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Will Neverwinter Be a Fun MMORPG.
remedialhappyman
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
What I think makes MMORPG's fun and what makes a successful one.
I took a long time refining what I had to say so this will be brief and yet still quite a wall of text.
What makes an MMORPG fun to play?
The simple answer is being a part of a team and completing goals. Really guys that's it, that's pretty much at the core of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons too.
Still there are requirements that I think all GOOD MMORPG's meet.
1) A role based party system. The more that you get to feel like your class and that your class is different than others the better. The whole reason most people deal with **** like grinding to cap level is so that they can play their class in an environment that matters aka ENDGAME. You get tastes of your class in party quests and during dungeons but it's never really like endgame when your class gets valued by every utility it has and by every ounce of skill you have developed during the grind. The fundamental way of this being developed in a setting that's anywhere close to feasible is in a dungeon with encounters.
If you have encounters where the group compilation matters then your first step is complete.
2) Collectables. What do I mean by collectables?
End game gear sets.
Titles.
Mounts.
Cool accessories.
The thing that makes them more valuable is if they can't be bought. They need to be earned or you need to be lucky, I think a combination of the two is best for a game. If you give groups a reason to compete it gives them a reason to keep playing and to get better.
It's also so that people that have completed whatever it is can show off in town. (Yes that really does matter, actually it kind of makes or breaks a lot of MMO's.)
3. The game needs to be challenging at the highest tier and even the next highest tier. This is probably where people will disagree the most with me but in my opinion having played Everquest, WoW, FFXI for quite a bit each time, Less than 10% of people on a server should be able to complete the hardest content.
Why? well assuming less than 40% of the people that play never get to cap level then your only left with 60% of the player base. (I'm not sure how the leveling works in this game but a lot of the player base either quits before cap or re-rolls to fast to actually get there in most games.)
While this isn't a game where you need to gather 25 people for a raid it should still be this challenging. A lot of the switch is going to come from the challenge of gathering people that have the right classes to actually completing hard encounters. Still the general percentage should stay the same.
The reason is comparison and its linked with point 2.
If there isn't anything hard to strive for then there isn't a reason to devote time to it. What makes something worth striving for is if other people don't have it and you want to be one of the ones that does.
Now I'm not sure if the reason a lot of MMO's have based the difficulties on class gathering is intentional or not. That would certainly make the end game less accessible but it almost makes it a joke, the same goes for grinding to do it.
I challenge Neverwinter to be one of the first games that makes their hard endgame difficult and accessible to the majority of the player base.
I'm not sure if this should be with low survival chance or a time attack or what but it really does need to be challenging and implement class mechanics.
Anyways if you complete those things you will have the baseline for a fun MMO in my opinion.
I took a long time refining what I had to say so this will be brief and yet still quite a wall of text.
What makes an MMORPG fun to play?
The simple answer is being a part of a team and completing goals. Really guys that's it, that's pretty much at the core of tabletop Dungeons and Dragons too.
Still there are requirements that I think all GOOD MMORPG's meet.
1) A role based party system. The more that you get to feel like your class and that your class is different than others the better. The whole reason most people deal with **** like grinding to cap level is so that they can play their class in an environment that matters aka ENDGAME. You get tastes of your class in party quests and during dungeons but it's never really like endgame when your class gets valued by every utility it has and by every ounce of skill you have developed during the grind. The fundamental way of this being developed in a setting that's anywhere close to feasible is in a dungeon with encounters.
If you have encounters where the group compilation matters then your first step is complete.
2) Collectables. What do I mean by collectables?
End game gear sets.
Titles.
Mounts.
Cool accessories.
The thing that makes them more valuable is if they can't be bought. They need to be earned or you need to be lucky, I think a combination of the two is best for a game. If you give groups a reason to compete it gives them a reason to keep playing and to get better.
It's also so that people that have completed whatever it is can show off in town. (Yes that really does matter, actually it kind of makes or breaks a lot of MMO's.)
3. The game needs to be challenging at the highest tier and even the next highest tier. This is probably where people will disagree the most with me but in my opinion having played Everquest, WoW, FFXI for quite a bit each time, Less than 10% of people on a server should be able to complete the hardest content.
