MMOs are so annoying

[josemlopes]

Why are MMOs so god dam annoying? Why do they force you to grind? Why does the control scheme tries to copy a point and click adventure game? Why in the FUCK cant you actually do the attacks and parrys manually? God damnit!

Ok, the rage is gone... I am ok now. I have been today searching for an MMO to play and I came to the same conclusion I always come when I feel the need of playing one, "There is still not an MMO that I may like". Wich is sad since there are so many. Today I went for the Free to Play although in previous searches I looked them all. In the Free to Play MMO section Korea DOMINATES, seriously almost everything is from them, although the most original things arent (Ah, suprise). Korea limits to copy paste games... literally. Especially in the MMO Shooter genre (although I never understood why they called MMO since its just multiplayer matches like any other shooter out there).

Check this out
Skip to 2:16 and listen to his commentary, then skip to 8:14.


How is this even possible? Now understand that it happens a lot in these Koreans MMO Shooters.


Another thing is that this MMO Shooter sub-genre copys Counter-Strike since it is a hell of a popular game, so what game do they copy in order to make a fantasy MMO?

Yup, World Of Warcraft, this isnt anything new and it isnt just the Koreans. What sucks is that WOW is dated, everything, I dont care about the graphics, I understand that but the gameplay? Click in enemy, wait for health bar to drop, win xp and look for the next one to level up? What the FUCK!?

Why dont they try to create new immersive worlds, with immersive gameplay.
For example check this WOW PVE fight

Yeah, it may take some skill and it isnt just point and click but look at the immersion of the game. There is none. The landscape is as interesting as a brick wall and the monters just dont look real, the way they move, the way they interact. There just isnt any drama to it. The gameplay is basicly picking the right spells at the right time.

Now imagine if the fight was something more like this in term of gameplay wise.

The player in here uses almost the same sword attack and the monster is retarded lol, but still, isnt it more interesting? Actually having to see the monster coming our direction, and having to actually avoid his attacks.

Another thing, why do you need to level up? What is the logic of levelling up? In real life you dont level up and it is still preety balanced. So why do games force you to level up trhough grinding? Grinding is boring, doing the same thing over and over. Why?

Once upon a time I used to play Garrys Mod RP mode, it was like GTA in a small map, where a player would be the mayor, some others would be cops, thiefs, shop owners, citizens and etc. Basicly it was a game mode where you played the role of a citizen and your future depended on your actions and the actions of the other players, kind of like in real life. There werent xp, there werent levels, and it worked. It was fun. Your progress was noticed has you gained reputation among the other players, it was real reputation, not a reputation meter. You earned money buy selling stuff to other players, while making profit. You had this sence of evolution without any kind of meters.

Evolution in that game was how important, how relevant, how meaningfull the player was among the others. He wasnt better then the other player because he was level 40 and the other was 21. He was better because he proved that he was better.

The game had guns, but they werent the most important thing about it, the most important thing was the other players and you.


Well, thanks for reading this, it still is a lot and I hope it makes sense to you.

 

[Simnic]

You can just hope that Darkfall comes out someday.

 

[hittite]

MMOs Explained!
thanks to those wonderful rejects at LRR

 

[Azriel Nightshade]

If I'm interpreting the OPs post correctly then it seems his(or her) irritation with MMOs has more to do with not enjoying DnD style RPG mechanics as opposed to more active first-person based action,not the inherent concept of MMOs. Personally I disagree completely with that opinion and actively enjoy the lame,grind filled, completive ,fun filled wonders of WoW. Keep in mind that I'm a WoW fan-boy so my argument my be invalid.

 

[josemlopes]

If I'm interpreting the OPs post correctly then it seems his(or her) irritation with MMO that are based on DnD style RPG mechanics in favor of more active first-person based action. Personally I disagree completely and that opinion and actively enjoy the lame,grind filled, completive ,fun filled wonders of WoW. Keep in mind that I'm a WoW fan-boy so my argument my be invalid.

I understand you, but what really irritates me is that after all these years they havent changed. They could still make games like WoW, just dont make all of them like WoW.

 

[ultrachicken]

If you're complaining about leveling in an RPG then you, sir, are a simpleton who is in the wrong genre entirely.

If you're complaining about grinding, that's more understandable. But leveling and grinding are not necessarily intertwined.

