My response was never intended to be coming off as offensive or a direct aggression act towards you. It seems that the internet can lead to things being more than they are. My post is not "aggressive" it's "informative". Currently, all it does is plug valid information from what people want, and what developers ignore into it. It also comes with insight into spec hardware, even though it is a small insight. Don't misread what I say as me forcing my ideas onto you, do as you please. I've stated that it's a suggestion to help improve mix and improve with your views and ideas, but it was left up to you to understand that. Your other response did however, show some signs that you refused to look into what people were crying out for, and that triggered my response posted above. People repeat failure theme park MMOGs because they think people don't know what they want. Yet again it points to the evidence of doing some research on the why MMO gamers flop around so much to different MMOGs.

If you find nothing I have said of value, then ignore it and go on your MMOG way. My post is for those who listen. My post is for those that want to improve their genre, not flop around with editing the same mix of cookie dough that makes cookie cutter games. Yes, you can improve upon games of old, you can do w.e. you want. Don't find my posts wanting you to follow them like a rule book. They are not meant for that.

Now, let me get back to what I was posting about since it confused you, it may confuse others. My posts are not hard to read or understand, yet people with closed minds find them hard to read. It does not mean anyone on here, or refer to anyone, including you as a closed mind. You simply just misunderstood what I had said, so it was in fact a communication error brought on by the internet.

Now lets begin with what a MMOG developer could compile as useful information.

MMOG players want social back into their games. A form of social can unite them as mini games, or in reference miniature games designed around the theme of the MMORPG that allows a player a alternative form of player other than combat. This allows the player some sort of glimpse of being able to do something other than kill or be killed. Mini games that any MMOG can have inside them can be thought up or found from ideas from other games. I won't spoon feed anyone on here.

Now think for a second here, PVP and PVE are not suppose to be separate. What you are suppose to do is encourage them to do both, but allow real world penalties to overcome those that abuse such a system. You're the developer, you come up with the risks and rewards of such a fluid system. The integration needs to be seamless else it will become another turd yet to rot away on the pile of MMORPG history.

Sandbox is where it is at. Sandbox means players can build with the tools you provide them, and build what you say they can build to a certain extent their way. Linear means you already chose everything for them, you don't give them the tools to build anything their way. Simply put, make your game as much sandbox as possible. Players will stick around much longer than 3 months.

Now, latency is a big pet peeve of everyones. Think on this part a bit. You want the best connections, best hardware, and the best looking graphics mixed in. None of this is even an argument, it's a necessity. Hands down, anyone who skips this should be shot dead in their sleep.

I hope that by now maybe someone has learned a bit more into what to do to make a good MMOG. My only hope is that at least 1 person learned some valuable information from this. This was never intended to pwn, assault, or make people feel unhappy. It's for educational purposes only. Thank you.

~ RED

Now a theme park idea?

Just take bits and pieces of the idea and question as to why I would think it would work rather than taking it on as a whole entity at once. I never thought you were being agressive or any of that, but I wanted to make sure my response wasn't seen as such.

I personally would LOVE to have an open world with PVP and PVE all mixed together. A sandbox for the players to do what they want. As I am not an experienced developer I realized this was out of my league for the time being so I don't actively design my open world concept. Potentially the best way to have an open world with all of those things together would be to revert to isometric 2d to maintain connection, quality of graphics, and activities to pursue. People keep trying to do it in 3d and it hasn't worked yet, but that could be due to 3d instead of 2d being more complicated.

As to why I separated PVP and PVE like DAoC had done: Players seek any and every advantage they can in combat, fair or unfair. What I aimed to do was to provide a game experience where PVP was a big portion of game play, but not the only type of play and to provide an experience where people wouldn't quit just because they had PVP forced on them. Thus, PVP would be maintained in a central area of the world with the entrances/exists defended/blocked by the respective Domain guards. Down the line you could potentially have Domain invasions where they break through these walls, but that is a mechanic that hasn't been finalized one way or the other as I am open to hearing pros/cons for it. There would be non PVP goals to accomplish in this PVP area as well.

To design in for the potential of having masses of players in one area I was willing to accept this in the art department to keep the fun factor going. I wouldn't want the art to be terrible, but I wouldn't want it to destroy latency/FPS/etc and ruin any form of game play because computers can't handle all of the graphics at once. If it would be possible to have everything I would want it I would aim for it, but in my experience it would be naive to expect it all to run smoothly.

