What causes people to leave MMORPGS Options

[Maxwell]

I found this at the new MMO magazine website Massive it talks about why people leave current mmos,

Link

Hope you enjoy the read.

Ever Loving,
Maxwell

[Honis]

*Spoiler Warning*

One common theme is the importance players place on in-game communities. â??I feel an extremely strong sense of community within Star Wars Galaxies,â?� says McHuge. â??The community is what keeps me in the game and playing for the most part. I am more involved with the clan administration and donâ??t really play the game.â?�

Replace Star Wars Galaxies with Final Fantasy XI and you'll have something I say alot. I originally left for EQ2 but came back when I couldn't find a good community outside of my friends (5 - 6 friends). Finding friends is easy through the "forced" partying (a few jobs can solo sometimes). I've stayed away from playing other MMOs because they have soloing.

[StaticGrazerr]

I played UO for a good four or five years, ( on the free shards of course) and most of that time was because of community, ( or lack there of) Now when I say lack there of, I mean that I was just getting onto a shard and was trying to find some people that I could fit in with.

I actuelly quit UO three times ( this time I mean it!! ^,^ ) Mostly because I had maxed out everything the game had offered to me, and some things it didn't. I remember when I left I had a Grand Master Crafter ( not an offical title, but it was unoffical buisness. ^,^) And with this crafter I was going around and decorating peoples houses for 100k-200k a pop. A few houses and the next thing I new I had my own castle ( largest purchasable building in the game at the time) and had it fully furnished.

And then it hit me, I was done. I had everything I had ever wanted so I decided that since I wasn't going to play anymore, that ( with GM help) I would organize a tournament and a tri-athalon in order to give my stuff away. Please note I also had the GMs give some of my stuff to people who created new accounts, awesome stuff.

But yeah, I miss the good Ol days of UO ( before the damned 1000000000000 expansions, though I did like custom house creation!) and am still considering going back some day...mabye..if I get bored or something.

[Jaramar]

There are several reasons for leaving. I suppose I could try to sum up some of the main reasons and will come back and edit in the reasoning afterwords if I have time. (Hello from Italy BTW, be home in a couple weeks.)

Community -
Community for a game is major. Getting in a good guild can be the difference between staying and leaving. Extreme examples of this are ATITD and even WW2OL of all things. The community can often hook a person for a lot longer then they otherwise would, though when they leave they tend to do so in groups.

Repetitiveness/Boredom -
Either due to getting the highest end content, having done everything and everything, or one bit being just a little too much like the last. In PvE it tends to be once the best loot has been gotten and the quests go stale. In PvP it's when the players begin to realize there isn't much risk vs reward or the oppisate... this one requires extremely fine tuning to make profitable and fun. In crafting it's when you get tired of the same old mini-games or else when you realize that the quest/drop loot it better then anything you could hope to make with the best materials.

The next 'BIG' thing -
Pretty self explanitory... the next big game always saps the strength of other games in the genre. There isn't too much to be said beyond that.

Gameplay Features -
Partially brought about by the above, people will leave games if new features aren't added constantly... beyond new content I mean, actual features. The ability to wear cloaks even or a new way to set up attacks. If another game has a good feature, some people will leave over that and play the other game instead... though that's usually only when the player is near leaving for the other game anyhow.

Aged Graphics and Sound -
Look at a game like Asheron's Call. Old graphics, creaky sounds (and not in a good way). People will leave over this. The shallow people at first but slowly others will as well, typically when they get a new machine and can finally play that other game they've been eyeing.

These defvinately aren't all the reasons but I figure they are a good sum up from an internet cafe.

[Mole]

Interesting article, Maxwell. More importantly it was an interesting site. Thanks for passing this one on to us.