If everything was so varied, then the level cap would have to be very low to compensate for the fact that it's difficult to put out lots of creative content.

To answer your question about why so many MMOs are like WoW, click here.

 

[CitySquirrel]

cuz none of this is a matter of taste...

 

[Blueruler182]

That's your opinion. No, I don't need to read what you wrote, that's the answer to all MMO related questions. That's your opinion.

 

[Arachon]

I agree, the "WoW-model" (we all know they ripped off EQ) is stagnant, it's not utilizing the "Massive" in MMO to it's full extent, they've basically done an RPG, and thrown on multiplayer.

Developers should take a peek at EVE Online on how to use the online-environment, mind you, I'm not saying that all games have to be like EVE, EVE is a niche game, but CCP has done something unique in utilizing the game's online component to provide content which is more intertwined with the players.

 

[Keava]

So generally you dislike MMOs. Good for you i suppose. Was it really worth such long post? You can always wait for the 'next-gen' which as it stands for now is generally DMC/GoW style gameplay put into MMO and streamlined by crafty Koreans (look: TERA).

Why they don't evolve faster? Because players don't want them to. Lately there were two 'hyped' first person MMOs, Mortal Online and Darkfall, both failed at luring enough crowd because people apparently don't want first person experience in their MMOs. They want a point and click/12345 button mash because it's
1) simple
2) familiar
3) working fine
I don't play MMOs for some innovative gameplay or fancy control scheme, i play it for people i met there and to relax myself with mindless grind while talking about silly things on guild chat.

 

[Broderick]

If you dont like the RPG part of MMORPG, then dont play one. I realize that it is your right to voice your opinions, but please do not try to show your opinions as fact. You should not conclude that just because one area/character/mechanic is boring/unrealistic/tedious in a game, it means it all is; no it does not, it means your nit picking for your own ends. Also complaining about fantasy RPGs being unrealistic is like complaining about the sky being blue.

I know that you want to see other MMOs out there that are not like WoW, or even RPG ish for that matter, but complaining about certain things you dont like in MMOs are not going to be good for discussion value. Instead, just point out a few more things that you would like to see added in MMOs to make them more interesting instead of bashing the things that (IN YOUR OPPINION) is not. I like your idea of being able to parry manually instead of a parry chance, but you have to think of how that would work in a game. How would it be implemented? How would you keep lag spikes and other sort of things from ruining the mechanic?

 

[Enos Shenk]

I agree, the "WoW-model" (we all know they ripped off EQ)

Strong disagree. Unless you count "Guys in armor and swords beat on monsters" as ripping off EQ. I would consider it more "Taking it to the next level" as opposed to "Ripping off".

I keep posting this on these forums whenever someone brings up the particular topic of why nothing can beat WoW. Personally I blame the average age around here for not seeing the state of MMOs pre-WoW.

For those of you who don't remember what an MMO like Everquest or Ultima Online was like before WoW blew the lid off the market, here's what you had.

No quests for exp, you killed 500 bunnies to get level 2, then you killed 500 deer to get level 3 etc.
Not much of an over-arching story to the game. Mainly because of the "No quests" thing.
Absolutely brutal. Whether it was open PVP, or losing half of a level on death, or losing your entire inventory on death.

MMO's were a niche market until Blizzard decided to build on the formula and fix/remove/add features to make the game more accessible. The result is pretty obvious.

If Blizzard had just copypasted EQ, it would have failed. Just like all the companies copypasting WoW are failing. But no companies have the financial backing or industry reputation to build on the WoW formula and blow the lid off again. Look at where Blizzard was pre-WoW, they were in the position every game studio envies, hugely respected with enough clout to avoid playing serf to some publisher. They could build what they wanted, when they wanted, and it always sold like hotcakes. They had the position to be able to make a go at improving the state of the art of MMOs, and they succeeded.

Boiling it down, until another studio with a huge amount of industry clout makes a suprise go at the MMO game, and takes it to the next level like WoW took EQ to the next level, WoW will reign.

*Goes back to keeping an eye on Bioware*

 

[CrystalShadow]

OK, I'm going to go through this a few bits at a time.

Keep in mind I play 1 mmo, and get bored with it easily, and often don't play for weeks on end, so I do know where you're coming from.

I'm also an amateur game developer, so I know a handful of things about the other side of this stuff too.

