Whats missing from MMORPGs

[TheGreySpectre]

I just started playing WOW, and its an awesome game, however like many other MMORPGs I have played its missing one thing

good Sound

To me the sound in most MMORPGS is pretty repatative, They need a larger soundtrack that is not area specfic, and the thing they are missing most is they need more audio dialogue, maybe not for PCs but NPCs should have voice acting. for example I liked how in Morrowind people had all sorts of greetings they would give you when you walked by


List of things we would like to see in MMOs
1. Better Sound
2. Item & Skill correlation
3. Quest Development
4. Party System
5. NPC dialogue options
6. Random, Leveld Dungeons

[madcow235]

I also would love to see this but i think a 3gb install is already pushing it with good sound for every guy it would be like 10gb. And wow has teh best sound effect ever. Murloc gurgle.

[deRusett]

I think there is a lot missing from MMORPG's

Each of the MMORPG's on the Market has between 3-5 months of Unique Play, in that 3-5 Months you can Max out your Character, Visit all the Dungeons, Towns. Do all the Quests. Now it would be quite a challenge to add enough to the game to make it unique for a long time when it comes to new areas and quests, but Character development is something Game Developers need to work on.

What I would like to see.
Item & Skill based Characters, That are developed both on a time line, and with use.
Ultima Online has a VERY item based design but once was a Skill based, they dropped the ball that no other GD picked up. Items should tie into Skills, One can not yield an uber X weapon with a low still in X. Give Characters More as they are in the Game longer, set Skill Caps, every 4 Months, allowing you a raised skill Cap have incentive to keep playing for Longer Periods of time. Create Dungeons for high skilled players, just putting a super inflated stats monster in a Dungeon does not make it a high skilled player dungeon, it makes it a group hunting dungeon, high skilled dungeons, should have creatures which high resistance to normal attacks, Random Spawns so farming is not an issue, and unique abilities.

I would like to see Quest development taken a little more seriously, yes voice would be nice, for quest NPC’s I don’t need the vendors telling me good costs, but a monthly/quarterly Quest, with Characters that speak, it would result in 50mb patches each month/quarter to give the new quest soundbites and graphics but it would be worth it new things to do. New Quests should have different levels, though I am not a fan of instanced dungeons for quests I think they are a must to make them entertaining for all, have the dungeons created according to the highest skilled player in the group, 5 “lvl 2” players doing the quest would be met with a few monsters, but 2 “lvl 5” Players would find many more monsters, and possibly a Lock to break, “lvl 10” stronger monsters still, a lock, and a small maze to navigate, the maze could be randomly generated so maps are not created for people to follow. I am more then happy to pay a monthly fee if my game is changing each month or every few months giving me something new to attempt.


I have MANY more ideas about what would make the [near]perfect MMORPG IMO, going into details such as Skills, weapons, how they relate, PvP, PvM, as some of you may have read I wrote a very simple “essay?” about making Sid Meiers Pirates into a MMORPG, I put lots of time into thinking about the goodness that could be.

MMORPG’s are a good idea, they have so much potential, Companies need to put more into the game after release then they are currently doing, Added Content seems to come mainly with expansion packs that cost money, with user fees costing around 150 dollars a year to play, We should be getting new content on a much more regular cycle.

[deRusett]

I also would love to see this but i think a 3gb install is already pushing it with good sound for every guy it would be like 10gb. And wow has teh best sound effect ever. Murloc gurgle.


What size Hard Drive do you have?
and how much space is used up by legal Material?

if you think about games using up 75Mb when the Average HDD was around 8Gb a 3Gb install into a 80Gb drive is not so bad

If you are a Gamer looking to get a new game, chances are you are not running Old hardware you've purchased a New PC in the last 3 years, giving you most likely 60Gb dedicating 10Gb to a game though it is a lot, if it is the main thing you are using the PC for, why not? 60Gb is on the small side, Seagate has 400Gb HDD's which perform well, at costs less then a dollar a Gb upgrading to a 200Gb drive is not to difficult for many computer users, especially those who can afford to play MMORPG’s Give me Content, forget about install size, 150 dollars in user fees plus purchasing the game is self. You too should be demanding content over smaller install size.

