Is it the new "in" thing to attempt (and fail) to build a "World of Warcraft killer"?

#21

Quote: I disagree big time with the idea that clothing must add to combat to be worthwhile

I never said it had to add to combat to be worthwhile, but add to gameplay. I probably should have explained the scenario of the NPC guard and wearing the clothes of an opposing faction. What I was trying to highlight was that clothing, in games, don't signify anything, but that they can.

Some discussions we had were that if you were on a spy mission and needed to attend a ball, would you walk in wearing plate mail? Probably not, since everyone would look at you like you were a nut (and the guards would treat you accordingly). You'd probably wear the best thing you had, and if you had access to it, you'd wear clothes that were the most applicable to that occasion (bikinis are less threatening than plate mail, but just as inappropriate). It becomes a matter of gameplay to dress the part in order to get into that ball without raising suspicions. The mechanics behind it are those simple "+5 to looking like opposing faction" that I mentioned, but that simple gameplay mechanic opens up a huge amount of socially-based gameplay.

Quote:Unable to care...I think that depends on the players you are building the game for, doesn't it?

Another example of me typing fast and not explaining better :) I meant the game world itself, not the players. The players can care all they want that you can make a ratchet set, but unless you provide game mechanics, the only way that ratchet gets used is if the players come up with some kind of meta-game using it (and they probably would).

The problem is that, as was mentioned, the worlds themselves become less and less persistent as time goes on, and that's a problem. But to go the other way, the game world itself needs to be able to take actions. If you're travelling through the desert, the sun should be doing damage to you- unless you have the proper gear. Same with the arctic- bikini armor should kill you pretty fast up there, but a parka will shield you from the damage. Those are simple to implement (schedule damage for that whole zone and then allow the gear to deflect it as part of the damage system).

But if the world doesn't do that, then the game world doesn't care if you are wearing a parka or a speedo when you visit the North Pole- it doesn't have a way of detecting it, and doesn't do anything about it either way. Players may, and that's all well and good, but it's a cop-out to lean on the players for mechanics that the game world is there to take care of but doesn't. And that is the crux of the issue here: When the going gets tough, the developers are getting lazy.

#22 Since your examples of items with utility were all combat related, I assumed that usefulness meant combat or combat-support (potions, etc). Many players do like clothing simply as a decoration, a creative way to make their character different. Clothing for avatars is popular even in social games and they have no combat. I would say that the players of the social games who buy clothes, sometimes even with real life money, do not see those clothing items as useless.

I am a role player. I can, if I wish, play any game and create any sort of scenario I want. If I want to role play as if the sun beating down on my back is affecting my character, I can do that. I don't need game mechanics to tell me how to role play. I have played enough role play text games to know that it not only can be done but it is being done. Now, it would be very neat to put those mechanical features into a game because it adds an element of simulation and challenge..and I love that in a game. But I don't think we need to add every realistic aspect. I don't see it as a cop out or leaning on the players but rather giving the players the ability to create their own experience. There is a fine line between controlling a player's experience with game mechanics and letting them build their own experience.

In most games with mass appeal, I completely agree with you. If you don't put a penalty in the game that will cause the character to actually have an affect from the sun, the player will ignore the affect of the sun. That is okay unless the game is centered around a character in the desert who is trying to survive in the elements. But for most games, the heat of the sun is simply extraneous, not important to the goals in the game. I also do not suggest making characters shower or shave or use the outhouse in a game..unless of course, you are making a game that focuses on the mundane daily lives of the avatar, such as The Sims.

But we are having the age old discussion that role players and video gamers have had for years. :) I guess I would focus more on the experience of the player than on 'whether the game world cares' in my game design. I also tend to focus more on the community rather than the individual experience, although I think a strong community gives individuals unique experiences.

I like the plate mail/bikini at the ball example! You see, if that happened in my dream game, it would not be the game that would make the player's character feel inappropriate but the other players. If the players react appropriately to the dress of the other character, the experience is much more real and spontaneous. Maybe the guy in plate mail role plays a rather eccentric character who wears plate mail everywhere! Maybe the gal in the bikini is getting ready to jump out of a cake! Players can discern the difference...game mechanics can't. Again though, you would need a certain group of players to make this work..and I have seen exactly this in text games. I remember scandals because a non-noble character dared to wear a silk dress to a party! :)

#23

Quote:You see, if that happened in my dream game, it would not be the game that would make the player's character feel inappropriate but the other players.

