance? Just curious.

Just engaging in some creativity. In high school, when I should have been doing homework, I was building worlds for pen and paper games. the real ultimate power

I have no formal training in coding, though I have been tempted to take classes in that. And I'm color-blind so artwork is out of the question.

Leel wrote:

Do want to maybe translate this into an article for RealMMO?

That shouldn't be difficult to do. When you are ready for it, let me know.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:24 pm

Kenshu Ani wrote:

I have no formal training in coding, though I have been tempted to take classes in that. And I'm color-blind so artwork is out of the question.

Coding is overrated, and while skill at some artwork is always helpful in visualizing, what you are doing here is true and valid game design. I think a person with zero coding and zero artistic skill could be a Lead Designer easily enough, so don't count yourself out. Unfortunately, the game industry seems to want everybody to "pay their dues" by becoming a tester, then modeler, then coder...how much real talent have they buried because of these stupid pre-concieved notions? But, I'm derailing this thread now and will stop. Embarassed

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:40 pm

jrscott wrote:

But, I'm derailing this thread now and will stop. Embarassed

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:06 pm

jrscott wrote:

Kenshu Ani wrote:

I have no formal training in coding, though I have been tempted to take classes in that. And I'm color-blind so artwork is out of the question.

Coding is overrated, and while skill at some artwork is always helpful in visualizing, what you are doing here is true and valid game design. I think a person with zero coding and zero artistic skill could be a Lead Designer easily enough, so don't count yourself out. Unfortunately, the game industry seems to want everybody to "pay their dues" by becoming a tester, then modeler, then coder...how much real talent have they buried because of these stupid pre-concieved notions? But, I'm derailing this thread now and will stop. Embarassed

I barely got the hello world thing working, but I have imagination and management experience enough to do what a lot of these guys do.

Sadly though I am sadled with a lack of ambition, borderline agoraphobia and a serious case of cynicism.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:20 pm

Reachwind wrote:

Sadly though I am sadled with a lack of ambition, borderline agoraphobia and a serious case of cynicism.

The ambition thing is the one that will get you in the most trouble. A Cynic makes an awesome Risk Management person and agoraphobia will just give you more time to apply your ambition, if you find it. Very Happy

An agoraphobic person makes a great lone wolf, and every team needs one or two, but cannot be made up of them completely. The lone wolf with ambition can be employed to "save the day" when the team bogs itself down in disagreement. I used to be my team's Superman. I seem to work well on teams only when I am in charge. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:38 pm

jrscott wrote:

Kenshu Ani wrote:

I have no formal training in coding, though I have been tempted to take classes in that. And I'm color-blind so artwork is out of the question.

Coding is overrated, and while skill at some artwork is always helpful in visualizing, what you are doing here is true and valid game design. I think a person with zero coding and zero artistic skill could be a Lead Designer easily enough, so don't count yourself out. Unfortunately, the game industry seems to want everybody to "pay their dues" by becoming a tester, then modeler, then coder...how much real talent have they buried because of these stupid pre-concieved notions? But, I'm derailing this thread now and will stop. Embarassed

And thats also the reason why most games have a story that couldnt even have been written by those that failed to even write a B-Movie script Razz

And why barely no one is looking outside the box and show creativity.
Heck, I have a impression that most people behind making games, aint gamers at all. They don't have the passion, don't have the dreams and aint got the imagination to use their skills and abilities to create beyond the old ideas of the past.

There was a time, when game developers were dreamers, they dreamt the impossible, and created the impossible, with impassable barriers and limitations in what they could really create. If you look at old games from the childhood of computer gaming, you see that they were gamers, with creativity, imagination and the mind that broke the barriers of what they could do.

All that is lacking today... There aren't any dreams behind the games any longer, they stopped breaking the barriers, stopped challenging the impossible...So they could redo what had allready been done in the past. They stopped being gamers.

