I will try my hand at making another thread! I'm a new guy, a self-proclaimed MMO theorist. I am searching for the holy grail like many. I have seen many different games, and I wanted to talk about the future of EA even though I did not dip my toes too far into it. I hope people will read and think about what I am saying, devs included. I made one other thread on combat, I believe, and I will not go in depth on that subject again.
Most people prefer YouTube videos to walls of text, but I can read much faster + I don't have to add any effects, supplementary clips, etc, so this is my method of choice when discussing things. Apologies to anyone who does not like what I have to say.
Here we have EMBERS ADRIFT. There is nothing wrong with it, at its core. We can agree on that, right? The bones are good. It's clunky, but a big secret is probably that clunky DOESN'T REALLY MATTER if the game is good. I don't think clunky is immersion breaking, but it may limit initial immersion. The clunk is more related to battles, but they have a trump card: the text box alongside, which is where most of the action can take place. In a lot of ways, Embers has the ability to be a game that hasn't really been done (at least in awhile,) to appeal to an audience that is different and left-behind by modern mmos, and, due to the technological set up, to grow in a way that is limited less by programming/graphics and more by developmental imagination. That last one is the most important, to me.
When a game is made, there is a 'vision,' and I believe the problem with this is that a team will go down with the ship before they believe they are compromising on their vision. I said in another thread: why not add bots? You can have stories for them, more branching scenarios, etc. The way combat is, having an extra damage dealer, a healer, whatever, is huge. It would allow the game to continue to be balanced for the ideal situation, and it would allow more people to get into the game. Bots are NOT BAD. They can drive your story. I've seen those thieves fight and self-heal, so the idea of an AI ally should not be out of the question. This would fix a lot of the issues without having to change the core game. It might seem like a compromise, but, simply, bots cannot do hard content. It will help create/balance content that is actually hard and THEN people can group, because they will already be there and they will be into the game. Of course, maybe like one or two heal bots could tag along in dire circumstances.
Then, one more thing I would like to address is, "What is endgame?" Again, Embers has potential to be different due to their leaning on text and the ability to add more and more text much more easily than it would be to add other things. I believe an ideal MMO becomes a world, and the end game is when you are living in the world. The end game is almost a social thing. It can be about having good gear, showing people your gear, special events popping up, but a lot of it is just hanging out, helping people, and maybe doing something you've done a bunch of times with a different group of people, or with the same group of people, hoping for something special to happen. Items and levels should not be the end-all of completion because A. people are going to hit that point or B. they can make it so ridic that it doesn't even matter (I played black desert and oh man haha.) Still, the end game in that was talking with people about stuff, doing the same stuff with different people, generally trolling around. It's not that hard to create an end game; what is hard is to create a robust community that can use their imagination. Someone spoke of grouping and how so-and-so streamer was good at creating groups, and I agree with the counter point that it does make people reliant on those people, but the idea is to have MANY of those people.
Again with the bots: those people who are leaders are not going to give up their spots. Consider that! So, if you have 3-4 strong leaders who are forming groups constantly, they are defining what content gets done and sucking the pool of players dry, possibly grinding the whole game progression to a halt due to the fact that this game is 'built as a 6 person mmo' but has low population. There are leaders (like consider me making this post, consider how this post is gonna go over. haha. I am someone who can form a group, and I do like to choose sometimes, but I also like to foster self-sufficient groups. That is my goal in MMOs) who won't get a chance to be a leader because they will have to go in under one of the established leaders and they will be competing for the player pool, like say they found 2 other people who they get along with, but the established leader has 4/6. You got 3/6 and 4/6 and it's highly likely in the end it will either be the three getting left out, or the two going back to the original group.
In that way, the design is flawed, and that is a huge limitation. Just because you set up a game as something, it can still BE that, but you need a midway point. I say ADD BOTS IMMEDIATELY (Arnold voice,) and then focus on fleshing out the game with more text/choices, more outcomes, more drops, even different drops from gathers, different ways to gather, etc just different things you can do to get different outcomes. Should be pretty easy.