Why? well assuming less than 40% of the people that play never get to cap level then your only left with 60% of the player base. (I'm not sure how the leveling works in this game but a lot of the player base either quits before cap or re-rolls to fast to actually get there in most games.)
While this isn't a game where you need to gather 25 people for a raid it should still be this challenging. A lot of the switch is going to come from the challenge of gathering people that have the right classes to actually completing hard encounters. Still the general percentage should stay the same.
The reason is comparison and its linked with point 2.
If there isn't anything hard to strive for then there isn't a reason to devote time to it. What makes something worth striving for is if other people don't have it and you want to be one of the ones that does.
Now I'm not sure if the reason a lot of MMO's have based the difficulties on class gathering is intentional or not. That would certainly make the end game less accessible but it almost makes it a joke, the same goes for grinding to do it.
I challenge Neverwinter to be one of the first games that makes their hard endgame difficult and accessible to the majority of the player base.
I'm not sure if this should be with low survival chance or a time attack or what but it really does need to be challenging and implement class mechanics.
Anyways if you complete those things you will have the baseline for a fun MMO in my opinion.
Post edited by remedialhappyman on
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STO does have sets like the Borg set that takes a bit of work to get but it isn't anything uber difficult or ultra rare I think we will see something similar in Neverwinter, one thing Cryptics shys away from is fostering a in game version of haves and have nots, they make things accessible to pretty much anyone who is willing to spend a bit of extra time but not their lives.
Expect though to see most appearance gear, pets, and henchmen to be purchasable, going this direction doesn't preclude the game from being fun, but it does open the door to as many people as possible to have fun in it. I get there are folks on the forum that disagree with me but I don't see Cryptic changing their core philosophy any time soon.
mh...
the way i see it grind is added when the devs can't implement content fast enough to keep up with the players clearing it. (if they didn't there woul be nothing else to do, right?)
most (if not all) games i played were using better gear rewards to keep players farming their highest level dungeons... and even better gear on the next dungeons they would implement, which would lead to players' stats increasing exponentially and the game balance (content wise) being messed up.
i can only hope that ugc (foundry) will be enough to make up for this...
I agree with the large majority of what you said. You've got a good grasp on what Cryptic needs to do. The big question is, does Cryptic have a grasp on it
Answers to your OP in blue...
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This happens to be very true. Furthermore, top gear needs to be spread out, not horded just for raid handouts. In DDO, until this summer, the best gear was only available in raids. That was always a big mistake. DDO HAD to introduce that style initially because they needed to give a valid reason to re-run the hell out of certain quests (the ones they worked hardest on, raids). I've run the Shroud raid in DDO well over a thousand times on all of my toons. At one point it was required to get the greensteel ingredients necessary for crafting (at one point the best gear in the game).
This game needs to avoid that BS. And the Foundry is being made to do just that.
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On the topic of collectables, I don't know about anybody else, but I'll jump through flaming hoops with gasoline soaked clothes for titles. I never really understood why people cared about accolades/achievements/etc. until I started collecting titles.
Dungeons and Dragons Tabletop addresses one of the things I think is a major problem for a lot of MMORPG's. Its character progression is tiered as apposed to only being a path towards endgame.
This I think is because your class functions like it should in a party from moment one and its beneficial to level as a party.
This brings me back to FFXI, though there definitely were things about FFXI I didn't like one of them I did was that groups were massively beneficial.
It doesn't even need to be close to this extreme since in FFXI you literally couldn't do anything by yourself unless you were a beast master.
I would still love to see Party's be beneficial throughout the leveling process and for class ability's to be beneficial throughout the leveling process.
I would love to see the hard mode dungeons while leveling ESPECIALLY if you didn't have to unlock the difficulty through grinding the content. I know with my group even if we died a bunch we would still to the hardest from the get go because we would want to get super awesome rewards even at low levels.
I grinded so hard for Battlemaster in WoW. Even though I already had Glad simply because I wanted to feel like a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in battlegrounds.