I want social to be a part of the game. That is why soloing is possible, yet it limits what you can accomplish in the game. I don't want everyone off in their corner soloing as I would prefer them to work together for the good of the Domain, those around them, and themselves. Groups would be able to hold up to eight players. Character power curves have been lessened so level 1s can group with level 50s, but being level 50 still gives an edge over lower levels, just much less of an edge. Content isn't restricted to one group only so people can challenge themselves by trying to complete objectives with the minimum amount of people or they can go overboard and just roll over everything. There is potential to have encounters that actually deter mass zerging, but that would take some extra balancing to make sure it is still an enjoyable encounter.

The PVE cities were areas for players to develop so that they could work together to build it, upgrade it, and defend it. They wouldn't be attacked by other players, but by PVE entities. The players would have to work together to thwart these attacks or the cities would suffer, thus limiting the benefits they provide to the Domain. I want the cities and player housing to be earned and not just a matter of collecting money to pay for one. It would be easiest to have the players have to earn the right to through gaining favor with the Domain and then being granted the privilege of owning property.

To summarize: I would love an Open World with skill based characters, but this concept is being designed to work around human behavior to try and promote a fair competitive world. Just because it isn't "everyone's perfect game" doesn't mean it is garbage. It is understanding that not everyone can get what they want, not even myself, in an effort to provide a quality game. It is aimed to be casual, fun, competitive, and certainly not a theme park, nor a sandbox.

I still get the impression (the internet is a strange place to get one of these) that you're still ignoring what people want. Providing for their needs is what a business or game or hobbyist masterpiece should do. Failure is not what your game lacks, but what you lack to create. I can give a quick tip here, you're acting like EA. Recently, their failure to listen has costed them millions, on scale what can be said about your failure to listen? You claim your game is neither linear nor sandbox, but yet it has to be one or the other. By what you say and claim, your game stands at linear, which is refered to as themepark mmorpg. You go there, pay to play the already preset world and formulas, and you leave the park. A sandbox allows a player to build what they want to a certain degree inside your game and allows almost for infinite replay value.

Your posts also claim that you are already providing the mmorpg that people want, but yet you fail to realize people no longer want preset gameplay, paths, formulas inside their mmorpg games. They don't want to pay for that anymore, the WoW style age has died, and indies will be the last to evolve. Why do I say that? Redundancy echoes loudly throughout the community. Refusal to listen, adapt, and evolve past the eye glance of AAA commercial crap games makes the indies 1 of the last strongholds to crack. Perhaps the dreams and hopes of 1 day actually breaking out of the mold as so few indies do is too much for most.

If your still confused feel free to visit mmorpg.com which has over 1m users for that community. It won't take long to churn up the posts and start to filter out the idle crap from the golden eggs on there. Soon, you may or may not be enlightened. That solely depends on you and how you work, adapt, learn, evolve as a person. I do no affiliate with them, but it is a good place to gain resources and information on what NOT to do. I finished responding to your posts, however the thread starter is sunandshadow, so if he/she so wishes I can continue to post over a mmorpg solution for him/her to review. That can also be done via pm as well, but I leave all the options to the OP.



~RED

I still get the impression (the internet is a strange place to get one of these) that you're still ignoring what people want. Providing for their needs is what a business or game or hobbyist masterpiece should do. Failure is not what your game lacks, but what you lack to create. I can give a quick tip here, you're acting like EA. Recently, their failure to listen has costed them millions, on scale what can be said about your failure to listen? You claim your game is neither linear nor sandbox, but yet it has to be one or the other. By what you say and claim, your game stands at linear, which is refered to as themepark mmorpg. You go there, pay to play the already preset world and formulas, and you leave the park. A sandbox allows a player to build what they want to a certain degree inside your game and allows almost for infinite replay value.

Your posts also claim that you are already providing the mmorpg that people want, but yet you fail to realize people no longer want preset gameplay, paths, formulas inside their mmorpg games. They don't want to pay for that anymore, the WoW style age has died, and indies will be the last to evolve. Why do I say that? Redundancy echoes loudly throughout the community. Refusal to listen, adapt, and evolve past the eye glance of AAA commercial crap games makes the indies 1 of the last strongholds to crack. Perhaps the dreams and hopes of 1 day actually breaking out of the mold as so few indies do is too much for most.