Anyway, here goes.

Why are MMOs so god dam annoying? Why do they force you to grind? Why does the control scheme tries to copy a point and click adventure game? Why in the FUCK cant you actually do the attacks and parrys manually? God damnit!

That's a technical issue. for an MMO to actually mean anything, you need A LOT of players online at the same time. Otherwise, it's just an online multiplayer game.
BUT, there's a big technical problem with that. It was much, much worse in the days before broadband, but it's still a huge problem.

Basically, for every extra player you add to the same server, the amount of internet traffic the server needs to be able to cope with goes up more or less exponentially.
Sure, a lot of effort goes into making it more efficient, but in the end, you're still left with a situation where having 10 players isn't 10 times the work, but more like 100 times the work.

And the more work the server has to do, the more lag there is.
Now, how do you hide lag? Well, lag is most noticeable when there is a lot of time-critical action that the player has to respond to directly.

Try playing online poker VS an online FPS - 1 second of lag, the poker game would still be perfectly playable. With even 1/10th that amount of lag, people playing an FPS already start to complain about it.

The most common form of MMO is basically designed so that what the player does is easy to predict, and easy to compensate for.
No fast, highly precise action involved, so you can easily put 50-100 people on a server instead of 10-20.

Ok, the rage is gone... I am ok now. I have been today searching for an MMO to play and I came to the same conclusion I always come when I feel the need of playing one, "There is still not an MMO that I may like". Wich is sad since there are so many. Today I went for the Free to Play although in previous searches I looked them all. In the Free to Play MMO section Korea DOMINATES, seriously almost everything is from them, although the most original things arent (Ah, suprise). Korea limits to copy paste games... literally. Especially in the MMO Shooter genre (although I never understood why they called MMO since its just multiplayer matches like any other shooter out there).



Check this out
Skip to 2:16 and listen to his commentary, then skip to 8:14.


How is this even possible? Now understand that it happens a lot in these Koreans MMO Shooters.

Hmm. Well, the blatant copying is probably only possible because of the laws in the countries that made them.

Also... Notice what those MMO shooters actually are; They're not MMO's at all, as far as I can see, just online shooters with RPG elements bolted on.
As in, the first 'M' (Massive) in MMO seems to be missing, and instead they've just tacked on some 'skill progression'

This seems closely related to the same technical problems I've already mentioned though.

Another thing is that this MMO Shooter sub-genre copys Counter-Strike since it is a hell of a popular game, so what game do they copy in order to make a fantasy MMO?

Yup, World Of Warcraft, this isnt anything new and it isnt just the Koreans. What sucks is that WOW is dated, everything, I dont care about the graphics, I understand that but the gameplay? Click in enemy, wait for health bar to drop, win xp and look for the next one to level up? What the FUCK!?

Why dont they try to create new immersive worlds, with immersive gameplay.
For example check this WOW PVE fight

Yeah, it may take some skill and it isnt just point and click but look at the immersion of the game. There is none. The landscape is as interesting as a brick wall and the monters just dont look real, the way they move, the way they interact. There just isnt any drama to it. The gameplay is basicly picking the right spells at the right time.

The main reason WOW gets copied is because it was a success, and the interface is familiar.
Having said that, most new MMO's fail precisely because they insist on trying to copy WOW too closely.

Nevertheless, while you could make it look more impressive, keep in mind how WOW works behind the scenes.
A lot of it is statistical; - You can't physically dodge, but there's, say a 10% dodge bonus if you step out of the way, and a spell does a certain amount of damage based on range, it's strength, and your opponent's defenses.

Partially this is because it's a gamestyle copied from Pen & Paper RPG's, but another important factor is that you don't need huge amounts of information going back and forth between the players and the server;
The more direct the action, the more information that needs to be sent across a network, and the more difficult it is to pull off.

Now imagine if the fight was something more like this in term of gameplay wise.

The player in here uses almost the same sword attack and the monster is retarded lol, but still, isnt it more interesting? Actually having to see the monster coming our direction, and having to actually avoid his attacks.

See above. You could make something that looks like this, instead of the way WOW does it, but you'd have a really hard time with the actual gameplay.
If dodging really has any immediate effect on wether you get hit or not (and involves fast, precise movements), then lag becomes more of an issue.