Indeed. In fact, one of the biggest miscalculations Turbine made to DDO was dummy-ing down the game. Adding hirelings, nearly unlimited heals just makes almost every quest doable with one or two players (and im not talking the tweaked players I'm talking about the vast majority of the playerbase)
At first it sounds great, but by making the game so easy, it killed the group aspect. Whereas you used to have 30-40+ groups up at any given time, you'll often see between 1-10+ groups up nowadays. Groups waiting to fill 30 minutes to an hour are all too common.
MMOs need to take advantage of what they do best, group play. And its even moreso the case in Neverwinter. Because if Neverwinter has the same grouping problems out of the box as DDO does now, you know what many folks will say? They will say Cryptic should have kept Neverwinter a coop RPG and released the game back on 11/11
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Yeah, that was the beginning of the end for me and that coupled with another drama is when I left the game.
I hope game is like raiderz in that aspect. Even though the grouping system was nightmarish experience (no LFG, automatic placing in groups unlike cryptic games) still people had to group. The reason simply was stated in the game promotion "hunt together or die alone").
Even though many bosses are more profitable and doable while being solo, being solo takes like 0.5 hour to take down a boss while a full party takes like 8 mins. Of course, loot is divided into 5 parts so it might be more profitable to solo - still no one does it. Because in 30 mins, one mistake can lead to your death and full wastage of time. While in group, you can fall back while others fight and recover.
If the game has that aspect while designing encounters and a grouping system like other cryptic games, it will be very fair, enjoyable and balanced. Those who want to take unnecessary risk for long times for a bit of more loot can go solo - those who want to play game as intended can go full party.
In order to fight in the Neromus Wars (A persistent 3 faction online war that lasted 3-4 months each time) you had to join a squad. A squad was like a guild and the war was the entire purpose of the game.
This forced teamwork, I am not suggesting anything like this to be in Neverwinter, you should be free to group or not. Still, something that should have been an inconvenience/burden turned into something that made the game so awesome the experience has never been replicated. I could go on for hours.
I remember playing for 32 hours straight during winter break in school because Moskojv was pushing into our capital, imagine like 90 squad vs squad games among the wartorn streets of your capital at the end of a month long conflict between your nations and seeing your country fall at the end of a massive siege.
The game was so team oriented there was a class of mech called commander that carried radar/telecom for your team so that he could relay enemy positions via grid and give you the ability to use voice chat with our teammates within the radar range.
I remember developing a flare communication system with my squad so we could relay enemy position when coms were out.
This is just a nostalgia fest off topic post but seriously that game was ridiculously epic
I don't see fantasy as dying anywhere in near future. Maybe there was a time when western RPG were being replaced by JRPG, but with bioware's D&D based games (BG, PS and later NWN etc.) it was revived quite nicely. Now the main genres which sell are fantasy and fps. Infact too much popularity of fantasy genre has even spawned stupid hollywood movies like avatar.
Awesome point! Looking forward to "Neverwinter": The Dungeons and Dragons Epic Movie b:victory
Let's try to forget the 2 previous horrendous incarnations... b:avoid
Who actually bought that one with Marlon Wayans?
JS b:embarrass <
It was going for a buck okay, thought it'd be cool b:sweat
This city promises death for the meek, glory for the bold, danger for all, and riches for Jade!
Elven Trickster Rogue: Two-bladed elf, tons of stabby stabby and that sort of thing...
| R. A. Salvatore | My Minions | Forgotten Realms Wiki | Elven Translator |
I prefer fanmade movies and series like:
this
this
and many more which I am lazy to search (one in which PC come out of the boardgame to kill the real players).
That one, (the one with golden dragons -right? lol), was not made with the commitment and love in these movies. The D&D movies made without love do no justice to the fans.
I hear folks talk about DDO being ruined with henchmen and on my server every major guild that was doing well before henchmen are still doing well today...so it isn't really the game apocalypse that the over dramatic tend to claim it is.
If some guy wants to hire a bot no skin off my nose he probably wasn't going to seek out a real person to begin with for whatever reason,and he is backing the game financially which is a good thing. Forced grouping makes those who were going to group anyway and those that wasn't skip content and ultimately leave the game. I know several non social types or those that just don't feel like dealing with the unwashed masses of the internet drop fifty to a hundred bucks a month in turbine points for henchman and potions, they may not be living up to the standards of the purist but they are supporting the developer with much needed dollars and they are having fun in their own way..also you just don't give the finger to a major source of income.