If your still confused feel free to visit mmorpg.com which has over 1m users for that community. It won't take long to churn up the posts and start to filter out the idle crap from the golden eggs on there. Soon, you may or may not be enlightened. That solely depends on you and how you work, adapt, learn, evolve as a person. I do no affiliate with them, but it is a good place to gain resources and information on what NOT to do. I finished responding to your posts, however the thread starter is sunandshadow, so if he/she so wishes I can continue to post over a mmorpg solution for him/her to review. That can also be done via pm as well, but I leave all the options to the OP.



~RED

If you feel that I don't understand MMO design concepts I don't really know what to tell you. I am not ignoring anyone, but I am accepting what I can and cannot do to try and provide an enjoyable experience. Not everyone can get what they want and to try and cater to the loud players is not necessarily the best way to build a game.

I provided reasons for world design choices and you keep talking about Themepark vs Sandbox. To label every MMO either a Theme Park or a Sandbox is not the right way to go about things. Rift is a theme park. You start here, you end here. Follow the yellow ! quest road! I even admitted to knowing and understanding what you felt the players wanted. Not every game can be designed the same as the others. There is more than just Theme Park and Sandbox and I agree with you completely that Theme Parks, such as Rift, are lousy. You have no freedom to do anything aside from the few things they provide for you to do. That is not the case with my world concept.

If you cared to ask, or read in depth as to what I was aiming to do, it was to provide a more free experience in the world, while also maintaining some separation, for the sake of the players. For your mindset the best way for me to put it would be that it is a PVE sandbox, with PVP in an RVR setting in the middle. Not everyone wants to PVP. I was providing a solution to this issue to avoid open world gank fests while also trying to establish some pride for your Domain to increase the PVP enjoyment rather than FFA PVP. Thus it is three sandboxes connected by an area of PVP conflict between the three sandboxes. Classes are a requirement for the competitive balancing of PVP that would be required for the design. There is potential to build in a betrayal system so you can fight as a mercenary rather than for a Domain, but I felt that it would take away from the concept so I haven't been trying to force it in.

If I had my druthers there would only be one shard or server for everyone to play on. Sadly, I wouldn't expect that to be a possible solution technologically speaking if it were ever to be of any success(10,000+ players), but there would only be one rule set. The game. No PVP or PVE servers.

Hmm. Personally I'd say that although it makes players unhappy not to be listened to (including me), there are many successful commercial game companies that have a policy of ignoring players except for keeping track of what they spend money on. I'd also say that game designers and writers are both varieties of artists, and it's important to have artistic integrity, which basically means staying true to your own vision despite the disagreement of others. Indie game development is one of the worst possible ways to make money, so it's not worth doing at all if you're not doing it out of love of a game idea.

Hmm. Personally I'd say that although it makes players unhappy not to be listened to (including me), there are many successful commercial game companies that have a policy of ignoring players except for keeping track of what they spend money on. I'd also say that game designers and writers are both varieties of artists, and it's important to have artistic integrity, which basically means staying true to your own vision despite the disagreement of others. Indie game development is one of the worst possible ways to make money, so it's not worth doing at all if you're not doing it out of love of a game idea.

I love the concept I had been working on, but without a desire to become an artist or a programmer it just doesn't seem advisable to pursue it outside of a personal hobby... which I don't think would be much fun if it were to never see the light of day. Perhaps I can find some way to have success through writing, or another avenue, and then find a way to make the concept become reality.

Which is why I am going to put more time into working on my writing. I don't know what I can really do with my skill set, but this world in which we live demands that I make money, so I must try and find a path to pursue to make ends meet.

Perhaps I should put more effort into my novel... but perhaps, with it's genre and audience, it could be feasible to make a pitch bible for turning it into an animated series. I guess I think too big, ha.