Basically, in WOW, you have maybe 1 attack every 1/2 second, at most, and while the position of the attacker and defender matter, moving slightly out of the way will only make a minor difference, which you probably won't notice if the server doesn't get it 100% right.

In an FPS, or the second example you gave, the difference between being hit or not, depends on being maybe 1 foot further back (or to the left or right) than you were when the attack started.
Since the attack itself happens really quickly (maybe 1/10th of a second or less), and only matters if it hits you, there is a huge problem if the server uses old information about your position to work out if you were hit or not. Worse still, since the AI (or your human opponent) will probably keep up with you if you move slowly, you have to evade quite suddenly;
This means, that if there is a large lag between your computer and the server, it will constantly get it wrong - Resulting in you getting hit when you thought you'd evaded, or missing when you thought you'd hit.
This means the lag has to be as low as possible if you have this kind of action. And as I already mentioned, the more players on a server, the higher the lag.
Which is precisely why normal FPS games with multiplayer, don't allow more than about 16 players even if you're on a LAN, which has next to no lag compared to the internet.

Long story short - You'd need some absolutely amazing programming to make an action oriented MMO actually stand any chance of working (without cheating the way those FPS ones seem to be). And it's hard enough making an MMO as it is, so few companies are going to attempt something that risky. (unfortunately)

Another thing, why do you need to level up? What is the logic of levelling up? In real life you dont level up and it is still preety balanced. So why do games force you to level up trhough grinding? Grinding is boring, doing the same thing over and over. Why?

Don't ask me about grinding - That's just the developer's excuse to drag out how long it takes you to get through all their content.

Levels are easier to explain. They come from the fact that most MMO's are MMORPG's, and these are in turn inspired by the Pen & Paper RPG's which have existed since the 1970's.

If you look through the history of those, you notice that they basically have a set of numbers that determine how good at something you are;

This is roughly modelled on real life, in that to go up in skill in one of those games, you need what are usually referred to as Experience points;
In real life, to be good at most things, you need to practice them - And usually, the more you practice, the better you get. (incedentally, you could call this grinding, of a sort - If you want to be good at playing the guitar, you typically have to suffer through being absolutely terrible at it for years first.)

Anyway, so far, so good. Experience points make sense as a mathematical representation of the amount of 'useful' practice you've had at a skill.

And, several RPG's leave it at that; You can improve in whatever skill you feel like. (usually by 'spending' your experience to improve them - Probably because keeping track of what you actually did during a game would be too difficult if a human has to do it, and also because not all of the stuff you would have conceptually been doing with your time is actually played out in a traditional RPG session - There's always 'downtime', just like how a film might skip certain boring bits.)

But, several game designers quickly noticed a problem here; If you let your players spend their experience on any skill they like, they might choose all kinds of weird things, and ignore stuff that's actually quite important to be any good at the game.
It also becomes increasingly difficult for the game master to know how strong a group is when you have to deduce that from the individual skills of all the players.
How do you know if the monster you put up against them is going to get ripped to shreds, or tear the player party apart without breaking a sweat?
That's where levels came from.
By creating the game such that every time you reach a new level, you automatically improve at certain basic skills related to whatever your main profession happens to be, it makes sure that all the players at least have the basics covered.
Also, by having 1 number that represents these basic common skills, you have an easy way to know how powerful your players are.

That last point is most likely the primary thing that MMO's make use of;
Incedentally however, I've seen more than one obscure MMORPG that uses the free-form skill approach rather than the level based approach.
(obscure MMO's also throw up some very strange settings too, incidentally.)

Once upon a time I used to play Garrys Mod RP mode, it was like GTA in a small map, where a player would be the mayor, some others would be cops, thiefs, shop owners, citizens and etc. Basicly it was a game mode where you played the role of a citizen and your future depended on your actions and the actions of the other players, kind of like in real life. There werent xp, there werent levels, and it worked. It was fun. Your progress was noticed has you gained reputation among the other players, it was real reputation, not a reputation meter. You earned money buy selling stuff to other players, while making profit. You had this sence of evolution without any kind of meters.

That could certainly work, and be a lot of fun. But it's also very static. Wether that's a problem or not depends on the environment.

Keep in mind that there's a huge number of obscure MMO's that nobody talks about.
But also remember that 90% of MMO's are MMORPG's - And RPG's, experience points, and skill progression (but not necessarily levels) are kind of the defining feature of the Role Playing Genre.