For me, the things that keep my involved in a game are the following (not in any particular order):

The Grind. Personally, I donâ??t like it. Any game that turns into a treadmill is just not fun for me. In the beginning a little bit (a very little bit) of grind is ok. You have to learn the game somehow and where better to do it than the lowest levels. But any grind after level 3 is just too much. I should be able to learn how to play your game in a few minutes, not a few weeks.

Quests. I hate, hate, hate, HATE repetitive quests. Sure, some repeat is ok. The smith that drops his hammer every 3 minutes - boring. The bowyer that needs 5 sticks every 5 minutes - thatâ??s boring too. There should only be a very few quests that are the lather, rinse, repeat kind and they should be limited to the lowest levels of the game. Quests should be unique. Quests should be challenging. I can play a game on my PC that makes me solve riddles, figure out puzzles, etc just to unlock parts of a quest only to run into more puzzles and riddles to figure out and solve. Why is it that every MMO game seems to have the exact same types of quests? How many times to I have to go out and bring so-and-so 15 fox tails or whatever?

Unique quests offer greater potential. Whatâ??s wrong with a king proclaiming that he needs help and letting everyone help -- but only one person can finish it. Now that would be cool!

Soloing/Community. Some people like to play a MMO and try to do everything themselves. Some people are in it only for the community. Me, I like to do both. I should be able to advance really far in the game by myself if I wanted. On the other hand, I should be able to team up with a group of friends and advance just as far if I wanted to as well. Players should be able to do both. Better yet, there should be certain things that a player can only do solo, and other things that a player can only do in a group.

Graphics & Sound. I have a really fast computer. No, I mean really fast. I have better hardware than most people out there (99.999999%). I want cool graphics. I want stunning graphics. I want to look at the game and actually say â??Wow! That is awesome!â?� I want things like real time physics, 5.1 surround sound, water that looks real, realistic looking weather effects, etc. I have the power to display all of that and more on my machine. I realize that some people donâ??t have this kind of power at their fingertips, so I should be able to set what level of graphics I want to see. No matter what the setting is at, play should be exactly the same.

Gameplay. I am tired of playing a game and having to pick my â??classâ?� when I start. How do I know what my class should be? I should be able to choose as I play the game from the actions that I take and define what my character is that way.

On the flip side to this, I should not be able to build the uber character. I should not be able to be a master at every skill possible at the same time.

This is just a short list, what I came up with off the top of my head.

-Mole

[RicoSuave]

Mole, I agree with most of that (especially the questing part). However I feel to add a few ideas to your list and I ask for your reply to what you think.

Firstly, let talk about the quests. I feel there should be quests that are for either solo or groups. Yet there should also be quests that can be done only by 1 person (of any skill set). And there should be quests that a group is needed -- not because the monsters are tough, but because it takes 2 or 3 or 4 people doing 2 or 3 or 4 different things simultaneously to make something happen.

Gameplay next. The greatest thing, in my opinion, about UO was that I could be anybody, do anything I wanted... and I could change at any point along the way without a severe penalty (other than time). Of course, we couldn't do it all with expert skill, we had to pick areas in which to specialize. I think PW should follow suit.

The infamous Grind. Is there a way around it? Maybe, maybe not. But if we cannot remove it, instead of removing the Grind, let us go for the Effects-Based Operation mentality here. Let's remove what we don't like about The Grind. What if it were possible to have The Grind, but make it enjoyable... really fun for everyone (or at least most). I'm not sure what it will take, but there are over 600 people here that can supply their input on this. But I do agree with you, Mole, The Grind that we know and have come to hate will hopefully be a thing of the past thanks to PW. I loved the idea about Mutable Realms' Wish that a brand-new character could actually make a difference in the world. And with the right setup, people might actually LIKE being a noob. :p Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea I hope.

Graphics & Sound I'm sure will excel. I have no doubt that our devs are more than mere amateurs and will put forth tremedous effort befitting awards come BETA. I'm actually looking forward to their next post of something here on the forums. I feel that people build a type of attachment to the characters and need to have them be the center of the game. They need to be the focal point of graphics. Ears should have realistic lengths (i.e. not like WoW) and skin tone should not look plastic. I'm really looking forward to the real-time physics being applied to hair and fur as well. It's going to be awesome.

