Hey guys, this is my first post here, and I'm interested in what you all think of current gen MMORPGs, and why you think what you do about them, and also what type of games you play. Personally I think they mostly suck, and I play pretty much every genre of game, FPS, RTS, RPG. My first MMORPG was a game called Asheron's Call and I really do think it was one of the better MMORPGs out there, I mean sure it had ugly graphics, but I've come to the conclusion that it did a lot of things right after playing so many other MMORPGs. Keep in mind i'm not trying to get you to play Asheron's Call, I think the developers completely screwed the game up trying to make it more like Everquest which was pretty popular at the time.
Here are some of the things it did right compared to World of Warcraft which is what most games clone their game mechanics off of:
Character Creation. In Asheron's Call when you created a new character, you would start out by selecting a race like most MMORPGs, and then you'd move on to the attribute selection screen where you'd allocate 270 points into strength, coordination, quickness, endurance, focus, and self with 100 maximum of each attribute. These attributes would affect different skills. After that you would move on to the skill selection menu where you'd have 50 points to train new skills and specialize them if you want. The great thing about this is that you could really go whatever path you wanted, you could specialize war magic and train missile defense, melee defense, and bow, or if you wanted, specialize in jumping and running and train whatever else you like. The system offered freedom to the player to create whatever kind of character they wanted, whereas a game like World of Warcraft would let you pick your race, your class, and your look. It didn't go any deeper than that. After that you picked your look, your name, and your starting town (in WoW your starting town is defined by your race).
In World of Warcraft during character creation you would go no further than selecting a race, a class, and a look. You didn't even get to pick your starting town, the game picked it for you.
Character Development. In AC you had your attributes and skills and your levels. With each level as with most games the XP to level up increased. With each kill you were awarded XP into your level and into a pool of XP. The pool of XP could be spent to raise your attributes or skills in any way you like. But skills also raised when they were being used, albeit much slower. As you leveled you would gain additional skill credits which could be used to train even more skills. This allowed the player to develop their character in whatever way they wanted.
Compare this to World of Warcraft where your class dictates what you can do and how you play the game. The extent of character development involves buying new skills, but only non combat crafting/gathering skills, and skills raising as you use them. You can't be a jumping or running master in WoW, everyone runs and jumps the same speed and height, and you certainly can't be an archer that buffs itself or a mage whose a master of evading/dodging missile and melee attacks.
Spells. Asheron's Call had a really great magic system where there were buffs/debuffs for each element, skill, and attribute with levels of 1 - 7. The best part about it was unfortunately removed in a later patch. Basically you had to research spells, you would combine different components in a menu to attempt to learn a new spell. The components of a spell would determine the level of the spell (the level could be identified by how large the charging up animation was), the words spoken when it was cast, and the animation played after it was finished charging. From this, you could determine the components of a spell by watching another player cast it. It allowed the player to think and experiment. Alternatively players could just hunt for spell scrolls (monsters dropped them randomly) and learn them that way (the scrolls would autolearn the spell and the scroll would be destroyed).
Compare to WoW where you buy new skills/spells from a trainer, easymode.
Quests. In AC, quests are more than just simplistic kill tasks with instructions that a mentally retarded child could figure out. The quests tie in to the game lore, you hear about them through rumors from town criers, and sometimes NPCs that want you to retrieve some lost item of theirs from a dangerous dungeon. The rewards matter, and some of them are of use to you for years after you've gotten them. You don't do quests because you have to in order to level up, although there are quests that give experience rewards, but rather because the quest has an extremely useful item that you might want, or for a new useful spell such as something that teleports you to a new island. The interesting thing is that you aren't even told what to do, the player is left to figure things out for himself/herself by looking at the previous lore and other quests. Exploration plays an important part in questing in AC.