Evolution in that game was how important, how relevant, how meaningfull the player was among the others. He wasnt better then the other player because he was level 40 and the other was 21. He was better because he proved that he was better.

The game had guns, but they werent the most important thing about it, the most important thing was the other players and you.

That can certainly work - But taken to it's extreme, you end up with Second Life, which is no longer a game, but merely a social environment where the only truly meaningful part of it is your interaction with the other users.

If you want it to be a game, then you either have a fixed set of abilities that everyone has regarldless, or you need some way of determining who has what skills and why.
The most common MMORPG approaches (which are both copied from the Pen & Paper games that insired them)
classes - Which define what general role a character serves
and Experience - Which defines how good a given player is at their role, but is mostly just defined by how long they've been doing it.

Excepting of course that there's often skill trees as well, so that within a class there's variety too.

[quote
Well, thanks for reading this, it still is a lot and I hope it makes sense to you.[/quote]

It's alright. Don't mind my huge and probably pointless explanation of your complaints either.

I'd wish someone would do something Innovative with MMO's too; But with it apparently costing about $60 million just to get one off the ground, innovation doesn't seem to be their strength.

 

[josemlopes]

OK, I'm going to go through this a few bits at a time.

Keep in mind I play 1 mmo, and get bored with it easily, and often don't play for weeks on end, so I do know where you're coming from.

I'm also an amateur game developer, so I know a handful of things about the other side of this stuff too.

Anyway, here goes.

Why are MMOs so god dam annoying? Why do they force you to grind? Why does the control scheme tries to copy a point and click adventure game? Why in the FUCK cant you actually do the attacks and parrys manually? God damnit!

That's a technical issue. for an MMO to actually mean anything, you need A LOT of players online at the same time. Otherwise, it's just an online multiplayer game.
BUT, there's a big technical problem with that. It was much, much worse in the days before broadband, but it's still a huge problem.

Basically, for every extra player you add to the same server, the amount of internet traffic the server needs to be able to cope with goes up more or less exponentially.
Sure, a lot of effort goes into making it more efficient, but in the end, you're still left with a situation where having 10 players isn't 10 times the work, but more like 100 times the work.

And the more work the server has to do, the more lag there is.
Now, how do you hide lag? Well, lag is most noticeable when there is a lot of time-critical action that the player has to respond to directly.

Try playing online poker VS an online FPS - 1 second of lag, the poker game would still be perfectly playable. With even 1/10th that amount of lag, people playing an FPS already start to complain about it.

The most common form of MMO is basically designed so that what the player does is easy to predict, and easy to compensate for.
No fast, highly precise action involved, so you can easily put 50-100 people on a server instead of 10-20.

Ok, the rage is gone... I am ok now. I have been today searching for an MMO to play and I came to the same conclusion I always come when I feel the need of playing one, "There is still not an MMO that I may like". Wich is sad since there are so many. Today I went for the Free to Play although in previous searches I looked them all. In the Free to Play MMO section Korea DOMINATES, seriously almost everything is from them, although the most original things arent (Ah, suprise). Korea limits to copy paste games... literally. Especially in the MMO Shooter genre (although I never understood why they called MMO since its just multiplayer matches like any other shooter out there).



Check this out
Skip to 2:16 and listen to his commentary, then skip to 8:14.


How is this even possible? Now understand that it happens a lot in these Koreans MMO Shooters.

Hmm. Well, the blatant copying is probably only possible because of the laws in the countries that made them.

Also... Notice what those MMO shooters actually are; They're not MMO's at all, as far as I can see, just online shooters with RPG elements bolted on.
As in, the first 'M' (Massive) in MMO seems to be missing, and instead they've just tacked on some 'skill progression'

This seems closely related to the same technical problems I've already mentioned though.

Another thing is that this MMO Shooter sub-genre copys Counter-Strike since it is a hell of a popular game, so what game do they copy in order to make a fantasy MMO?

Yup, World Of Warcraft, this isnt anything new and it isnt just the Koreans. What sucks is that WOW is dated, everything, I dont care about the graphics, I understand that but the gameplay? Click in enemy, wait for health bar to drop, win xp and look for the next one to level up? What the FUCK!?

