Just give me a game world, a set of game mechanics and just

Post » Mon May 14, 2012 2:42 am

I really wish that there was at least one MMO developer with the courage to take a page out of Ultima Online's book and just give us a world to adventure in and the mechanics that will let us be who we want to be, do what we want to do and shape the world based on our actions.

I don't want an MMO that might as well be a single player game with multiplay tacked on like Star Wars the Old Republic, or one that is yet anoter WoW clone.

I want something where I am one of many in a wide vast world with my own goals and ambitions.

The first commercially successful MMO, Ultima Online, allowed players to do this very thing, running on server hardware that is obsolete by todays standards, and yet today, MMOs running on cutting edge hardware offer players less freedom and gameplay options, and I am tired of it.

WoW was a fluke. If the way it was designed is really the magic formula for successful MMOs, then every single MMO that has come out since WoW should have been a phenomenal success. But most of them fall flat on their face within a few months after launch. Because once people have taken a break from WoW to try out the new MMO, they see it's pretty much WoW in a different skin, so when the trial is over they go back to WoW...

I'm totally sick of themepark MMOs. I want a sandbox! If TESO is yet another level-based, class-based themepark MMO, it will just be a waste of my time, and I will not bother with it.
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gemma king
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 5:05 am

I really wish that there was at least one MMO developer with the courage to take a page out of Ultima Online's book and just give us a world to adventure in and the mechanics that will let us be who we want to be, do what we want to do and shape the world based on our actions.

I don't want an MMO that might as well be a single player game with multiplay tacked on like Star Wars the Old Republic, or one that is yet anoter WoW clone.

I want something where I am one of many in a wide vast world with my own goals and ambitions.

The first commercially successful MMO, Ultima Online, allowed players to do this very thing, running on server hardware that is obsolete by todays standards, and yet today, MMOs running on cutting edge hardware offer players less freedom and gameplay options, and I am tired of it.

WoW was a fluke. If the way it was designed is really the magic formula for successful MMOs, then every single MMO that has come out since WoW should have been a phenomenal success. But most of them fall flat on their face within a few months after launch. Because once people have taken a break from WoW to try out the new MMO, they see it's pretty much WoW in a different skin, so when the trial is over they go back to WoW...

I'm totally sick of themepark MMOs. I want a sandbox! If TESO is yet another level-based, class-based themepark MMO, it will just be a waste of my time, and I will not bother with it.

AMEN
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Ella Loapaga
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 1:40 am

It seems to be a bit of both. Supposedly there are mechanics that reward exploration as well as open, un-instanced dungeons.
At the very least, people from UO are on the TESO team, so there's hope. We know too little just yet ...
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Laura Shipley
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 6:25 pm

See that's what I am talking about. I don't want rewards for exploring in the form of achievements. I want rewards for exploring coming in the form of the "Oh wow!" factor you get when you see some cool location for the first time.

I cannot speak for others, but for myself, the reward I want for clearing a dungeon is the memory of having done it. I don't need a boss with a health bar that stretches from New York to Los Angeles dropping a long sword of uber slayage +1000.

Just let me fight a tough boss that isn't over the top, uses regular weapons (in the sense that they are weapons with stats that anyone can achieve through craft and/or enchanting), where it's the story of the questline that is the reward.

I want to share an experience I had in Ultima Online, in the days right before they launched "The Second Age" expansion that introduced the two facets of Britannia. They took guard protection away from Yew, and spawned monsters all around the paremeter and along the road leading to it. Players congregated there to defent the town from the attacks. When each wave was over, it was like one of the scenes in Braveheart following a big battle, bodies all over the place. We'd run around looting the corposes of comrade and enemey alike gathering whatever we could in preparation for the next wave. I can't tell you how many stacks of arrows I personally crafted and handed out to various other players as they waited for news of the nect coming onslaught...

On the day "The Second Age" deployed, Yew fell. It was overrun with stuff you wouldn't normally see unless you managed to delve down to the deepest level of the darkest dungeon. When I logged in, it was all I could do to get out of the town alive. You couldn't use moonstones in town. As soon as I opened the facet gate, I found myself at the edge of Yew in the Trammel facet. All was peaceful. I managed to meet up with some guildmates after a few days and we organized raids back into Felucca to gather stuff from our inn and guild hall. I was an excellent archer so I took down hostiles as they drew near and me and another archer helped cover our friends as they loaded themselves down with as much as they could carry... We were fortunate to have been able to secure the exact same clearing in Trammel as we had in Felucca for our buildings. So for us, it went back to being business as usual.

That was the beauty of UO. What we did as a group or by ourselves was our own PERSONAL experience. Unless someone was actually there with us, they couldn't say they did what we did.

Now, in the post-WoW MMO, everyone's experiences are the same. They all blow through the same content and then wait forever for more content to be delivered.

In UO, we were the content. In UO we were in Endgame the moment we started.

No levels. No rigid class system.

I really hope that sort of experience can be found in TESO. Because The Elder Scrolls, ever since Arena, has been about freedom. We can play any of the TES games without doing the main quest and never run out of gameplay... The main quest is always there when/if we want to do it. But nothing forces us down any path, and we have plenty to do.

NOTHING says the same sort of approach cannot be applied to an MMO. And UO proved it.
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Pumpkin
 
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Post » Mon May 14, 2012 8:23 am

Great description of player authored narrative, G.B. :thumbsup:

There is a lot we don't yet know about TESO, but I think a sandbox approach would be a lot of fun, and certainly ties in with the open world traditions of past TES games.

Recently read http://lorehound.com/news/the-merits-of-sand-box-versus-theme-park-mmos/ which sums up the merits of sandbox vs theme park approaches.
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Mandi Norton
 
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Post » Sun May 13, 2012 5:50 pm

Great description of player authored narrative, G.B. :thumbsup:

There is a lot we don't yet know about TESO, but I think a sandbox approach would be a lot of fun, and certainly ties in with the open world traditions of past TES games.

Recently read http://lorehound.com/news/the-merits-of-sand-box-versus-theme-park-mmos/ which sums up the merits of sandbox vs theme park approaches.

A good article indeed. Thanks for the link.

Actually, what I REALLY think is needed is a Themebox/Sandpark MMO. One which blends elements of both. Pretty much the way the TES games we have come to know and love handle it. we come into the game and are not forced down any particular path. There's a ton of stuff we can do, if we so choose, but nothing says we have to do it. So should it be with TESO. There should be depths to dungeons that nobody in their right mind would want to brave on their own, but nothing should stop them from entering them.

The Elder Scrolls series is in fact a hybrid of themepark and sandbox. It's themepark when I'm running faction questlines. It's sandbox when I'm just messing around. Plenty of stuff to do...
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Vickey Martinez
 
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