[shard]

i think he meant that by install time

[deRusett]

Aoe took me over 40 minutes to install back when it was new, I don't think I have waited more then 10 minutes for an install in the last year or 2, if no longer, what happened to Starting an install and going to get some food, or have a shower heck go to school if you are still that age.

[shard]

on long install times, i just sit back and read a mag, or the manual to the game, no biggie for me

[DerekDRP]

ditto to what shard said ( but i play my game boy advance mario bro's soon psp :)

[El-Scotto]

I think there is a lot missing from MMORPG's

Each of the MMORPG's on the Market has between 3-5 months of Unique Play, in that 3-5 Months you can Max out your Character, Visit all the Dungeons, Towns. Do all the Quests. Now it would be quite a challenge to add enough to the game to make it unique for a long time when it comes to new areas and quests, but Character development is something Game Developers need to work on.

What I would like to see.
Item & Skill based Characters, That are developed both on a time line, and with use.
Ultima Online has a VERY item based design but once was a Skill based, they dropped the ball that no other GD picked up. Items should tie into Skills, One can not yield an uber X weapon with a low still in X. Give Characters More as they are in the Game longer, set Skill Caps, every 4 Months, allowing you a raised skill Cap have incentive to keep playing for Longer Periods of time. Create Dungeons for high skilled players, just putting a super inflated stats monster in a Dungeon does not make it a high skilled player dungeon, it makes it a group hunting dungeon, high skilled dungeons, should have creatures which high resistance to normal attacks, Random Spawns so farming is not an issue, and unique abilities.

I would like to see Quest development taken a little more seriously, yes voice would be nice, for quest NPC’s I don’t need the vendors telling me good costs, but a monthly/quarterly Quest, with Characters that speak, it would result in 50mb patches each month/quarter to give the new quest soundbites and graphics but it would be worth it new things to do. New Quests should have different levels, though I am not a fan of instanced dungeons for quests I think they are a must to make them entertaining for all, have the dungeons created according to the highest skilled player in the group, 5 “lvl 2” players doing the quest would be met with a few monsters, but 2 “lvl 5” Players would find many more monsters, and possibly a Lock to break, “lvl 10” stronger monsters still, a lock, and a small maze to navigate, the maze could be randomly generated so maps are not created for people to follow. I am more then happy to pay a monthly fee if my game is changing each month or every few months giving me something new to attempt.


I have MANY more ideas about what would make the [near]perfect MMORPG IMO, going into details such as Skills, weapons, how they relate, PvP, PvM, as some of you may have read I wrote a very simple “essay?” about making Sid Meiers Pirates into a MMORPG, I put lots of time into thinking about the goodness that could be.

MMORPG’s are a good idea, they have so much potential, Companies need to put more into the game after release then they are currently doing, Added Content seems to come mainly with expansion packs that cost money, with user fees costing around 150 dollars a year to play, We should be getting new content on a much more regular cycle.

Have you tried AC1 yet? old but sounds kinda of like some of the things you desribed. Its an item/skill based game, there is no crafting which means you actually get worthwhile items from mobs you kill. There were even some dungeons that had many levels to them, and as you went down they mobs got tougher and tougher. Good game and all but 3rd party stuff destroyed it :(

[hawtrawkr]

get the dvd versions or copy the cds over to a dvd

i can install eq2 in like 10 minutes or so cant remember the exact time but its not long to wait when you factor in that you dont have to install the game everytime you want to play it.

