Why are there no MMORPG'S that........

drunkenmaster · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:21

don't take forever to finish.

I like wow, you can lvl up to 20 easily in a couple days. takes ages longer to get to 30 even if you play really hard and you end up grinding through getting bored. similar situation when i was playing city of heroes or villians. the thing is, what if i don't want to commit 6 months of my life to playing a heck of a lot to finish a game. also, theres no mmorpg's with a proper "finish", or none i've played.

why can't there be games like WOW, but are much shorter, have an end and let you feel like you've damn well finished something well.

for instance, a LOT of the WOW players have many different characters, a lot of people get bored lvl'ing up once a week/month at high levels and want a fresh take on the game so start another character. if WOW was MUCH shorter, probably increase the length to lvl the first 20 levels, but decrease the time for the next lot. Have all the quests there are now but split them into story arcs. right now there is the main horde vs alliance crap but you don't really get to "play" that story, its all other quests that don't really fit together that well. have more set and specific story lines. if you had that you could start a character pick one of many many paths through the game and have the ability to finish it within a month, actually win. then you can start a new character and pick a completely different path to go through the game.

it wouldn't even be difficult to link up stories, have leveling work differently and have a few different kinds of servers, there are loads around and i'm sure a lot of people would like to play the same way, then leave the guys that like to get to level 60 and run around making gold for 3 years of their life on different servers.

at the moment you have your fps games that are pretty short, rts's which in general, lately, are too easy and take no time to complete. rpg's which can take ages but i often find lacking(oblivion) lately as all content and effort seems to be going on what i assume is massively more profitable online versions. main reason i'm getting peeved with mmorpg's is due to length combat gets boring and samey, dungeons are all the same, missions are all the same. COH/COV was really bad as almost all missions were inside buildings and there were very very very few different lvls. different enemies(not very different) but same locations, maps over and over again.

badgermonkey · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:38

There's no "end" beacuse it would defeat the point. If people can finish it then subscribers would start dropping off.

With regards to the levels, you don't WANT to make sod all worth of levels. Guild Wars did it, I played a hell of a lot of Guild Wars, but ultimately it leaves the game smaller, and shooting up to the highest level in a very short time means you get bored much faster, as you no longer have anything to aim for.

Tical · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:42

The whole point to MMO's is that they are unfinishible, if people played for a few weeks and came to the "end" what would be the point? People would quit and move to another game, or not play at all because of the subscription charges and the fact that there is only a limited number of hours to finish the game.

ins0mn1ac · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:50

I was a total SWG nut and tbh that felt unfinishable, I wish that game was still around, SWG now is a joke.

Pottsey · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:51

Its about time more games moved away from the level based system. Its a shame more games dont use a skill system like Eve-Online. There are no levels in that, no rushing to hit lvl 60 or lvl xx, no boreing grinding to level up.

Phal · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:56

Pottsey said:
Its about time more games moved away from the level based system. Its a shame more games dont use a skill system like Eve-Online. There are no levels in that, no rushing to hit lvl 60 or lvl xx, no boreing grinding to level up.

Yeah, EVE is very good to casual gamers but very unrewarding to regular gamers :\

wordy · 1 Mar 2007 at 12:57

drunkenmaster said:
Lots of Text

Actually there is.

There is a game called A Tale in the Desert It is based in anceint Eypt, it's a non combat mmo where you take your place as a civilian in the communty and players can do various trade jobs and become politicans etc.

There is a final target for the game and once it is reached the game finishes. If I remember rightly the game is is on it's third installment

drunkenmaster · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:00

the point being, especially in wow that loads of people get utterly and truly bored of grining to level up the higher levels so they start again from fresh anyway. i do it, a LOT of people do it. its more fun in the lower levels because you get new abilities and increased power which changes the way you play, up above lvl 40 its just utterly utterly dull to get higher levels.

so the point is, if a huge amount of people already stop and restart over and over without finishing, surely they would enjoy "finishing" before starting again.

as i said, it wouldn't be hard to have a few servers play with a different system. add in some properly scripted game paths, as right now theres no real theme of quests from start to finish. you aren't on one goal and loads of missions sidetrack you for various things you need to finish that goal. everything is essentially a side mission. even on those servers where you could get high quicker and finish if you want, the side missions and raiding and what not are still there so you don't have to finish if you don't want to.

