How do you level in an MMO? Solo quests? Dungeon crawls? Camping mobs? The answer to this question has changed as MMOs have changed but it is a very important issue in MMO design. The answer is also changing. Some would probably say changing back to what MMOs used to be like.
The way a player levels in WOW has changed significantly with the introduction of the dungeon finder. For those who do not know, the dungeon finder allows a player to flag themself as lfg and allows them to choose a role (DPS, Healer, Tank). The dungeon finder then looks at players on multiple servers and creates a group for an appropriate level dungeon. It then transports these players to an instanced dungeon.
This has turned leveling into a multiple player experience again. WOW was once known for making a questing system that allowed solo play fun and accessible but now things are changed. I don't think players are looking to run so many solo quests (been there done that). So the content that an MMO designer has to create has changed. There is still probably a demand for solo content but it is more likely something people will want to do when they are waiting for a dungeon. So they may be level 20 when they get a quest but they may level in dungeons to the point the quest is no longer needed.
When looking at the current design of WOW it is clear the game was not designed with the dungeon finder in place. So the question becomes how do you design an MMO assuming you have a dungeon finder system in place? How can you make it so that the world still matters and the game is not about going from instance to instance?
I think the old(WOW) way of designing worlds can be thrown out. I think that designers should create single player quest chains that are independent of level which are complimented by multiple player dungeon crawls. I think using a side kick like system can allow for a lot of improvements in this area as well as sliding scale difficulty for dungeons. I think that players can be teleported to specific areas in the world so that the dungeon crawl can exist within the game world and not just in an instance.
There are a lot of options here.
MMO: How do you level?
Personally, I believe that once you have dungeon-finder style lobbying in place, the world simply doesn't matter and probably can't be made to matter to the majority of people who like the LFG system you have built. You've created an entirely different game, no different from the lobby-based match games we've had for years. You've also neatly segregated your player base. You'll have people that run around doing quests because they like it, and you'll have people slamming the LFG queues and sitting on their glowy mounts in Org in the meantime; and rarely shall the twain ever meet. I don't like Blizzard's cross-realm LFG; it's sins are, to me, especially egregious. It's tantamount to ripping the living soul out of a server. In my opinion, the guild perks were band-aid fixes to the problem of people not knowing each other on their home servers, and not caring to know each other. I think that if you're going to go ahead and design a game around an LFG system, then it is pointless to also set it in a large, rich, and open world. Just my two cents.
Personally, I believe that once you have dungeon-finder style lobbying in place, the world simply doesn't matter and probably can't be made to matter to the majority of people who like the LFG system you have built. You've created an entirely different game, no different from the lobby-based match games we've had for years. You've also neatly segregated your player base. You'll have people that run around doing quests because they like it, and you'll have people slamming the LFG queues and sitting on their glowy mounts in Org in the meantime; and rarely shall the twain ever meet. I don't like Blizzard's cross-realm LFG; it's sins are, to me, especially egregious. It's tantamount to ripping the living soul out of a server. In my opinion, the guild perks were band-aid fixes to the problem of people not knowing each other on their home servers, and not caring to know each other. I think that if you're going to go ahead and design a game around an LFG system, then it is pointless to also set it in a large, rich, and open world. Just my two cents.
I completely disagree with this, but I want to focus on the bolded part because that's more on the side of fact and philosophy, less just opinion due to the fact that I personally like solo questing and only run dungeons if it's quick and easy to find a group and get to the dungeon. But it's true that in general people don't care to know each other. I don't understand why some game designers are completely unwilling to let people not know each other if that's what people want to do. It's NOT an MMO designer's job to try to force people to get to know each other. A game should let players do what they find fun and not do what they don't find fun, or it's failing at the most essential part of being a game. If a designer wants to encourage group play, making it convenient is the approach likely to please the most people and offend the least people.
Although I'm not a very social person, I can enjoy making friends if it's a natural and convenient process within the game. For example I like doing my own thing next to someone else who is doing the same thing so we can chat about it or maybe study the other's technique. I like chatting on regional or global chat channels, but no enough to spend cash items to do so. I'd be more interested in guilds if they were more set up to facilitate crafting and trade or it was easier to find a guild that shared a common interest outside the game. I enjoy in-game social activities like mount parades, fireworks shows, and costume balls. But I hate required multiplayer content. I don't like being begged by lower level people to help them with obnoxious things that are too hard for them to do on their own, and I like even less being put in the position where I can't accomplish something that really interests me without help, especially if it takes a substantial investment on the part of the person helping me because it's not something they want to do for their own reasons.
