My Post on the Mortal Online Forum

[Jackal]

In response to:

The members of the developing team are MMORPG players themselves and know that their fellow players have many good ideas to help the game evolve.

Is there anything you'd like to see in Mortal Online?

Share your ideas here and the developers might pick it up and make it reality.

A lot of MMO vets could write a five page post on this topic. So here's my effort to keep it to one page. Before an idea is put into the game or even worked on for that matter, everyone on the team should agree that it will be fun. Here’s my generalized suggestion: Ask yourself, “Is this fun?” If you're not working on fun features within the game then you're working on the wrong thing!

Most dev teams spend the majority of their time working on time syncs like leveling treadmills, graphics, and quests/lore. Ever wonder how long it takes to put that grid of monster spawns that encompasses entire zones into a game? You know the ones that do nothing but lag the zone and kill you when you go AFK in the middle of no where to pay the pizza guy? These things are not features of a game and they sure as hell aren’t fun.
They’re either pointless or hoops the people I AM PAYING are forcing me to jump through. Once I've leveled a charc, I'm done. Once I've seen the shiny graphic, I'm done. Once I've done a quest, I'm done (btw most PvPers don’t even read quests or care about lore, and yes I’m an authority on the subject). On these things there's little to no return on a dev team’s time and effort, versus what the player gets out of it. I'm not a hamster, this crap is NOT fun, don’t waste your time on it!

True PvPers are intensely loyal and sophisticated gamers who will have a lot of options by the time this game is released. Cater to the top tier gamers and they will bring their friends, guilds, clans, and play the hell out of your game. Cater to the average gamer and they will play your game for three months and then quit.

Put your focus on the end game and for the love of god make the game completely unrestricted. If I ever get stuck behind a mountain when trying to travel because I can't climb it, have to re-roll a character because I misplaced a couple points, or am forced to play a specific class because it works best with my build ever again…I simply won't play the game...and neither will my guild. Don’t tell me what I can’t do, tell me the advantages and disadvantages for doing something.

If I want to play a tall skinny dwarf nuker in pink plate armor and put all my points into run speed so I can run across the world without getting stuck behind an invisible wall, I should be able to do that. Then I should also be able to turn around and take that armor off and move those points around and PK someone in the face and take their gold. A balanced, lag free game, with player freedom is fun.

http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/17-w ... l#post6841

Thoughts?

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[Joshius]

Well said sir. Well said.

[Xaj]

Lawl Here here!!!!

[Godamus]

Re: My Post on the Mortal Online Forum

Noble aspirations that will ultimately fall on deaf ears. While I agree with many facets of your post, I'm reluctant to believe any rational game developer will give so much power to its playerbase. And that is exactly what you're asking for... power.

Allow me to explain.

Game developers aren't dumb (as much as we would like to believe they are). While they might make mistakes here and there in the development of a game, make no mistake about it, every major element of a game has been thought out and introduced with a purpose.

"Non-Fun" things like leveling treadmills, repetitive crafting systems, and other mind numbing time sinks aren't "mistakes" but are "intentional" design elements put into place. Common logic dictates that developers design "fun" games to elicit support from its customers, but the online world of MMOs have contorted and twisted this simple notion into something very different. MMO Developers aim to develop games that lure and maintain a high subscription rate.

You might ask... what's the difference?

In a perfect world, game developers develop a game with the sole goal that those who play it, have a good time, and when they no longer have a good time, they can quit. In reality however, these same developers aim to develop a game that gets you to start playing for a very long time and hopefully never quit.

See the difference?

The objective has now changed from a solitary goal of providing fun into one of providing methods that lure and maintain a high playerbase.

Time sinks provide a means of achieving this goal. People are simply alot more reluctant to give up on a failed product if there has been heavy time commitment. Even your guild itself has fallen into this trap. *coughs* VG *coughs*

So yes, your post was absolutely correct in asking developers to remove time sinks, but you failed to address the reason of why they were there in the first place. Until time sinks fail to provide the results developers seek (higher and longer subscriptions), they will continually be implemented in every game.

Look, in principle I agree with everything you said. However, a man that lives and dies by principles will often find himself on the latter end of that spectrum.

If you want devs (or hell, anyone in general) to see your point of view and design something that caters to your desires and tastes, you first and foremost have to put yourself in their shoes. They care about the dollar figure at the bottom. What can you suggest that will help them in that regard while helping yourself get a product that meets your standards?

[Jackal]

I think that more people will log in to have fun, than anything else.

The current model is flawed...

The first company to actually do some market research and make a game based on fun will make a lot of money.