but there are essentially, afaik, NO mmorpg's like this. surely its an area someone could make a game for. i tend to stop my subscriptions for games for this exact reason, COH's i got so bored with, one character i hit 43/44 with, rest i get bored with earlier. but to be fair COH/V level/mission wise is far more repetitive than WOW. but i could level to 50 faster, choose different story arcs and different characters each time i could get to see everything in the game fairly easily, and any story arc i want to do within a month or something.

i don't mind wow, infact i can still enjoy it a bit but i don't have that, i might level in the next couple hours feeling, its just, gotta kill another 3000 mob's to level, then 4000, then 5000

. the one thing i ultimately find dissappointing is the complete lack of direction. you can do anything you want, but you can't choose a gripping, ending, interesting storyline. you can only use broken, unlinked storylines that don't ever "finish" the game. surely that should be an option, in at least one MMORPG.

chimaera · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:07

Guild Wars has exactly what you described, it has an end to the various storylines and once you hit lvl 20 (which happens fairly quickly) thats it, from then on its about acquiring skills and armour/weapons.

plus no subs.

download the free trial and give it a go.

Tical · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:13

drunkenmaster said:
i don't mind wow, infact i can still enjoy it a bit but i don't have that, i might level in the next couple hours feeling, its just, gotta kill another 3000 mob's to level, then 4000, then 5000 . the one thing i ultimately find dissappointing is the complete lack of direction. you can do anything you want, but you can't choose a gripping, ending, interesting storyline. you can only use broken, unlinked storylines that don't ever "finish" the game. surely that should be an option, in at least one MMORPG.

I understand your point...but MMO's are like that. I personally wouldn't play one that "finished" as you put it as it'd make further expansions, areas and dungeons impossible to put in the game if it finished with all the loose ends tied up.

Maybe something like Guild Wars is your sort of thing, theres a long storyline and an "ending" to that storyline to a point, although the storyline doesn't affect the game world as such.

Dj_Jestar · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:14

Pottsey said:
Its about time more games moved away from the level based system. Its a shame more games dont use a skill system like Eve-Online. There are no levels in that, no rushing to hit lvl 60 or lvl xx, no boreing grinding to level up.

EVE Is starting to see the consequnece of a skill/time based system, though. Suddenly every corp/alliance have capitals, yet for pilots who are less than a year old, this is just impossible.

That's a year and tbh, if I were told "the game will really open up for you after one year.." I'd not bother in the first place. I'm just lucky I was there from not far off the start.

drunkenmaster · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:16

Pottsey said:
Its about time more games moved away from the level based system. Its a shame more games dont use a skill system like Eve-Online. There are no levels in that, no rushing to hit lvl 60 or lvl xx, no boreing grinding to level up.

lol, no leveling however you need to speed weeks at a time to "level" up skills to use more effective ships and weapons. i mean, you need cruiser skill to level 5, but theres no leveling in the game, right? lol, used to play it, fairly interesting but you absolutely have to wait ages, talking 6 months before you can use the biggest ships. infact, at least in WOW if you really really really want to you can level up to 60 in 2-3 weeks, but it will be insanely boring, and require you to not waste time with things like, talking, showering and going out. eve is frustrating to say the least. you can get to what, lowest cruisers in a couple weeks maybe, can't think what the little ships before them were called. i did like it, but progressed to the point where i'd only play once every couple weeks while logging in to make sure the skills were lvl'ing up which got dull.

drunkenmaster · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:20

Tical said:
I understand your point...but MMO's are like that. I personally wouldn't play one that "finished" as you put it as it'd make further expansions, areas and dungeons impossible to put in the game if it finished with all the loose ends tied up.

Maybe something like Guild Wars is your sort of thing, theres a long storyline and an "ending" to that storyline to a point, although the storyline doesn't affect the game world as such.

well thats the thing with most Mmorpg's, there are basically on side quests like you find in normal rpg's, but the main quest is missing, there is an idea behind the main quest but nothing you do has any effect on it. IE main quest in WOW is depending on side you're helping to win back the lands from the horde or alliance, or the evil thats invading. but you can't actually win back the land or fight off either, thats what i guess i'm getting at, the main point, reason for the game to exist, isn't part of the game. if i start a game where i'm supposed to be fighting off the evil and pushing it back and i can't do that, its ridiculous. if they add in a main story line, some people can play that, the rest can just do their side quests and never finish. tbh the people that are lvl 70 don't do any new quests really, just repeat raids and dungeons. but theres still no "finish" and takes way to long to get there.

but i get your point completely, there are many different users who want different things. but my point is its easy to cater for all different users, however they don't at all. conversely to you i know loads of people who like the idea of WOW, but don't want to spend 6 months playing it either. if there was as shorter game, quicker, and a finish aswell as what there is now this would only expand the people that would subscribe, making more money, and making a lot of current users happier too. i can't see a downside.

Tical · 1 Mar 2007 at 13:25

drunkenmaster said:
well thats the thing with most Mmorpg's, there are basically on side quests like you find in normal rpg's, but the main quest is missing, there is an idea behind the main quest but nothing you do has any effect on it. IE main quest in WOW is depending on side you're helping to win back the lands from the horde or alliance, or the evil thats invading. but you can't actually win back the land or fight off either, thats what i guess i'm getting at, the main point, reason for the game to exist, isn't part of the game. if i start a game where i'm supposed to be fighting off the evil and pushing it back and i can't do that, its ridiculous. if they add in a main story line, some people can play that, the rest can just do their side quests and never finish. tbh the people that are lvl 70 don't do any new quests really, just repeat raids and dungeons. but theres still no "finish" and takes way to long to get there.

How can they do that? You're talking about massively multiplayer online games here, if one person could change areas by "fighting off evil" how are the many other thousands of players going to be able to quest or do anything in that area, if there is nothing hostile there? Its a good idea, but to put it into practice in open ended MMO's it would be pretty much impossible.

drunkenmaster · 1 Mar 2007 at 14:10

coh/cov, now has area's where area's can be controlled by either side, a more limited scaled. i do know it would be very hard to do.

something i guess could be possible is games that last say, 2-4 weeks, only some servers, in a kinda rts kinda way. players get in at the start of a server cycle, go through missions, level up quicker gain access to new area's and try to control them. try to fight way to the other side's main area's and then alliance of horde could "win" the cycle by controlling the most land or something. thats not really hugely something i'd like to see, might be interesting though, but that would be a way for players to affect the area's they are in.

there can just be a whole range or ways to play most mmorpg's, but they all stick to very single minded ways of running them. i like playing on a wow server that doesn't stop the game and doesn't change the world. but i don't know where this mmorpg idea came about that all games must last indefinately, worlds can't change. all the games are just merging into very similar games with similar classes skills and idea's. i just think so much more can be done.

badgermonkey · 1 Mar 2007 at 14:53

Dj_Jestar said:
EVE Is starting to see the consequnece of a skill/time based system, though. Suddenly every corp/alliance have capitals, yet for pilots who are less than a year old, this is just impossible.

That's a year and tbh, if I were told "the game will really open up for you after one year.." I'd not bother in the first place. I'm just lucky I was there from not far off the start.

That was the gripe I had with Eve, it was good but I didn't have to DO anything to progress. I just wondered what was the point... I didn't have to do anything, and I damn well wasn't going to pay monthly just to watch some skills level up.

daz · 1 Mar 2007 at 15:14

But the thing is, I don't play Eve to level up or to learn new skills. I don't play Eve to earn ISK.

I play Eve because it's fun.

These days you can start having fun from about 2 weeks in.

The amount of grind is up to you...

Dj_Jestar · 1 Mar 2007 at 15:30

daz said:
But the thing is, I don't play Eve to level up or to learn new skills. I don't play Eve to earn ISK.

I play Eve because it's fun.

These days you can start having fun from about 2 weeks in.

The amount of grind is up to you...

Of course, but you are limited (even if only slightly) in what you can do as a new player, even a 6month old char has no hopes of smashing a deathstar POS.

daz · 1 Mar 2007 at 15:43

Dj_Jestar said:
Of course, but you are limited (even if only slightly) in what you can do as a new player, even a 6month old char has no hopes of smashing a deathstar POS.

No but they can provide support.

It's an interesting question really... I quite like the skill/levelling system in Eve, and being a decently skilled player these days there's obviously a lot open to me to do each day when I log on. But there is the question of specialization - and that is that someone with 50M skill points isn't twice as good as me or someone else with my 23M in any particular ship. They might be 5% better than me... but there's no reason why I can't bridge that gap with luck or PVP skill or alternatively even by grinding missions/ratting to get implants.

daz · 1 Mar 2007 at 15:46

Dj_Jestar said:
Of course, but you are limited (even if only slightly) in what you can do as a new player, even a 6month old char has no hopes of smashing a deathstar POS.

You start with 900K in skills these days, I was helping a friend a few weeks ago and it was amazing the number of modules and ships you can use from the get-go. He was in a rifter within a few hours of starting.

I swear I remember it being a lot harder in the beginning when I started, and for the real vets out there it was probably even harder for them.