Back to the OP's question, the world matters to me because of the story and atmospheric landscape, developing relationships with specific NPCs, and developing a relationship with a faction (and a nemesis relationship with that faction's enemies).
How do you level in an MMO? Whatever way is available to me at that time and I enjoy doing. This can mean questing, group content or PvP. I even spent a lot of time simply grinding earlier in my MMOG career. I have tried levelling solely through the LFG system and it is bloody awful. The limited number of dungeons per level leads to even faster grinding fatigue than questing does.
As for the LFG system, I agree with FLeBlanc in some respects. I think the system, the way it is implemented within WoW, is awful and fosters a drop in drop out attitude with little care for others. This can largely be traced to it being cross realm and through that bringing about the classic "Anonymous on the Internet" attitude of players using it. Having it limited to the player's server would solve this somewhat but then you face the problems of large wait times. That will probably not be resolved until games have a single server or servers with a much bigger population. Rift uses a single server LFG system and it works well apart from the wait times making it unusable at low levels. Even when implemented in such a way there are still negative implications, I know of an example where a player joined the LFG system only to find themselves put into a group consisting entirely of their own guild, this basically meant that 5 people where online all wanting to do an instance but not one thought of trying to ask in their own guild. Although this is a minor issue and frankly speaks more of that particular guild than anything is still shows there is a negative side to this system even if it is implemented so conservatively.
One personal issue I have with the system is the "easing" of content because of it. By this I mean making a dungeon easier simply because developers expect a random group not to function as a group. This to me is lunacy, instead of trying to get player to work together at a group task they only continue to foster the attitudes currently found in the LFG system. Gameplay should not be dictated by what was initially a system to stop the repetitive chat spamming that used to go on.
I do agree with Sun that you should not be required to do multiplayer content while generally playing but in an MMOG I think there is a point where you have to draw the line and say you need other to experience X content. It is somewhat on the developers to try and foster a good group atmosphere in these situations and at least with WoW's LFG I don't think they are.
How do you design an MMO assuming you have a dungeon finder system in place? Still pout focus on exploring/finding or even completing the dungeons before having access such a feature, implement it well into the game itself instead of just a GUI feature and having it on a single server. I would honestly implement it simply as a way for people to find groups without having to manually spam chat instead of some guaranteed way to level though only dungeons.
The introduction of a sidekick system could work but, in a similar way to Sun, I hate feeling a responsibility to boost other players. Putting in bonuses may resolve this but that would require an awful lot of thought and balancing to hit a sweet spot. Additionally, as I may have said before in another thread, it's easy to ruin a player sense of power gain if you constantly boost them up to a higher level.
As for the LFG system, I agree with FLeBlanc in some respects. I think the system, the way it is implemented within WoW, is awful and fosters a drop in drop out attitude with little care for others. This can largely be traced to it being cross realm and through that bringing about the classic "Anonymous on the Internet" attitude of players using it. Having it limited to the player's server would solve this somewhat but then you face the problems of large wait times. That will probably not be resolved until games have a single server or servers with a much bigger population. Rift uses a single server LFG system and it works well apart from the wait times making it unusable at low levels. Even when implemented in such a way there are still negative implications, I know of an example where a player joined the LFG system only to find themselves put into a group consisting entirely of their own guild, this basically meant that 5 people where online all wanting to do an instance but not one thought of trying to ask in their own guild. Although this is a minor issue and frankly speaks more of that particular guild than anything is still shows there is a negative side to this system even if it is implemented so conservatively.
One personal issue I have with the system is the "easing" of content because of it. By this I mean making a dungeon easier simply because developers expect a random group not to function as a group. This to me is lunacy, instead of trying to get player to work together at a group task they only continue to foster the attitudes currently found in the LFG system. Gameplay should not be dictated by what was initially a system to stop the repetitive chat spamming that used to go on.
I do agree with Sun that you should not be required to do multiplayer content while generally playing but in an MMOG I think there is a point where you have to draw the line and say you need other to experience X content. It is somewhat on the developers to try and foster a good group atmosphere in these situations and at least with WoW's LFG I don't think they are.
How do you design an MMO assuming you have a dungeon finder system in place? Still pout focus on exploring/finding or even completing the dungeons before having access such a feature, implement it well into the game itself instead of just a GUI feature and having it on a single server. I would honestly implement it simply as a way for people to find groups without having to manually spam chat instead of some guaranteed way to level though only dungeons.
The introduction of a sidekick system could work but, in a similar way to Sun, I hate feeling a responsibility to boost other players. Putting in bonuses may resolve this but that would require an awful lot of thought and balancing to hit a sweet spot. Additionally, as I may have said before in another thread, it's easy to ruin a player sense of power gain if you constantly boost them up to a higher level.
