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Neverwinter is Good, Here's How to Make it Great
cantankerousmage
Member Posts: 210 Arc User
Even the best. For ten years to come.
Think outside of the box.
Every MMORPG wants to be the next World of Warcraft. But, no, you don't. That's been done already, it will never be done again. Players have moved past that. What you do want to do is take the things from Everquest, World of Warcraft, and Everquest 2 that are good and copy them, then make them better. Everquest copied Dungeons and Dragons anyway, then WoW copied EQ. Take what worked in those games, and improve upon them. Different factions, good and evil alignment, different zones and quest paths to level in depending on your race, alignment, and starting city. But not their PVP, and not their endgame. Ever since EQ and WoW, every MMORPG seems to believe that the endgame is just supposed to be about getting better gear and fighting harder monsters and getting better gear. Lol. All you ever do with the gear is fight harder monsters, kill weaker monsters more easily, or fight other players in PVP (which sucks in just about every MMORPG since Ultima Online). And Ultima didn't really do it PVP right either, though players say it was better in Ultima than anywhere else since. (The thing is PVP should be about competition, fair competition, not who's been playing longer, has better gear, or paid more money. And most of all, it should be fun for everyone who participates in it, not just the overpowered or higher level players.) But more important than PVP itself, though PVP can definitely play an important role in the endgame, is the Endgame. Get back to the roots of role-playing games. Dungeons and Dragons. Why do people play pencil-and-paper rpgs? Because they want to experience what it's like to live in a fantasy world, like Middle Earth, etc. Dungeons and Dragons provided that. But the Dungeon Master never did all the work, he or she did the lion's share, but a good one also gave the players the right scenarios and tools to ignite their imaginations so that they all created the experience together. The players end up creating the content just as much as the Dungeon Master. So, Endgame. What do high level characters do in a fantasy world? What do they do in pencil-and-paper rpgs? They have many options. They can become build castles, raise armies, become generals, lords, merchants, guild leaders, pirate or bandit kings, even rulers of an entire kingdom. Some even eventually become deities. There are many possibilities. But all this is made much more interesting if you have players from an opposing faction or factions striving toward the same goal and getting in your way. When you provide players with the right tools and scenarios, they themselves will create much of the content for you.
For example, there were these very simple text games with limited graphics on Myspace years ago. Heroes, Mobsters, Outworld, Bloodlines, etc. All people could do was talk to each other, purchase soldiers/creatures/vehicles and equipment, buy real estate and invest in it to increase its value (and thus their income), attack each other, kill each other, bounty each other, and claim bounties on those who were placed on the bounty list. More skilled players would also do what is known as riding the bounty list, as in spamming the heal button while people attacked them and tried to claim their bounty. Their bounty price was determined by the income from their real estate. People with less income were cheaper to bounty, higher incomes were more expensive to place on the bounty list. Their stats showed wins, losses, kills, and deaths (maybe bounties collected, I forget). A big part of the fun was trying to get on the Legends List. You could be a legend for number of wins, number of kills, amount of income, and bounties collected. Still a lot of people still played those games, simple as they were. They formed factions, made allies and enemies. There were heroes and villains among the players. Their imagination did most of the work. What I'm trying to say here is that, though they were not horribly complex or flashy in the least, those games allowed the players themselves to create the content, and they kept each other playing. But 3D MMORPGS can do so much more. In many ways, the success of WoW has doomed MMORPGs to slowly fade away as players lose interest. Because while WoW did a lot of things right, they did their Endgame and PVP totally wrong.
*I remembered what else you could do in those games and added it in.
*****************************************
This is 2016, and many MMORPG game designers seem to just keep trying to relive 2004 (around the time WoW and EQ2 debuted). Flashier graphics won't improve an Endgame concept that has grown rusty and corroded with age. The mechanics and gameplay of Neverwinter are the best and most enjoyable in any MMORPG I've yet played. The way we are able to interact with the world is far superior to all other games I know of, the combat is the most fun. So, you have everything you need to take MMORPGs to the next level. The technology has progressed to the point now that there's no reason not to see how closely MMORPGs would able to match the complexity of pencil-and-paper MMORPGs. I can see little reason not to at try. Seems like Everquest Next may have been heading in that direction. Unfortunately their financial backer decided to cancel the project. I don't know what happened there. The official statement from Daybreak is that "it was not fun". I find that highly unlikely.
******************************************
But even just introducing some tried and true concepts like different factions, alignments, starting zones and leveling quest paths would vastly improve both the playability and re-playability of Neverwinter.
Think outside of the box.