[Blaze]

The only types of games that are fun NOW are FPS or RTS type games. RPGs havent been able to make things Fun at all times - so i sincerely hope atleast ONE of these companies finds a way to do so.

levelling for months to get to the highest level is fine - if the leveling is Fun. Which thus far, isnt the case.

[Godamus]

The current model is flawed...

The current model may or may not be flawed. That is debatable. What can not be denied is that the current model (aka WoW model) is extremely profitable.

Which backs up my earlier point that game developers and executives care only about the bottom line dollar figure. If a model, as flawed and stupid as it may be, produces revenue, these same game designers will perpetuate this model until the end of time unless one of two things occurs.

A) someone comes out with a better/more profitable model
B) someone comes out with a model that takes a piece of the market share from the current standard

Frankly, I'm not optimistic. Due to the ever evolving nature of MMO development (very different from the days of pioneering games like UO and EQ), the cost (now in the tens of millions) and time (half a decade is the norm now...if not longer), provides a massive entry barrier for fledgling MMO design concepts.

If someone is going to commit tens of millions and nearly a decade of time to a project, they want to know the project is based upon a successful model.

The days of innovation in MMOs died the second WoW was released and millions of people supported it (and continue supporting it to this day).

[Jackal]

WoW was the first game that came out and ran without crashing every 15 mins and was marketed very well.

I think it had a lot less to do with their game than the fact that they marketed one of the most well known brands well and the game worked.

[Rza]

I disagree; I believe WoW is the sucess it is simply because it is a game that is almost entirely developed to cateor to what 90% (and also ironically usually the most vocal as well) of the gamers now days feel like they want...And this is quite simply, shineys! Seriously, you cant deny this and as sickening as it is, it is true and getting worse by the day!

In a nutshell, players now days who never experienced earlier MMOs believe that hording as much phat lewts and looking as pixely purdy as possible is the most exciting and rewarding aspect of online gaming. Most of these same players will usually either regard any sort of non consensual PvP as "griefing" and generally negative; or claim to be king of the item based zerglings (which they refer to skilled PvPers) and all that is consensual PvP.

Its not that these degenerates are to blame, they just do not know any better because they have never experienced the excitement of an open PvP system were you could loose all your phat lewts if you died. Its a threshold that none of us would have crossed most likely either if the only game you could play online at the time we started playing MMOs was this sort of open and chaotic PvP type environment. But since we had our MMO cherry popped in this violating manner, we have in a sense been cursed with having experienced a truly fun online game and left wanting and bitter at the lacking games that would be released from that point on...

I would actually be willing to bet that if you could somehow force all of these newer shiney seekers to do the unthinkable and partake in an MMO were you could die and loose your lewt or be ganked by people just cause they feel like ganking you; they would very quickly become cursed as well. Its just human nature to become spoiled and constantly crave something better or more exciting. Once these players felt the excitement and even anger from getting ganked and relieved of their pixel possesions they would immediately start to see what they once saw as entertaining and "fun"; as boring and pointless which is basically the syndrome most of us here are suffering from.

[Rza]

To add 1 more thing, its not that what you think is wrong Greg because its not, not at all. Its just that there is a cloud of sorts around the heads of most players today preventing them from knowing what a "fun" game was even if it was on the monitor infront of them. If devs did what you say in your post, the end result would likely be a game that most OPP and many other older players would see as a great game. The newer players or generation WoW on the other hand would see the same game as nothing but negative until they stopped trying to hate it because it wasnt what they thought they wanted or in the more likely scenario just decided to say "fuk it" and go back to their beloved bank sitting and pixel possesions.

I guess my overall point here is that not only are there some major problems with the mentality of MMO game developers today; there is also a more critical problem in the mentality of the majority of players as well which would likely prevent even a truly badass and fun game from being any sort of sucess because of its necessary deviation from what most players sadly see as their idea of a fun MMO.

[Yaz]

why do you always refresh 5 month old threads.

[Rza]

You cant keep getting all worked up over such trivial things man, seriously... I am starting to get a little worried about your stress level and all with what I have read lately on how stress effects life span and all. Maybe some time you and I can jump in vent together and work on some relaxing breathing excersizes to help you relax a bit. All you have to do is ask and I am here for you; hell, we all are here for you man cause we <3 you!

[Blaze]

Good threads never die!

[Yaz]

Uh huh right .. my one sentence post is clearly much more "worked up" than your 2 post manifesto ....

Frankly i think you need to stop trying to antagonize people so much, every post you have made in the last 6 months is a revival of a dead thread, is paragraphs long and argumentative in nature.

[Funhat]

If good threads never die this one should of had it's throat slit 2 months ago