Author
[font="Times New Roman"]It is pretty obvious that WOW was not designed from the ground up with this system in mind. My hope was to talk about how a new game could be designed with this system in mind.[/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I agree that ideally you have everyone on one server. IMO the thing that is problematic is having to break people apart as is. You have a million people playing but they are all in small blocks. Once you account for a mature game and 90 levels and two realms the players become really spread out.[/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]Crossing servers is an imperfect solution but it works. Ideally you don’t have to resort to it but that means other changes.[/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]As for the lack of people being social, obviously they are being more social if they are going from doing quests solo to doing dungeon runs with a group. Of course people will drop in and drop out without talking. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I agree that there is not enough dungeons in WOW to support the system. When WOW was created the effort was clearly put into solo quests. The world was even designed around solo quests. If a game is designed with this in mind then there can be a lot more dungeons and less quests. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I think questing should be about a personal story that unfolds for the character which should be catered to the character. So instancing might be the ideal way to provide this content. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I think that this system can be used for more than just instanced dungeons. The entire world should be designed around the idea of players tagging themselves as lfg and porting them to where they need to be to do group content. Obviously instanced content will still be used but it doesn’t have to be the only content that is part of the dungeon finder. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I agree that ideally you have everyone on one server. IMO the thing that is problematic is having to break people apart as is. You have a million people playing but they are all in small blocks. Once you account for a mature game and 90 levels and two realms the players become really spread out.[/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]Crossing servers is an imperfect solution but it works. Ideally you don’t have to resort to it but that means other changes.[/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]As for the lack of people being social, obviously they are being more social if they are going from doing quests solo to doing dungeon runs with a group. Of course people will drop in and drop out without talking. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I agree that there is not enough dungeons in WOW to support the system. When WOW was created the effort was clearly put into solo quests. The world was even designed around solo quests. If a game is designed with this in mind then there can be a lot more dungeons and less quests. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I think questing should be about a personal story that unfolds for the character which should be catered to the character. So instancing might be the ideal way to provide this content. [/font]
[font="Times New Roman"]I think that this system can be used for more than just instanced dungeons. The entire world should be designed around the idea of players tagging themselves as lfg and porting them to where they need to be to do group content. Obviously instanced content will still be used but it doesn’t have to be the only content that is part of the dungeon finder. [/font]
As for the lack of people being social, obviously they are being more social if they are going from doing quests solo to doing dungeon runs with a group. Of course people will drop in and drop out without talking.[/quote]
No, the problem is that the LFG system is designed to isolate people, to prevent them from bonding in the social arrangements that ""alienate"" the playerbase the system is designed to reach. There's no real safeguards against getting stuck with griefers and, more importantly, there's no way to socially bond with most people you encounter in the queue - once the run is over, you go back to your separate servers and likely never see each other again. While the cross-realm friends-list invite (which they decided to make free, iirc?) is designed to somewhat counter this, the fact is the system is still heavily slanted toward individualism and actively prevents social contacts in order to keep the pool of players large.
The entire system is predicated on using greed to alleviate players' inhibitions regarding who they'll play with. Which is the point: players aren't being social, they're being greedy. As a side effect, the incentives to join have to keep rising and, per tier, eventually flatten out to where players no longer do so. This is why the system is frustrating for the first week after an initial dungeon content release (all the good players are grouping amongst themselves, leaving the middle tier who solely use the LFG with no social structure to fall back on) and is still largely ineffective at combating end-of-tier/expansion apathy (when all players have no interest).
I agree that there is not enough dungeons in WOW to support the system. When WOW was created the effort was clearly put into solo quests. The world was even designed around solo quests. If a game is designed with this in mind then there can be a lot more dungeons and less quests.[/quote]
Er, no. Vanilla (and BC) WoW *insert sigh of nostalgia here* had a significant portion of quests (at all levels) given over to required group quests (unless you were a Hunter or a Warlock, but that's beside the point). While it is certainly true that one of the aims was to encourage solo play, it would be disingenious to suggest that Vanilla and BC WoW were more solo friendly than Wrath of the Lich King or Cataclysm. Vanilla WoW was "solo friendly" in the same way a bear infested forest is "solo hiker friendly". You can do it alone, if you feel like it, but it's much more fun - and far more safe - to hike with a friend or three. The biggest design change from other MMOs was that in WoW the bears didn't actively seek you out and weren't, as a general rule, ridiculously powerful to the point of frustration. That said, even today, top-tiered content is still designed around the assumption of group-play.
