Ok, I have to admit, this title is kind of provocating, but I'll try to explain before there are a lot of emotional posts.

After 15 years experience with role play games, every one gets some symptoms of fatigue, but that is not the point I wane talk to.
The Elder Scrolls series has a great past, but with every quest that comes out and every dragon I defeated, I realized how linear roleplay games are. No, thats wrong, they are not! ...but gamedesigners make them linear. So lets have a look at all these games out there. Most of them have great graphics, you can make moves you never dreamed of, can slash emenys biger than a house and more colorful than a butterfly. Some of them, like Oblivion, are a bit more realistic but still, you have to face the fact, in every single game you have go kill plenty of emenys and tingle from NPC to NPC. Ok, ok, you are right, sometimes you can pick up some weeds... great.
With every new version, the graphics get better and better, and with every gametrailer coming out I'm thinking "Oh my God", they spend all their money in graphic design more blood more killing more death, instead of new interesting roleplay options.

Weelll thats not what I understand of a good MMORPG. I would like to tell you, if you're allready reading, what I would like to see in a good MMORPG. Don't be scared I'll spare you the usual stuff (hope so).

Imagine you come to the world, may be you wake up in a cell like last time (Oblivion), someone comes for you and brings you to a importand person, you have to hurry up because something horrible happens. STOP THAT. thats sooo "argh" you know... can't you find something new? That flashback follows me since 15 years. How about they DON'T want you or may be you have to do your quests as a slave... and don't ever think about a thief/murderer. (That was for the little "nerve-wracking" things)

For me it would be more interesting to have a game where items and needs have a biger role in the game. Not the things like every one think of, like: "I would like to have a [place here]".
People need food, water, room to live, houses to build, wapons and tools to work, fun and culture, streets to build and so you need these things too.
By side helping people getting these things, you surely have to do a main quest but thats what comes second, because you do that quest for keeping people alive who share your needs and give you a living standard.

Lets make a example: How about you could help builing a sewer to one of the villages. That sounds like a typical quest, but imagine what would happen, if you had to build this water course yourselve with your pickaxe or some stones you place there. When you worked there, some trolls came along and asked what you are doing there. How about telling them a good story so they help you? What about you miss the village entrence by placing the stones like you want to and flood the village insteed.
See thats stuff that needs no big story, but can activate things with random stuff, that activate other things. If you don't know what I'm meaning, have a look at the game Minecraft. I don't want a second Minecraft beware, its just the freedom you have, to do what you like to, paired with the options to change the world or your enviroment permanent. So please dear gamebuilders, don't make loads of new wepons or silly useless things when they don't have any affect on the physic engine, thats boring and needs a lot of processing power.

Here another example: We all have to eat and drink so what we gone do to survive? No we don't go to the shop and buy some apples! Or well lets say they have food, but here are some possibilities for real usefull quests. We have to plant appletrees first, farming, hunting some meet. Preventing animals and ok lets say "monsters" from killing and destroying our ressources or the one from other farmers. This will have affect at the amout of food the village has. Villagers will eat that food so this will have several effects to the prices, business with other villages (this allso could be a source of income) or if you really don't care and the vilagers can't help themselve, they could die.
Sounds a bit like a economy simulation, thats right, why should have our enviroment no real affect to our quests? In fact ressources was allways the thing empires wanted to guard. Its not only surviving by having enogh HP its more than this.

These kind of szenarios are the ground where the quests come from and gives them sence. Thats what it makes exciting doing any quests.

Now we might have a processing problem. May be, but whats better, a gorgous graphic with no possibilitys than slaughter some skelettons you did since ever and you allready can find in every single game, or a game that do not look like wonderland 3D but is fun to play?

So, why did i posted this?
It would be interessting to read, what you think about game linearity, onesided content and own ideas that gives MMORPG a new direction.


(you surely have noticed, that my motherlanguage is not English so please be patient :wink_smile: )

I'm confused about a few things..

Do you know what an MMORPG is?

Do you know what linear is?

Neither of those things were Oblivion.

Once out of the dungeon, you did whatever you wanted. That's not linear.

Go back roughly 15 years ago (the arbitrary number you pointed out) and you have FFVII. That's linear. You also have MUDs. That's an MMORPG. Different content, different context, different games.

The only sensible thing you sort of mentioned was that you should be able to harvest your own food from the ground. That was kind of in Oblivion but not to the degree you mentioned. No argument there.

Nothing wrong with being linear, old and good RPG of yesteryears were linears, but they had good stories.

I don't think Modern RPGs svck

It sounds like Skyrim is adopting more rpg elements (at least as you define them). They are introducing jobs that players can perform. Sometimes it sounds like you're describing the sims. I think Oblivion could have benefitted from a dash of sims stuff, and it seems that's exactly what Skyrim is doing with the jobs (and perhaps a hardcoe mode).