On a final note on the quests... Mole, I'm sure you realise, but there is going to have to be an entire team organized just to be a think-tank for these quests. They will need someone that is also familiar with coding and server/client restrictions as some ideas won't be possible. This team will need to be meeting constantly throughout development and even deployment of the game to create new quests on the fly... no one likes to have only stagnant quests that are predictable (i.e. the "Help Susie Find her Doll" quest that you can find walkthroughs for off Google). They need to be random from time to time.

Anyway, I'd really like to hear what you all think about this. Please respond when you get the chance. Thanks. :)

[Mole]

[blockquote]RicoSuave said:

However I feel to add a few ideas to your list and I ask for your reply to what you think.[/blockquote]

Certainly! The PW community is all about discussing ideas and talking about various things. There has only been one time in the entire history of PW that we had to stop a â??discussionâ?� and that was because it got out of hand. Everyone here welcomes both positive and negative feedback.

If anything, I get frustrated when there is not enough (or not any) discussion going on!

[blockquote]RicoSuave said:

I feel there should be quests that are for either solo or groups. Yet there should also be quests that can be done only by 1 person (of any skill set). And there should be quests that a group is needed[/blockquote]

Yes. There must be all kinds of different quests. More importantly, all the quests need to be unique.

[blockquote]RicoSuave said:

The greatest thing, in my opinion, about UO was that I could be anybody, do anything I wanted... and I could change at any point along the way without a severe penalty (other than time).[/blockquote]

Hmmm. This is where things get a little sticky for me. I have an idea (yet to be posted) that tries to balance everything in the game. Basically, every skill or set of skills has an opposite. With that in mind, changing from one skill set to another could be costly for a player. This still gives players the ability to do anything they want, but it makes it impossible for someone to have an uber character. My description here is very vague, but I think it gets the point across. Iâ??m not sure how players will like this idea though.

As for producing quests, once we have the game in somewhat a playable state, we will have to produce tools so that our PW team can easily make quests. It is too early to say exactly what kind of tools we will need, but it has to allow people to easily setup a new quest. Some sort of dynamic/live content system will have to be worked into the game as well.

[blockquote]RicoSauve said:

The infamous Grind. Is there a way around it?[/blockquote]

I donâ??t know. Hopefully there is. Hopefully more of our 600+ members will contribute ideas and we can find a way to remove it or at least make it minimal. There always has to be some grind, but I think that we can make it so small as to almost disappear.

Great feedback, Rico. Keep the ideas and comments coming!

-Mole

[Mole]

I almost forgot something. One of the other things that I hate is camping at spawn points. Nothing is more annoying (and stupid) than knowing exactly where some monster is going to spawn. You go to that place and kill everything, then sit there and regain health while you wait for them to respawn. That is very frustrating to me as a player. It takes all of the fun out of trying to figure out where the monsters are, how to track them, etc.

I realize that some people probably like these known spawn locations, but I would prefer to have them randomized.

-Mole

[ghedipunk]

Well, if we look at our friendly NPCs having the ability to grow and gain experience, can't we have the mobs do sort of the same? Start out by having the weaker mobs spawn somewhere behind the worst mobs, and have them walk to their patrol points near the frontiers... (make the spawn point one of several different points... People don't care where the weakest mobs spawn from usually anyways.) When a stronger mob dies, a weaker mob gets a field promotion and walks to its new patrol point, and on up to the 'king' of that type of mob... Would also allow for mobs to have different names, both their title and their 'birth' name, so we aren't always killing Ragnor the Gnoll King, because there isn't always going to be one Ragnor that spawns as a king... he's promoted through the ranks.

