Consider this another one of those "archive" threads. I'm not interested in playing these so much as knowing what games are out there. Because of this, you can post dead or deactivated MMORPG's- in fact, those are usually a bit more interesting.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Incline MMORPG's with C&C/seriously diverging storylines?
- Thread starter Lurker47
- Start date
That's part of why I'm asking.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
I don't think such a thing can exist. You can't simultaneous have consequences, a storyline, AND other players, who can make different choices and thus impact the world differently. Unless you're talking about something like Eve, where the storyline is mainly players kililng each other and their antics.
MMORPG choices typically don't affect each other in the small instances I've seen (and some unintentional examples, like players walking on air when someone who hasn't unlocked the bridge yet watches people use it.) They're client-side effects.
I think there are 3 ways of doing what you are talking about and they are all being used currently in various MMOs. The oldest way would be how EverQuest did it, and that was the most advanced in terms of design. Then there is a 2nd generation version which is 'instancing', and then there is a new version which is using technical wizardry. I'll explain EQ last because it is the best.
The technology in some of the later games is insane though. So walk up to a quest NPC with other players doing the same thing at the same time next to you. The lady quest NPC offers a quest and one player might say "Yes I will help" and another player might say "Fuck you lets fight". To all the people who accept the quest she bows, and only to the people who say fuck you, she turns into a demon and attacks. And someone standing right next to it doesn't see any of the reactions or even the fighting so there are no spoilers and no immersion breaking things. But they will still see other players coming and going and talking to this quest NPC lady. Sadly the modern games with this sort of technology are also the shallowest so choices you make in the game are usually pretty superficial.
The older the MMO the more interesting and amazing it is though. WoW basically invented 'instancing' which is to be mostly an open world game where everyone can see each other running around and doing stuff. But when you go into a dungeon you get a brief loading screen, and it loads a whole new unique version of that dungeon just for you or your group. So if another person shows up a few seconds after you run into a cave... they will not see you in there. They will get their own version. But it gives the devs a lot of freedom to do stuff like load one out of 2 or 3 different versions of a dungeon based on the player's previous choices in a quest, or their alignment, or how many steps have been completed before loading the dungeon. So you go into a cave and it is a cave. But if you do a quest first that gives you special ring that lets you see the illusion behind the cave, then it loads cave_b and the player gets a different dungeon.
Now for the good shit. EverQuest didn't like instances because it made it feel like a game, and they wanted it to feel like a real world, which it did. If you see someone running into a dungeon and you go in behind them, they will be on the other side. There may even be a raid of 100 people who would show up to a huge ice cavern to fight a massive dragon, and there may be some newbies killing wolves just inside the entrance who are like WTFFF! when they see an army come running past. And if the army fails, those newbies killing wolves might need to be ready to bail..! So EQ had no instances deliberately, but it made it feel like a consistent world in lots of other ways too. There was not much teleportation so the world had some sort of integrity which is hard to explain. It took a long time to run from town to town and areas were dangerous and you had to weigh up if you go the short dangerous route or the long boring easy route. Or you get help from someone. But the feeling of being in a real world was really strangely powerful that not many other games I've seen achieve. There are lots of things that went into achieving this, from the first person view and FOV they chose to basically force upon everyone, and the sound design etc. As well as the no instancing etc.
C&C
The two Brad McQuaid games are really the best, but he was just the name people knew, his small teams were really good people. Look up a guy called [fuck I forgot his name I'll edit it in], he has only worked on a few games I think, but with the best game ever made, EverQuest, he had one job which was the faction system. Basically every player, creature, and character in the game had a hard-coded faction system which changed based on your actions. Good and evil races tend to hate each other but it is realistic with lots of deals and truces and stuff going on. But then there are thousands of other smaller factions in the game too, the Western Antonica Guild of Blacksmiths or Gaboks Tribe of 5 Goblins or whatever. It may only be a small group or village but they may be allies with a huge city far away, so killing one of them as a newbie could get you killed in the future. You can usually fix it by making the right friends, killing the right enemies, etc. But it was a very detailed system and was only a backdrop to a lot of non-roleplayer type people. Like me. But even for me I appreciated it and paid attention because I was an evil Necromancer and sometimes felt like murdering a random farmer or something and such a thing could screw me down the line.
Besides the factions those two games are basically better than any other game ever made, at like 90% of things. Dungeon design, combat, itemization, encounter design, world design, balance, emergent gameplay, immersion and first person perspective design, reactive elements like backstabbing and mini teleports, etc... etc.... They were doing it all in the 1990s when hardly anyone even had a computer let alone the internet, and somehow what they came up with was really amazing.