But that's not your dream game, that's your dream game player, and if you implement NPCs in your game, they would still completely ignore the situation, which leads to a disconnect between players and the game world.

Quote:If you don't put a penalty in the game that will cause the character to actually have an affect from the sun, the player will ignore the affect of the sun. That is okay unless the game is centered around a character in the desert who is trying to survive in the elements. But for most games, the heat of the sun is simply extraneous, not important to the goals in the game.

You're missing the point here. The point isn't to try to fit every bit of reality into a game. It's about making not just the goals of the quests or tasks the focus, but the journey itself, and one way of doing that is by making the world a more interesting place to move through.

MMOs are about adventure when you get down to it, but they've lost the edge that really gives adventure its flavor, which is role-playing. You don't get that back by telling your players to role-play. Most of them don't know how, and even if they did they wouldn't see the point in it because for them it doesn't make an impact on the game world, which is what most players want to do.

So what you do is you make the world react to more things:

- Make NPCs react to emotes.
- Make the terrain more interactive. Swamps, sand, and thick jungle slow progress.
- Players' items always contribute to their stats in some way. Not just for combat, but maybe dressing sharp will make certain townfolk NPCs like you a bit more.
- Quests should be dynamic. This is not trivial at all, but it's doable, and it has very good rewards when done well.
- Game mechanics need to be innovated! NPCs who just stand there and hand out quests are old. Several people have implemented conversation systems in their NPCs, and it needs to become standard.
- Crafting should be needed for everything, not just combat.
- Social actions in games need to apply to the world as a whole, and not just other player characters.

Nothing of what I discussed is limited to combat, even if the examples I gave lean towards that or espionage, etc.

I heard many people talking about leaning on players for the atmosphere of their games over the years, but then I look at people in MMOs getting face-humped by other players because their character is sitting down while their AFK, and I think to myself just what player population is going to cooperate with your so-called norms when they can just go tea bag random people?

You may think that that sounds ridiculous, but it's absolutely not. The fact is that players do what they want, and while you don't want to force them into strict behavior (no matter how much I dislike the tea bagging, there's not much to be done for it if you don't want to run players off, whether they're doing it or not), you are actually wanting to do that whenever you talk about players being shocked at inappropriate behavior.

The example of the non-noble wearing silk and causing a scandal is a great example of this. The population of that server is quite small compared to "regular" MMOs, and I wonder what a "regular" MMO player would be treated like if they wandered through that world? The player community there would run them out. So the behavior is actually niche, because it requires the voluntary cooperation of the server population.

In a game where you don't have that, you sort of have to lead by example, and to do that, you need to put subtle game mechanics in place, and in context. The sun beating down example is indeed great for the desert, which is why you don't apply it to every single zone in the game. NPC guards won't take kindly to your wearing of clothes from other factions, but that doesn't imply a combat situation as much as an opportunity to upgrade those NPCs to accommodate role-playing. Environments that are hard to travel through don't control the players as much as give them things to talk about so that they can form their own stories.

So I would say that I disagree with leaning on the players to do all that by themselves, mainly because at that point there's no point in making any other game if the one they play is in their heads.

#24 Just letting you all know that the staff of www.MinionsOfMirth.com is reading the thread.

Randel Reiss
Director Product Development
mailto:RandelR@PrairieGames.com
www.PrairieGames.com

#25 Thank you for this discussion, Ted. You do bring up some really good points and I appreciate you taking the time to continue this discussion. I am rather honored that you took the time to respond as I am rather a nobody here. :)

A 'regular' MMO, with multiple servers of up to 5000 players will not work for this sort of game. I absolutely agree. Adellion had hopes for 10k players on one huge server, probably because it worked in other games. First of all, I don't see this as a realistic goal for a small team with a very small budget. Secondly, in a game that requires player interaction a very large terrain is detrimental, in my opinion.