As for the grind... My experience has often been that practice makes perfect. Unfortunately, practice isn't fun if you aren't making much noticeable progress... This can be particularly obvious in strength training. Instead of one single grind for each type of activity, why not have several types? With strength training, there are free weights of all different types, as well as cardiovascular excercises that don't require anything but your body... With enough variation, it takes a long time to get bored with strength training in general (fed up? easy... bored? not quite).

Also, with strength training, if you don't vary your routine, and work the same muscles the entire time, those muscles don't heal, so don't strengthen as fast as they could... The same with studying... if you're in a class listening to a lecture, the first 30 minutes are useful, but if you don't take breaks, or the professor stays on the same subject with little variation, then the rest of the time is pretty much wasted... you've reached the limit of your attention span on that one subject. Perhaps we could make it obvious to all but the most stubborn headed that the fastest way through the grind is to pick several different grinds and alternate between them. Kill a pack of gnolls, make a couple clay pots, spend a couple minutes fishing, do some goods trading, then go back to bashing gnolls... or if you're trying strength training in game, kill them gnolls, go swimming, load yourself to your max encumberance and walk to another city, then find those gnolls again. This should be obvious... perhaps a bubble showing how much you could train a particular skill through a particular method (no hard numbers, though.)

Healers? Let them bandage a few wounds, then cast a small variety of spells from different disciplines, like healing, buffing, and debuffing.

[mortideus]

I really like the idea that GhediPunk has brought up. Mobs that can grow and be promoted throughout their time in game can really give players a sense of actually advancing the world, and even making a difference. Though, in truth, i believe that the higher the rank, the longer that it takes to be promoted to. With some small refinements, that idea could turn into one of the major features that sets PW apart.

Another idea brought up, which Mole has thought about as well (Of course, Mole thinks up just about everything), is having a character be able to change at all times. This can give a character the ability to change, and let the player hav fewer characters. I rather was fond of the FFXI style of the character, where you could switch your class at anytime, and always go back to your old one and have the same level. It was a good idea, but could be improved upon. Say you have a character named Bob. Bob wants to be a fighter so he goes and becomes an apprentice under a fighter. He constantly practices and his strength grows because it is physical work. But later on, Bob decides hes not cut out to be a fighter, so he drops that apprenticeship, and goes to become a wizard. Now, lets say Bob has the ability to be a wizard. He was born with the ability to do that ( I think backgrounds of a character are a huge strongpoint, because not many MMOs have them, atleast not ones that affect your character). So Bob goes to the Wizard and becomes his apprentice. He doesn't lose any of the knowledge he gained as a fighter, but he does lose some strength, because he is learning magic, and not doing any physical activity. So now Bob is weak, but a strong caster. He still has the experience to be a fighter, but is too weak to be good at it. Well, Bob misses being a fighter, so in turn, he can drop being a wizard, and go be a fighter again. He doesn't instantly become a good fighter though. He has to gain up his strength so that he can carry and weild a large weapon and wear heavier armor. Of course, for some reason, when your strong, you have to become dumb, or else it isn't fair. My point is (like Mole says, or atleast what I think he is trying to say), you have opposite skills that change when the other does. So when strength goes up, intelligence goes down, and vice versa.

As for grinding, the only way to make that enjoyable, is to make the fighting enjoyable. In a game like Final Fantasy or most MMOs, you get bored quickly, because its so repetitive and there are no factors. Think about games like Halo and Oblivion. Why are they fun? Because its faced pace and packed with action. You may also die quicker in games like that. Maybe the rush of being able to die quickly appeals to some people. In that case, make it easier for an enemy to knock them out, not die, but knock them out. Therefore, they are knocked out for so long, then they wake up, and try and kill it again, only using a different strategy. Not all enemy's would knock you out, some would kill you. That might also ruin the game though. With refining though, it could be of some use.

[Mole]

Another idea I have is to give â??intelligenceâ?� to everything in the game. This kind of takes the idea Ghedi has stated and moves it a bit further along.

