There will be no "purples"
Check Ultima Online, Mortal Online or Wurm Online
There are other systems out there, not every MMO is WoW
Check Ultima Online, Mortal Online or Wurm Online
There are other systems out there, not every MMO is WoW
Likes:
EvilKitten and NitroMidgets
It's already been addressed, but I have to pitch in as well.
If people wanted a Tribes-esque shooter MMO with Epic and Legendary loot, they'd be playing Firefall.
Firefall has been on the decline for months, and as people leave, they have less money to fix bugs, and the problem worsens, no matter how many new bug-infested legendary weapons that take five minutes to get they add.
There was a HUGE dropoff of players after the 1.0 "Release" spike died down, and for months people consistently begged the team to go back to beta mechanics. I can honestly say the biggest reason I continued to play was the community, and that Pez brought myself and many others on as mentors. The core engagement of a verticality-focused shooter with unique weapons and fun abilities was still there, but it was slowly sanded down to a gray, generic husk of what it once was.
Here, we can imagine a game that combines the thrill of a fast-paced vertical shooter with freakin' jetpacks, and the unique mechanics and options afforded to the player by a nearly totally horizontal progression system. Firefall and its descendant(s) have what I have not found in any other MMO or game on the planet: An engaging resource collection system, with a level of depth and incredible consequence.
You could not create bots or scripts for thumping. Sure, bastion was good, and there were a few spots where it was almost comically easy to defend them, but the latter is not really by design, and bastion still required upkeep. If you were going to bring resources, equipment, and Crystite into the economy, you had to do it through the sweat and blood of Thumping. Every piece of gear, scrap of metal, and exploding Aranha gland, was earned, not farmed by a contingent of mindless bots.
Even if you cannot remember the glory days, or empathize with those who do, consider it from a business perspective. Why did Firefall eventually fail, aside from the rampant bugs? With 1.0, we tried to bring another cookie cutter progression-driven MMO into an industry practically buried in the corpses of its failed kin. Physics based combat and verticality were the defining features of the game then, and nothing else. When you have to try and crawl out from beneath the leviathan that is World of Warcraft with only one major feature setting you apart, you will fail.
We cannot, with Ember, introduce yet another MMO with one or two gimmicks to set it apart. We must be unique. We must be so unique people debate whether to even call this an MMORPG, though it is still by definition an MMO.
Tried and true? Firefall was tried, and we have learned many truths from it. It's time to put those in place.
If people wanted a Tribes-esque shooter MMO with Epic and Legendary loot, they'd be playing Firefall.
Firefall has been on the decline for months, and as people leave, they have less money to fix bugs, and the problem worsens, no matter how many new bug-infested legendary weapons that take five minutes to get they add.
There was a HUGE dropoff of players after the 1.0 "Release" spike died down, and for months people consistently begged the team to go back to beta mechanics. I can honestly say the biggest reason I continued to play was the community, and that Pez brought myself and many others on as mentors. The core engagement of a verticality-focused shooter with unique weapons and fun abilities was still there, but it was slowly sanded down to a gray, generic husk of what it once was.
Here, we can imagine a game that combines the thrill of a fast-paced vertical shooter with freakin' jetpacks, and the unique mechanics and options afforded to the player by a nearly totally horizontal progression system. Firefall and its descendant(s) have what I have not found in any other MMO or game on the planet: An engaging resource collection system, with a level of depth and incredible consequence.
You could not create bots or scripts for thumping. Sure, bastion was good, and there were a few spots where it was almost comically easy to defend them, but the latter is not really by design, and bastion still required upkeep. If you were going to bring resources, equipment, and Crystite into the economy, you had to do it through the sweat and blood of Thumping. Every piece of gear, scrap of metal, and exploding Aranha gland, was earned, not farmed by a contingent of mindless bots.
Even if you cannot remember the glory days, or empathize with those who do, consider it from a business perspective. Why did Firefall eventually fail, aside from the rampant bugs? With 1.0, we tried to bring another cookie cutter progression-driven MMO into an industry practically buried in the corpses of its failed kin. Physics based combat and verticality were the defining features of the game then, and nothing else. When you have to try and crawl out from beneath the leviathan that is World of Warcraft with only one major feature setting you apart, you will fail.
We cannot, with Ember, introduce yet another MMO with one or two gimmicks to set it apart. We must be unique. We must be so unique people debate whether to even call this an MMORPG, though it is still by definition an MMO.
Tried and true? Firefall was tried, and we have learned many truths from it. It's time to put those in place.
Likes:
NitroMidgets
I only can speak for how Ultima Online was... but no, there was nothing to be called as purples equivalent.
There was magic enchanted items but they were too expensive so mny people saw them as uneconomical. If you get one luckly, selling it was better idea. Most people used crafted gears and they were good enough for everything and price was very affordable due to competitions between vendors.