Most of the games I have played do not have your featured list. They do not have NPC's that react, other than those involved in combat. Yes, a player's character can talk to the NPCs, receive quests from them, etc, but it is not true reacting. I don't believe I have every played a game where the environment reacts either, other than the monsters in the swamps. Besides single player games, the games I have played do not have dynamic quests, and quests are very dull. Yet, I have seen amazing game play from the players. I have seen them form towns, elect leaders, create mobster groups that threaten and deal with others, slave owners and slaves, bands that are hired by other players for parties, intense dramas (soap operas) and tiny plots, and all of this in a mass marketed game with several thousand players on the server. The NPCs ignore them, many of the players ignore them (too busy leveling and hacking and slashing) and yet these players create something from NOTHING...except maybe the lore! Its amazing and it adds much depth to the gaming experience. I have also met a few converted hackers and slashers among the bunch. :) So I do know that one can 'trust' the players with the right player base. The trick is to attract that player base and to do things that will encourage them to add to the game play.

That said, I do think better AI is important and that NPCs should react to some extent. I do not think in a small world whose physical size matches the size of the player base that you need as many NPCs. I don't think for example, that an Oblivion or Morrowind type AI is necessary in every MMO. Most players interact with each other, not with the NPCs other than in combat or quest situations.

Making terrain more interactive is a great idea, but probably not realistic in a small game, especially if the terrain is not varied. Again, I don't think its necessary in all games but would be great in some. Adellion had planned on this sort of interaction.

I think in some games, prestige and customization is enough for some crafted items. I don't think every item has to contribute to the stats. So we have to agree to disagree here. :) Like I said, I had dozens of articles of clothing in SWG and it did not contribute one bit to my stats. Tailors were very rich! For many of us, we wear clothing in a game like we wear it at home. I have many different pairs of shoes at home and most of them are not very utilitarian! Collecting is one of the best beloved 'games' and it has proven to work well in many games including games like Animal Crossing and The Sims 3. People collect just to collect and to brag about their collections. :)

Quests should be dynamic! Yes, I agree with this one and am working out how to do it. I also think quests can be more than handing out a physical reward but can be used to initiate players into new roles or as long term quests to figure out secrets or discover something new. I do not like quests that repeat over and over. Not only are they dull, but they won't work in a role play environment. You can only kill Bob once, not dozens of times. It makes no sense! I also think you can create a system where players can be involved in quest giving.

Crafting for everything! Yep! If you have fishing in the game, someone should have to make the fishing pole. If you have farming, someone should have to make the tools for farming. If your players must eat to keep their stats up, then they must find, grow, or make food. This one is very important to me.

It would be nice if social actions applied to the world, and I believe you mean to the NPCs as well as players. I don't think its necessary but it would be nice. Of course, if I had a million bucks, I would design a great game with lots of AI but that probably isn't possible.

Continued in next post..my reply was too long, surprise!

#26 I also want to add that I think one can lead by example. Players can be encouraged...and sometimes through game mechanics, to interact with each other, engage in player quests by making applicable to the community, and giving them the ability to influence the world. Yes, you must start with a very good player base and I don't think that is impossible either.

As you see, I agree with you more than not and I certainly don't want to create a game where its all in the player's heads. But I think we can leave plenty of room for imagination and creativity from the players while balancing it with necessary game mechanics. I don't think we need as much as you do, but I am willing to be proven wrong. :) I am also a pretty pragmatic person. I know some things I would like to do cannot be done on our budget and with our staff. I know we have to select the type of players we want to attract and make choices on what would attract those types of players rather than try to please everyone. The tough blustering guy who likes to play an Orc and spend hours killing mobs of monsters would not like my game. I accept that and its okay.

One reason we all make WoW-like games is because there is always someone out there telling us our ideas won't work. I hope to get a chance to try mine and if they don't work, then so be it. Fortunately, as an Indie designer, we won't be out too much if they don't work. I do look forward to coming back in her in a couple of years (its a small game!) and showing off our game. And I would welcome your honest input.

Dreams are what made The Sims happen and Oblivion, Minecraft, and many other innovative and interesting games.

#27 I never responded to the 'tea bag normal players' and you are absolutely right. I argued this one on the Adellion team for years. There needs to be a very good player justice system coupled with good mechanics that work. My entire idea would be dead in the water if massive number of players could simply kill others for sport.