Also, the entire point of the world in Vanilla was to be large and explorable. Which is what the game mechanics at the time encouraged.
I think questing should be about a personal story that unfolds for the character which should be catered to the character. [/quote]
Guild Wars 2 aims to do this.
I think that this system can be used for more than just instanced dungeons. The entire world should be designed around the idea of players tagging themselves as lfg and porting them to where they need to be to do group content. Obviously instanced content will still be used but it doesn’t have to be the only content that is part of the dungeon finder.[/quote]
Pretty sure Warhammer did something similar with their questing system (or whatever it is they called it).
My hope was to talk about how a new game could be designed with this system in mind.[/quote]
Plenty of reasonable ways to go about it. The biggest consideration, I think, is to design your dungeons (and your world at large) to be fulfilling. WoW's LFG has morphed into an end in itself, which is unfortunate as even the better looking dungeons are simply glossed over in the interest of loot and badges. When you have to continually bribe players to participate in your content, something is wrong.
I agree with most of your points Kyan. The main point I don't agree on is that the LFG system was designed for the reasons you say, instead I think they are just the negative side effects of the way it has been implemented. I do think that as time has gone on the LFG system has been used with other systems (daily/weekly dungeons) to create a system to strong arm players into playing the game longer but that is more of a bastardization of a system that initially (from what I know) was meant to make players lives a bit easier.
I guess the question would be "Was it needed in the first place?" and to be honest my answer would be no. The act of going to a dungeon after gathering a party (of your mates or just random people on the server) compounded the idea that you were in a world and not just a game, something I feel a lot of MMOGs miss the mark on. Issues such as long wait times getting groups together and the like could have been solved by other means.
I guess the question would be "Was it needed in the first place?" and to be honest my answer would be no. The act of going to a dungeon after gathering a party (of your mates or just random people on the server) compounded the idea that you were in a world and not just a game, something I feel a lot of MMOGs miss the mark on. Issues such as long wait times getting groups together and the like could have been solved by other means.
I think that this system can be used for more than just instanced dungeons. The entire world should be designed around the idea of players tagging themselves as lfg and porting them to where they need to be to do group content. Obviously instanced content will still be used but it doesn't have to be the only content that is part of the dungeon finder.[/quote]
Instancing is the scourge of the modern MMOG (outside of dungeons since I have yet to see an alternative that provides the same experience). It is simply a band-aid for developers to make personal experiences easier to create while also providing an easy way for them to overcome server limitations. Couple that with porting, which again is a bad idea since it removes the need for having an open and persistent world in the first place, and you may as well make a game similar to the original Guild Wars or even World of Tanks. Now those are good multi-player games in themselves but they are most defiantly not MMOGs.
Personal quests are fine to an extent, but not if they start to remove the multi-player aspects of MMOGs. There is in fact no reason for such content to be instanced or located in a dungeon for the most part. To be honest one of my pet hates in MMOGs is that they try and make you feel "special", I get that enough in single-player games. In my view an MMOG shouldn't be making you feel special but merely giving you the tools to make yourself special. In games like Rift and Aion the fact my character is either some demi-god or immortal does nothing but make the situation feel forced, I would much rather be just another adventurer helping people out who through hard work and commitment is one of those few who slew a boss in the final dungeon.
Pretty sure Warhammer did something similar with their questing system (or whatever it is they called it).[/quote]
They are called Public Quests and apart from the fact they reset to stage 1 after you complete ruining any sense of achievement they weren't that bad. Guild Wars 2 seems to be refining the system to be more organic.
EDIT: I probably should add that the LFG automated system was in place long before patch 3.3. It came in the form of meeting stones and innkeepers in patch 1.3/1.5 although it was severely underused from my own experience it avoided the majority of issues that are now found with the current version. With this you could argue that WoW was designed with a LFG system in mind from the start/near start albeit one that was more involved than a simple GUI feature.
I agree with most of your points Kyan. The main point I don't agree on is that the LFG system was designed for the reasons you say, instead I think they are just the negative side effects of the way it has been implemented. I do think that as time has gone on the LFG system has been used with other systems (daily/weekly dungeons) to create a system to strong arm players into playing the game longer but that is more of a bastardization of a system that initially (from what I know) was meant to make players lives a bit easier.[/quote]
Absolutely, sir, and I'm not implying that the LFG system was initially created to be this evil, horrible force. I was around in Vanilla (as a Warlock, no less) and I can attest to the quality of life improvements that the LFG brought. Yes, even at the cost of the Looking for Group world channel.