Every MMORPG wants to be the next World of Warcraft. But, no, you don't. That's been done already, it will never be done again. Players have moved past that. What you do want to do is take the things from Everquest, World of Warcraft, and Everquest 2 that are good and copy them, then make them better. Everquest copied Dungeons and Dragons anyway, then WoW copied EQ. Take what worked in those games, and improve upon them. Different factions, good and evil alignment, different zones and quest paths to level in depending on your race, alignment, and starting city. But not their PVP, and not their endgame. Ever since EQ and WoW, every MMORPG seems to believe that the endgame is just supposed to be about getting better gear and fighting harder monsters and getting better gear. Lol. All you ever do with the gear is fight harder monsters, kill weaker monsters more easily, or fight other players in PVP (which sucks in just about every MMORPG since Ultima Online). And Ultima didn't really do it PVP right either, though players say it was better in Ultima than anywhere else since. (The thing is PVP should be about competition, fair competition, not who's been playing longer, has better gear, or paid more money. And most of all, it should be fun for everyone who participates in it, not just the overpowered or higher level players.) But more important than PVP itself, though PVP can definitely play an important role in the endgame, is the Endgame. Get back to the roots of role-playing games. Dungeons and Dragons. Why do people play pencil-and-paper rpgs? Because they want to experience what it's like to live in a fantasy world, like Middle Earth, etc. Dungeons and Dragons provided that. But the Dungeon Master never did all the work, he or she did the lion's share, but a good one also gave the players the right scenarios and tools to ignite their imaginations so that they all created the experience together. The players end up creating the content just as much as the Dungeon Master. So, Endgame. What do high level characters do in a fantasy world? What do they do in pencil-and-paper rpgs? They have many options. They can become build castles, raise armies, become generals, lords, merchants, guild leaders, pirate or bandit kings, even rulers of an entire kingdom. Some even eventually become deities. There are many possibilities. But all this is made much more interesting if you have players from an opposing faction or factions striving toward the same goal and getting in your way. When you provide players with the right tools and scenarios, they themselves will create much of the content for you.
For example, there were these very simple text games with limited graphics on Myspace years ago. Heroes, Mobsters, Outworld, Bloodlines, etc. All people could do was talk to each other, purchase soldiers/creatures/vehicles and equipment, buy real estate and invest in it to increase its value (and thus their income), attack each other, kill each other, bounty each other, and claim bounties on those who were placed on the bounty list. More skilled players would also do what is known as riding the bounty list, as in spamming the heal button while people attacked them and tried to claim their bounty. Their bounty price was determined by the income from their real estate. People with less income were cheaper to bounty, higher incomes were more expensive to place on the bounty list. Their stats showed wins, losses, kills, and deaths (maybe bounties collected, I forget). A big part of the fun was trying to get on the Legends List. You could be a legend for number of wins, number of kills, amount of income, and bounties collected. Still a lot of people still played those games, simple as they were. They formed factions, made allies and enemies. There were heroes and villains among the players. Their imagination did most of the work. What I'm trying to say here is that, though they were not horribly complex or flashy in the least, those games allowed the players themselves to create the content, and they kept each other playing. But 3D MMORPGS can do so much more. In many ways, the success of WoW has doomed MMORPGs to slowly fade away as players lose interest. Because while WoW did a lot of things right, they did their Endgame and PVP totally wrong.
*I remembered what else you could do in those games and added it in.
*****************************************
This is 2016, and many MMORPG game designers seem to just keep trying to relive 2004 (around the time WoW and EQ2 debuted). Flashier graphics won't improve an Endgame concept that has grown rusty and corroded with age. The mechanics and gameplay of Neverwinter are the best and most enjoyable in any MMORPG I've yet played. The way we are able to interact with the world is far superior to all other games I know of, the combat is the most fun. So, you have everything you need to take MMORPGs to the next level. The technology has progressed to the point now that there's no reason not to see how closely MMORPGs would able to match the complexity of pencil-and-paper MMORPGs. I can see little reason not to at try. Seems like Everquest Next may have been heading in that direction. Unfortunately their financial backer decided to cancel the project. I don't know what happened there. The official statement from Daybreak is that "it was not fun". I find that highly unlikely.
******************************************
But even just introducing some tried and true concepts like different factions, alignments, starting zones and leveling quest paths would vastly improve both the playability and re-playability of Neverwinter.
Post edited by cantankerousmage on
0
Comments
And honestly, factions are bad. They just split the population and make grouping for content harder. And that is when done right. Cryptic has not had a long history of doing it even close to right. Star Trek, for example, started with factions. It took nearly two years for Klingons to be even remotely equal. Up until that point they were little more then a PVP faction with very little PvE content. They did the same thing when they added their third faction, Romulans are just a shadow and sidekick for the main two factions.
Most games are stepping away from the headaches of factions. You don't really need factions to have PVP. And you wont have to deal with the problems of multiple hubs. or starting cities, or exclusive queues. Put simply, Neverwinter is much too far along in its life cycle for anything on this scale. You want core alterations, and that is just simply not going to happen.