Sandbox is powerful and mostly the new fresh MMO have sandbox i can name a few.But i dont see the point of doing that nothing is wrong with sticking with what you like.But you gotta expand your horizon and go with whats in and not whats not in.Themepark is dead thats the end,sandbox will give you sells since its still fresh.Being a stubborn designer will make you lose players like ijji.Researching what players like is what gives you sells cause it appeals to them.Also your dumb for saying not to listen to your players cause they're paying your bills so you see what the majority fair leveled players think is right for the game see it as a opinion and a idea,consider it and talk it over.Dont rush to say that its ok to shut down the players yells.If you make a suggestions thread you would read and take from it right ? those are also the loud players.Please dont spout stuff like you shouldnt listen to all players cause some are right.This is just advice,listen if you want.But i will say this preset things are boring and dont last long.

pretty story lines,equips,maps,wont take away from the crap it is and thats preset cause it may be fun at first but it dies within 5~8 months like Rift,Aion,etc

It really ins't hard to go on Steam, and sell 300k copies of your game. Look in the indie section and see a gap in there. Why are some games mega hits? They come out of the 2D art world we lock ourselves into and step on a limb. They succeed by being off balance. It's a fantastic market, and with the right tools you can get far. I can't offer you my tool set, as that's a trade secret, but I can tell you that if you search right, you will find a robust set of talent waiting to help you. As for mmog, its all about delivery and timing. It's a touchy product, horrible if you fail, limitless when you succeed. Sandbox is the new rave, fashion, sense of purpose. It's now time wake up. This age people suffer from a lack of trying to get the most help (if need be use a set of tools like the udk or unity 3d and photon) to build their ideas. 3 main things you need to survive in this world is 1. the ability to gather money 2. the ability to communicate and 3. the ability to evolve and adapt. fast.

I'll post my mmog idea soon, I got 3 I'm down to share, since its in the formula that can't be replicated so easy.

Sandbox is powerful and mostly the new fresh MMO have sandbox i can name a few.But i dont see the point of doing that nothing is wrong with sticking with what you like.But you gotta expand your horizon and go with whats in and not whats not in.Themepark is dead thats the end,sandbox will give you sells since its still fresh.Being a stubborn designer will make you lose players like ijji.Researching what players like is what gives you sells cause it appeals to them.Also your dumb for saying not to listen to your players cause they're paying your bills so you see what the majority fair leveled players think is right for the game see it as a opinion and a idea,consider it and talk it over.Dont rush to say that its ok to shut down the players yells.If you make a suggestions thread you would read and take from it right ? those are also the loud players.Please dont spout stuff like you shouldnt listen to all players cause some are right.This is just advice,listen if you want.But i will say this preset things are boring and dont last long.

pretty story lines,equips,maps,wont take away from the crap it is and thats preset cause it may be fun at first but it dies within 5~8 months like Rift,Aion,etc

Oh, I wasn't trying to get across that I wouldn't listen to players, just that I wouldn't go out of my way and add things JUST for their sake. If it doesn't fit by adding depth to the concept or fixing a pointed out flaw, it could potentially just cause the game to break down. Like boats. People like boats. I wouldn't put them in my concept though other than potentially for PVE modes of transportation. PVP areas they just wouldn't fit and would take away from the experience. All suggestions are taken in, but you don't use every suggestion. That was all I was trying to get across.

The concept in a nutshell is DAoC pre-ToA level 35 power level = level 50 for the PVP areas, the power curve is maintained for PVE, but the PVE content is going to be more similar to evolved UO. You don't walk a line from one place to the next killing things on the way while cranking out quests. Quests, real ones in my concept, aren't for every single character in the world. They would be found throughout the world, PVE or PVP areas, and once taken you can't accept any other quests until you complete the last. There would be ways to get out of quests, but failing to complete a quest should have a penalty, as long as it wasn't due to bugs. Quests would be limited. They should mean something to the player. Friends can join your quest, even if they already have one of their own, and help you complete it.

Down the line I planned to add more content to the game to provide more things for players to do, but up front I just wanted to get the main systems in place. An enjoyable RVR(Domain vs Domain) experience that is actually balanced. Too often do developers make characters too powerful which thus makes the game very hard to balance. If you have ever played very early DAoC, or participated in any lower level battlegrounds there, you can hopefully see what I am aiming to provide.