For the record, the only reason I launched into that particular tirade was because the OP seemed to be referring to the current implementation. That said, I think you've hit on the important distinction several times - the current LFG (3.3+) is completely different than the old one. Which, in my mind, is a point worth remarking upon: it went from a grouping tool to an end in and of itself. I would agree that perhaps they did not forsee the [3.3] system becoming as skewed as it has, but one would be naive to think that the intent [to destroy the playerbase's social structure in the interest of forced longevity] wasn't there.
EDIT: I probably should add that the LFG automated system was in place long before patch 3.3. It came in the form of meeting stones and innkeepers in patch 1.3/1.5 although it was severely underused from my own experience it avoided the majority of issues that are now found with the current version. With this you could argue that WoW was designed with a LFG system in mind from the start/near start albeit one that was more involved than a simple GUI feature.[/quote]
Certainly. Most games that feature group combat are, broadly speaking.
They are called Public Quests and apart from the fact they reset to stage 1 after you complete ruining any sense of achievement they weren't that bad.[/quote]
Ah, appreciate the information. I only played the beta for a little bit. Was not a fan of the game itself, but the concept was interesting.
Guild Wars 2 seems to be refining the system to be more organic.[/quote]
Aye! I can't decide if I should get my hopes up or just assume it'll be mediocre so I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Guild Wars 2 seems to be refining the system to be more organic.
Aye! I can't decide if I should get my hopes up or just assume it'll be mediocre so I'll be pleasantly surprised.
[/quote]
Well there's a couple of videos from EuroGamer Expo ( Part 1 / Part 2 if you haven't seen them) that details it along with some other general elements of story/character development. Interesting enough quest chains (or event chains depending on how you view them) involve some sort of team play but they don't require the players to be in parties or raids. Almost like they want to push people towards working as a team but don't require you to constantly group with random players. Will be interesting if they intent it to be like this, RIFT did something similar with their event system but had to implement public groups soon after launch.
Author
MMOs are first a foremost about advancement. This is just how they work. Whether you are talking solo questing or camping mobs or dungeon crawls the behavior of the group is based on the incentives in place. Change the incentives and you change the behavior.
I will disagree with the idea that Vanilla and BC WOW was not solo friendly. Obviously end game is different. The vast majority of content in the game was for solo players. Even crafting was built around solo play.
Instancing is not going anywhere. You can try and take the high road and make a game without it but that doesn’t mean you will make a better game. If you can design a game that is good without it then say how you are going to do it. Otherwise it is just a false hope IMO. Just because instancing is used that doesn’t mean the game is like Guild Wars. That is hyperbole.
The reason why single player questing would be instanced is because you don’t want it to be based on the character’s level. One of the major problems with mixing solo quests with dungeons is when players outlevel the solo quests. Another reason is because the world itself will not have to be designed around solo questing like the WOW world is. Instead the world is specifically designed with groups in mind. This allows for a vastly different approach to world design.
The system that Warhammer had with public group quests is not really what I had in mind but then again Warhammer is another example of a game where the world is mostly built with the assumption that people will be walking around solo looking for content.
WOW was clearly not designed assuming that players will just click "lfg" and run dungeons from level 15 to 85. The clear assumption is that classes are built around solo play and the classes and the content was made more and more solo friendly as time passed. The key aspect of the current system is that it finds groups fast enough.
Being social in an MMO is usually the result of limiting solo play options. For leveling this just isn't a serious option in the modern MMO market.
I will disagree with the idea that Vanilla and BC WOW was not solo friendly. Obviously end game is different. The vast majority of content in the game was for solo players. Even crafting was built around solo play.
Instancing is not going anywhere. You can try and take the high road and make a game without it but that doesn’t mean you will make a better game. If you can design a game that is good without it then say how you are going to do it. Otherwise it is just a false hope IMO. Just because instancing is used that doesn’t mean the game is like Guild Wars. That is hyperbole.
The reason why single player questing would be instanced is because you don’t want it to be based on the character’s level. One of the major problems with mixing solo quests with dungeons is when players outlevel the solo quests. Another reason is because the world itself will not have to be designed around solo questing like the WOW world is. Instead the world is specifically designed with groups in mind. This allows for a vastly different approach to world design.
The system that Warhammer had with public group quests is not really what I had in mind but then again Warhammer is another example of a game where the world is mostly built with the assumption that people will be walking around solo looking for content.
WOW was clearly not designed assuming that players will just click "lfg" and run dungeons from level 15 to 85. The clear assumption is that classes are built around solo play and the classes and the content was made more and more solo friendly as time passed. The key aspect of the current system is that it finds groups fast enough.
Being social in an MMO is usually the result of limiting solo play options. For leveling this just isn't a serious option in the modern MMO market.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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