In short, don't worry. It seems that Skyrim is adding some optional rpg elements.

This.

Put it in better words than myself

Welcome to the forums, have a http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/3943/fishystickcf7.jpg

There is a lot of debate on this forum about the general trends in games these days, about what is an RPG and what is not and I think we can all agree that we passionately want Skyrim to be a great game.
People talk about capitalism but what has always struck me in elder scrolls games is the feel that the game was made not just for the money, but also because people wanted to make the kind of game they would themselves enjoy playing.
I have no doubt Skyrim will be fantastic.

So you want Minecraft the RPG?

Well.. if you want to play Sims in Skyrim go right ahead.

@Third Eye
Linearity is not a fix thing like black or white. A story can be linear, and a route can be linear, but allso the course of possibilitys can be linear. It makes no diffrence to do the questcycle 1,2,3,4 or 3,4,1,2 when the result is just a small variety in some skills/weapons. Then I call it allso linear.
May be you don't but if you read my post completely you hopefuly know what I'm talking about.

I'm sorry to bring you in so much trouble :hubbahubba:

@Cy Tolliver
Sounds good, I surely will have a look at it.

@Bukee
ahm, no I don't and I allready said this I thought, Minecraft is/can allready be role play. I would like to have some elements in the game, that gives quests a lasting effect, a better sense. And I would like to have a enviroment witch elements and objects are more affected from the physic engine. The more oppertunities you have, the more you can play your character you want him/her to be.

I was just going to recommend that the OP play Minecraft; it sounds like the perfect game for him.

I have a http://www.dorkly.com/article/14483/flowchart-which-final-fantasy-vii-character-is-your-favorite for you.

Perfect for JRPG's.

you really don't know what linear means do you?
UNlinear IS black and white, but there is also gray, or many gray spots.
linear game is... when the creators of the game are picking you from your nose and dragging you through their game. that means - whenever you do something wrong or going to another path ingame the game will "drag you through your nose" to the same route as before, that means you can get some sense of freedom in a linear game but not for long, and nothing that will change the story.

Now, EVERY GAME i can think of that was made more than 20 years ago was linear.

Oblivion? wans't, you could pick your own destiny, you chose what to do or do not. About the impact ingame - yes, many quests would END DIFFERENT than they could end. People would later talk about your quest in rumours or will tribute something to mention the fact you have done the quest that way and not the other way somehow.

I dont see what is linear in oblivion to you. what do you expect? that everything youll do will have the greatest impact ingame and will change the world entirely to mark the fact you did something that way and not the other? well thats just stupid, and unrealistic.

If you meant something else, I guess you are just too complicated guy to understand

EDIT: i was typing "linear" somewhere instead of UNlinear now changed it >< my fault, but i guess you understood it

Red XIII for me :tongue:

And he was my fave.

First: MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Oblivion does NOT fall into that category, neither does virtually ANY game from "15 years ago". You obviously are confused as to what a MMORPG. WoW, FFXI, Everquest, EVE Online, MUDs, all of those are MMORPGs. Dragon Quest, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fable, Every FF besides the aforementioned one, all of those are NOT MMORPGs.

Next: Having Jobs in a game, and being able to build stuff, that's not an RPG, that's a Simulation game with RPG elements mixed in. It's a hybrid. An RPG is typically a game where you are on a quest to defeat the Big Bad and Save the Princess/World/Universe/Multiverse. You are to busy to "have a job", and honestly, it wouldn't really make sense in the context of such a game to even try to have a job be optional. "Ok, yeah, I'm going to my 9-5 fixing stuff, when instead I should be out there preventing our world from being destroyed. Oh well, who cares".

Also, it sounds like you want EVERY RPG to be a mirror image of each other with "tons to do, and who cares about the graphics". I don't care about graphics, I still regularly play my old NES/SNES games, but I certainly don't want every game to be a mirror image of each other. That's what makes games great, they aren't the same.

Actualy I'm not, just corrected my post to late. But what ever, I don't wane talk about things I did not wrote correctly.
Seems a lot of you did not got my point, and I realy don't want to explain after that warm wellcome. So have a nice evening.

you claim they don't understand
they claim you don't understand

Oh the beauty of the forums...

Nope, still implying that Oblivion is an MMORPG, and it's not. Don't know why you're getting so touchy, only a few people openly mocked you, you're on an internet forum posting YOUR opinion. You should expect that to occur, honestly. The rest of us are either discussing what you wrote, or correcting your mistaken beliefs. If you don't want to discuss things, don't post them.

Posts like this are generally frowned upon, if you have nothing constructive or supportive to say, just keep your mouth shut, if only to avoid embarrassing yourself.

I got Tifa. It was the 'gigantic briasts' option that swayed me.