[TheGreySpectre]

I think i read the matrix online takes 7gb with another 6 for downloaded content for a total of 13GB

and comeone, Games can be bigger now, 80GB is a small HD now 120-160 average and 250-400 big I wouldnt mind games taking up 10GB for awesome sound


I would also like to see an MMO that FOCUSES on small team play ie 4-6 people parties, making them almost mandatory, similar to dnd parties, so that parties could share resources xp and money easily. I dont think most MMOs right now implement this type of system, most allow for large clans, but for most of things you can do them solo, it would be cool if you could have p[arties that vary in level only my 3 or so, with items party bound. a small party system would also allow for easy use of teamspeak for party chat

I also wish the mmos had integrated voice communication, but i can see why they dont seeing as with so many people it would eat up massive amounts of bandwith

linked quests would aslo be nice, maybe i missed something but many quests at least in WOW dont seem to lead anywhere (i havent played for that long though),thats one thing about the matrix online is that at least in the beta it seemed like the quests were going somewhere, a series of maybe 5 or 6 BIG quests that culminate with killing some big boss bad guy would be cool, so that your character has more of a goal that can be accomplished

NPCs that have dialogue options would be cool, like in most normal RPGs, maybe not all voice acted, excpet for important people, but just standard things to talk about, I would also like to see good/ evil more decided by diagloge and actions as opposed to race. Diaglouge like in morrowind, fallout, planescape:torment, arcanum etc.

I currently like the dual system in games like WoW where unless you are specified areas you have to challenge a player to fight them, which prevents newbie killing. I do wish that assuming you killed a player, you got something, like say 2% of there wealth or something like that

[hawtrawkr]

maybe the game makers should make the sound scalable like theyve done for the graphic side of things.

would be nice if the people with the beefier systems could do a larger install to have more sounds/higher quality sounds.

to date eq2 has impressed me with its voiceovers but its got plenty of things wrong with it to balance it back out. :rolleyes:

[glockjs]

guild wars closes the gap on some of those probs. try it next beta

[Panzerknacker]

I don't understand what u are talking about, because WoW's sound is fantastic IMHO. Better than most other games.

[9mmCensor]

What I want in a MMOOfsdflk alphabet soup thing.

I want a realistic world. Think GTA with lots off real people running around.

I want indoor and outdoor environments.

I want to be able to buy and upgrade weapons like resident evil (adding scopes and stuff to guns is cool).

I want real life stupid people characters that I can kill. I am thinking about a "kill 50 cent" mission.

attitude. I want the game to have a cool attitude like duke nukem and postal.

[PCGUY112887]

I want an MMORPG version of GTA. Buy places, have gang wars on the streets, have jobs to do, other people can hire other players to go kill someone, etc.

And yes it needs great sound :)

[Papier]

My list for a good MMORPG.

1. The ability to experiment. Sometimes before you jump in, you have to know EXACTLY what you want. I mean I really hate having to spend two weeks just get to level 20 to find out the skills I thought were cool actually sucks/useless. Maybe like an offline mode against like very basic monsters up to lvl 20 will be good. That way I can see if this class is for me, how I can set my skills, and what equipment is good.

2. Atmosphere. This one really bugs me. It has to be immersive in order it to be an RPG. Sometimes in games you'll see crap like "Hello, can you run this errand for me? (You must be level 21 warrior to accept this quest)". I want to see something like "Can you run this errand for me... oh wait, you just plain freaking suck. Don't come back till you're lvl 21 by my standards, you warrior wannabe." Not exactly in that sense, but you get my point.

3. Character creation. I want to see different people, not a world where there is only three types of people. In a game that has a trial, eve online, they allowed for like the ultimate customization. You kinda morph the features you want on your character. Chin too big? No problem. You just move the little dot on the grid to the left and it'll morph it smaller. I want more of this stuff.

4. A different type of leveling system and class system. I like Morrowind's type of system in that you don't really have a class. You can be anything you want by putting skills in that area. They still have a lvling system, but it's not so strict that you can't breathe. Like my thief in Morrowind is a very good thief and a very good alchemist. Don't limit the lvling and class system. Let it be open.

5. NPCs. C'mon, make them alive. They sit still for day and night just waiting for players to come to them. That kills the atmosphere for me. I want to say something like "You can find bob around his house up north" instead of saying "Bob is in front of his doorway to his house." Make them like walk around a bit, make them appear to fetch water or pick up some carrots from their field. ANYTHING except for standing still!