The idea is that everything has some sort of AI built into it. Trees, flowers, plants, etc all grow, eat (water, etc), reproduce, age, and eventually die. Granted, this is a very simple form of intelligence, but it is still there. Some of the things, like eating, can be a no-op (nothing happens). Other things, like reproducing, can make the trees flower and certain times during the year, produce pine cones, etc. Aging is another thing that is not really something that happens, except for setting an internal counter (server side). When the plant gets to be a certain age (with some randomization built in) then it could die or start dying.

Advance that AI system one step further and you have AI for monsters. Certain monsters, like rabbits for example, have very low AI. Other monsters, like orcs, have more advanced AI. The way it works is to increase the â??intelligenceâ?� of the type of monster. If we give AI to all monsters, we would just set some types to â??learnâ?� faster than others. For example, rabbits would learn very little (or not at all), where as a dragon would learn very quickly.

Iâ??ll expand the idea with orcs. As players attack orcs, the orcs start to learn (based on their speed of learning) how the players attack, what method of attack/defense the orcs use works best to kill players, etc. That way as the game progresses, monster types can become harder.

While this might make it harder for new players to attack monsters, we would have to account for that. For certain types of monsters, like orcs, where there are a lot of them, then the AI is more spread out (there are low level orcs and high level orcs). For other types of monsters, like dragons, there should be no low lever dragons (at least none that a noob can kill).

Having monsters with a â??betterâ?� AI is something that would definitely keep me interested in the game longer.

[blockquote]Mort said:

Another idea brought up, which Mole has thought about as well (Of course, Mole thinks up just about everything), is having a character be able to change at all times. This can give a character the ability to change, and let the player hav fewer characters. I rather was fond of the FFXI style of the character, where you could switch your class at anytime, and always go back to your old one and have the same level.
[/blockquote]
I donâ??t know if I particularly like this idea, although it does have merits. I think that if a player switches between similar â??classesâ?� then there should be little to no penalty. If a character changes â??classâ?� to something that is an opposite of what he currently is, then there should be a penalty. This all ties into the idea of skill opposites that I havenâ??t posted yet. One of these days I will get around to posting it for everyone to read.

[Maxwell]

I love all of this. For this piece get out something to write stuff down with so that you want to argure or fill in what you want. This idea kind of flows into Mole's Monster AI idea. I don't know if this can really work on not just a thought. Depending on the AI you have Learning AI and Living AI. The learning AI Mole discussed pretty thorough. The Living AI was pretty short. Letâ??s merge the two and create an actual habitat.

I was just at Disney World's Animal Kingdom (Honeymoon!!) They have a safari there that takes you through their own little version of Africa. What I found most interesting about it was that the animals were roaming around together in like an actual habitat, from Lions to Warthogs, however these animals were not hand fed like at a zoo. The lions actually ate the warthogs, the giraffes really did take care of the trees by eating the higher leaves to let more sun light in for the warthogs to eat from so they could reproduce have a family the Lions could eat. So if one of them moved the more it effected the higher it went up the food chain. An example of that would be if the warthogs moved it would affect the lions food. So the lions would eventually have to move.

Also in order for the lions to eat they need to go out and get the food, it is not just given to them. This opens up for ambushes and whatever with bait and everything else or waiting at the burrow of the warthog to kill the lion. Of course it would be other beasts and monsters not lions and warthogs. But a food chain would prove effective.

Killing Quests and Grind with one stone would be nice and it can be done with a little thought. The difference I find between RPGs and MMOs is that the RPG is about the story and the MMO is about the community. Well we are playing a MMORPG and should have community and a compelling story for each individual as much as possible. The stories tend to compel the experience gained and if you need to grind for an hour it is so you continue with your story. A grind, however, will never disappear from the beginning of the game because you will need to understand the game and take full handle of everything you can do. But after you understand the game then you can get individual stories.

Quest Ideas: (I know the game is very early in the stages so this is just a hey maybe, but a defiant LOOK A ME!!! ;) )
1. Each town needs a Hero, and in order for a Hero to happen their needs to be a villain. You can choose between Hero and Villain on whose side you choose with. For example, the Mayor says an evil man in trying to take over the town. You don't decide right now because you think there are other sides to the story. You see a shady character who tells you that the Mayor is actually part of a slave trade, and he is trying to stop him. Then you have a moral judgment. More than just cut and dry. Good or Bad. (It wouldn't be that lame.) And in the town there should be NPCs that can voice their opinions too. So what if you make them random, itâ??s still an opinion.

So you are now wonder what if one Hero picks the quest up and the other doesn't well in due time the Villain will, and the two players will have to battle it out after a long time. Or Try to assonate him to stop his progress. Oh yea once the Villain in that town Kills the Hero he can not go back to that quest depending on the death system. If the death system is based on heirs then the son/daughter can fight in the fatherâ??s footsteps but have to start back at the beginning. If it is death and respawn that specific quest canâ??t be taken by you for a while.

The quests for Hero's and Villains can be any story for a Nation to a Village. And From an individual to an Army or guild.

Only one problem these stories need to be told. Some people would say, "Use your imagination." My answer to that is if I wanted to use my imagination I would be playing MUDs. WISH did a good job at telling the stories, through the newspapers. People wanted their story on the front page.

For quests anything can make a Hero from huge natural disasters being made better for the whole nation to saving a village from the attacking wolfs. Of course the latter would never show up in the papers.

Now take the paper you wrote your ideas down with and start typeing. Maybe you have a better memory than me and in that case your great.

Thanks

[PinkDino]

Boring quests, is a big one for me. Anytime you need to collect items from kills that might only drop off of one in a hundred kills, and you need a hundred of them sucks.
Overpriced market, EQ was great until bazaar came along. Nothing like haggling sellers in the east commons tunnel for good deals.
Major combat changes after beta just to please the PvP crowd. If people are set in their ways as far as how their character has been played for several levels. Leave it be if it works. I left EQ2 after having to relearn how to play my Inquisitor.
Crafting that requires to many steps to make a simple item, and crafting that is expensive. Crafting that seems to fail a lot even after mastering the recipe.

[Jerky]

Most of what you mention have a fine line. Quests are the only consistent bad thing in most MMORPGs, from what I hear. Economy is another biggie.

Changes on the other hand are something that aren't so simple. It is the greater-good principle. Do you do what is best for the future of the game, or do you keep something the way it is for the players who are there now? That is a tough one, and your answer is typical of a player who was there. From the designers perspective, it is not so easy. If something is going to become unbalanced, and may ruin future subscriptions, it is usually better from an economical standpoint to fix it for the future player. Yes, you need to keep your subscribers, but its the amount of time you keep them that is key. Everyone leaves an MMO. It is impossible to keep someone happy forever, so game designers sometimes make VERY hard decisions in hopes of saving the game for the most amount of people. If that means pissing off the current power-gamer player base, then they do it. In the end, it means a better game for more, rather than a good game for the few who keep paying for a long long time. Anyways, I am not saying a great design couldnt help here, but I am just saying its inevitable. This is not true for every game's changes, but it is in some cases.

With crafting, its similar. The major crafters who craft because its fun love the complicated systems. The power-gamers who are farming for money or items hate it because it is another level of tedium in a game that probably already has enough of that in it.

To be clear, your points are valid, and we like them. Keep it up. I am only acting more as a devil's advocate and giving another perspective than trying to shoot them down.

