Post by Morreion on Jun 17, 2010 8:09:30 GMT -5
MMORPG.com Community Spotlight: New MMOs: What Do You Want?
There are some good suggestions in this post. Of course you all know by now that I'd like to see a virtual world / sandbox approach to get away from the lead-you-around-by-the-nose theme park class/level/quest grind approach that is so repetitively predominant these days. Customization is high on the list, as is a focus on community interaction. And different genres wouldn't hurt!
This week’s Community Spotlight focuses on the thread “What would you want from new mmos that you’re not getting?” by Amathe. This is a bit of a hat-trick for Amathe, as this is his third time being in the spotlight! Amathe offers a few of his own ideas below:
“This is not directed to old mmos, current ones or even ones we know are coming. The idea is, if a game development company were reading this thread for ideas on something totally new, or at least something that needs total improvement, what advice would you give them?
I will chip in my own idea (not to say no one ever thought of it but me lol). But try to make the thread about your own wishes and not the merits of mine. *wink*
Personally, I would like my avatar to seem less like a clothes rack and feel more "alive." He or she should sustain wounds, be subject to illness, grow older over time, perhaps need a shave or a haircut, and so on. Items should have weight, as they used to, and weight should have an effect. The more activity I engage in, the stronger I should become, not simply as a +10 stat bonus from an item. Armor should look more weather beaten over time and with use. My character may sustain a permanent scar that has a story behind it.
I'm not wedded to one particular mechanic. But the overall effect I am looking for is an avatar that feels like a living person who needs care and benefits from it (or who suffers from neglect).
Anyway that's mine. What is yours?”
Illius wants to see physics come to the forefront:
“I would like Physics to play a role in future games. I'd like things to have weight, momentum and so on. One of the ideas I was thinking of was the ability to lay in wait in a tree for ambush purposes. Once my inteded victim got under it I'd be able to jump out of the tree and land on them causing them obvious bodily harm.
I just want the option to use unorthodox ways to accomplish my goals... whatever they may be. This is one of the many things I'd like future games to have. I'll see if I wanna add more in future posts.”
VooDoo_Papa might want to take a closer look at Guild Wars 2:
“Id like to see MMO's start to abandon pez-dispenser quest givers and linear quest paths. I know its a lot easier for developers to design around linear progression, Its just becoming extremely redundant no matter what the genre or storyline is.
I would also like to see developers go back to the MMO pioneering days when MMOs were thought of as being a role playing game on a grand scale in a world to be molded by a massive amount of players. Lets bring back player cities and player/guild run shops.
Aside from that, Id like to see more variety as far as game worlds go. How about a Planescape/Rifts type game? More sci-fi or a full blown steam punk mmo. Until developers start thinking outside of their box that they constantly feel they need to fall into because its making another game developer money, we're gonna keep bouncing from game to game to find out its just more of the same. Long live the MMO tourist!”
Arieste would like to see an episodic MMO:
“Immersion. World interactivity. Overall design based around creating an MMO, not a single-player game with multiplayer options - this means dynamic and player-created content and ever-changing world. (And I don't mean the "solo" vs "group" thing, i mean a story that's designed to have a thousand heroes, not one hero - a story where EVERYONE helps save the world, not each person on their own).
I'd love to see an episode-based MMO where the world you log into play today, is completely different from the world that someone logs into play 2 months from now. A game built this would also be able to take focus of grinding / level-cap based gameplay if done right.
(Simple example: in the first episode you're defending a (massive) city from a siege by orcs. there are quests and storylines based on this. the episode lasts two months, after two months, there is a major event, the city is destroyed and then episode two, you're either living under the city as "the resistance" or are out in the woods -rebuilding. any new people that join the game, join one of these places. the content that existed in episode 1 is gone forever. what matters is what you do NOW.”
“This is not directed to old mmos, current ones or even ones we know are coming. The idea is, if a game development company were reading this thread for ideas on something totally new, or at least something that needs total improvement, what advice would you give them?
I will chip in my own idea (not to say no one ever thought of it but me lol). But try to make the thread about your own wishes and not the merits of mine. *wink*
Personally, I would like my avatar to seem less like a clothes rack and feel more "alive." He or she should sustain wounds, be subject to illness, grow older over time, perhaps need a shave or a haircut, and so on. Items should have weight, as they used to, and weight should have an effect. The more activity I engage in, the stronger I should become, not simply as a +10 stat bonus from an item. Armor should look more weather beaten over time and with use. My character may sustain a permanent scar that has a story behind it.
I'm not wedded to one particular mechanic. But the overall effect I am looking for is an avatar that feels like a living person who needs care and benefits from it (or who suffers from neglect).
Anyway that's mine. What is yours?”
Illius wants to see physics come to the forefront:
“I would like Physics to play a role in future games. I'd like things to have weight, momentum and so on. One of the ideas I was thinking of was the ability to lay in wait in a tree for ambush purposes. Once my inteded victim got under it I'd be able to jump out of the tree and land on them causing them obvious bodily harm.
I just want the option to use unorthodox ways to accomplish my goals... whatever they may be. This is one of the many things I'd like future games to have. I'll see if I wanna add more in future posts.”
VooDoo_Papa might want to take a closer look at Guild Wars 2:
“Id like to see MMO's start to abandon pez-dispenser quest givers and linear quest paths. I know its a lot easier for developers to design around linear progression, Its just becoming extremely redundant no matter what the genre or storyline is.
I would also like to see developers go back to the MMO pioneering days when MMOs were thought of as being a role playing game on a grand scale in a world to be molded by a massive amount of players. Lets bring back player cities and player/guild run shops.
Aside from that, Id like to see more variety as far as game worlds go. How about a Planescape/Rifts type game? More sci-fi or a full blown steam punk mmo. Until developers start thinking outside of their box that they constantly feel they need to fall into because its making another game developer money, we're gonna keep bouncing from game to game to find out its just more of the same. Long live the MMO tourist!”
Arieste would like to see an episodic MMO:
“Immersion. World interactivity. Overall design based around creating an MMO, not a single-player game with multiplayer options - this means dynamic and player-created content and ever-changing world. (And I don't mean the "solo" vs "group" thing, i mean a story that's designed to have a thousand heroes, not one hero - a story where EVERYONE helps save the world, not each person on their own).
I'd love to see an episode-based MMO where the world you log into play today, is completely different from the world that someone logs into play 2 months from now. A game built this would also be able to take focus of grinding / level-cap based gameplay if done right.
(Simple example: in the first episode you're defending a (massive) city from a siege by orcs. there are quests and storylines based on this. the episode lasts two months, after two months, there is a major event, the city is destroyed and then episode two, you're either living under the city as "the resistance" or are out in the woods -rebuilding. any new people that join the game, join one of these places. the content that existed in episode 1 is gone forever. what matters is what you do NOW.”
There are some good suggestions in this post. Of course you all know by now that I'd like to see a virtual world / sandbox approach to get away from the lead-you-around-by-the-nose theme park class/level/quest grind approach that is so repetitively predominant these days. Customization is high on the list, as is a focus on community interaction. And different genres wouldn't hurt!
