Yesterday, I got the idea into my head to resurrect my character in LOTRO and it was only after running around for one or two hours that I started to question what the hell I was doing. I guess I like the idea of an MMO a lot more than actually playing it which got me thinking why that is the case and if anything could be done about it.
So here, in no particular order, are a few things that I think make current MMOs so disappointing as games (if you treat them as pretty chat rooms, YMMD). Would love to hear other opinions on the matter.
1) Quests are broken.
You can dress Quests in (all) RPGs up a bit and try to fit them into a bigger story arc but at the end of the day, we are pretty much always fetching stuff, killing monsters, talking to people, etc. I don't neccessarily think that has to be a bad thing. If done correctly, it's often not even that noticable. Gothic 3 e.g. did this quite well, for all the flaws that game had. For some reason the things NPCs wanted me to do seemed to make sense within the game world.
Now, in MMOs there are two factors that get in the way of good quests: a) Scope. Write 2000 quests and see how original you still are on No. 2001. b) Because of the way MMOs are structured (lots of quest, grinding XP as fast as possible), most people don't read the exposition. So current MMOs also break it down to the bare quest objectives, which ironically makes repetition that much easier to spot.
I have no idea if this could be fixed. Maybe it could be done with a Gothic 1/2-style journal and more of a dialog-based quest exposition rather than popping up a window with a plain to-do list.
2) Combat is broken.
There is a lot of combat in these types of games and I really don't think it's fun. The only way tactics seem to be introduced is by throwing myriads of skills at you and having you figure out which ones are actually useful. After that, it's like an ATM: just remember the right numbers and you'll get some loot.
Guild Wars' system of limiting you to 8 active skills was a nice change. Combat there, to me, also felt a lot more immediate.
Maybe true turn-based tactical combat could make things more interesting but I don't know if that could work with the sheer number of encounters in a typical MMO.
3) Storytelling is broken.
The way RPGs traditionally tell a story will never work when you introduce thousands of heroes to a world. LOTRO and Guild Wars tried to get around that limitation with instanced missions and I think that worked quite well. But those are few and far between, so before each new interesting mission you'll be killing 200 boars all over again. Again, I don't know if this can be fixed as such. I was pretty excited for TOR's step towards fully-voiced dialog but that obviously will exceed almost any budget.
4) It's not your world, you're just running around in it.
Ultimately this might be the biggest game breaker for me: nothing I do ever in an MMO has any significance whatsoever. Turn in the quest, get some XP, move on. This has frustrated me to some extent in Oblivion where becoming head of the Mages Guild got you a nicer appartement but did not seem to bother anyone besides. In MMOs it is that much more apparent. WoW recently tried to address this with phasing and that's rather impressive. Maybe if those kinds of things could be done on a larger scale, progressing would become more interesting. Not sure if that is economically viable, though.
So here, in no particular order, are a few things that I think make current MMOs so disappointing as games (if you treat them as pretty chat rooms, YMMD). Would love to hear other opinions on the matter.
1) Quests are broken.
You can dress Quests in (all) RPGs up a bit and try to fit them into a bigger story arc but at the end of the day, we are pretty much always fetching stuff, killing monsters, talking to people, etc. I don't neccessarily think that has to be a bad thing. If done correctly, it's often not even that noticable. Gothic 3 e.g. did this quite well, for all the flaws that game had. For some reason the things NPCs wanted me to do seemed to make sense within the game world.
Now, in MMOs there are two factors that get in the way of good quests: a) Scope. Write 2000 quests and see how original you still are on No. 2001. b) Because of the way MMOs are structured (lots of quest, grinding XP as fast as possible), most people don't read the exposition. So current MMOs also break it down to the bare quest objectives, which ironically makes repetition that much easier to spot.
I have no idea if this could be fixed. Maybe it could be done with a Gothic 1/2-style journal and more of a dialog-based quest exposition rather than popping up a window with a plain to-do list.
2) Combat is broken.
There is a lot of combat in these types of games and I really don't think it's fun. The only way tactics seem to be introduced is by throwing myriads of skills at you and having you figure out which ones are actually useful. After that, it's like an ATM: just remember the right numbers and you'll get some loot.
Guild Wars' system of limiting you to 8 active skills was a nice change. Combat there, to me, also felt a lot more immediate.
Maybe true turn-based tactical combat could make things more interesting but I don't know if that could work with the sheer number of encounters in a typical MMO.
3) Storytelling is broken.
The way RPGs traditionally tell a story will never work when you introduce thousands of heroes to a world. LOTRO and Guild Wars tried to get around that limitation with instanced missions and I think that worked quite well. But those are few and far between, so before each new interesting mission you'll be killing 200 boars all over again. Again, I don't know if this can be fixed as such. I was pretty excited for TOR's step towards fully-voiced dialog but that obviously will exceed almost any budget.
4) It's not your world, you're just running around in it.
Ultimately this might be the biggest game breaker for me: nothing I do ever in an MMO has any significance whatsoever. Turn in the quest, get some XP, move on. This has frustrated me to some extent in Oblivion where becoming head of the Mages Guild got you a nicer appartement but did not seem to bother anyone besides. In MMOs it is that much more apparent. WoW recently tried to address this with phasing and that's rather impressive. Maybe if those kinds of things could be done on a larger scale, progressing would become more interesting. Not sure if that is economically viable, though.
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- Jul 9, 2011
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