Post by Morreion on Jun 1, 2010 7:48:16 GMT -5
The List: Five MMO Facets that Need Innovation (MMORPG.com)
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I agree with the author that innovation is needed, particularly in leveling and questing (enough already!). Though in defense of devs I will say that games that have taken chances with new and unique systems have not done so well (Chronicles of Spellborn's combat system comes to mind).
Instancing
Questing
Leveling
Story
Combat
Questing
Leveling
Story
Combat
#4 Questing
We’re already seeing signs of the evolution of quest design, if ArenaNet’s claims for GW2 are to be believed. And it’s about time. The first real innovation in the questing interface came from the fine folks at Mythic with Dark Age of Camelot’s “quest window” being the GUI that started it all. Since then every game does the quest interface and quest journal in its own way, but in the end they all boil down to “click-this-NPC” and then “do-what-the-summarized-text-says”. As seasoned MMO gamers can attest, you hardly need to read the thousands of words some poor quest designer has created in an effort to set the tone of the content. Questing is the new (albeit disguised) grinding for levels, and that means in my book that it’s time for some new ideas. Or at the very least, let’s get rid of the static NPC and scrolling text windows and find a way to offer up adventures that seem less procedural and more dynamic
We’re already seeing signs of the evolution of quest design, if ArenaNet’s claims for GW2 are to be believed. And it’s about time. The first real innovation in the questing interface came from the fine folks at Mythic with Dark Age of Camelot’s “quest window” being the GUI that started it all. Since then every game does the quest interface and quest journal in its own way, but in the end they all boil down to “click-this-NPC” and then “do-what-the-summarized-text-says”. As seasoned MMO gamers can attest, you hardly need to read the thousands of words some poor quest designer has created in an effort to set the tone of the content. Questing is the new (albeit disguised) grinding for levels, and that means in my book that it’s time for some new ideas. Or at the very least, let’s get rid of the static NPC and scrolling text windows and find a way to offer up adventures that seem less procedural and more dynamic
#3 Leveling
MMO design, like history, seems cyclical. In the beginning character development was more about individual skills, leaving players to design their own strengths and weaknesses as they played. Later the consensus changed to a class-based system and with it came the traditional leveling system we know and love/loathe today. I believe that one of the most compelling parts of MMO gaming is character progression, but is there a better way to represent such achievement than simply assigning numbers next to a player’s name and tossing them a few new flashy spells to torch enemies with? Inherently MMO design boils down to numbers on spreadsheets, and I think characters obtaining “levels” is a perfect example of something that just doesn’t fit in the notion of our characters being real people in the world they inhabit. Along with instancing, I guess I’m trying to see the importance or visibility of the leveling mechanism lessened so that real character development might be able to take place. Maybe I’m wishing for too much, but I’d like to be attached to my characters because of the actual events they took part in within the game world, and not just because I spent 300 hours getting him to an artificial cap.
MMO design, like history, seems cyclical. In the beginning character development was more about individual skills, leaving players to design their own strengths and weaknesses as they played. Later the consensus changed to a class-based system and with it came the traditional leveling system we know and love/loathe today. I believe that one of the most compelling parts of MMO gaming is character progression, but is there a better way to represent such achievement than simply assigning numbers next to a player’s name and tossing them a few new flashy spells to torch enemies with? Inherently MMO design boils down to numbers on spreadsheets, and I think characters obtaining “levels” is a perfect example of something that just doesn’t fit in the notion of our characters being real people in the world they inhabit. Along with instancing, I guess I’m trying to see the importance or visibility of the leveling mechanism lessened so that real character development might be able to take place. Maybe I’m wishing for too much, but I’d like to be attached to my characters because of the actual events they took part in within the game world, and not just because I spent 300 hours getting him to an artificial cap.
I agree with the author that innovation is needed, particularly in leveling and questing (enough already!). Though in defense of devs I will say that games that have taken chances with new and unique systems have not done so well (Chronicles of Spellborn's combat system comes to mind).