Modern interpretation of that will be... "Why would you want purples, when greens can do the things. Oh, you just wanted to spend more money!"
There was magic enchanted items but they were too expensive so mny people saw them as uneconomical. If you get one luckly, selling it was better idea. Most people used crafted gears and they were good enough for everything and price was very affordable due to competitions between vendors.
Modern interpretation of that will be... "Why would you want purples, when greens can do the things. Oh, you just wanted to spend more money!"
I remember with Dungeons and Dragons online, there wasn't really class balance. Wizards became super powerful as they gained levels, while mixed melee classes fell into one role or another. That presented a problem itself, not trying to have class/role balance, but in a way it really showed the differences in the experience within parties of different classes. One of the most fun things in that game was when you couldn't possibly do something, and you saw your friend go and do it, but then later did something they couldn't hope to do.
I find it funny that the same people who complain about reaching the 'endgame' taking too long are the same people who cry "BOOOOOOORED!!!" the loudest when they inevitably speed right to the end of the tech-tree and mow all the content in a month. Honestly, that's exactly the kind of player we need to filter out.
So what if it would take years to reach the end? Isn't that THE POINT? to make a durable game that will keep people playing for years? It's exactly the problem with "theme park" mmos--they have all this content that offers no challenge or resistance and gives you options to just SKIP most of it (looking at you, instant-level-100-cash-shop-items...) and then desperately try to STALL players by putting any further progress on a lottery! Players are then stuck repeating the same content they've memorized a THOUSAND TIMES while the devs scramble to reskin old content and increase their health pools and damage numbers just so the whole purgatorial cycle can repeat itself until players get SICK OF IT! Meanwhile 90% of the game's assets become ghost towns and junk loot, taking up boatloads of server space, wasting YEARS of work by programmers and artists for virtually no continuing gains. It's wasteful, it's insulting, and it's time it came to a screeching halt.
Ember needs to go the opposite direction. I want to see a game that comes out swinging at us. I want to see our shadowy foe jump out of bushes and headshot us. I want to see a game that promises war and gives us a damned WAR!! I want a game with an unreachable goal that endlessly moves further away as we chase it. I want to see a game that inspires us.
We NEED a game that CHALLENGES us for years to come. No man's sky will do it in the next few days; chronicles of Elyria will do it next year. The theme park MMO has had it's day; it's time we had some REAL games again. The ember team knows this and so do we; let's get those gears turning.
So what if it would take years to reach the end? Isn't that THE POINT? to make a durable game that will keep people playing for years? It's exactly the problem with "theme park" mmos--they have all this content that offers no challenge or resistance and gives you options to just SKIP most of it (looking at you, instant-level-100-cash-shop-items...) and then desperately try to STALL players by putting any further progress on a lottery! Players are then stuck repeating the same content they've memorized a THOUSAND TIMES while the devs scramble to reskin old content and increase their health pools and damage numbers just so the whole purgatorial cycle can repeat itself until players get SICK OF IT! Meanwhile 90% of the game's assets become ghost towns and junk loot, taking up boatloads of server space, wasting YEARS of work by programmers and artists for virtually no continuing gains. It's wasteful, it's insulting, and it's time it came to a screeching halt.
Ember needs to go the opposite direction. I want to see a game that comes out swinging at us. I want to see our shadowy foe jump out of bushes and headshot us. I want to see a game that promises war and gives us a damned WAR!! I want a game with an unreachable goal that endlessly moves further away as we chase it. I want to see a game that inspires us.
We NEED a game that CHALLENGES us for years to come. No man's sky will do it in the next few days; chronicles of Elyria will do it next year. The theme park MMO has had it's day; it's time we had some REAL games again. The ember team knows this and so do we; let's get those gears turning.
Likes:
Sik San
well, i would like to see some hardcore servers where you ain't got crosshair and that shit, so kinda the equivalent of Contract Wars HC mode: no crosshair, no map, simplified hud, no ammo counter (it sometimes bugged out, but that was jsut for moments while reloading), friendly fire, no skill influence :3, broken legs, arms and bleedings (legs = slower, arms = harder to aim, bleeding = both and loosing 1 hp every few seconds (appears if you drop under 10 hp), doubled dmg AND HIGHER EXP GAIN!!!!
it doesn't need the same things, but it would be nice to see similar things like no map, limited communication, no crosshair (you can't use crosshair...). Something like this would help for long term.
it doesn't need the same things, but it would be nice to see similar things like no map, limited communication, no crosshair (you can't use crosshair...). Something like this would help for long term.
What made FireFall glorious?
Thats a difficult question to answer in a simple sense. What first drew me to firefall was the idea of a shooter first MMO game, i thought what the heck, sounds fun. My first Hour of gameplay was some of the most interesting that i have ever had.