I have some ideas on this and plan to test them out when we get to this point. Most of them are based on the myriad of articles and books I have read as well as discussions with other developers and players. But like anything else, they have yet to be tested. I am not naive enough to think that we won't have these folks..but I think there are ways to make it not worthwhile for them to play. Since this is not necessarily a profit motivation for any of us on the team, we are not afraid of losing money by making the game unattractive to those who want to 'kill all carebears!". As you have probably surmised, most of us come from the Adellion team and we want to prove we can do it more than we want to make money. Hence the smaller scale...we are trying to be realistic.

#28 @Telia: Wow, I don't think I can do my usual quoting thing without adding five pages to this thread, lol. But yes, we do agree on a lot, and I'll talk about my own game to show you where my team is coming from.

With Epic Frontiers, what we wanted to do was support a lot more of the P&P type of gameplay than MMOs usually do. This presented several problems, such as:

1) Interaction with NPCs.
2) How to make quests not tempt people to claw their eyes out.
3) Cooperative play.
4) Social gameplay (ie, "how the hell do we do that?").
5) What about the game world?

I actually have three design journals filled to the brim with stuff related to the above, but in short, here's where we started to head with things:

1) NPC Interaction: This was something I had worked on for years and resulted in both my Interrogative NPC conversation system, which is sort of like turning the Who/What/When/How/Why into actions just as crafting or even combat has actions, and then applying that to information in the game. So you can click on an object or a player even, and then initiate a conversation based on the object (which can be an object or a keyword- which is what an object is anyway) with an NPC. This gives us the ability to make those "Fed Ex" and "love letter" quests several magnitudes of deeper interaction.

What we also did was figured out what kind of AI we wanted for the NPCs, and then created a model of personality types using those variables where we not only can represent NPCs that react "sorta" realistically (for what we want), but also can hook that AI into the conversation system, and even swap it out for different personality sets or combine them. All this sounds hard, and it was, but where it led us was the ability to churn out NPCs all day long, procedurally, using these numbers and name generators.

So that tech allows us some flexibility to have your basic NPC, up to having (hopefully) pretty interesting enemies, allies, and everything inbetween.

#29 2) Quests: There was no question in my head that we needed dynamic quests. I won't say I hated WoW- I played it for a while and even bought some gold, lol. It didn't innovate except in polish, but it was fun because it didn't take itself too seriously, which a lot of games do, and they lack for that. But the quests were almost as mind-numbing as the grind aspect of the game.

Alongside the conversation system I did a lot of research into story structure, and basically came to the conclusion that you can break stories down into discreet chunks of scenario and give that to the player, and they'll wrap it up in story because that's really what real life is: Go do this, here, at this time, and you have these constraints.

I don't tell that story like "So I went to the DMV and completed this". What I talk about are the things that made the completion of that interesting: "So I'm trying to park in the DMV parking lot, and this idiot comes flying around the corner and almost hits me, so I had to tuck and roll to not get run over!". So if you find out how to best make tasks string together, you can make a dynamic quest system.

Of course, it's kind of bland like that, so what I did was create dynamic dialog that could be generated and filled out (mad-libs style) and then I pump the dialog for the quest through my conversation system, and what you get are NPCs you can converse with, who will offer quests at certain points (or you can ask- we added a button for that) and because the conversation system supports our personality-based AI, you can use "flavored" dialog so the same thing will sound different coming from two different NPCs. It's a lot of content, but if it's done right it's worth it and really makes the world come alive.

3) Coop play: This was a lot simpler to tackle. If you want social play, you want to cover the groups of players who want to work together, and that means you need to provide them with game mechanics that allow them to use teamwork. So, since our game is skill-based (skills auto-level on use, like WoW's profession skills), we figured why not make a simple button that allows the player to "call out" for help for a skill, sort of like how in D&D you can increase strength checks with multiple players?

Simply, you bring up the GUI and ask for help with a particular skill you're not high enough in level with to succeed at your task, and then it would push a ground-effect icon so people can "stack up" on you and add their skill level to yours (they get prompted, in case they get too close by mistake). This feature is not totally tested, though the math is and works.