I know that there are those that disagree with me (big surprise b:scorn ) but this is the direction that profitable MMO's that aren't made by Blizzard are moving towards. Draconian ideas don't keep the lights on, and as Craig Zenkovich said Cryptic knows better than anyone what works and doesn't work in western F2P and like it or not henchman and healing pots are huge sellers, blame the industry or blame Gabes GIFT the result is still the same.
/Dons flame retardant suit.
And look how well that did for them they had to go ftp just to become viable. While i enjoy CO its as a very casual player. The games that really got me hooked were everquest , Dark Age of Camelot and City of heroes. Team based games. As games became solo centric i have enjoyed them less and less. I personally blame wow for that an easy mode game which became very popular. Sure the top end raid content was challenging but other than that it was not very stimulating. Swtor while having a fantastic story was solo centric and look how well its doing. I have never played a game with such an in depth story for each class however you could max out you character in weeks or days for the hard core player.
As long as the journey is fun and exciting it really does not matter that it takes a year to get there. Doing the same content over and over to get there is not fun.
I agree with this part, I think there should be the option of henchmen for those who are willing to purchase them. Not only does it make money for the company, it will open the game up to the more solo type people. And who knows, maybe after they get the feel for group play they may even try out grouping with real people instead of henchmen.
The thing is there is a lot of "I" in what you are saying there is an entire large demographic that feels differently also no one is stopping any developer from AAA or indie from making a group centric game, they aren't making them because most developers believe they just aren't viable and that isn't speculation it is what I have heard venture capitalist say every time they shot down a proposal. These money groups maybe wrong, but that perception carries the day.
As far as SWTOR goes Stephen Reid and Trent Oster said that the good Doctors begged EA and LA to go for a B2P model similar to Guild Wars but they wouldn't budge, How differnt would the perception be if TOR was sitting on 2.1 million users who bought the box like GW2 is currently doing?
Exactly, our guild on DDO have actually picked up several people who ran solo with henchmen..it happens more often than not.
Noone here claims hirelings alone "ruined" DDO.
What I stated is that the dummying down of the game over time, the push towards solo and duo play has been very bad for the game, in my opinion.
Of course "major" guilds thrived well before and after. Smaller "Non-established guilds" thrived as well. Heck we've done even better in the last 2 years. But I don't think you understand why that is so.
You want to know what our own recruits told me the reasons were they wanted to join our guild? People got tired of not being able to find a group to run with. People got tired of logging in an seeing none of their guildies on. Many guilds have gotten hurt. Large and small guilds. Why did we thrive? Because we stood for team play and camaraderie. And many on our server know that and wanted to be a part of the fun we share. There are many guilds like ours (the Old Timers Guild, for one) that treat their guildies with dignity and humanity. These are the guilds that have survived and thrived. Guilds that just recruit to play the guild renown > guild decay game (another STUPID <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> SYSTEM Turbine implemented to dummy down the game.) have come and gone. Many guilds did well, not just major ones, but many more failed, including some of the most established guilds. It all comes down to TEAM PLAY. Camaraderie. and Organization.
That's what I mean when I say good strong guilds make the foundation for a good strong game.
Hirelings alone are fine. Dummying down the game by offering blatant pay2win items in the store for your dime, unlimited heals, unlimited mana, unlimited raise dead (even in a party of yourself, and youre already dead), unlimited restoration,unlimited character reincarnation, a full party of pets that fight for you, have all meant diminishing challenge to be had. Its to the point NOW those playing the game for a few weeks can solo most of the epic end game quests in the Forgotten Realms. This has KILLED the looking- for-group mechanic. This comes after almost a year of a broken economy brought on by exploits and Turbines own Cannith crafting system.
In a game with a very limited number of quests -- for some... there's nothing left but boredom.
Well, of course it comes down to money. But there's a big range of options. Greed spelled "Pay2Win" is not a requirement, it's a habit. A successful game economy needs to offer what the customers demand, not what the publisher demands.
