I"ve played many games of many types over the years, and I've often asked the question, what makes a game GOOD?
For me, there are certain things I look for.
I like CONSISTENCY. That means I expect the world I'm playing in to behave in a consistent, logical manner. The only game that really does this seems to be the grandaddy of them all, D&D. Ask a L1 character and a L20 character, "How much damage does a Longsword do?" and you'll get the smae answer - 1d8. A longsword is a longsword, no matter what the level of the character using it. Unfortunately, most games don't do this.
I like a LIVING WORLD. That means I like to see a world that seems to exist and progress entirely without my input. NPCs have their own lives and concerns. This links into the above expectancy as well, as I expect the world of NPCs to be consistent, too.
This also feeds into the desire I have that there be things to do in the world that DON'T require "adventuring." I play Lord of the Rings Online, and spend 90% of my time standing around in the Auction Hall playing music. I was L26 for over a year! When I played Morrowind, I spent my time going all over the place trying to find all the books in the game for my library. In Galaxies, I spent weeks exploring planets looking for a good spot to pyut my house, then weeks more decorating it.
I like BALANCE. That is, I expect that all characters in the game, PC and NPC alike, will play by the same rules. If I encounter a foe that has abilities that exceed my own, there had better be a good (hopefully story-driven) reason why. If my foe is a Science Officer, he shouldn't be tossing Photon Grenades because that's not something Science Officers can do. If he's the same level, class and race as me, he'd better have roughly the same health and so forth. OF course, the opposite is true. I don't expect PCs to have abilities exceeding those of the NPCs. Keep the playing field level and consistent.
I may add more later, but I'm interested to see what all of you might add to the list. Try to keep it general, I'm not referring just to STO, but hope it will still pertain.
I like BALANCE. That is, I expect that all characters in the game, PC and NPC alike, will play by the same rules.
Starcraft was a pretty popular game. It's balance was infamously poor.
I've yet to play an MMO where PCs and NPCs play by the same rules. Everquest was a pretty popular MMO in its time. Its NPCs could shoot through walls, rampage, transfer aggro through proximity, summon players and death touch them.
Starcraft was a pretty popular game. It's balance was infamously poor.
I've yet to play an MMO where PCs and NPCs play by the same rules. Everquest was a pretty popular MMO in its time. Its NPCs could shoot through walls, rampage, transfer aggro through proximity, summon players and death touch them.
Plane of Fear pops to mind.
Plane of fear filled me with a rage that burned hotter than the fire of a thousand suns. my least favorite zone in that game after Guk.
To answer the OP though,
what makes a good game? to me it is 2 simple things.
That I enjoy it and have fun playing it... that is the most basic thing. If a game gets to the point where any facet of it becomes so tedious that it feels like work instead of a game then the game loses its appeal
Variety of ways to spend time in game. I enjoy a game where i can casually go solo a few missions if i just want to kill some time, or try to get a raid going if i want to.
Pretty much one simple word sums up what I like to see.
"Variety"
Things to craft
Craftng specialties
Gear choices
Class choices
Levels
Ways to grind out levels
Difficulty ranges
Group content
Solo content
Raid content
Places to go just for the sake of exploring
Places to go just to grind if you do not want to do anything story related
Story elements
Quests
Personalities of NPCs
Player and NPC abilities
Choices in how to handle certain situations (Diplomacy Vs. Combat)
Different outcomes for choices you have made.
List goes on.
I like to see tons of variety.
Once those things are satisfied, then I look into balance,mechanics, and things such as this "was it worth it to go that pond and spend 3 days to fish for the blue ringtailed razorfish".
There has to be a justification for the difficulty or time spent.
What makes a good game? Particularly the question should be, what makes a good MMO?
1. Good Game Mechanics. For STO, Space Combat has it, Ground combat doesn't. Its that simple. Guild Wars has an excellent combat system...but gimmick builds were common. WoW also has a pretty good combat system...when the enemy numbers are reasonable. Lord Of The Rings Online was a copy pasta of WoW's combat. Everquest II had an oddly interactive combat system, Unfortunately I did not explore that game much further. Tabula Rasa had a visceral combat system that was pretty enjoyable, but everything else sucked. Atlantica Online has a great turn based system which is like Fire Emblem, but its fairly unbalanced. All of those are 100 times better than STO Ground Combat.
2. Proper Risk v. Reward Ratio. During leveling, the only motivation was the next ship class. There is simply not much motivation to do a quest/mission after MAX level. World Of WarCraft and many others have tweaked this to death. Blizzard has perfected the virtual "Carrot on a stick" and psychology that instantly motivates you to go after whatever loot you wanted. I wanted "The Hog" once. But to gather the materials to craft that was mind boggling...and tedious. Blizzard has a habit of reducing the tedium after a while, so maybe it will be more obtainable after Cataclysm.
3. Presentation. This is probably the same as "living world". When docking at a space station, there should be an actual dock and docking procedure. When warping, there should be more than a prompt to the next area. Models should be proportionate and not over or undersized. Ship models should be relatively free of errors(I understand that errors happen but not at the magnitude of some ships in STO). Chairs should work. Big ships shouldn't glide around Sector Space. Exploration should be more than a bloom field of map points. The interface should not look like it was made with WordPerfect clipart(STO isn't the only one. Just look at LOTRO).
