MMO's, what's the point?

[Duchessprozac]

Originally Posted by Saeltari

Brings up a good question.

Are there any MMOs where people play as people, say you didn't want to adventure you just wanted to open a tavern and listen to others stories or you wanted to open a shop or be a traveling merchant or you wished to gain the kingdom, perhaps only to marry the prince/princess. Could you start a guild and manuever to take over other guilds? Could you enter a large city and then attempt to horn in and take over from the theives guild? Could another actual person already be playing as the leader of the theives guild? Could you start a kingdom and then fight with other actual people who have also started kingdoms?

I don't think there are any fantasy MMOs like this but from what I gather about EVE, it is pretty much like you described, only set in space.

[Rahl Windsong]

Quite right MTF and the main reason a game like WoW fails is a very fundamental thing where they don't allow players to speak to their real enemy. They take away the ability for Horde and Alliance to speak to each other in an attempt to stop trash talking after a PvP kill, however they also completely kill any sort of meaningful RP in the process.

If Blizzard did one thing on their RP servers and allowed Horde and alliance to speak to each other then RP could take place from stories made up by the players. As soon as you can talk to the real enemy then the only thing that limitts RP is your own imagination.

There is also an MMO that I have heard of, never played it though, that allows the player to just live a virtual life there, in fact as I understand it there is no way to acutally have your player die in this game. The game is called Second Life and you can check it out here: http://secondlife.com/

[Heinleinaddict]

There are actually pretty massive storylines in WoW. And everytime a new patch comes out the story grows. Right now the latest dungeon is Ulduar, the story for this instance is the attempted escape of an Old God(part of the mythology of the game you can look the story up on World of Warcraft universe guide - WoWWiki), and now Blizzard has instituted a video for every new patch they make. I can't even begin to go into the lore associated with just this one patch because I would need several pages to handle all of it's intricacies.

From the corruption caused by the Old Gods, the corruption caused by Arthas(the oversweeping storyline) to the valiant efforts of small factions to fight both, you would be amazed how much lore can be in such a social game. I daresay more than an average RPG since the story grows every 3 months.

[ManTimeForgot]

I don't think you were quite getting my point.


Take any standard Lemon. Self-evidently it is yellow, a fruit, and its outer skin has a bumpy and smooth texture to it.

Now I take this lemon and start telling people that it was grown in the groves at the base of Mt Olympus, blessed by all the Greek gods of old. It was carried by Ares while he was on his quest to retrieve his spear from the underworld. And this same lemon found its way into the room where Aphrodite begowned herself in the silks of China's greatest dress smith, the blind Wu-Zi, demi-goddess of sexy-drunkeness. It then fell down a cave to the center of the earth where it bonked Hephaestus in the head, giving him a new idea for an awesome suit of armor that he called "Dragon Skin." Hephaestus triumphantly through the lemon in exultation and the lemon ended up falling down the pit to Tartarus. Whereupon the lemon was reincarnated as the lemon we see in the real world.


Now we look at our standard lemon. Has anything really changed about the lemon now that we know its "true" story? No. And that's why MMO's can have all the content in the world associated with it but still don't have any actual in game content. If you aren't able to interact with the story, then where exactly is the role playing?

Sure potentially anything can be role played with. I can pretend I am a bank robber and my brother is a bank security guard while we are fooling around with two bannanas. Saying that the only limit to role playing is "imagination," while technically true, doesn't actually do anything to address how conducive something is to role playing. A choose your own adventure novel has more role playing power in its meager 100 pages than all 10,000 pages (or whatever it is) of add-on content WoW has ever generated for the simple reason that the choose your own adventure novel lets me pretend that my choices are meaningful and have consequences.