Keep in mind, this was before any tutorial was in place. I get into the game and start wandering around, at this point i have no real idea of what i'm expected to do. So i head out of town and hear what sounded like a jet engine, followed by something falling out of the sky... We all know what happened next, but my point is this. The ability to have things happen in real time, with people you only will meet in passing, at the press of a button is amazing.
The scan hammer was a BRILLIANT in-game mechanic, combine this with a "spawn your own event" AKA a thumper made it so that resource acquisition was not a solo grind, but more of a party event. (By the way, LOVED the squad thumps, oh the insane times i had.) I really like, no.. LOVE the idea that the good stuff is never always in the same spot, maybe the same zone, or area. But NEVER in the same spot, using the scan hammer to find the peak, the absolute best thump spot, then calling down the hell-in-a-handbasket. Instanced fighting and maps are nice, and add a bit of immersion that i feel are necessary to paint a picture of the story you are trying to portray to the player, but should NEVER be the main focus of the game. While they can be used to tell a story that is more difficult to do without a custom setting, it needs to NEED that setup and seperate backdrop to be there, not simply placed as another generic questline.
There were things added to firefall that did not have a place in it, super long duration "researches" was one of them, they really tone down the sense of horizontal gameplay. While i did not mind the system of paying resources to unlock additional features of a frame, i feel that getting all the benefits of a class for free feels shallow. I would MUCH more prefer to have to play a frame for a while to collect resources and a sort of token reward that is used to upgrade the available capabilities of a frame.
I like the idea of a progressive upgraded capabilities of a frame. I saw "omni-frame" it would seem that you have a frame that can do everything. Could this frame have "configuration modes?" such as (forgive the generic terms) Healer-frame mode where your character functions in a similar sense to a biotic, and Tank-frame mode where your character functions similar to a mammoth. You get the idea, but to unlock these sidegrades you are required to complete a set of "quests." I put quests in parenthesis because they are not quests in the sense of most games, rather a list of, say 20 tasks, of which you only need to complete, say 10 of as well as dumping resources into. These tasks would range from easy to difficult but require you to use a mechanic present in your current upgrade path. Doing so unlocks the next level of customization of the frame. Which allows you to delve deeper into the aspect of, for example; healer-frame. in the same sense i feel that abilities should be semi-interchangable but never significantly stronger than each other.
I loved that in the earlier versions of firefall that resources actually meant something, there was an actual need to thump, a good change to the thump system would be that the rarer resources would require a higher thumper level, (which obviously would be harder) so that to get some of the rarest resources you would have to get more people together. Also, Devs, DON'T EVER LEAVE OUT THE HOP IN STYLE THAT THE THUMPS AND GLOBAL EVENTS HAD!!! It was absolutely amazing to be able to help out/join in on events that were happening as you passed by. You didnt have to, you may not need to, but you could; and you got a small part of the loot for doing so, THAT was cool.
Thats a difficult question to answer in a simple sense. What first drew me to firefall was the idea of a shooter first MMO game, i thought what the heck, sounds fun. My first Hour of gameplay was some of the most interesting that i have ever had.
Keep in mind, this was before any tutorial was in place. I get into the game and start wandering around, at this point i have no real idea of what i'm expected to do. So i head out of town and hear what sounded like a jet engine, followed by something falling out of the sky... We all know what happened next, but my point is this. The ability to have things happen in real time, with people you only will meet in passing, at the press of a button is amazing.
The scan hammer was a BRILLIANT in-game mechanic, combine this with a "spawn your own event" AKA a thumper made it so that resource acquisition was not a solo grind, but more of a party event. (By the way, LOVED the squad thumps, oh the insane times i had.) I really like, no.. LOVE the idea that the good stuff is never always in the same spot, maybe the same zone, or area. But NEVER in the same spot, using the scan hammer to find the peak, the absolute best thump spot, then calling down the hell-in-a-handbasket. Instanced fighting and maps are nice, and add a bit of immersion that i feel are necessary to paint a picture of the story you are trying to portray to the player, but should NEVER be the main focus of the game. While they can be used to tell a story that is more difficult to do without a custom setting, it needs to NEED that setup and seperate backdrop to be there, not simply placed as another generic questline.
There were things added to firefall that did not have a place in it, super long duration "researches" was one of them, they really tone down the sense of horizontal gameplay. While i did not mind the system of paying resources to unlock additional features of a frame, i feel that getting all the benefits of a class for free feels shallow. I would MUCH more prefer to have to play a frame for a while to collect resources and a sort of token reward that is used to upgrade the available capabilities of a frame.