4) Social gameplay: The above three do a lot for social gameplay, and we also wanted to do things like espionage missions, which require non-violence in order to win, but the gameplay gets interesting. But we looked at the real life cases and said "what makes them succeed?", and it quickly came back to items: Camouflage, disguise, language skills, social skills, etc.

So why not bring back the Bluff skill? Apply it to the conversation system or an item like a forged letter to get into that banquet you need to infiltrate. Camouflage for those who are more along the lines of ninjas, and add some stealth skills in there to round it out.

Language skills allow you to talk to other factions (if you ever saw an Orc say "kek" to you in WoW, you'll know how useful that is), and disguise and social skills allow you to pass yourself off as someone you're not in order to get close to an adversarial NPC and use that conversation system to ask a few questions he'd otherwise never answer. Get in, get the info, get out- ding! And that's the name of the game.

5) The Game World: We did a few things here. Swim checks and drowning we easy to do early on (especially when I created a test spell that froze the lake and then did it while I was underwater, lol), and there's resources here for speed modifications based on terrain materials, so that's pretty easy to put in. Sprinting with fatigue, climbing with skill checks (if you fail, it applies an impulse away from what you're climbing to make you fall). More of what we want to do is gear checks against these, more types of movement to open up adventure quests, and the dreaded sun-damage (it's just a zone-wide or trigger-wide scheduled damage). This stuff is actually not hard.

What's hard are making those events in the world that can take place for people to find, like animal migrations, or seasonal changes that happen world-wide (Sahara would probably be good for that). We also have an Excel prototype of zone-AI which uses stats from players and player quests to generate certain types of quests more often than others, depending on conditions (especially good for those border and contested zones).

#30 So yeah, that's sort of where my mind's at with MMOs, and just like you, our MMO won't appeal to everyone, though we show combat and crafting just as much love (I still want to find time to get the fighting combo/macro system done).

But the point is that depending on the experience, you will rewrite all or part of the regular MMO framework. A lot of games don't need clothes with attributes, or NPC conversation systems, but some do, and in that a lot of companies just aren't willing to invest millions to develop tech that may or may not do the job right (it's really hard to get right). I did it because as an Indie I had time on my side, and now I get to show off what it can do ;)

#31 Ted, your game sounds wonderful! And thank you for the demo. I can't wait to see the NPC AI integrated into a game.

I believe I know hundreds, if not thousands of people that would love your game. Some of the features you mentioned were already in the design doc for Adellion. I am not sure if we will use everything in there in our game since ours is a slightly different focus. Cooperative play is always important in a game that is based on Community. Skills must use game mechanics that make it advantageous for players to work together. This is an important element in games like ATITD. The number one reason people stay in games for a long period of time is the relationships they have made with other players. And working together will definitely bind them.

This is a short post for me..I am usually so verbose! ;)

#32 i happen to spend time in voice chat with a group of friends that play RIFT together, it's kind of interesting to see that their first reflex as a noob is to pick the profession that makes them feel more self reliant and less dependent of others.

It's the same reflex i had in a tale in the desert, refusing offers for an iron blade because i would prefer to create the blade myself. But in ATITD you quickly realize that you have to focus yourself in one specific crafting specialty because doing everything simply won't work (it does work in the beginning which in a way lure the player in thinking he can "solo" the game)


One of my ideas for a crafting system was that in a post apocalyptic world (my favorite setting) the chance of someone actually being able to produce manufactured goods by himself (guns, canned food, light bulbs, batteries, whatever) is probably very slim.
An interesting take on post apo games is to consider the "technological tree" to have an insurmountable gap and that peoples keep the tech level of their primitive society up through repairs.

My idea was that everything that is broken can be fixed or turned into spare parts for a similar device that is still good enough to be fixed. Fundamentally it doesn't change much in the outcome, but it does make things a bit different, an object breaking creating basically "crafting elements" to build or repair a similar object.

On the topic of NPCs, beyond the monsters, most friendly npcs are usually not even an npc entity but a trigger zone for a dialog box... well no wonder they feel so lifeless, they do not actually exist for the game :D

#33 I really like the idea of using spare parts to repair something or create something new. You could also consider the ability to destroy an object and use the parts to make something else. It sounds so perfect for a post-apocalyptic world!