There are no in game interactions between sides other than death, and the sad part is that death isn't really anything more than a hindrance; there are no lasting consequences to either side for doing what they do. Control of resources are not up for grabs; only "exp" and "loot" locations. And the in game interactions within your side are similarly limited; does collecting all those pelts for the NPC trader actually help his business? Is he able to offer you better prices or a wider selection because you helped him out when he needed it? Nope. Just loot and exp. Can you convince the leaders of the alliance to hold off their attacks so that you can use the extra man power to build a great wall against attack? How about broker a deal between elves and dwarves ceding dwarven territory in exchange for elven sentries at every guard post? NPC interaction in WoW is practically Zilch.

The world interaction isn't much better either. This is somewhat forgiveable as the game is large and its player base enormous, thus making lots of things interactable would require a lot of game state changes; making the whole game instanced would solve this, but WoW players would balk at this. That said why is it that my mining skill is limited to finding loot? Why I can't I use my knowledge of mining and engineering to build a tunnel from alliance into horde territory? Why I can't I use my knowledge of engineering and herbalism to detonate local plant life and create an improvised sleep bomb? Why can't warriors throw dirt in their enemy's eyes? Why do I have to go through a door? What rogue in their right mind goes through a door when an open window is better? Why can't I open or break windows? Why can't I fell a tree to provide a distraction or block a path?

And this doesn't even address the game's lack of a goal (singular or otherwise). Without goals how can there be any meaningful interaction with the plot (whether it be the meager in game plot or the multitude of tacked-on out of game stuff)? If you can't actually accomplish anything, then why does any of the story stuff matter? The tacked-on plot from out of game is little more than window dressing; Wow... Did you know that over there is where the first knights Loderan did their squire work? No? Wow...


Now a lot of these issues can similarly be brought up in most JRPGs, and it is for that reason that I often find them guilty of being thinly disguised adventure games; what often saves them is they have actual character development and interaction. Whereas the character development and interaction takes place when in a game like WoW? That's right in your head, if that. Do you honestly expect me to believe that when I see someone's paladin go "LoL Nub; u shud ask th3 guard 4 directions" that they are playing with the spirit of a holy knight? Do I need to even mention Barren's Chat? I mean we all know that chuck norris jokes are somehow conducive to a better portrayal of fantasy characters right?


MMOs are called rpgs but they are rpgs in name only. There is nothing about them that is actually conducive to role playing. They are massively multiplayer online adventure games. Thing is ever since D&D "mainstreamed" pretty much anything with a leveling system has been called an RPG whether it deserved the title or not, and unfortunately the moniker has stuck. Notice that almost nothing is called an adventure game anymore even though in the 90's and earlier there were plenty of "adventure" games... Now I wonder where all the adventure games went? Did Indiana Jones just suddenly stop being popular? Nope he got another movie. Did it suddenly stop being cool to visit ancient, magical, or futuristic locations while running away from crazed demon cultists? Nope. So what happened? Oh, that's right it all got lumped in with role playing games because everyone knows that only RPGs can have crazed demon cultists... Why didn't I think of that?

MTF

[Vladd67]

Here are a couple of examples from the EVE universe which show how seriously people can play this game.
EVE - The Empyrean Age | Vladd’s Gaming World
Gibberings » Breaking: Goonfleet stomps Band of Brothers in biggest EVE takedown ever | ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?
Anyone want to try Eve can try it for 14 days for free, however if you want a 21 day free trial let me know.

[Rodders]

I have read the book on EVE and really enjoyed it.

As to MMORPG's, i am really looking forward to the new Star Wars "The Old Republic" game that is due for release some time soon. Supposed to be very story driven.

[weblegend]

I like MMOs, but so many choices out there nowdays, dont really know what to play...

[Heinleinaddict]

I personally recommend World of Warcraft. The site I linked before has a 14 day free trial if you want to try it out.

Here it is again: 14 day trial

[Saeltari]

Eve looks good but I really want the fantasy world not the sci-fi world which is what Eve is I believe.

Still not sure about WoW, I know a lot of people really enjoy it but everything I have heard gives me the idea that I would not enjoy it so much.