I like the idea of a progressive upgraded capabilities of a frame. I saw "omni-frame" it would seem that you have a frame that can do everything. Could this frame have "configuration modes?" such as (forgive the generic terms) Healer-frame mode where your character functions in a similar sense to a biotic, and Tank-frame mode where your character functions similar to a mammoth. You get the idea, but to unlock these sidegrades you are required to complete a set of "quests." I put quests in parenthesis because they are not quests in the sense of most games, rather a list of, say 20 tasks, of which you only need to complete, say 10 of as well as dumping resources into. These tasks would range from easy to difficult but require you to use a mechanic present in your current upgrade path. Doing so unlocks the next level of customization of the frame. Which allows you to delve deeper into the aspect of, for example; healer-frame. in the same sense i feel that abilities should be semi-interchangable but never significantly stronger than each other.
I loved that in the earlier versions of firefall that resources actually meant something, there was an actual need to thump, a good change to the thump system would be that the rarer resources would require a higher thumper level, (which obviously would be harder) so that to get some of the rarest resources you would have to get more people together. Also, Devs, DON'T EVER LEAVE OUT THE HOP IN STYLE THAT THE THUMPS AND GLOBAL EVENTS HAD!!! It was absolutely amazing to be able to help out/join in on events that were happening as you passed by. You didnt have to, you may not need to, but you could; and you got a small part of the loot for doing so, THAT was cool.
Likes:
TheSilentSnap and Beerdog6
Yeah. A lot of the missions and world events had massive gatherings of people that were mainly full of people that just hopped on as they were passing by. That was pretty cool.
Guild Wars 2 has that but their world events are few and far in between.
Skyforge's world levels has that to a small degree but is harmed in that the game doesn't account for large numbers of players interacting with events. So bosses in those world levels can get overwhelmed quite easily. Which slowly kills your ambition to keep playing with others because it gets so darn easy.
Guild Wars 2 has that but their world events are few and far in between.
Skyforge's world levels has that to a small degree but is harmed in that the game doesn't account for large numbers of players interacting with events. So bosses in those world levels can get overwhelmed quite easily. Which slowly kills your ambition to keep playing with others because it gets so darn easy.
My 2 cents thrown in here, but while I understand that innovation is a godsend before all things, it's also important to comprehend that throwing new ideas at the dartboard isn't always the route to go. Yes, new ideas are great; especially if, given the team, it's executed extremely well. But sometimes, it's better to know when it's okay to tinker with shit. I can list you a few accounts of companies (i.e. Nintendo, etc.) who've made their games/hardware/software to innovate for innovation's sake, caring nothing at all for if it actually makes sense with the product or if it may hamper future projects coming from them.
While striking out on a new path is a bold move, it's also a tricky one. People like familiarity; they'll always say they want something different, but they're more than likely to stick to what feels like a comfort zone to them. It's not their fault, really, it's just hardwired human behavior. We tend to avoid what's alien a concept to us, and stay near what's most recognizable. It's why someone's willing to pay way more for a brand-name food over the generic variety, even if the quality is worse. It's why many people have decried the Call of Duty franchise for over a decade, yet keep coming back to see what's next regardless. Being the new kid on the block with the next big idea is hit-and-miss; even with Red5's combined experience in the business, it's concerning to think if anybody would stick around if the fresh ideas on the table aren't what we're expecting or comfortable with.
I'm not saying don't try anything new; obviously, new ideas are always an inherent risk, but it's why we still try anyway. Because it's such a risk, that when it strikes gold, it's that unique pull that hooks in a player community large enough to sustain the game long-term. That said, let's not start thinking they're obligated to 'do X new to how Y did X with Z' or something along those lines. And let's also not exclude the most obvious alternative: if they want to stick to the tried and true, do it better than the rest.
While striking out on a new path is a bold move, it's also a tricky one. People like familiarity; they'll always say they want something different, but they're more than likely to stick to what feels like a comfort zone to them. It's not their fault, really, it's just hardwired human behavior. We tend to avoid what's alien a concept to us, and stay near what's most recognizable. It's why someone's willing to pay way more for a brand-name food over the generic variety, even if the quality is worse. It's why many people have decried the Call of Duty franchise for over a decade, yet keep coming back to see what's next regardless. Being the new kid on the block with the next big idea is hit-and-miss; even with Red5's combined experience in the business, it's concerning to think if anybody would stick around if the fresh ideas on the table aren't what we're expecting or comfortable with.
I'm not saying don't try anything new; obviously, new ideas are always an inherent risk, but it's why we still try anyway. Because it's such a risk, that when it strikes gold, it's that unique pull that hooks in a player community large enough to sustain the game long-term. That said, let's not start thinking they're obligated to 'do X new to how Y did X with Z' or something along those lines. And let's also not exclude the most obvious alternative: if they want to stick to the tried and true, do it better than the rest.
Likes:
TheSilentSnap