However, the absolute best thing about Questing in Asheron's Call were the live events where the developers would play main story characters and the players would have a chance to change what happens. On the PvP server I remember one of the most evil clans ended up joining an evil story characters allegiance played by a developer. The fact that the players actually took part in the story at some times and pushed it in the direction they wanted made the game far more interesting and immersive than anything else I've ever played. There were even epic one time quests where sometimes only one person would get the reward.
Compare it to World of Warcraft where quests exist for the sole purpose of leveling up and are intended to be done one after another. There is no deep story behind them, and they hardly tie into the game world. Each quest you do will tend to make the last quest item you got worthless, and you only do them because you have to.
Combat. Asheron's Call combat was a bit more than a select target and begin auto attack. Players could dodge spells and arrows and evade melee attacks by jumping away, maybe onto a building or something. This allowed a players skill to be a defining factor in combat. Your level helped to increase your damage and the chance to evade, but that didn't matter so much because if a level 50 was really good at a dodging spells and arrows, he/she could take down a level 100.
Compare to World of Warcraft where level, gear, class, and template determine 95% of the outcome of a fight and the other 5% is your ability to press buttons in the right order. You can't even dodge attacks by moving out of the way. This is my biggest gripe with current MMORPGs. If a 9 year old MMORPG lets me dodge attacks by moving out of the way, theres no excuse as to why a current gen one doesn't.
PvP. Asheron's Call gives you a choice between PvP and "White" Non PvP servers. If you choose a "white" server, you have two choices if you want to fight other players. You can go /pklite where there is no penalty for dieing, or you can shed your protection and become red. If you become red, you can be attacked at any place any time, and you drop a certain amount of items of the highest value proportional to your level when you're killed by another player. You can of course become white again on the non PvP servers. When you are red, only other red players can attack you, and when you're /pklite, only other pklites can attack you. On the PvP server, everyone is red always, and when they die, they turn white for 5 minutes where nobody can attack them. There used to be no safety except with guild mates on the PvP server until the developers ruined it and added houses with barriers that gave people a safe place to be.
Compare to WoW where on PvP servers your PvP is restricted to those of the other faction, and there is no reward or risk when you fight another player. You die and you lose nothing. PvP is meaningless. WoW doesn't even give players a true PvP choice.
Sorry for the big post, but I have a problem with current gen MMORPGs, they're far from what they could be. I guess what I'm trying to say is that player freedom makes MMORPGs so much better and if you disagree you're a liberal commie pinko.
Here are some of the things it did right compared to World of Warcraft which is what most games clone their game mechanics off of:
Character Creation. In Asheron's Call when you created a new character, you would start out by selecting a race like most MMORPGs, and then you'd move on to the attribute selection screen where you'd allocate 270 points into strength, coordination, quickness, endurance, focus, and self with 100 maximum of each attribute. These attributes would affect different skills. After that you would move on to the skill selection menu where you'd have 50 points to train new skills and specialize them if you want. The great thing about this is that you could really go whatever path you wanted, you could specialize war magic and train missile defense, melee defense, and bow, or if you wanted, specialize in jumping and running and train whatever else you like. The system offered freedom to the player to create whatever kind of character they wanted, whereas a game like World of Warcraft would let you pick your race, your class, and your look. It didn't go any deeper than that. After that you picked your look, your name, and your starting town (in WoW your starting town is defined by your race).
In World of Warcraft during character creation you would go no further than selecting a race, a class, and a look. You didn't even get to pick your starting town, the game picked it for you.
Character Development. In AC you had your attributes and skills and your levels. With each level as with most games the XP to level up increased. With each kill you were awarded XP into your level and into a pool of XP. The pool of XP could be spent to raise your attributes or skills in any way you like. But skills also raised when they were being used, albeit much slower. As you leveled you would gain additional skill credits which could be used to train even more skills. This allowed the player to develop their character in whatever way they wanted.
Compare this to World of Warcraft where your class dictates what you can do and how you play the game. The extent of character development involves buying new skills, but only non combat crafting/gathering skills, and skills raising as you use them. You can't be a jumping or running master in WoW, everyone runs and jumps the same speed and height, and you certainly can't be an archer that buffs itself or a mage whose a master of evading/dodging missile and melee attacks.