The funny part is a lot of that is probably easy to fix for STO. But , I don't see much focus on it though.
besides the usual stuff like good graphics, good story, fun game mechanics, the things that make good games for me is giving us a reason to log in and try to advance your character a little further, either through xp, loot, costume or appearance, new items, whilst having fun.
a game also needs something that is fresh and new each time. now thats usually impossible as game makers cant just put new content out every week but creating systems such as random missions, more expansive pvp, crafting and UGC will help
Sto is lacking in this area at the moment but hopefully will be addressed
I disagree - objects that are in motion tend to stay in motion. Newtonian physics.
As for what I enjoy in a game:
Variety - both in visual and gameplay customization. Let me look like a Captain, an Engineering Chief, a Rogue Okana, or a Klingon Warrior - then let me play the part in content that suits me (i.e. PvP, PvE, Raid, Crafting, Non-violence, Violence)
User-generated Content - Whether it's the developers taking player feedback to make a new component to the game or giving the tools to us, it's fun to feel part of a larger community wanting the best out of something.
Comments
Starcraft was a pretty popular game. It's balance was infamously poor.
I've yet to play an MMO where PCs and NPCs play by the same rules. Everquest was a pretty popular MMO in its time. Its NPCs could shoot through walls, rampage, transfer aggro through proximity, summon players and death touch them.
Plane of Fear pops to mind.
Plane of fear filled me with a rage that burned hotter than the fire of a thousand suns. my least favorite zone in that game after Guk.
To answer the OP though,
what makes a good game? to me it is 2 simple things.
That I enjoy it and have fun playing it... that is the most basic thing. If a game gets to the point where any facet of it becomes so tedious that it feels like work instead of a game then the game loses its appeal
Variety of ways to spend time in game. I enjoy a game where i can casually go solo a few missions if i just want to kill some time, or try to get a raid going if i want to.
"Variety"
Things to craft
Craftng specialties
Gear choices
Class choices
Levels
Ways to grind out levels
Difficulty ranges
Group content
Solo content
Raid content
Places to go just for the sake of exploring
Places to go just to grind if you do not want to do anything story related
Story elements
Quests
Personalities of NPCs
Player and NPC abilities
Choices in how to handle certain situations (Diplomacy Vs. Combat)
Different outcomes for choices you have made.
List goes on.
I like to see tons of variety.
Once those things are satisfied, then I look into balance,mechanics, and things such as this "was it worth it to go that pond and spend 3 days to fish for the blue ringtailed razorfish".
There has to be a justification for the difficulty or time spent.
1. Good Game Mechanics. For STO, Space Combat has it, Ground combat doesn't. Its that simple. Guild Wars has an excellent combat system...but gimmick builds were common. WoW also has a pretty good combat system...when the enemy numbers are reasonable. Lord Of The Rings Online was a copy pasta of WoW's combat. Everquest II had an oddly interactive combat system, Unfortunately I did not explore that game much further. Tabula Rasa had a visceral combat system that was pretty enjoyable, but everything else sucked. Atlantica Online has a great turn based system which is like Fire Emblem, but its fairly unbalanced. All of those are 100 times better than STO Ground Combat.
2. Proper Risk v. Reward Ratio. During leveling, the only motivation was the next ship class. There is simply not much motivation to do a quest/mission after MAX level. World Of WarCraft and many others have tweaked this to death. Blizzard has perfected the virtual "Carrot on a stick" and psychology that instantly motivates you to go after whatever loot you wanted. I wanted "The Hog" once. But to gather the materials to craft that was mind boggling...and tedious. Blizzard has a habit of reducing the tedium after a while, so maybe it will be more obtainable after Cataclysm.
3. Presentation. This is probably the same as "living world". When docking at a space station, there should be an actual dock and docking procedure. When warping, there should be more than a prompt to the next area. Models should be proportionate and not over or undersized. Ship models should be relatively free of errors(I understand that errors happen but not at the magnitude of some ships in STO). Chairs should work. Big ships shouldn't glide around Sector Space. Exploration should be more than a bloom field of map points. The interface should not look like it was made with WordPerfect clipart(STO isn't the only one. Just look at LOTRO).
The funny part is a lot of that is probably easy to fix for STO. But , I don't see much focus on it though.
a game also needs something that is fresh and new each time. now thats usually impossible as game makers cant just put new content out every week but creating systems such as random missions, more expansive pvp, crafting and UGC will help
Sto is lacking in this area at the moment but hopefully will be addressed
As for what I enjoy in a game:
Variety - both in visual and gameplay customization. Let me look like a Captain, an Engineering Chief, a Rogue Okana, or a Klingon Warrior - then let me play the part in content that suits me (i.e. PvP, PvE, Raid, Crafting, Non-violence, Violence)
User-generated Content - Whether it's the developers taking player feedback to make a new component to the game or giving the tools to us, it's fun to feel part of a larger community wanting the best out of something.