So discounting the stark reality that Cryptic has in no way the staff or ability to completely create new starting areas and leveling paths for new factions. After all it took nearly 2 mods to finally have content to fill in the gaps just from 60 to 70 and thats for just one faction. You have to consider how much of a hard sell this would also be for Wizards of the Coast.
What you want is borderline absurd. You want to double or triple the content, to support new factions. From a development team that is struggling to produce content equal to each previous module. In a game that is 3 years into its projected 5 year lifespan. That is a licensed product, preventing radical changes that might conflict with lore, rules, or future tie-in's. EVERY single module that has directly tied to Wizards official content has been heroes fighting a larger evil. There is simply no way that they will suddenly change their minds on this.
What you are proposing is a fantasy, an indulgence into what if, or what might of been. This might of been an interesting conversation if we were talking about another game, from another company. But we arn't.
No one is going to crowd fund an old game.
Even if Cryptic had the money they lack the experience.
Even if they could get the talent it would take years for it to be implemented and bear fruit.
Even if they could pull it off, WotC has no reason to allow them to.
I could go on, but the point is clear. Not this game, not this time.
If you want to dream about where the future of MMOs, are going, or should be going, and have a conversation about it. You might get more support, but not here, not as you presented it, and not in a forum section devoted to this games feedback.
There are some new MMORPGs that claim to return more to the old ways and some that sort of specialize in particular aspects of MMORPGs (like BnS and 1on1s or small # arena combat, or BDO that claims the journey is just as important as the destination also owpvp, whether how true that is; I do not know, but Ive watched streams of both and read alot on both. Also Tree of Savior returns to a HEAVY grind type game but will appeal to oldschoolers who played alot of Ragnarok)
I wouldnt worry too much though, this game has been out for like 3 years now. Itll be here for another half a decade most likely. If you like it, enjoy. Probably just stay away from the forums and enjoy your time with players in-game. The vocal minority argument is just a farce in how most people frame it btw. They are the "vocal", meaning they actually post stuff and they are the "minority" meaning a smallish percentage post on the forums, but they're not always wrong like alot of Devs/Pubs/Mods/fanbois would like you to believe, ofc they are not always right. They're just the people who post, which is a small percentage.
As far as the suggestions go, sockmonkey pretty much explained it. PWE/Cryptic just doesnt have the resources needed to make those type of changes and for an ageing game it doesnt really make much sense to reinvest more considering how the market and demographics works for f2p mmorpgs.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
As far as the paradigm shift goes, it was f2p/ w p2w or p2convience; that was the paradigm and monteziation shift devs/pubs went too. I noticed alot has changed from when I first started really gaming in the mid 90s. Every game genre has gone to it or gone to the DLC methods. Back in the day, it was just regular people making awesome free mods. Games ive played like that quakeworld --> teamfortres, clan arena, rj maps etc. Battlefield 1/2 --> lots of mods. Half life---> mod after mod after mod, from the origins of Counterstrike, to day of defeat, to some crazy matrix mod I played. Rainbow six the original ---> Nato mod added like 50-60 guns and diff maps. Starcraft --> tower defenses, the origins of dota (wc3 also expanded upon this). MMORPGs just pretty much were the game, they didnt have a million ways to nickel and dime you; you bought the game and there it was. I remember playing WoW at LAN with friends when it was first released, all I did was pick herbs all day and I enjoyed it, but MMORPGs were just not something that really interested me at the time though all my friends did play WoW, star wars galaxies, DAOC, or EQ.
Its rare too see any of that anymore, devs decided they better cash in. That was the paradigm shift you're talking about. We will never go back cause of monies. (until human civilizaton reaches a type 1 civilization or beyond, when energy and natural resources are no longer even considered scarce)
Just have fun. There is always real life too
ON, WISCONSIN! TO THE SWEET SIXTEEN WE GO!
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
The 2nd paragraph, yes keep giving feedback. Just keep your expectations that'll actually change things low.
3rd paragraph. The paradigm shift went to "micro" transactions, which alot of times dont seem very micro. The B2P, and sub games have also added these "micro" transactions, that add up to millions upon millions of revenue. Usually though, they are less intrusive on the forms of progressions most players look for.
As far as getting a new computer. That's up to you, I thought my P2 350 MHZ, TNT2 AGP, 512 mb RAM, was the bombtastic 20+ years ago. But eventually if you want to game the newest, you just have to. But like you listed there are still plenty of older games. I still play Master of Orion 2 often enough, and to most people that game is ancient now. Ive told people that irl, and they are like "whoa that is a foundation relic of 4x grand strategy games". I guess? It was just that good.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas