With the recent announcement of Cataclysm hitting the Interwebs, I finally decided (or was brainwashed, you decide) to give World of Warcraft a try. I’ve always enjoyed Warcraft lore, and Warcraft 3 was an excellent RTS, so, I downloaded the 10-day trail, set up my character on PvE, and plunged in. It’s the first MMO I’ve ever played (save Urban Dead), so I was intrigued to see what it was like. I appeared next to an indistinguishable abbey in an indistinguishable forest, and a bloke in armour informed me I should go kill some Skaven type rat-men outside a mine to the north. “Rock on!” I thought, and off I trotted, duly killing ten of them. “Well done!” said the man (even though I'd left dozens behind alive). “Have a sword!” Excellent, I thought, what’s next? Well, I continued playing for a couple of hours, and am now up to level five. However, something is weighing heavily on me the more I play it. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by single player RPGs, but in something like Dungeon Siege (of which WOW reminded me), if you’re tasked with clearing a mine of critters, you go and do it. Henceforth the mine is free of critters. In WOW, I could stay in that mine slaying critters for all eternity, and I’d never, ever succeed. It quickly became apparent for all the levelling and item upgrades I could manage, I couldn’t actually do anything in the game: nothing I did could actually change anything. Later, whilst delivering some grapes to a monk in said abbey (surrounded by players presumably doing something similar), it occurred to me that prior to this moment, millions of other players had done exactly the same thing, delivering dumper trucks worth of grapes, and through all their hard work had achieved absolutely nothing. It might sound weird, but in many games you forget you are actually playing in a controlled, virtual environment. WOW hammered it home with everything it did. It felt so contrived, so orchestrated. Just an endless world with no beginning and no end. It’s the least immersive game I think I’ve ever played. Most RPGs make you feel like you’re a powerful monster-slayer saving the world, WOW makes you feel like you’re playing at being monster-slayers in a nice little safe simulation, where nothing ever goes wrong, but nothing ever happens either. So, given that all my hard work results in nothing but higher stats and the odd new dialogue box, I found myself asking, what’s the point? If I can’t actually achieve anything, why am I wasting my time? Where’s the sense of achievement? Am I missing something here, or is this really how 12 million people spend their time? Edit: Just to make things clear: I'm not trying to make any sweeping statements about WOW in general, only that when I played it, the overwhelming feeling of being unable to accomplish anything was a real turn off, and it was quite surprising to me, given I hadn't heard anyone else mention this. It just surprised me of all the things I thought I might not like about WOW, the total lack of immersion wasn't one of them.
This is actually a really interesting point and one I've never seen brought up before. Now, I'm not a WoW fan at all but I do play MMORPGs and so my retorts, as both as player and a developer are as follows: Firstly, as a player, I would say that the 'achievement' comes through in PvP and in the community-based elements of the game. Like in most MMORPGs, and indeed in WoW, there's a 'global conflict' which essentially provides an ultimate purpose for every small action you take. The impact and change of which you speak occurs at that level. But fundamentally, no, I agree. A individual's actions on the world beside this are minimal if not non-existant. Secondly, as a developer, I would ask what kind of system you would like to see? Remember, you've got to be "fair" to the players. You can't introduce a quest with a great reward but only allow it to be completed by one player. That's not fair. Some MMORPGs have tried 'mission generators' but these become repetetive and are even more generic (kill six of these, take this box to Janet etc.) although AO managed this fairly well. But you're right. Ultimately, unless you're there for the multiplayer aspect, for the PvP and getting involved with other players, your impact on the world is nothing.
And that is why i always said that Shadowbane > WoW. Well, untill they've shut down Shadowbane R.I.P. , it was an amazing experience even though i don't like MMORPGs at all.
While it would be nice if quests and actions did have an impact on the world, in a game played by a LOT of people, it just wouldn't work. I mean, suppose you where the first player on, you clear out some mines, clear out the vineyards e.t.c Then what does the next player have to do? Having said that, CoH and AO manage fairly well, you're missions Don't really have much of an impact upon the world (you might get the odd civillian comment on CoH) but they're designed so they are not meant to be world saving events, just saving someone/thing from a bunch of thugs mostly
This is actually something that has been picked up on by the WoW devs and led to the introduction of their phasing technology which does actually change areas based on your progress through quest chains. At the moment it's only used in a few high level quests but it's been stated that it will be used a lot more in cataclysm to actually provide players with a sense that their actions are having an impact on the world.
This is an argument for instancing really. If Bauul's cave of critters was an instance then the server could flag that he'd already killed all the critters in there and so everytime he went in it would be empty. But then you're extracting yourself from the multiplayer part of the game, not unlike Age of Conan did with their day/night thing. That said, I've never been a fan of instancing. When it comes to MMORPGs, imo, the moment you start pulling people out and into their own little sections then the world is no longer persistant. What if worlds were much larger and repop times were much greater? For every solution though, there are further problems. MMORPGs will always have to compromise somewhere.
Perhaps it's time to revisit the idea of procedurally generated quests with a tighter rule set based on your story/level/location as well as global quests. I have a feeling that the types of quest need to be looked at as well. I guess in a game like Warcraft it's difficult to move outside the box, but gathering, killing and delivery missions seem to be a little over used. To be honest, and going a little off topic, I'm speaking from the viewpoint of someone who tried an MMO (Eve) and didn't get on with it. I guess I'm waiting for something a little more graphically adept with a deeper story before going back, (i.e. Blade Runner being my dream MMO if done properly.)
Did you ever try Neocron? Graphically, dog-sh*t, but the gameplay and atmosphere were [are - I think there's still a few hundred players] awesome. I'll never understand why a first-person, cyber-punk MMORPG involving sex and drugs never took off. Also, slightly tangentially, I have often toyed with the idea of putting together an MMORPG design document from a utopic perspective. I know BiT has traditionally fallen at the first hurdle with game projects in the past, but does anyone reckon we could do it? A long-term discussion leading to a design for the perfect MMO?
So many people look for different things in an MMO, many of which invalidate others, i don't think you could ever have an all encompassing "perfect" MMO
This is supposedly what The Old Republic is set to address, providing proper NPCs and a unique-feeling universe that provides a singleplayer experience in a MMO setting. I'll believe it when I see it and, until then, I'm find with my MMO-less RPGs.
It's the way all MMO's are going to be, and have to be. Can't have the first people to play the game clearing everything out for you now, can they. They'd never sell the game if the first people through turned it into a kingdom of nothing to kill. Never gonna change, and the precise reason I'm never going to spend long periods of time with MMO's. Closest one to being different is EVE, but then, there are still common "starting" missions that change nothing. And it feels like a job, rather than a game..
WoW leveling was the most boring thing in the game for me, the game shines when your at end levels and start to do real raiding or PVP (which I don't do). I reached level 72, when I was at 70 and what was the max at the time, it was a lot more interesting that what it is like not being the highest. I had a friend that pushed me to level as he kept telling me it got more fun, it really does. I don't play anymore though, I just can't be bothered to do more leveling...
QFT - RPGs are more immersive than any MMO ever can be, I would argue. What I loved about EVE Online (when I played) was the fact that your actions did change things. Okay, some of the PVE stuff was scripted, but so much was player controlled (such as the entire market).
A D&D style levelling system in MMOs was always something that seemed a little odd. Well, odd that the majority of MMO's have one. I don't tend to play stat based games, favouring skill based ones instead, so the idea that you'll be handicapped until you reach a certain level is off-putting for someone like me.
Every MMO I've played has no start and has no end, the only difference would be FFXI which has storylines for the game and each expansion, although the word never changes it's still more immersive than WoW's quest till you give up =<
I haven't tried it personally, but the structure of LOTRO looks to tackle this problem to some degree - PCs proceed through the story of the trilogy and new sections are released periodically. Kinda like the HL2 episodes, but MMORPGified. Still the same basic respawning-enemies structure, though. Warcraft has begun fixing this particular immersion-breaking aspect lately with phased content, wherein when you complete a story-progression event, things STAY changed and areas appear differently and enemies you've defeated stay gone. It's not content-wide, but it's a start. As for generally hating Warcraft, I think people have overly concrete expectations of popular things. Just because 12 million people love it, doesn't mean you're somehow guaranteed to enjoy it. It's all a question of personal taste. I've said it before and I'll say it again and again, for the rest of my life: All opinion and preference is subjective, and if you think there can be any objective truth about a game/film/book/show/band being 'good' or 'bad', you've missed the point.