And you are right about the NPCs..they are essentially just a trigger for a dialog box or in some cases a store inventory box. I actually would prefer to replace NPCs with players wherever possible. Of course you can't always do that, but in some cases you can. You can replace shop NPCs with players in most games or consignment terminals in a science fiction game. There are some areas though where an NPC is necessary.

#34 Tons of posts since the last time I checked the thread and tons of stuff I can't reply without needing a 10 pages posting so I will keep it short. ^_^
- NPCS
The NPCs I loved most in a game was in city of heroes/villains!
By that I don't mean the regular ones that gave you quests (contacts with contracts) but rather the civilians that were walking around.
Some you could save from villains. They would run behind you to say thank you or come back to thank you after you were done with the villains.

Others were joining you in a mission, others were trapped or abducted and needed to be freed out of various places.

Also a example for a environment behaviour:
- you see villains robbing a warehouse or similar, you attack them, npcs civilians that are walking by either run to safety after a combat occured near them OR they were too paralyzed from fear that just crawled or tried to find the closest spot to hide(on the floor behind a obtacle or similar) till everything was over.

If you clicked on them they said various things related to your person or other characters that other players are controlling or even about some gangs or mobs.

Things like that liven up a world in my opinion and lets the world feel more connected.

- Emotions, Roleplay and customization
The playable characters have tons of emotions that can be used for any roleplaying purpose.
My supergroup I was the leader of back then (years ago ^^).

Example:
We run a event for other players (limited amount).

I setup a story of one of us being abducted and trapped by a gang(in a mission my second character had).

The team that was with my "powerless" character had to visit various contacts (other guildies of mine that used the emotions to play their set roles) and talk with them to gather clues and infos on what happened.

The whole thing lead to the mission I had selected with my "powereless" character(everyone in our guild had lost their powers through something the gang had used to us during the story ^_^) so if the party would had beat the mission, they would had to report back to my main character in the city hall of one of the cities in the game.

Unfortunately they lost the mission so my secondary character "died" storywise among the others. One that had survived the mission(she was a robot character) reported back, got still a reward in in game currency and heard the remaining story.

The people that had joined enjoyed the whole event and the game was and still is SO RICH in features and possibilities that made it possible for us to pull something like this.

In the meantime it offers a "mission architect" in which people can create their own 5 - 6 missions long story creating the places, the mobs, the npcs, the contacts and everything else for their own enjoyment.

People that taking on that story then have the possibility to play it through, rate and comment on what they liked or disliked.

The crafting system in the game has a whole market with tons of stuff you can create and sets you can use on your character (not equipment!).

Additionaly people can create various things with functions or just cosmetical props that can be used on the selfcreated supergroup bases.

In my opinion is this mmo the most customizeable mmo ever, starting from character looks, missions, bases, crafting and lots of other stuff.

Unfortunately I had to quit after 5 years of "service" as a superhero/supervillain but these developers showed me back in 2004 what CAN be possible if one is not too afraid to try.

I saw various other crafting systems that were good in other games aswell but the problem is that most mmos have only one or two of their features be a bit different than others while everything else in the game is the "default" stuff most mmos have and thats just sad. :(

- character involvement in the world
Both guild wars and city of heroes/villains offered this.

In guild wars the character was already a part of the story that interacted in cutscenes in which the story was revealed.

In city of heroes/villains, the npcs that gave the quests explained the story but the villains reacted accordingly within the missions (or even by ambushing you outside)by calling your name or even interacting with you while in a battle (talking about their schemes and revealing infos about their plans and such or by just giving clues).

#35 What I had enjoyed the most roleplaywise though was the possibilities the game Neverwinter Nights had gave us.

I remember back in the year 2000 me and a friend hosting a selfmade mod on one of the sites that people could sing up for a mod to play at a set time and day(don't remember the name anymore x_x ) and us being the "dungeon masters" that were able to slip into the various npcs and monsters, taking control of them and talking out of them providing the players real interaction within the game.

Attacking the players as a monster, laying traps as a villain that got hunted and tons of other stuff. Very enjoyable things that people loved.