Why dont they try to create new immersive worlds, with immersive gameplay.
For example check this WOW PVE fight

Yeah, it may take some skill and it isnt just point and click but look at the immersion of the game. There is none. The landscape is as interesting as a brick wall and the monters just dont look real, the way they move, the way they interact. There just isnt any drama to it. The gameplay is basicly picking the right spells at the right time.

The main reason WOW gets copied is because it was a success, and the interface is familiar.
Having said that, most new MMO's fail precisely because they insist on trying to copy WOW too closely.

Nevertheless, while you could make it look more impressive, keep in mind how WOW works behind the scenes.
A lot of it is statistical; - You can't physically dodge, but there's, say a 10% dodge bonus if you step out of the way, and a spell does a certain amount of damage based on range, it's strength, and your opponent's defenses.

Partially this is because it's a gamestyle copied from Pen & Paper RPG's, but another important factor is that you don't need huge amounts of information going back and forth between the players and the server;
The more direct the action, the more information that needs to be sent across a network, and the more difficult it is to pull off.

Now imagine if the fight was something more like this in term of gameplay wise.

The player in here uses almost the same sword attack and the monster is retarded lol, but still, isnt it more interesting? Actually having to see the monster coming our direction, and having to actually avoid his attacks.

See above. You could make something that looks like this, instead of the way WOW does it, but you'd have a really hard time with the actual gameplay.
If dodging really has any immediate effect on wether you get hit or not (and involves fast, precise movements), then lag becomes more of an issue.

Basically, in WOW, you have maybe 1 attack every 1/2 second, at most, and while the position of the attacker and defender matter, moving slightly out of the way will only make a minor difference, which you probably won't notice if the server doesn't get it 100% right.

In an FPS, or the second example you gave, the difference between being hit or not, depends on being maybe 1 foot further back (or to the left or right) than you were when the attack started.
Since the attack itself happens really quickly (maybe 1/10th of a second or less), and only matters if it hits you, there is a huge problem if the server uses old information about your position to work out if you were hit or not. Worse still, since the AI (or your human opponent) will probably keep up with you if you move slowly, you have to evade quite suddenly;
This means, that if there is a large lag between your computer and the server, it will constantly get it wrong - Resulting in you getting hit when you thought you'd evaded, or missing when you thought you'd hit.
This means the lag has to be as low as possible if you have this kind of action. And as I already mentioned, the more players on a server, the higher the lag.
Which is precisely why normal FPS games with multiplayer, don't allow more than about 16 players even if you're on a LAN, which has next to no lag compared to the internet.

Long story short - You'd need some absolutely amazing programming to make an action oriented MMO actually stand any chance of working (without cheating the way those FPS ones seem to be). And it's hard enough making an MMO as it is, so few companies are going to attempt something that risky. (unfortunately)

Another thing, why do you need to level up? What is the logic of levelling up? In real life you dont level up and it is still preety balanced. So why do games force you to level up trhough grinding? Grinding is boring, doing the same thing over and over. Why?

Don't ask me about grinding - That's just the developer's excuse to drag out how long it takes you to get through all their content.

Levels are easier to explain. They come from the fact that most MMO's are MMORPG's, and these are in turn inspired by the Pen & Paper RPG's which have existed since the 1970's.

If you look through the history of those, you notice that they basically have a set of numbers that determine how good at something you are;

This is roughly modelled on real life, in that to go up in skill in one of those games, you need what are usually referred to as Experience points;
In real life, to be good at most things, you need to practice them - And usually, the more you practice, the better you get. (incedentally, you could call this grinding, of a sort - If you want to be good at playing the guitar, you typically have to suffer through being absolutely terrible at it for years first.)

Anyway, so far, so good. Experience points make sense as a mathematical representation of the amount of 'useful' practice you've had at a skill.

And, several RPG's leave it at that; You can improve in whatever skill you feel like. (usually by 'spending' your experience to improve them - Probably because keeping track of what you actually did during a game would be too difficult if a human has to do it, and also because not all of the stuff you would have conceptually been doing with your time is actually played out in a traditional RPG session - There's always 'downtime', just like how a film might skip certain boring bits.)