Sadly, I'm a dreaming gamer without the code, and soon, if someone don't start dreaming again amongst those that create games, I'll no longer be a gamer, just a nobody dreamer without the code.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:43 pm

Kenshu Ani wrote:

Delzo wrote:

jrscott wrote:

Another system I have seen (Roma Victor I think) allows you to learn as many skills as you want, but if you do not use a skill for any amount of time, you lose some points in that skill. This is another way to mitigate the scenario of having Uber Powerful PvPers destroying the average Joe.

I really, really like the open skill system idea with decay.

It logically makes sense that if you don't do something often, your skill in it should decay. Therefore something you do all the time would be a strong skill for you, and something you only do every once in a while would never progress to a quality level.

It makes sense and it reflects reality. The only arguments you would get from this would be people complaining that they can't or shouldn't have to grind their skills to maintain a useable level. My argument to that is simple...the system is doing it's job. You aren't SUPPOSED to be able to be a skill whore.

Actually, I do like the idea of skill decay. But there is another problem that can be seen with it. The casual gamer or the military gamer.

Will skills decay in real time or game time? If the casual gamer has to go out of town for two weeks for business, should they have skills removed? If you are in the military and are looking at a tour in Iraq, should you come back to the game just to see that you chacter can only craft a stick with a rock and only knows how to swing that stick?

How about when you use one skill, the rest (or the rest in the same group ie. combat group/crafting group) will dregrade slightly. Make it based on "use" rather than "time". That way if you don't log in, you don't degrade. BUT, if you craft swords every day for a month, your armor crafting will take a hit.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:59 pm

Delzo wrote:

How about when you use one skill, the rest (or the rest in the same group ie. combat group/crafting group) will dregrade slightly. Make it based on "use" rather than "time". That way if you don't log in, you don't degrade. BUT, if you craft swords every day for a month, your armor crafting will take a hit.

Yay! Back on topic!

Interesting. I'll definately have to think on this some more. I'm still not convinced that I like the idea of unlimited skills, even with decay.

Has anyone here extensively played Ryzom or EVE? I tried both, but they didn't hook me in for reasons other than the skill system. Both currently have the ability to learn every skill, but with different methods of learning the skills.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 6:14 pm

I'd still be playing Ryzom if:

1) There were more people playing this very good game. Great crafting, good combat, but lack of any sense of a "community" makes things a bit dull sometimes.

2) GMs would get off their high horse and stop dictating how to use the global chat system. They are probably killing the best community builder they have by killing any conversation in Global that is not about the game. A "Help" channel would accomodate what they are trying to do, AND allow a community to develop on Global.

I guess I just didn't feel like I was a "part" of anything like I did in SWG.

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:03 am

Kenshu Ani wrote:

Delzo wrote:

How about when you use one skill, the rest (or the rest in the same group ie. combat group/crafting group) will dregrade slightly. Make it based on "use" rather than "time". That way if you don't log in, you don't degrade. BUT, if you craft swords every day for a month, your armor crafting will take a hit.

Yay! Back on topic!

Interesting. I'll definately have to think on this some more. I'm still not convinced that I like the idea of unlimited skills, even with decay.

Has anyone here extensively played Ryzom or EVE? I tried both, but they didn't hook me in for reasons other than the skill system. Both currently have the ability to learn every skill, but with different methods of learning the skills.

I played Eve for 4 months total so I have a decent feel for it. Personally, I had no problem with the skill system as it was, it definitely killed the need for grinding. The biggest problem I had with Eve crafting was people with the same skills were exactly the same in ability regardless of resources used (because resource A was always just resource A, no different stats ever).

The fact that Eve skills were earned over time did not bother me too much, though I would have preferred to have to perform some kind of skilled action to actually acquire the skill. Kinda like learn the skill, perform a task, get the skill. Maybe not for all of them, but for some. Maybe certain other skills required you to buy a license. I want to earn them, so that was my only problem with their skill acquisition.

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:25 pm