Five Reasons MMOs Are Broken

[Cygna]

http://fidgit.com/archives/2009/01/five-wa...-are-broken.php

Pretty good article, hit some major points that I agree with. Although, EVE Online seems to remedy many of those (whilst creating other problems in the process).

The guy doesn't supply any solutions, either.

[Lilium Supermarine]

Reason 5: Cost to keep servers up/Do updates/and for alot of games content updates are what monthly subscriptions are for.

Reason 4: Aggro enhances the UI. If you were able to skip past a dragon spit on its face then keep going without it attacking you, that's no fun and it's a bad UI making the game retarded. Monsters attack healers,why? they're keeping the tanks alive, again smart UI. Tanks have aggro powers in every game to maintain it, it's their job without aggro there would be no use for that class.

Reason 3: He's just becoming more of an idiot as he furthers this retarded article. If you stand there to watch the pretty colors you'll die. Diablo is a button mash as well, furthering my opinion on the guy knowing nothing. He's basing his opinion on WoW, not every MMO.

Reason 2: Generally when you defeat something you grow in strength/more powers etc. You move on as does the story, obviously this is one of those guys who just does it and doesn't read anything.

Reason 1: Not really, if you start the quest without your friends, guess who's fault? for instances you need more then 1 person or in another game for example (city of heroes) You need more then 5 people to do a task force. just because you played the game longer and got higher level in most games, doesn't mean you can use a feature to make them your level as they play with you or as you share the quest.

End conclusion: This guy is a retard.

[Rei Kuhr]

Actually, this guy makes some good points.

Reason 5: The problem with this is, it falls under the same argument people have been making for a long time. Games are a BUSINESS MODEL. Arguing over how payments are handled will happen regardless of how you do it. The guy fails to mention that $15 a month for ALL the content is actually quite paltry considering how micropayments can add up. Take SecondLife for example. A lot of people spend well over $15 a month on SL. Although SL has the option of having players earn money back, so that's in favor. $15 for a month of gaming is a lot, considering what else can cost that much. A meal for three at any fast food restaurant for example.

Reason 4: First off, UI is User Interface. Has nothing to do with AI. Secondly, Aggro is something that will be with any group-based RPG until the AI is advanced enough to reason on it's own. It's a simple mechanic meant to mimic realistic reactions (the "argh I'm mad at the guy who is causing the most problems I'm going to go beat on his face" reaction). The author needs to keep everything else in mind. If there was no mechanic to keep players doing what they do without being dead every three seconds, then they'd have to make all the classes very similar, which would destroy uniqueness amongst the classes and players.

Reason 3: While the author does have a point, he fails to mention two things. One: There are plenty of games that have flashy action WITHOUT buttonmashing. And two: There are games that are pure buttonmashers but allow players to keep their eyes on the action. The problem with most MMOs is that they give you such a varied amount of things and have a mechanic known as cooldown so you cannot just use them all at once. It's the COOLDOWN that keeps us looking down at those buttons. However, there have been many solutions to this to keep players watching what they are doing. For one, in WoW, there are addons that give audible clues and/or a message on a Heads Up Display to tell us when certain abilities are ready. And for two, games like Age of Conan have given a lot of the action directly to the player with only a few abilities that are done by button press. And those have combos that players can easily see without taking their eyes off of what is happening in front of them.

Reason 2: While I agree with the author that a lot of MMOs have incredibly static worlds, this is starting to change. For example, WoW has recently introduced the Phased Instance system. With Phased Instances, areas can progress individually for people. For the first timer, one zone might look like a town being besieged by hostile forces. As they progress, the area changes along with them. When they finish, peace is reigning and all is well, but for the next player that comes along, it's a war-torn zone again. Phased Instances are done by a simple check system. The server checks whether or not a player has completed certain objectives and it will only show the pertinent objects and entities to the player. So the zone has everything already there, but things that the player are not supposed to see are hidden.

Reason 1: The author fails to mention Everquest 2, which has quite possibly the best system in place. Players who are higher in level can "apprentice" lower level players. This sets the higher level player down to the lower player's level without making him lose his equipment. This means that both can group together and do the same content together without making things worse for one or the other. Age of Conan has something similar where the player being "apprenticed" is bumped up to one level below the others. This means that, while still not perfect, players are becoming more able to play with others at all times.

The guy isnt a retard. However, he's self-centric on his views and fails to do his research on all the MMOs out currently. He also seemingly throws things out that really have no substance at all. The subscription fees? Does this guy not remember how they used to be? I remember subscription fees being $0.99 a MINUTE. This person needs to go back and actually do his own research and come up with his own solutions instead of coming off like a whiner. To the author: If it isnt broke, DONT FIX IT.

[Cyphre Iredell]

He isn't attempting to review all currently existing MMOs in existence, just the basic premise of the general MMORPG you would find, prominently defined in the successful WoW. There are tons of games that all use those same basic mechanics, rather than innovating beyond gameplay that exists beyond something you could do in text-format over a decade ago.

[Nakita]

On reason two, EVE-Online is going to be releasing the next patch with uncharted space, allowing less static gameplay.

Well we are going to change that. We are going to give you uncharted, unknown places to visit via paths that shift and slide through the fabric of space. We are going to give you thousands of new solar systems which will contain new NPC's, new exploration content and new pockets of resources to exploit. You will have the chance to venture into places that promise great rewards but also bring with them great risks. We are going to establish the untamed frontier that lurks at the fringes of known space and into which brave souls bent on conquest and riches will venture with high hopes. Some will return as heroes, some will return as fresh clones spewing from the medical vats. Some may never return at all.

Wormholes will bring us to this new frontier, appearing all over New Eden as a result of a cataclysmic event, the nature of which we'll reveal in the coming months. These wormholes are unstable and will spawn and vanish randomly throughout the known universe. A pilot who stumbles across one of these stellar phenomena can fly through it and travel to unknown space, where there are no stargates or stations, just the unexplored void of a new solar system. And when I say "new solar system" that is exactly what I mean. It will not be moving you to instanced space but rather to one of the thousands of new solar systems we will be adding to the EVE universe.

The wormholes themselves will be open only for a randomly determined amount of time and can only let through a certain amount of mass before they collapse. Pilots should carefully consider the information their ship's computer gives them about a wormhole before committing to travel through it. Although there will always be a way back to known space from wormhole space, you may have to search long and hard to locate it. And in that process, you may find wormholes that lead you to even more unexplored wormhole systems, launching you on a voyage of exploration the likes of which EVE has never seen before.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=616

Edited February 4, 2009 by Karlhockey Forte

[Agares Tretiak]

I super <3 EVE, I just wish I had a collection of Amarrians that I could throw around and make into a small fleet.

:(

Also, I need monnnneeey to restart my account.

[Keystone Gray]

For #5, I've seen a company solve this problem by making their MMO free, but offering special items for sale on their website in exchange for real money and continuously creating more content for the marketplace.