Warhammer MMOG

[Slamz]

Ooo, ahhh.

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Check out their AI and Spawning sections under the FAQ. About time someone used my ideas for how to create a good dynamic spawning situation. :-p

(An orc spawns and walks around on patrol. If he runs into another orc, they team up and patrol around. If they run into a third orc, they setup an Orc Camp and other orcs will start spawning there. Kill em all and the orcs are gone, you'll have to wait til they get a chance to team up and start a new camp somewhere else!)

[Sigmire]

only problem I have with this is leveling. It needs to be very easy to level because you'll keep running out of hunting ground.

[Slamz]

I think that's entirely the wrong way to look at it.

The combat and adventuring should be fun, leveling should be incidental.

I seriously think EQ tainted us. When I played pencil-and-paper RPG's back in the day, there was never a rush to "get to the next level". The fun was in the adventure, the fighting, the thinking and interacting. Getting a magic ring was cool, gaining a level was cool, but it wasn't why you played. You played cause it was cool to romp around a dungeon while trying not to get lost or eaten by zombies.

With EQ, you always saw other people running around having 10x as much fun as you because they were high level and high level = fun and low level = crap. The combat was static and boring and merely an annoying obstacle which was getting in the way of your main joy, which was hearing a "ding" and getting a new ability.

Kinda funny, really, when I went back on Discord, the first thing that struck me was the downtime. Go out as a level 5 froglok wizard, kill 2 things and sit for 3 minutes. Fighting and exploring was once again the boring obstacle in the way of my real goal: getting the next spell rank.

...

So if Warhammer (or WOW, or somebody) can get past this idea then more power to em. I should be able to log in and just like Planetside, find some fun action very quickly and keep having lots of fun action for as long as I want and if I gain a level in the process of having all this fun, well so much the better.

EQ makes us think this is impossible, but I think it's just that EQ kinda sucks. It's going to be hard to create this level of action in a MMOG, but EQ didn't even try. Even the advanced encounters were 3 parts waiting to 1 part combat, it was mostly about hoping to see something drop that you could use.

The game should be fun in it's own right. You should be able to play it with no prospect of loot or levels and still call it "a lot of fun".

[Sigmire]

While I agree with the essense of what you're saying, I don't see it happening except for those that don't care at all about gaining levels (like a friend of mine). A small guild (dozen friends?) probably would rather all be of the same level than trying to push to the next spell category.

Typically though, when playing with that many people there is going to be a competition of some sorts. Whether it be to fight the more interesting creatures, to get the neater loot, to gain the upper hand in PvP, or to become tough enough to travel to the other side of the world... whatever. The way people think of getting better is to gain levels and the way to gain levels is to be able to kill massive amounts of creatures in a short amount of time.

One way that I've thought of to create the kind of world you're looking for is to take the leveling by xp'n out of the equation. Have the way to gain levels be based upon how long your character has been active (how long has it been since it was created). After 30minutes he gains lvl 2, after 2 hours he gains level 3, after another 2 hours he gains level 4, 30 days after creation (birth) he's level 20, 3 months later he's level 40. That's just an example of time.

This frees up the need to kill for xp and turns it into wanting to kill for adventure, loot, excitment, and enjoyment.

A lot of people base High Fantasy off of D&D. Well in D&D it wasn't, or shouldn't have been, the young or newly born creatures that were really powerful and made you fearful. It was the wizened wizard, the Veteran Warrior, the Ancient Dragon, etc... so why couldn't that work online as well?

Take away the "we want to kill these mobs so we can get xp" and turn it into "we want to kill these mobs to see what will happen next".

[Zeel]

The pen and paper game I play (HERO system) doesn't even have the concept of levels. It is all about the adventure... Part of the adventure is learning new powers and spells and abilities, but the story is what matters, not the level. I've been playing that game for 3 years and it is still as interesting as it was the day I started.

I've never been able to make the connection between pen and paper and MMORPGs because so much of fun table top gaming has to do with your gaming group and the GM. Now that I think about it, games like EQ were fun partly because of the cool people you go to meet and "hang out" with, but the GM had to be the "computer"... What a shitty GM

Our HERO game is paced by the GM. No matter how much Bob decides to make up wacky abilities or research basket weaving, the GM can alway find a way to involve the character in the story. Even if he is not directly involved in the plot, the player can role-play the part of the half elven brewer, scythe specialist, basket weaver and it will be fun. No mysterious power would keep him from grouping with his friends for some adventure, and there is more to the story than "go here and kill this".

Siggy's idea about an aging system replacing experience is an interesting one. I've never considered something like that... I'll have to think it over some.