Of course in a mmo it would be VERY difficult to add something like this
but with enough interaction possibilities and emotions, the players would be able to do it on their own.

Though in the most mmos you can only do the standard stuff like "laugh, cry, wave" out of like 10 to 12 interactions Max.

I'm not a bit roleplayer myself but I still enjoyed the few times I participated and I find it sad that such things are not considered at all in the mmos nowadays cause by ignoring such features ,they are shutting the door to everyone that would had joined otherwise to enjoy their game.

A lot of other things I would like to write but unfortunately I'm at work right now and very limited on time. :)

#36

Quote:In the meantime it offers a "mission architect" in which people can create their own 5 - 6 missions long story creating the places, the mobs, the npcs, the contacts and everything else for their own enjoyment.

I didn't play the game, but I thought that this was an awesome concept. One problem you need to be mindful of, in any player-created-content plan, is the issue of offensive materials. If you're smart about it, you can offer up content that the user can use which allows for large amounts of freedom while reducing the chances that they will use it to create material that has the potential to run other players out of the game. I believe they instituted a rating/reporting system in the Mission Architect, didn't they? Probably the best way to go, really.

Anarchy Online also had a mission creation system, though it seemed much more limited in what it could do. What I liked about that game was the procedural content that was set up for the mission system. Subways and caves were context-correct ways of providing the players with levels generated by a dungeon algorithm, and it was simple to create (took me a day to create the text part of it, and about a month to do dungeon creation which exported to an .mis file and launched a TGEA instance to run it).

Quote:Though in the most mmos you can only do the standard stuff like "laugh, cry, wave" out of like 10 to 12 interactions Max.

Exactly- but the problem is that those emotes only work on other players right now. That's perfectly fine for players who want to roleplay or social players (or even the combat-oriented players who find it useful in some situations), but waving at an NPC does not increase your reputation, or cause an NPC to wave back.

That really needs to change, and I honestly don't think it's all that hard to do. The good news is that I believe things are starting to change, mainly because of that shift in how MMOs are going to be played, and the demands of that new audience.

#37 Antonios, I beta tested City of Heroes and found it to be an enjoyable game and very clean. By clean I mean it was very nice looking, straight forward, easy to play and an overall pleasant experience with little frustration. Now, I am one of those 'weird' players who prefers dramatic conflict, politics and intrigue in my games rather than beating up people over and over again so I didn't subscribe after beta. But I did recommend the game to many people. It was very well done and filled a niche that had not yet been filled at that time and probably still does. It is a casual MMO, one you can play, stop, and pick it up easily for an hour or so the next day.

I can't not speak about the player created missions because they were not in the game at that time but I think this is a great idea and something I would love to include in a game. It allows creativity, something many players crave.

My son and now my 10 year old daughter just love Neverwinter Nights. They especially enjoy the ability to create their own sessions and play with each other. I have looked over their shoulders a few times and am impressed with the toolset. Again, a wonderful thing that could be added to many games. I do agree with the problem Ted brought up. I have seen it happen in too many games and it would create more work for a support team if they have to approve every bit of user content that goes into the game. But it may be possible to allow players the ability to earn the right to create user content based on past behavior...although again, tough in a very large MMO.

I keep mentioning Star Wars Galaxies but that is because there were so many features that supported role play. Characters had dozens of emotions. I even choreographed (using built in macros) a dance representing the opera Carmen in SWG using my character, dance moves, and the physical emotes along with another player who diced music together from the game. It was a great success and a lot of fun! Little things like emotions, built in macros, and the ability to put things together to make something new keeps players always inventing new ways to have fun. It allows them to control their experience. By the way, we had plenty of combat folks watching us in the SWG theater during our performance as well so it is not just us role players that enjoy a little diversion. :)

And Ted, again, reputation can be created by the players if done right along with a little help from game mechanics. A game where NPCs interact is all good fun but I would rather be a sought after merchant or a famous actress/musician who draws a crowd in the tavern or a politician who gets voted into office...all defined by the reaction of the other players to me. I am sure its possible to do both though.

#38

Quote:A game where NPCs interact is all good fun but I would rather be a sought after merchant or a famous actress/musician who draws a crowd in the tavern or a politician who gets voted into office...all defined by the reaction of the other players to me. I am sure its possible to do both though.

