Non-MMO Fans! What would get you to play one?

[Martenzo]

Well, the only things that would actually make me play one is if someone paid me to do it AND cover the subscription costs.

 

[Khedive Rex]

One thing. Genuine innovation. Not better graphics or a slightly new way of leveling up or new kinds of vehicles but actual concrete innovation to the game mechanics themselves. Something more than press a button to kill an enemy and do it forever until you have enough gold to buy a better weapon and kill more powerful enemies ad infinitum. If an MMO had gameplay that was genuiney interesting or dynamic, I might play it. Otherwise no.

 

[StatikShock]

I really like how people want a game that costs the company hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month in server and bandwidth fees, but they want it for free. Really says something about the gaming community.

 

[TheIceface]

----This is not a real quote, I don't feel like picking through bmgibben's post to find a bunch of different sentences, go back and look at his most recent post here if you want to know what I'm referring to.----

You address a lot of points, some of which are the reason I'm not that heavily involved in MMO games. I do have a GuildWars account, but that got boring so I only go on for the holidays and stuff.

One of the things you mentioned is the cost of the server and that no computer could run it without subscription fees, etc, etc. I've also had people explain to me the reason you have to pay for WoW is because the updates cost money.

Unfortunately there are tons of games out there that support large amounts of players at no subscription fees. Most of them suck, but they do exist. The real reason for the subscription fees is to have a continuous income. It does not cost even 1$ a month from every person playing to keep a server up, and the updates that the players pay for? I'm sorry, I missed the memo that said consumers had to pay extra for their products not to suck. Every game I play has updates, and all of them are free, they're called "patches".

"15$ a month really isn't that much"... Well, no, especially if your parents don't mind paying for it. However, that is just another expense to those of us who have to pay for this addiction (gaming) out of our own pockets. On top of that, its the principle that really pisses me off. Do you realize you are RENTING a game? You don't own it, you can't own it, you are RENTING it. If I wanted to waste my money renting a game I don't intend to play all the time, I would go down to Blockbuster.

For the argument about players affecting the world making it too chaotic, I kind of agree. It would get out of hand, that is, if it was too easy to overthrow governments and conquer land. However, when you have an actively updating game, and its difficult for one side to completely conquer another's' city, it is doable. This might warrant paying for the game, if coders had to actively update the storyline and map boundaries.

Think about it WoWtards, if you could get all your orc buddies and go kill off all the Humans in Stormwind Keep, wouldn't that be awesome to have as another orc stronghold. Then, however, you would be spread apart more, making it easier for the humans to attack and capture one of your bases, etc.

Khedive Rex makes an excellent point, we need something new, not the same old boring crap.

 

[CatcherJJ]

Two words: Star Wars.

I will never play a MMO unless it is star wars. Ever.

 

[Shanba]

Which brings a few important points - first, there must be some form of permadeath.

I'm fairly positive this has been tried and was deemed a pretty big failure

In a conventional mmo, I'm fairly sure it would be - if lulzorc98 dies after grinding day in day out to reach level 70 you'll be furious, but no more - there'll be no real emotional connection, just a lot of hard work down the drain. But in order to make a game story driven, you absolutely have to have the fear of death. It's essential. The quest for immortality (leading to necromancy, quests for the fountain of youth etc.), the fear of a marauding army, the sense of achievement you get from winning a close fight - all stem from or are made more powerful by the fear of death. If your character has cheats death, all of a sudden he's more interesting. If you find the secret to immortality, you've struck gold - even if it does mean you need to kill another player character once every 10 hours of play or so.

I'm working from the base assumption here that an rpg, even an mmorpg, should be story driven. That's why I play RPGs. Good stories need some spice, something that makes them exciting. Death can give you that. Current MMO's are all stat driven. It's all min/maxing. THat's OK to an extent, but it gets dull quickly (well, to me, anyway. Different strokes for different folks - besides, just because my perfect mmo existed wouldn't need to mean everyone else's perfect mmo would disappear.) Oblicion never hooked me because the story very quickly became dull, apart from bits at the beginning and at the end.

Permadeath could be made to work, though, without having to mean the complete overturnign of all your hard work. For a start, if grinding was non-essential, then it doesn't hurt so much to lose the character. But some sort of system where you have successors, say, who can inherit your equipment or w/e would make it work still.

