Profile: kopema
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• • How many mobs do you expect to kill?

  • Originally posted by ironore
    

    Wait!  Why are we grinding mobs again?
    
    Oh, right to level.  That model is outdated, ...that worked fine in single player or small group player games, but just separates people in a game that is about playing together.

    
     

    Yeah, I really don't get that.  It makes sense in a single-player game, where a designer wants to walk you through the cute little story that he wrote.

    But that's the LAST thing I want in an MMORPG.  I want as much flexibility to explore as possible.  Instead, I keep getting pushed out of content I was having fun in and separated from everyone who spends either more or less time playing than I do!

    I wish MMORPG's could be more broad than tall.  I don't see the point of general leveling at all, where your hitpoints, to-hit, resists, etc. all go up a smidgen every time you level.  Sure I want to make some progress, but I want to FEEL the progress, and the best way to do that is through what I call "punctuated advancement."  Instead of getting generally more powerful, and instead of new equipment where I have to read through a spreadsheet to see the difference, give me single new power, upped stat or item that I can really notice while playing.

    And I don't need them to always be additive.   A significant part of leveling could involve not power, but flexibility.  Maybe a beginning player can only have one special ability, but that could be nearly as powerful as an advanced character.  This would let newbies make a significant contribution to "oldbie" groups, raids, whatever - but in a narrowed capacity; while the higher levels could switch roles as needed, a beginning player could only handle one specific task at a time.

  • Posted: 8/09/08 3:31 PM
    Developers Corner
• • How many mobs do you expect to kill?

  • I wish the battles themselves were short, but I wish the player could benefit from time time strategizing before each encounter.

    For example,  animals should travel in herds, and you'd have to pick out a weak one and cull it out.

    Humanoids should also generally be living and working together in clumps - instead of just standing around at 5-yard intervals waiting for someone to come along and and take them out like a row of fence posts.  You should have to do something like  figure out a patrol pattern, or distract one at a time to pick them off.  Dungeons should have relatively empty spaces, punctuated by defensive "hard points" - after you storm one, you should get to use that as a place to rest up before striking out again. 

    The actual times themselves would vary.  In an easy zone, I should be able to plow through stuff.  But if I'm in a tougher zone for my level, or if I just screw up a battle, add extra time to rest and repair.

  • Posted: 8/08/08 9:30 PM
    Developers Corner
• • Have Developers gotten lazy?

  • Originally posted by fiontar
    

    Another common problem I see with most MMORPGs is lack of content.

    
    If you're talking about the minor games, I personally couldn't care less about content because I quit after the first ten seconds when I see there's no gameplay.  And a generic MMORPG uuber-engine wouldn't help them anyway, because they couldn't afford the basic licensing fees in the first place, let alone have enough recources left over to make their game into something original.

    The major MMORPG's have MASSIVE amounts of content, but It's a catch-22: the content is there; it's just not accessible to the people who want to spend the time playing it. 

    The programmers themselves aren't lazy - they put in massive amounts of time.  The laziness is at the top:  designers only pay attention to the squeaky wheels: people who have no interest in exploration or overcoming obstacles within the context of the game itself  - in other words, people who have no interest in roleplaying - and prefer instead to blow through the content as rapidly as possible using cheat sites, guild assembly line tactics, etc. to get to the "endgame," only to then scream at the top of their lungs about how there's "nothing to do." 

    In catering to that weird but extraordinarily vocal market segment, publishers ignore the throngs of people out there who actually LIKE leveling roleplaying games and who quietly stop paying their fees when they get to the point where the game becomes too frustrating for anyone except those sad, pathetic folk who are willing to put up with any amount of reward-for-tedium as a narcissitic substitute for competitive sport.

  • Posted: 8/08/08 7:48 PM
    Developers Corner
• • Stargate Worlds: Combat Hands On Preview

  • Originally posted by Stevesan
    

    All that is done at the moment is to milk licenses.

    
     

    That shouldn't be a problem, as long as Stargate Worlds can get by on 1% of the playerbase Star Wars Galaxies has.

    When I heard the original claims for SGW, I was interested.  They described mission-based scenarios where science, diplomacy, archeology and - as a last resort - combat were all going to work together, just like in the TV show.

    And what do we see now? Just another run-and-gun first-person-shooter.  Oh, but this one has a new kind of hit-point bar!  Whoop-freakin'-eee.

    Seriously though; that's perfectly fine, but the game will be judged on those merits, in a very competitive field.  I doubt that having theStargate brand and visuals will make people less likely to play this game than to play any game not based on a license from a medium outside of computer gaming, but I don't see why it would make anyone except the extreme fans of the series any more likely to play this game.  Will this turn out to be better than Tabula Rasa?  Maybe.  But better than Halo, Gears of War or Army of Two?  Seems unlikely.

    And all this talk about an "unfinished" game doesn't mean squat.  Graphics, level content, bug fixes, optimizations, etc., etc., call all be added as you go along.  But core gameplay is something that should have been mocked up and fully playtested during pre-alpha; a very long time before the artists designed ten different kinds of body armor.  The basic FUN of a game isn't something you can tack on later.  If you don't have that at the beginning, all the rest of your work is wasted.  If we can't look at the gameplay and see why it's supposed to be special now; there's no reason to think we ever will.

  • Posted: 8/08/08 6:36 PM
    General Discussion