XBox does it with player profiles, there's no reason it can't be done for any other game, and the more social your game is, the more you'd probably want that. You can even have players rate someone on several categories and then average that out (or weighted average compared to metrics showing what kind of gameplay they use, so if they hardly fight, but aren't sporting about it, it won't affect them all that much).

#39 Thanks, Ted! I will look into XBox and how they do this.

Now, don't get me wrong. I prefer to not engage in combat in a game myself but I want combat in a game, especially one that focuses on a real medieval experience. Combat and possible death, especially a (modified) form of perma-death, will make life much more valuable to the players. One can risk their life..and really become a hero. I think combat can be extension of politics, intrigue and drama. If one does not risk their life when they insult the King or harass the nobleman's daughter, then it becomes meaningless. If a politician that becomes too popular with the common masses doesn't have to worry about assassination then his bold moves are no longer heroic. If a woman who plots to poison her husband so she can be with her lover has no fear of reprisal if caught then her actions, again, have little meaning. It is the risk that makes drama and intrigue interesting. :)

#40 Ted:
There was a very well made filter that prohibited offensive words without blocking simple stuff that worked greatly.
People that visited the architect selected a story out of 1000s created by other players that were suitable to them(they could decide themselves how hard and if they wanted to solo or go with their party up to 8 people in there).

After they did and confirmed, a hologram of the contact appeared and gave them the first quest of the storyline.

Depending how it was set people that played wasn't only able to get rewards and xp through this mission, they were also able to gather points that were used to select additional stuff for the mission architect themselves like a group of extra mobs, maps/areas, props and tons of other stuff.

Additionaly they could rate and comment how much they enjoyed the whole story in overall, if they found any bugs(can happen even after testing sometimes that the creator missed something ^_^) and lots more.

The creator was able to create the npcs and mobs from scratch with the character editor that gave 100s of 1000s (or even over a million?) possibilities of diversity. In the 5 years I was there I NEVER came across a other player that looked like me even I had 12 - 15 different characters on the hero and as much on the villain side of the game.

Then you could also select what powers the enemy has, what they say when you destroy as example something on the level, if a ambush takes place and when, if a npc has to be rescued, if traps/bombs have to be deactivated so the building doesn't explore or set on fire and tons of other possibilities.

As about emotions I can only say that this game is THAT reach on emotions that you have everything you need at any occassion.

Examples: you can pull out googles and check the area, you can light a torch that is really brings light into a dark area, you can pull out a cellphone or communication device, you can pull out a flashlight and hold it that really lights the area, you can do any standard stuff from being afraid, meditate, sit on obtacles (different animation depending on what you are sitting on), vote by pulling out a number, "punch or get punched/slapped" and tons of other interactions.

As far as I remember they must have been around 40-50+ interactions available(even special ones when you changed your costume).

Teila:
yes back in the betas the mission architect, the supergroup bases and crafting parts wasn't there yet. It came all later.

In the meantime they even added (I think it was somewhere between 2009-2010 when I read about it) a system that let a hero turn bad and vice versa depending on the decisions the player makes.

Due to this the npcs behaviour changes towards you aswell. :)
So what you are doing does matter and most of all affects you and everything around you aswell.

In Guild Wars 2 it will be similar.
As example:

If you decide to save lets say(as example since elves are not in the game :P) a "elf" from a bunch of centaurs, the elf will make sure that you gain access to the town he/she is coming from OR give you access to something else through informations he/she has. It will also raise your reputation towards this race. That on the other side will make you more known to them so they will also behave different towards you (depending on the person too though).

If not a other chain of events/conditions will take place.

As a other example that was given by the devs there you can help build a bridge a dragon has destroyed by protecting the carpenters from monsters and thiefs.

Through this you have the benefit of being able to go across this bridge and reach the other area as also increasing your reputation towards this town among other things.

If not, the carpenters could get attacked by thiefs and killed so the bridge won't be able to be build and you will have to find a other way around to the other place and so on....

You should check out the Manifesto video of them on the guild wars2 official site. You'll be amazed. :)

I personally can't wait for it!
Have a great day everyone!