[DerekDRP]

added to this would be character storage where you can store your char on there servers for as long as you want too or get the erg to play again ( of corse there would be a fee no dought ) and i want /pizza /beer :)

[TollhouseFrank]

better anti-hacks and anti-cheating systems is what is missing.

[deRusett]

My list for a good MMORPG.

1. The ability to experiment. Sometimes before you jump in, you have to know EXACTLY what you want. I mean I really hate having to spend two weeks just get to level 20 to find out the skills I thought were cool actually sucks/useless. Maybe like an offline mode against like very basic monsters up to lvl 20 will be good. That way I can see if this class is for me, how I can set my skills, and what equipment is good.



Ultima Online has Test shards that allow you yo change everything about your char with text commands, changing skills, from 0 to max, changing stats. it helped me deside what worked well for my Char plus some times it is just fun to craft away for a while make a great suit and go fight things you normally would run away from

[Leviathan41]

as some of you may have read I wrote a very simple “essay?” about making Sid Meiers Pirates into a MMORPG, I put lots of time into thinking about the goodness that could be.
I couldn't agree with you more. Sid Meier's Pirates would make an excellent MMO game.

[EvilCloudStrife]

Whats missing from MMORPGs


me! i need to pick a mmo up, which one is the best and has the most people?

[deRusett]

me! i need to pick a mmo up, which one is the best and has the most people?


asking which the best MMORGP is, is like asking which is better Intel or ATI.


From this Board you will get WoW is the best MMORPG game, I personally play Ultima Online, Greatlakes is the shard ( world) I play on, it is one of the more populated shards.
http://www.uo-auction2.com is like the ebay of game items
http://uo.stratics.com/ is the most popular forums for the game, LOTS of walk throughs and details,

[deRusett]

I couldn't agree with you more. Sid Meier's Pirates would make an excellent MMO game.


http://www.derusett.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7

thats the link to what I wrote about Pirates and it being a MMORPG

[Leviathan41]

Yeah I read that, there are some very good ideas in there. I would definately play a game like that.

[seamadan000]

the best MMO would be a D&D MMO, like Neverwinter nights, using the forgotten realms as the world. That would be one great game...

[Timdog]

DND Online is being developed. ;)

[El-Scotto]

yup D&D online is being dev.by turbine, the company that made asherons call 1 and 2. They are also currently making Middle Earth online. Gonne be interesting to see those too :)

As for #5 on Papiers list, I wouldnt want npc's that move around itd be way to annoying trying to track em down just to turn in a quest :/

[OC Noob]

I agree that MMO games need a ton of work. They are still fairly new and have some huge hurdles in their way. Its not like you can develope a world that revolves around just one player like in single player games, but thats what everyone wants and thats what MMO games need to become more like.

[shard]

I realy do like that idea about making small parties, similiar to DND style parties, and makeing sure that they are injected into DND online, and so you and your buddies can play as a group, and not worry about a turdy DM, lol

[Papier]

yup D&D online is being dev.by turbine, the company that made asherons call 1 and 2. They are also currently making Middle Earth online. Gonne be interesting to see those too :)

As for #5 on Papiers list, I wouldnt want npc's that move around itd be way to annoying trying to track em down just to turn in a quest :/

It would still be easy if they were just be restrained at their house. Like moving around their office a bit, appearing to do like paperwork or something. Or even sitting down in a chair right next to them. I'm not saying let them roam the country side with wolves, I'm just saying make them appear productive, even if they're only in one room. :)

[deRusett]

It would still be easy if they were just be restrained at their house. Like moving around their office a bit, appearing to do like paperwork or something. Or even sitting down in a chair right next to them. I'm not saying let them roam the country side with wolves, I'm just saying make them appear productive, even if they're only in one room. :)

I wouldn't mind seeing them roam from say nearest Tavern/Inn to place of business/house, make the quest involve more movement, there are some quests that you can go every place with just teleportation.