[Stroff]

I almost forgot something. One of the other things that I hate is camping at spawn points. Nothing is more annoying (and stupid) than knowing exactly where some monster is going to spawn. You go to that place and kill everything, then sit there and regain health while you wait for them to respawn. That is very frustrating to me as a player. It takes all of the fun out of trying to figure out where the monsters are, how to track them, etc.
I realize that some people probably like these known spawn locations, but I would prefer to have them randomized.
-Mole

I really agree with you on that one Mole! I don’t think any true adventure would like being able to take advantage of spawn locations. I always felt that was a flaw if you could do that.

[Remis]

as a corollary, I think it's equally important to recognize what brings you back to a game. Every game I returned too was due to the input of other players creating something tangible in the game (community, i.e. guild spirit/reputation, pvp, promotion ceremonies, teamwork, etc)

Just to add some perspective for my background. Every time I have done a craft or quest, it was to accomplish some pvp/guild goal. so yeah I am a pvp gamer though I have always been with the anti-griefers, typical 'honor' guilds...

It's much harder to balance pvp, as well as different scales of pvp (1:1, 10:10, 100:100)


One of the intriguing LoTHRO ideas is to allow players to take control of NPC's to make them more challenging. This at times could be done at a higher level of control, allowing a player to take strategic control of a group of critters, organizing an invasion of sorts with other players (ideally a large guild or several coordinated guilds).


I really despise static spawns as well. Another aspect I didn't like was toons disappearing from a world... it would be kinda cool if your toon stayed in the world (running the shop, or patrolling the keep etc), till you logged in again [perhaps with special rules about death loss etc...devils in the details of course]


The NEXT big thing...
I always felt the general gameplay and data should be designed to be portable to new worlds.... so that the world can be played by people with old computers and cutting edge computers.


Quests:
I think everyone would enjoy more dynamic quests. Personally I would enjoy more pvp quests... both at the individual level and at the guild level.


Soloing:
The power that can be acquired by solo players always leads to the crevice between power gamers and casual gamers.

This post has been edited by Remis: Dec 17 2006, 02:20 AM

[Tegan]

People leave MMO's because MMO players are fickle creatures No, seriously.

For instance, while I agree with Mole that quests can be repetitive, it wasn't but a couple of years ago that we were all complaining that MMO's didn't have quests, all you did was kill monsters. Before that, it was that MMO's (or MUD's in this case) didn't have pretty graphics like all the other games. Before that, it was that the game play wasn't in-depth enough.

My point is, what players want from an MMO changes so fast, that trying to pin down why they leave or why they stay is an absolutely moving target.

I see lots of great and not so great ideas in this thread, but I think in many cases they constitute an MMO utopia. For instance, spawn points being more random. Okay, great idea...now code it. And code it in such a way that you don't bog your server hardware down. And code it in such a way that it will work across a MASSIVE world space. Doesn't sound so easy anymore. Same with unique quests. Someone has to write all those unique quests, and they all have to have goals. Those goals have to exist inside the framework of what your game will allow to happen. In addition, you have to somehow wind the story so that the five guys doing that quest at the same time all feel like they are the only one doing the quest and that without their help the world will collapse! Difficult to do.

An unfortunate side effect of MMO's is that they take a ton, and I mean a ton, of content. More content is generated for these games than any other game genre I can think of. The side effect of that is that the games because very iterative in nature. There is very little revolution going on, and a whole lot of evolution. When you are staring down three years of content creation, you tend to want to fall back on what works....and it obviously must work (love it or hate it, WoW has 7+ million subscribers for a reason).

That said, shooting for a truly revolutionary game is absolutely a good thing (it must be, or I wouldn't be here, right? ), but remember that repetition and grind are simply parts of this genre. You don't see FPS fans telling companies to take guns out of their games, why? It's part of the genre. MMO's are built on the very simple formula T + G = P. Time Spent + Gear = Power. You can tweak that formula, and play with the variables, and tweak how the world works, but in the end, you're average MMO player is looking for that formula to be in place when they start up a new game.

(P.S. First post. Hello everyone )

This post has been edited by Tegan: Dec 18 2006, 02:00 PM