Peace.
Most people prefer YouTube videos to walls of text, but I can read much faster + I don't have to add any effects, supplementary clips, etc, so this is my method of choice when discussing things. Apologies to anyone who does not like what I have to say.
Here we have EMBERS ADRIFT. There is nothing wrong with it, at its core. We can agree on that, right? The bones are good. It's clunky, but a big secret is probably that clunky DOESN'T REALLY MATTER if the game is good. I don't think clunky is immersion breaking, but it may limit initial immersion. The clunk is more related to battles, but they have a trump card: the text box alongside, which is where most of the action can take place. In a lot of ways, Embers has the ability to be a game that hasn't really been done (at least in awhile,) to appeal to an audience that is different and left-behind by modern mmos, and, due to the technological set up, to grow in a way that is limited less by programming/graphics and more by developmental imagination. That last one is the most important, to me.
When a game is made, there is a 'vision,' and I believe the problem with this is that a team will go down with the ship before they believe they are compromising on their vision. I said in another thread: why not add bots? You can have stories for them, more branching scenarios, etc. The way combat is, having an extra damage dealer, a healer, whatever, is huge. It would allow the game to continue to be balanced for the ideal situation, and it would allow more people to get into the game. Bots are NOT BAD. They can drive your story. I've seen those thieves fight and self-heal, so the idea of an AI ally should not be out of the question. This would fix a lot of the issues without having to change the core game. It might seem like a compromise, but, simply, bots cannot do hard content. It will help create/balance content that is actually hard and THEN people can group, because they will already be there and they will be into the game. Of course, maybe like one or two heal bots could tag along in dire circumstances.
Then, one more thing I would like to address is, "What is endgame?" Again, Embers has potential to be different due to their leaning on text and the ability to add more and more text much more easily than it would be to add other things. I believe an ideal MMO becomes a world, and the end game is when you are living in the world. The end game is almost a social thing. It can be about having good gear, showing people your gear, special events popping up, but a lot of it is just hanging out, helping people, and maybe doing something you've done a bunch of times with a different group of people, or with the same group of people, hoping for something special to happen. Items and levels should not be the end-all of completion because A. people are going to hit that point or B. they can make it so ridic that it doesn't even matter (I played black desert and oh man haha.) Still, the end game in that was talking with people about stuff, doing the same stuff with different people, generally trolling around. It's not that hard to create an end game; what is hard is to create a robust community that can use their imagination. Someone spoke of grouping and how so-and-so streamer was good at creating groups, and I agree with the counter point that it does make people reliant on those people, but the idea is to have MANY of those people.
Again with the bots: those people who are leaders are not going to give up their spots. Consider that! So, if you have 3-4 strong leaders who are forming groups constantly, they are defining what content gets done and sucking the pool of players dry, possibly grinding the whole game progression to a halt due to the fact that this game is 'built as a 6 person mmo' but has low population. There are leaders (like consider me making this post, consider how this post is gonna go over. haha. I am someone who can form a group, and I do like to choose sometimes, but I also like to foster self-sufficient groups. That is my goal in MMOs) who won't get a chance to be a leader because they will have to go in under one of the established leaders and they will be competing for the player pool, like say they found 2 other people who they get along with, but the established leader has 4/6. You got 3/6 and 4/6 and it's highly likely in the end it will either be the three getting left out, or the two going back to the original group.
In that way, the design is flawed, and that is a huge limitation. Just because you set up a game as something, it can still BE that, but you need a midway point. I say ADD BOTS IMMEDIATELY (Arnold voice,) and then focus on fleshing out the game with more text/choices, more outcomes, more drops, even different drops from gathers, different ways to gather, etc just different things you can do to get different outcomes. Should be pretty easy.
Peace.
I'm having fun in between breaks, enjoying new features each time I return. (I like exploring, gathering, crafting, hunting, chatting - usually solo - just 'Being There'.)