[Urlik]

Warhammer Online does look quite good and I like the way that the battles between Law and Chaos has an effect on how the cities in each realm prosper.

I might give the free trial a go

[ktabic]

Originally Posted by Saeltari

Commonmind and Ktabic I have not played with a niche or a RP server, does that make a big difference, then?

In my experience, yes. You have to stay in character (except /ooc and private) but other players and GMs take abuses more seriously and are more likely to ban idiots. RP servers are generally quieter as well.

Originally Posted by Saeltari

Long story, short. I just look for single player games, anymore. But I know a lot of people play MMOs and I was just curious if they were better at ignoring the idiots or if there were tricks I was missing to cut them out of the game experience.

Leave most of the public channels, use the /ignore command, leave PvP off.

Originally Posted by Urlik

Warhammer Online does look quite good and I like the way that the battles between Law and Chaos has an effect on how the cities in each realm prosper.

Tried Warhammer Online. It's a more hardcore and very PvP (well, ok, RvR) orientated MMO. Didn't like it, mainly becuase the first RvR battle I took part in kind of trivialised toon death (Your side wins by getting 200 kills of the enemy. There are only 8 players a side. It got boring very quickly. OTOH the short timed repeatable quests where great fun)

[Vladd67]

Another example of Eve realism?
BBC NEWS | Technology | Billions stolen in online robbery

[Rodders]

MMO's seem to be becoming quite the phenomenon. There was a program on Channel four in the UK about MMO's and about how they are affecting real life. It mostley featured second life, but others were involved. In addition to the usual stories of people dying in their obsession to play these games non-stop, there were also stories of people fighting others in real life over Control of resources. Whether we like or not, MMO's seem to be here to stay.

Last week i joined Runescape a fantasy MMO (What can i say, it was free. ) It wasn't too bad. It's still early days yet, but i can see how people get so into it. Bring on Star Wars: The Old Republic.

[Altrion]

I think a major reason why the attitudes have become so poor in MMO's lately is that, the majority of players now-a-days are kids who are still in high school, who convince their parents they need to play these games. (That isn't to say that a lot of adults don't play the games, it is just that they have jobs, lives, etc.)

Back 14 years ago when I first started playing. (I was 12, yes.) The majority of players were either adults who had computers and could afford to play the games, programmers/designers/GMs, and the audience was much more mature. Sure you had the occasional foul language, people being rude, etc. But the overall feel was more... mature. More respectable I think is what I mean.

Even with the PvP/PKs. Most of them would jump you, kill you, and damn near take everything you had. But none of them would be rude to you, insult you or make you feel miserable. In fact, some times they would even give your stuff back and then you'd become friends with them. (And kill other people of course, nothing is wrong with a little online bloodshed.)

[Kei]

I played EverQuest classic in the late 90's as my first gaming experience in general (my parents didn't let me play video games). At that point in time it was still relatively new, and the player base consisted of 20-30 year olds with some cash to spend on computers and gaming. The community was fairly mature, and I had a great time.

My experience on other mmos have not been as appealing as that first experience, but I agree with some of the other posters here that the best thing one can do is find a guild which either consists of a specific age range, or at least had leadership which fostered a good environment (or even an RP guild, which exist in some games).

The best MMO experience I had was actually playing with people to whom I could not speak except through the translation options- FFXI. I worked nights so I was online when everyone else was sleeping or at work, and so I only played with Japanese groups. These people take their gaming seriously, and I had a great deal of fun and respect for their skill and the efficiency with which we were able to handle the team work aspects of the content (which were many in FFXI).

If you're looking for a pure RP experience, that would be the hardest to find. If you just want to play with a more mature crowd, you might check out Dream of Mirror Online which is a free to play (micro-transaction business model) game published in English by Aeria. The fact that there are subclasses means it can take a while to master and reach top level. This coupled with somewhat "cute" graphics cuts out a lot of the hormonal teenage douche crowd, so the community of this game often has a higher number of mature and quality players.