Spells. Asheron's Call had a really great magic system where there were buffs/debuffs for each element, skill, and attribute with levels of 1 - 7. The best part about it was unfortunately removed in a later patch. Basically you had to research spells, you would combine different components in a menu to attempt to learn a new spell. The components of a spell would determine the level of the spell (the level could be identified by how large the charging up animation was), the words spoken when it was cast, and the animation played after it was finished charging. From this, you could determine the components of a spell by watching another player cast it. It allowed the player to think and experiment. Alternatively players could just hunt for spell scrolls (monsters dropped them randomly) and learn them that way (the scrolls would autolearn the spell and the scroll would be destroyed).
Compare to WoW where you buy new skills/spells from a trainer, easymode.
Quests. In AC, quests are more than just simplistic kill tasks with instructions that a mentally retarded child could figure out. The quests tie in to the game lore, you hear about them through rumors from town criers, and sometimes NPCs that want you to retrieve some lost item of theirs from a dangerous dungeon. The rewards matter, and some of them are of use to you for years after you've gotten them. You don't do quests because you have to in order to level up, although there are quests that give experience rewards, but rather because the quest has an extremely useful item that you might want, or for a new useful spell such as something that teleports you to a new island. The interesting thing is that you aren't even told what to do, the player is left to figure things out for himself/herself by looking at the previous lore and other quests. Exploration plays an important part in questing in AC.
However, the absolute best thing about Questing in Asheron's Call were the live events where the developers would play main story characters and the players would have a chance to change what happens. On the PvP server I remember one of the most evil clans ended up joining an evil story characters allegiance played by a developer. The fact that the players actually took part in the story at some times and pushed it in the direction they wanted made the game far more interesting and immersive than anything else I've ever played. There were even epic one time quests where sometimes only one person would get the reward.
Compare it to World of Warcraft where quests exist for the sole purpose of leveling up and are intended to be done one after another. There is no deep story behind them, and they hardly tie into the game world. Each quest you do will tend to make the last quest item you got worthless, and you only do them because you have to.
Combat. Asheron's Call combat was a bit more than a select target and begin auto attack. Players could dodge spells and arrows and evade melee attacks by jumping away, maybe onto a building or something. This allowed a players skill to be a defining factor in combat. Your level helped to increase your damage and the chance to evade, but that didn't matter so much because if a level 50 was really good at a dodging spells and arrows, he/she could take down a level 100.
Compare to World of Warcraft where level, gear, class, and template determine 95% of the outcome of a fight and the other 5% is your ability to press buttons in the right order. You can't even dodge attacks by moving out of the way. This is my biggest gripe with current MMORPGs. If a 9 year old MMORPG lets me dodge attacks by moving out of the way, theres no excuse as to why a current gen one doesn't.
PvP. Asheron's Call gives you a choice between PvP and "White" Non PvP servers. If you choose a "white" server, you have two choices if you want to fight other players. You can go /pklite where there is no penalty for dieing, or you can shed your protection and become red. If you become red, you can be attacked at any place any time, and you drop a certain amount of items of the highest value proportional to your level when you're killed by another player. You can of course become white again on the non PvP servers. When you are red, only other red players can attack you, and when you're /pklite, only other pklites can attack you. On the PvP server, everyone is red always, and when they die, they turn white for 5 minutes where nobody can attack them. There used to be no safety except with guild mates on the PvP server until the developers ruined it and added houses with barriers that gave people a safe place to be.
Compare to WoW where on PvP servers your PvP is restricted to those of the other faction, and there is no reward or risk when you fight another player. You die and you lose nothing. PvP is meaningless. WoW doesn't even give players a true PvP choice.
Sorry for the big post, but I have a problem with current gen MMORPGs, they're far from what they could be. I guess what I'm trying to say is that player freedom makes MMORPGs so much better and if you disagree you're a liberal commie pinko.
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