Ok, first off. Everyone and their mother is complaining about the cost. Are you kidding? You get servers that are almost always on and fast that can handle thousands on the server, and hundreds in the immediate area. No PC could host a game and do this. For what you pay, you get massive amounts of time. 700~ hours a month for only 15$.

I agree with this, to a certain extent. Developing something like an MMO is a large investment. Companies looking to fund such a project are going to look for the most successful business model - if they see WoW making however much a month with a monthly cost, well, hell, they'll do the same. Besides which, an MMO, apart from servers, also requires a lot of manpower to maintain - constant developer teams, game mods, forum mods, artists, tech support... that's not to say they aren't overcharging, because chances are, most of them are (but if people will pay, supply/demand...)

People also want a game where they have an effect on the world. Ok, lets be realistic here. You can have an effect on the people, not on the world. When you have 5-6000 people on a server, if everyone had an effect, it'd be utter chaos.

No it wouldn?t? of course you can?t kill the emperor and rape his daughters? that?s not the kind of effect people are ?talking? about, but that doesn?t mean you aren?t supposed to do ANYTHING worthwhile, in most modern MMOs it doesn?t even matter if the world is empty or full with thousands of people because it looks EXACTLY THE SAME.
Take Ultima Online for example? everyone could build houses or guild-castles etc. around the world (which then actually would be there), you could put items down like tables or chairs or plants and actually use them? there were like fairs or special events or whatever that were made that way, you could practically change the gameworld by ?decorating?, sometimes in special cases they could even be locked by GMs so they don?t disappear after 15 minutes, you could put other items on the ground, draw stuff etc. It?s the most ?interaction? with a MMO-world available to date? and that?s kind of sad? it is entirely possible that people can ?change? the world and see the changes only themselves as I have stated above? it?s only the difference of a variable saved for a char if he sees a flaming inferno or a happy city at a certain location?

I absolutely 100% agree with the response here. Developers start with a neatly ordered game world and they fear it being changed. Take World of Warcraft. If they let faction leaders die permanently, that would be awful. Thrall dead to a bunch of yahoos with fancy swords? Some weirdo going around wreaking havoc wit Illidan's blades? Aside from the fact that it would be impossible to decide what was the official story across all servers, it would also make no sense from an in game perspective.

OTOH, a stingy emperor who refuses to hire any guards being assassinated in his sleep? That would make more sense, and be exciting in it's own right.

 

[TheIceface]

Thrall dead to a bunch of yahoos with fancy swords? Some weirdo going around wreaking havoc wit Illidan's blades? Aside from the fact that it would be impossible to decide what was the official story across all servers, it would also make no sense from an in game perspective.

You have to admit though, if it did happen that would peak your interest in the game more. You want to see what the official Blizzard/Bioware story change is. Maybe you could have some intricate way to become a noble and have a bunch of friends help you kill all the people above you. Then a user could be king/emperor and be paranoid about everyone else trying to do the same thing.

I like this, I hope a developer is taking notes.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Trimmed away for the sake of brevity

I can't help but feel that you've missed the point of the thread.

 

[Gitsnik]

Honestly, the grind doesn't bother me, the cost is minimal compared to other things I could be doing, but the thing that kills me most is team work.

I get the whole guild idea, but I'm a loner. Always have been, always will be. My knowledge is limited to discussions with WoW players or EVEOnline players, but the sort of "game" where I can't beat every guy I come up against on my own (ok so maybe I have to level up a bucket load before I do but I'm happy to do that) just doesn't do it for me.

Guess it's a reference to ye-old D&D games when I'd commonly play a loner-thief. Still join a group of people but I'd spend a lot of time on my own. WoW doesn't seem to offer this for me or my kind of person.

Edit: Keeping the PVP aspect (of course though I forgot to mention it)

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

one time fee or no fee whatsoever
fun actually there gameplay
not an MMO

 

[p1ne]

In order for an MMO to be an attractive game to me, it basically couldn't be an MMO. My biggest gripes with the genre are essentially related to bedrock elements of it - the leveling, the monthly fees, the time investment necessary, and the de-emphasis of competition all turn me off. I like to only play one online game at a time and concentrate my energies on getting good at it, so playing an MMO would also require me to sacrifice the option of playing a game from another genre that I'd probably enjoy a lot more. It just doesn't make any sense.