And if PW/Cryptic gets it right, Neverwinter will be a very successful game. And based on the words of Mr Emmert at GenCon 2012, it sounds like they just might "get it" this time around.
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Yeah, I agree hirelings are great as well. I'd like to see them. The problem DDO is having now with so few looking for groups is far more complex tho than just the addition of hirelings, its all the other stuff that makes play so... easy.
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Nice read...but I don't recall ever saying that I approved of those pay2win items or that I thought they worked, the difference here is what people classify as pay2win unlimited resurrection scrolls are pay2win yet I have seen people get all bent out of shape for even allowing one with a significant cool down, no matter what developers supply there will always be some one screaming pay2win.
Also there is a big difference between dummying down a game and making a game more accessible to casual players, and I know that concept irks some of the hard-cores but accessibly isn't going anywhere.
I do agree with you in regards that Cryptic has it right, you wouldn't know that with how many folks are screaming about perceived pay2win in CO and STO and when Neverwinter launches those same people will be screaming pay2win here as well.
Hope that clears it up.
Accessibility only is important to a game with a playerbase. When you have a burned out broken community with a defeated morale, you have lost profits over the long term. Accessibility alone does not guarantee further growth or increased profits, the art of adding and retaining satisfied gamers do. Making a GOOD GAME does. I believe its not a "big difference" at all, but a fine line. (That's why so many game devs/publishers get it wrong)
Broken down to its simplest of elements, a whole lot of two way communication and a severe deficiency of greed. I have put my faith in Cryptic, they should have a break-out winner on their hands.
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No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
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/boggle
Any feature is only important to a game with a player base...can you give me an example of a current F2P MMO with a burned out broken community?
it's a given that there is communication as far as lack of greed goes..someone should tell Allods Online that...gpotato is the greediest company I have ever seen yet they still do an amazing bossiness, and it's companies like that who set the bad example for other developers. But lack of greed doesn't necessarily spell doom.
Wow you missed the point entirely.
The burned out, broken community I referred to was DDO. That last paragraph you wrote I'm not even going to try to decipher.
Outside of my guild walls, if I had to pug every day, I'd quite within a week. PUGs have all but vanished on Ghallanda, compared to the way it was 2-3 years ago. I'd suppose it isnt much different on other DDO servers as well.
Anyway, lets get back on topic. Will Neverwinter be a fun MMO? If they listen to their playerbase, make a good game, and aren't greedy, I think they'll do great.
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No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
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No didn't miss the point, I just think it's a bit overboard to say DDO has a burned out broken community, especially since I know the profits they made last quarter, a broken community doesn't spend money, they leave.
Also I don't see what's so indecipherable about the last paragraph I wrote, sorry you couldn't comprehend it.
But at least we can agree on the last part of your statement.
... and too many have.
Just because many blindly spent the $80 (for the top package) doesnt mean they were happy with the end product. A good number expressed sticker shock, got bored (or pissed) and left. We arent talking an exodus, but more left the game in the last 3 months then I'd ever seen leave in the 7 years I've been in the community.
You nor I know the real number, because they do not discuss figures to the public, but anyone who's been around knows server populations are down from pre-MotU.
I still love the game, still play, and have the greatest people to run with each night. I will always play DDO, up till the day they "unplug them servers". Sadly however, not every one has my patience & loyalty.
In my opi, an unguilded person in DDO, that hasnt made any friends, is basically up the creek, because the days where dozens of PUG groups left with FULL parties is a thing of the past in DDO. It's nowhere NEAR the way it used to be. PUGlife is a ghost town for those who are just starting out compared to a few years ago.
That's just from my eyes. But its not DOOOM, DDO will still be rockin for the next few years at least. I just hope Neverwinter can deliver at LEAST as many good years of D&D enjoyment as DDO has.
Also, I hope those of us that DOES PLAY (or has played) BOTH GAMES, will be able look upon each other with respect and welcome each other to join in new adventures. I have a feeling that many will switch back and forth between games... and I'm looking forward to a little DEV Battle Royal... with both the DDO and Neverwinter communities as the winners
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