What I do think is that players will play whatever system they are presented with as long as it is FUN. EQ was fun because you wanted l33t armor and weaps and had cool friends to hang out with.

The word "fun" is too often replaced with "addictive" when describing MMORPGs. I don't want a crack habit, I want some damn fun. Addictive gameplay can be fun but often times just turns into zombie gaming... 2 AM, gotta work the next day, staring at the screen from 8 inches away waiting for the damn mob to pop so you can gate out and go to freaking bed. Maybe that's not even addictive, maybe that is just dumb... Hmmm.

[Sigmire]

I'm going to give an answer to my own question:

so why couldn't that work online as well?

Because people will want their friends to play and dont' want to wait months until they're of the same level.


For one.

[Hoofhurr]

What we want is all the free time in the world to play games all day and all night.

[Slamz]

I think SWG had the right idea, they just implemented it wrong.

You need for the guy who plays 5 hours a day to be able to still group with the guy who plays 2 hours a day and not end up creating a boring or impossible experience for them. SWG did that.

But SWG again missed the critical element, which is fun combat. With no loot and just a bunch of random wildlife to fight, it's hard to maintain any interest in the game. It didn't help that combat mostly consisted of "5, 5, 5, 5, 5" as I hit the same special attack over and over.

AC2 had a very nice combat system, I thought. A variety of special attacks with different effects and timers, forcing you to really focus and take an active role in the fight, but the spawns were not only static, by the time I was level 40 there were a grand total of 3 things to fight. Mostly the same 3 things I'd been fighting since 30. And AC2 really messed up the ability for people to level and play together, what with those vaults that you could only do once!

So I think what we need is a UO loot system, an AC2 combat system, an SWG grouping and leveling system and a Warhammer dynamic spawning system.

It's like all these games do 1 thing right and screw up 2 or 3 other critical elements. Someone is bound to get it right eventually. Million monkeys for a million years style of thing.

The goal when you log on should be fun combat, and in games like EQ, it's just not. Your goal is either something social, your next level or your next piece of phat lewt, and that's just not cutting it in the excitement department.

[Hoofhurr]

They need to have the world detail and physics collision of EQ. It still amazed me how even just inside Nektulos certain areas had a feel to them. More of this please.

[Zeel]

It still amazed me how even just inside Nektulos certain areas had a feel to them. More of this please.

That is one thing that EQ got really right, and SWG got really wrong... Landmarks and "feel" to areas in the world. The landscape in SWG was about as interesting as a house salad with just lettuce. I loved seeing places in EQ, and how cool was the feeling of returning "home" to your initial zone or zones... I still get misty thinking about returning to Halas after running all over the damn place with my Barb Shammie.

Say what you will about zones, but they did give the devs canvases to work with instead of one big ass world of mush. Each zone had a feel to it, and that really went a long way towards making it fun. Each zone was a little work of art. Some sucked, but each was memorable. Unrest? Dagnors? Awesome.

[Slamz]

Yeah, that's something I hope we'll see more of in WOW. SWG was a new level in bland landscape. Like a whole universe of nothing but South Karana.

I still have a soft spot for Innothule Swamp. I remember in EQ beta they had the fog turned up so much that you would lose sight of the guard's campfire after about 20 feet. Even though they lifted the fog for release, it was still a big and confusing swampy zone with shallow pools and such. And you can't NOT marvel at the design of UGuk/LGuk. The passages all twist and come together for such a complex level design that you just don't get in any other MMORPG.

As we've said before, the one big thing EQ did right was the level designs. Monsters and combat aside, the layout of some of these dungeons is just fantastic. And while I always thought EQ had dungeon pathing problems, it turns out that damn near every other game does it worse.

So back to WOW, I figure surely, in the name of all that is good and nice, surely Blizzard understands level design, gaming for fun action and pathing AI.

I may be able to put up with a number of crappy leveling schemes if they can at least give me a good and varied environment and some fun combat to do in it.

[JawcnScelestus]

Rawc and I actually got a chance to speak to Robin Dews, one of the guys doing Warhammer Online(and a head guy at Games Workshop). It seems they are gonna do a lot fo cool stuff- monsters can climb walls, PvP is done by opposing forces(i.e.-if you're a Witchhunter, you can PK Witches, Necromancers, and Chaos Warriors), and a pretty unique magic system. One thing GW is commendable for is that usually their computer games *drip* w/ the atmosphere set by the tabletop games. Firewarrior was apretty good example of this-while the Gameplay itself was somewhat *eh,* they hit all their P's and Q's about what Warhammer 40,000 should act like, how various equipment performs, etc. Hopefully, Warhammer online will be liek that, without the shitty gameplay!