But, several game designers quickly noticed a problem here; If you let your players spend their experience on any skill they like, they might choose all kinds of weird things, and ignore stuff that's actually quite important to be any good at the game.
It also becomes increasingly difficult for the game master to know how strong a group is when you have to deduce that from the individual skills of all the players.
How do you know if the monster you put up against them is going to get ripped to shreds, or tear the player party apart without breaking a sweat?
That's where levels came from.
By creating the game such that every time you reach a new level, you automatically improve at certain basic skills related to whatever your main profession happens to be, it makes sure that all the players at least have the basics covered.
Also, by having 1 number that represents these basic common skills, you have an easy way to know how powerful your players are.

That last point is most likely the primary thing that MMO's make use of;
Incedentally however, I've seen more than one obscure MMORPG that uses the free-form skill approach rather than the level based approach.
(obscure MMO's also throw up some very strange settings too, incidentally.)

Once upon a time I used to play Garrys Mod RP mode, it was like GTA in a small map, where a player would be the mayor, some others would be cops, thiefs, shop owners, citizens and etc. Basicly it was a game mode where you played the role of a citizen and your future depended on your actions and the actions of the other players, kind of like in real life. There werent xp, there werent levels, and it worked. It was fun. Your progress was noticed has you gained reputation among the other players, it was real reputation, not a reputation meter. You earned money buy selling stuff to other players, while making profit. You had this sence of evolution without any kind of meters.

That could certainly work, and be a lot of fun. But it's also very static. Wether that's a problem or not depends on the environment.

Keep in mind that there's a huge number of obscure MMO's that nobody talks about.
But also remember that 90% of MMO's are MMORPG's - And RPG's, experience points, and skill progression (but not necessarily levels) are kind of the defining feature of the Role Playing Genre.

Evolution in that game was how important, how relevant, how meaningfull the player was among the others. He wasnt better then the other player because he was level 40 and the other was 21. He was better because he proved that he was better.

The game had guns, but they werent the most important thing about it, the most important thing was the other players and you.

That can certainly work - But taken to it's extreme, you end up with Second Life, which is no longer a game, but merely a social environment where the only truly meaningful part of it is your interaction with the other users.

If you want it to be a game, then you either have a fixed set of abilities that everyone has regarldless, or you need some way of determining who has what skills and why.
The most common MMORPG approaches (which are both copied from the Pen & Paper games that insired them)
classes - Which define what general role a character serves
and Experience - Which defines how good a given player is at their role, but is mostly just defined by how long they've been doing it.

Excepting of course that there's often skill trees as well, so that within a class there's variety too.

[quote
Well, thanks for reading this, it still is a lot and I hope it makes sense to you.

It's alright. Don't mind my huge and probably pointless explanation of your complaints either.

I'd wish someone would do something Innovative with MMO's too; But with it apparently costing about $60 million just to get one off the ground, innovation doesn't seem to be their strength.[/quote]

Thanks for explaining this, it seems that the time for change isnt right now. We still have to wait.

 

[Dexiro]

Yeah, it may take some skill and it isnt just point and click but look at the immersion of the game. There is none. The landscape is as interesting as a brick wall and the monters just dont look real, the way they move, the way they interact. There just isnt any drama to it. The gameplay is basicly picking the right spells at the right time.

It does have quite a lot of immersion actually. I'll agree that the monsters are cardboard cutouts, it's especially visible in the example you posted at least, but the environments are brilliant.
It doesn't come through much in that video but WoW has some of the best environments i've seen in any game, and certainly the most variety. The only problem is that it's a bit patchworky.

A lot of RPG's are basically just picking the right spells at the right time as well. Again i'll admit WoW doesn't really challenge you much though, at least until you start the endgame content.

 

[Savagezion]

CoH/CoV has the most immersive combat mechanics I have played so far. I wish more titles would evolve from this model instead of WoW. I am hoping GW2 will. It is important to watch the hotkey bar. There is no "auto-attack" in this game. If you don't use an alpha, you don't strike your opponent. Every hit is issued by the player. This is actually a video of a blaster that sucks IMO because she doesn't make good use of the environment around her.

 

[Sven und EIN HUND]

You can just hope that Darkfall comes out someday.

I don't wanna burst your bubble, man, but it did come out, and as far as I know it fails pretty hard.

 

[ShadowAurora]

have you tired demon souls its got just what you want, i dont like grind either but i started WoW with a friend and while we grined we made jokes to pass the time so its not bad with friends. also people play mmorpgs becuz its fantasy and unrealistic