[El-Scotto]

thats true, It would all have to prolly be implemented before the game goes live becuase the dev. teams are usually on very tight schedules with patches and content updates. I think more people would be happier with new armor, more dungeons ect. than roaming npc's :p although it would be nice :)

As for what i feel is missing, I think combat could be a lot better in these MMO's, sound could be the next big thing. Live events should be common practice, that is one the reasons I loved AC.

[shard]

yeah, combat in MMO's have seemed rather iffy all the time, i would like something that is more driven like, say NWN, and that its all turn based, and relies heavily on numbers and such, instead of a click fest, know what i mean


oh and i definatly dont want another morrowind combat style again, lol, i do look forward to oblivion, and to see what it offers

[El-Scotto]

yeah, combat in MMO's have seemed rather iffy all the time, i would like something that is more driven like, say NWN, and that its all turn based, and relies heavily on numbers and such, instead of a click fest, know what i mean


oh and i definatly dont want another morrowind combat style again, lol, i do look forward to oblivion, and to see what it offers


I havent played either of those games :p id like to see something that actually involves skill and not just numbers :p

[Papier]

One combat system I would like to see is one where you can control the thrust with your mouse. I remember there was an old game out there that did that, and it wasn't the edler scroll series. Something like Die by the sword or something. If any MMORPG put that in, I'll forgive the shortfalls it has. I see lag can become an issue, but hey most of us have broadband. I prefer something over "click, click, your dead" automated combat. :)

[madcow235]

I havent played EQ2 but when I said 3gb installs i was basing it on the WoW install. It takes literally 40minutes to install. I guess 40minutes is worth the absorbtion that comes from it.
I want to see something new in MMO's not the same old same old. I don't care about hyper realistic graphics or sound I want something enjoyable. Im also extremely tired of the medieval/magic age all MMO's, except AO, are set in. I want the present day. I also would like to see more character development while you arent playing, say your character has a job that gives you some cash on the side such as being a business man, I would love to see this in CoH.

[El-Scotto]

I havent played EQ2 but when I said 3gb installs i was basing it on the WoW install. It takes literally 40minutes to install. I guess 40minutes is worth the absorbtion that comes from it.
I want to see something new in MMO's not the same old same old. I don't care about hyper realistic graphics or sound I want something enjoyable. Im also extremely tired of the medieval/magic age all MMO's, except AO, are set in. I want the present day. I also would like to see more character development while you arent playing, say your character has a job that gives you some cash on the side such as being a business man, I would love to see this in CoH.

There are plenty of MMO's like that. CoH like you said Matrix Online (which seems to have very fun combat) Saga of Ryzom is a mix of magic and guns...

[shard]

i have heard rumors of a D20 modern MMO, but dont take my word for it

[El-Scotto]

whats d20?

[seamadan000]

d20= dice with 20 sides, which is the highest used by pen and paper RPGs like D and D, and it is shorthand for any games that have the characters roll dice (or the computer roll virtual dice for them) to determine some outcome.

[El-Scotto]

ahhhhh

[superdaveviii]

Honestly? The biggest one I see is storyline. Don't get me wrong, some of the history and lore attached to these games are both massive and immersive. However, an MMORPG can't cast you as the star. It can't have these epic stories of war, love, and hate where it casts you as the hero who saves the day. In an MMORPG, you're a peon, and always will be a peon. While there are some games that try to play it off with large quests, after a while it all boils down to either "Yeah, I completed the save the town quest, we're working on it for 5 other guildmates now." or just the fact that if you fail, oh well, wait for it to reset and try again later. There isn't any continuity at all that can be created like a single player game. Once you get the highest level, the best equiment, and have done the same quests a zillion times in the same places ... it gets old. You never "beat the game".

[El-Scotto]

Honestly? The biggest one I see is storyline. Don't get me wrong, some of the history and lore attached to these games are both massive and immersive. However, an MMORPG can't cast you as the star. It can't have these epic stories of war, love, and hate where it casts you as the hero who saves the day. In an MMORPG, you're a peon, and always will be a peon. While there are some games that try to play it off with large quests, after a while it all boils down to either "Yeah, I completed the save the town quest, we're working on it for 5 other guildmates now." or just the fact that if you fail, oh well, wait for it to reset and try again later. There isn't any continuity at all that can be created like a single player game. Once you get the highest level, the best equiment, and have done the same quests a zillion times in the same places ... it gets old. You never "beat the game".