I don't think that theme park paradigm games are dead. They are significantly more expensive and slow to produce than sandbox games, but if you look at the history of single-player games theme park and sandbox games have existed side by side there since RPGs were invented and theme park games have been preferred by consumers, with a ratio of about 3 theme park games sold to 2 sandbox games sold. Many existing MMOs successfully combine the two genres, with quests being the spine of the theme park elements while crafting is largely a sandbox element, especially if there is any sim gameplay involved.

I definitely don't think it's fair to regard 2d graphics as some sort of indie ghetto. 3d graphics are only significantly more difficult to produce than 2d graphics when you are talking about graphics of people and animals. Anything that's more geometric is easier to produce in 3d than 2d. If your goal as an indie game maker was to create puzzle games or any type of game which does not rely on monsters, npcs, and/or avatars, you would feel no pressure at all to use 2d. In addition to that, while some players prefer the look of 3d to the look of 2d, there are probably just as many that prefer the look of 2d to the look of 3d. I'm a huge fan of cartoons and anime myself - if there were two versions of an animated movie for sale, one 2d and one 3d, I'd pick the 2d one every time.

Ok I want to clear some stuff up before adding some more advice. For starters LOOK at the mmorpg.com comments on all the theme park MMORPG threads. The players have spoken on Rift, DC Universe Online, Tera (its not even out and people are already judging it based on the Korean version), and many others. These games are losing players after 3-5 months being out. The players speak with their theme park attendance by saying enough and moving on. That's nice and cleared up on the MMO part. I want to go into sandboxes now. Sure the box cover sells for theme parks much quicker than sand box, but even sand box has its draw backs. For starters, indie sandbox IS POS. They aren't even considered games, let alone a MMOG. Horribly riddled with bugs, errors, downtime, and incompletion drive players away. The Sand Box is now a indie excuse for being incomplete, attracting short amounts of attention and money for some time, and then disappearing. Theme parks are also on the decline, but that should be easily recognized. The most that they do, is pretend to listen to players. If they did listen to players, more companies would be like Nexon and Blizzard.

Now let's clear up those indie titles on Steam. Majority of the indie market is sadly 2D sprite based. Yeah, thats cool but think on it. Why are soo many of the awesome multi platinum titles hitting mega millions? I look on Steam and sadly see the ultra successful recorded sales for games goes only to the few 2D games willing to break off some of the mold, ie Braid. 2D is now a excuse for laziness. You can achieve anime style look in 3D with shaders now. Games and processors and graphics cards now support 3D shaders, models, higher processing powers. I consider most 2D artwork unique, but to say that 120 developers on the indie section of Steam weren't lazy and refused 3D models is a lie. Mostly, each of these developers built the engine from scratch or used flash. Coolio, now let's move on to why its outdated. Instead of pushing forward into a deeper realistic 3D, we savagely step back and see 2D. It's like me going from 2D to 1D and expecting god0like miracles and powers to sell my game. It just is not happening. Yeah, they hit a decent 300k~500k sales by a years end, but still. Kaizen principle of incremental improvement is not there. It has become the fashion, the easier the work, the more we can spend time getting rich. Simply put, games for indies backslid into crap.

I'm ashamed to be even labeled indie if this is the kind of innovation and advancement that the community is wishing to put out. Since when did indie mean lazy developers? It is suppose to mean developers that are not sponsored by a publisher. Independent studio, not noob developer. I took 2 months out of my time to learn 3DS Max, 1 hour a day, and literally have comfortability in modeling in it. People can start with Blender, millions of tutorials on how to create fantastic game models. Don't start trying to defend lazy people, 2D art style is one thing, 2D excuse for a game is another. Literally the community thinks its pro coding your game engine from scratch. That's good for those that wish that. Instead, look to a game engine to do basics, Unity3D makes no excuse for people to make awesome products. UDK, ect is also on the list, and in August CryEngine 3. Shaders were invented for a reason, and it's about time to rise out of the ashes. Yes, people can code and sprite from scratch for various reasons. They are trying to invent the wheel and tires they want to use for their cars to make money with. Instead, use a great engine and a scripting language and focus on the product and marketing, not on debugging their custom scripts. Most major game engines already have a team to debug and help for problems, so those problems get over quickly.

I will carry this debate on via pm. I won't express my disgust anymore for that market in public. Instead of great milestones and innovation, indies cling to scraps and make excuses for not being a success.