Ever try AC? They updated content and the story every month. Was a great game. At one point they had evil character from the story line show up at some in game wedding between two players, then he killed everyone there :p That game always had special events with the characters happebing during the game time, it was just cool :)

[Niku-Sama]

better anti-hacks and anti-cheating systems is what is missing.

i belive that and voic chat among friends list/group


MMO's should be more like .Hack

[erasmus372]

I am thinking about a "kill 50 cent" mission.



I believe this should be implemented into every game, be it single player or mmo :D

[erasmus372]

Ever try AC? They updated content and the story every month. Was a great game. At one point they had evil character from the story line show up at some in game wedding between two players, then he killed everyone there :p That game always had special events with the characters happebing during the game time, it was just cool :)

When I played SWG my server (Intrepid) used to have huge player parties every so often and once the devs brought Han Solo to one! Then some buff Stormtroopers showed up tracking him and he had to run :)

[doublejack]

I think there is a lot missing from MMORPG's

Each of the MMORPG's on the Market has between 3-5 months of Unique Play, in that 3-5 Months you can Max out your Character, Visit all the Dungeons, Towns. Do all the Quests. Now it would be quite a challenge to add enough to the game to make it unique for a long time when it comes to new areas and quests, but Character development is something Game Developers need to work on.

This is just not true. You could play EQ2 for a year and not be able to do half the quests for example. The claim that all MMORGPs are so shallow they only offer a few months of new content is wrong. It has been true for some of them (DAoC is one good example) but certainly not all of them.

And I know about this subject. I played the original EQ from shortly after launch until just about a year ago. During that span of several years I was never without something new to do, or without a level or skill to earn experience for. Only the hardest of the hard-core... the ones who virtually play 24/7 and live for the game... those are the only peole who can burn through a deep MMORGP quickly, and they'd find it impossible to do it in 3-5 months for many of the games.

So for good MMORGPs one thing they definitely don't lack is depth or new things to do. Even aside from patches and expansions, there's plenty to keep a vast majority of gamers entertained for a year or more.

[Leviathan41]

@DeRusett: I found this site today: http://www.burningsea.com/

Someone is make an MMO based on the life of a Pirate.

[TheGreySpectre]

I want to be able to customize my charaters abilites more every level

for example in many rpgs you go up a level and you get so many points to spend on different stats and so on

ad20 modern game would be pretty cool

I like the matrix online idea of having a couple people play main characters like morpheus and having events change

games need integrated voice chat of somesort,


Diaglogue would be cool, esp diaglogue based xp. if any of you have ever played planescape torment, you get a lot of your xp through diaglougue and that houwld be cool, also dialogue options that require some specific amount of intelligence or speech skill to activate


I want to see random events, for example in wow i think it would be cool if one day some dragon came and just terorized stormwind or something and the players had to defend the town,

as for sound, after playing for a while i think the sound gets boring in most of the MMOs they need to just mix it up a little, like have voice combat taunts for monsters and just different sounds for monsters in general

the characters dont necessarily need to be the stars but here should be at least a couple HUGE quest sets (ie a quest set that would take an entire guild to complete) that cna only get completed once, by one group and once that quest is done the world changes and responds to the events of the quest

The world needs to be more dynamic


I really like the idea of NPCs roaming around a designated area such as a town or there house
and well mmos have many quests to do, it seems like 90% of quests are ether kill x# of Xmonster, or take x item to X guy. MMOs should a a couple hero characters, not PCs, but people who are recognizeable and played by the company who are the Heros of the world

[deRusett]

@DeRusett: I found this site today: http://www.burningsea.com/

Someone is make an MMO based on the life of a Pirate.



Thank you, I've register in the forum, hope its good, I'll most likely be picking it up.