I can't describe all of this stuff and some I've done in detail in other threads (combat mostly) but I'll explain a bit about the items because you asked and I never saw it done better anywhere so. Every item was hand created. The players start completely naked except for cosmetic panties. And all you got was a rusty sword or staff or whatever based on your class/race. The smart choice would be to kill creatures and animals and figure out which has the best value loot, and then kill that until you can buy a bag. And now your trips to town are with a bag full of loot and you start making some cash for food and spells and stuff. Players busted their balls to make experience and money and find items, partly because the sense of progression was amazing. For the first several levels the only loot you would see was rusty weapons like what you already had, and "cloth shoes" or a "cloth hat" or whatever. There were about 20 slots so you needed a lot of gear and you had nothing to start with, so getting something in a slot felt good. But the stats were so tiny it hardly did anything. A few levels later and there are some really interesting items, bronze armor, magic weapons, etc. but you have to find them and kill something to get it which was hard to do. So players went on adventures for hours just to 'hopefully' a single earring or bracer or weapon or whatever. The gear had memorable names that made sense but was interesting. Like jewelry was all called stuff like Copper/Silver/Gold/Platinum Emerald Earring or Diamond ring or whatever. Players could make it or you could loot stuff. There was 'standard' weapons and armor like that too, like a generic magical longsword or mace, or some Bronze armor or whatever. But there was special stuff that people knew the names of and would share stories about. Short Sword of the Ykesha, Flowing Black Silk Sash, etc. People can remember these items 20 years later because you might be hearing about it for months before you finally got your chance to reach the guy who has it and then you have to kill it.
The stats on the items was basically higher than the enemy progression curve. In other words at the start of the game with no items it was hard to even kill 1 creature and survive. But later in the game if you could get a really good item in every slot, then you could kill several enemies at once. It didn't make the game too easy though because there was always something too hard for you, but basically the game really rewarded your hard work. And it also required it, if you didn't bust your balls then you fell behind those who were busy. The gear was well designed too, flexible but balanced so for example a Wizard could use daggers as well as staffs and magic totems or whatever, but they couldn't equip swords or heavy armor, etc. But there would be spell caster gear that was so good it let them do what they needed to do. And not just stats on the gear, but effects too. There was a famous item called Journeyman Boots which was a nuisance quest but it gave you pair of boots with no stats, but you click them and it cast the Spirit of Wolf spell on you to run faster. In a game where outrunning stuff is essential... Everyone wanted some of those boots! There was an invisibility cloak, underwater breathing rings, levitation pants, etc... All with famous names. The players were absolutely obsessed with this game, I've never seen anything like it. People would stay up 3 days straight because they were trying to do something, etc. They were hooked, and it was pretty addictive with that "just 5 more minutes!!! will get me 5 more gold and 5 more xp...." but it was also so fun and so good, that's what hooked people so hard. The nickname was EverCrack. The locations were super memorable by the way, really puts other games to shame.
Vanguard (the other Brad game that isn't Everquest) was worse with items but better with character development. The items were mostly procedurally generated. So even 20 years later people can remember getting the famous Mino Axe in EQ, but in Vanguard and most other MMOs, by level 3 you have a full set of items with sparklez and so many stats that it all becomes kind of meaningless. Every quest, every conversation, new boots, new hat, etc. Some people are ok with it but for EQ players it kinda sucks. But Vanguard improved a lot of stuff from EQ too. A main complaint in EQ was how grindy it felt, spending hours for 5% of a level in experience. You think shit I have to do this whole night 20 more times just to get one level... That could be a whole week depending how things go. And you didn't get new spells and stuff every level, it was every 4 levels. You still felt progression from levelling up because it automatically gave you more HP and stamina and stuff and you have gear to tweak too. But it was pretty ball busting. So in Vanguard they basically didn't give you much for free when you level, and instead gave you hundreds of attribute points to spend on your character. And then they split it up so you get a few points every 5 or 10% of a level. So basically every hour in the game you could do something that improved your character. Also all these improvements from some stat points or a new item or whatever, it usually felt a bit better, but if you got two or three big item upgrades, it felt much better. If you got 20 big upgrades... You felt godly.
Also you could spend those attribute points on anything you wanted and it significantly changed your character. So I had a Bard who I played quite tanky. He had heavy armor and I put all my points into hp/ac, stamina, agility, etc. But later on I started playing a Shaman at the same time with my Bard and the Shaman was just my healer. But someone told me they are better the other way around, so I redid all the points and the Bard became a very high damage character who could barely take a scratch, and the healing focused Shaman became a very tanky healer. The Shaman class could also pick a 'patron' of a bear, wolf, or eagle. Whichever one you chose gave you a pet of that type and some different spells. The bear shaman was really tanky and so was his bear pet, and he had good heals and buffs. The wolf was much better damage but couldn't take much of a beating, and you got I think more damage focused spells. And the Eagle was a support I think with improved invisibility and stuff. The class design in that game is the best in any game ever, and the way the player could develop them was amazing too. Unfortunately the enemies themselves were tuned a bit too easy imo so you very interesting combat mechanics that half the time were wasted on a group of enemies that get exploded in 5 seconds. One of the best things about EQ is that the fights lasted ages which made everything so important. You can't be inefficient with mana or you will run out. And go too slow and you fall behind on respawns and can be overrun. So battles could be really intense and tactical. The downside was that although some of the classes were amazing in EQ, some of them were basically just pressing 1 button to turn on auto attack. It let lots of different types of people play together which was good though, usually the less skilled characters in terms of combat mechanics, were the type of people who interested in reading maps and directions and stuff so tanks and rogues or whatever was quite easy to play, usually kept busy doing other stuff. But still, if you could put Vanguard's classes and character development in EQ, it would be... \o/
The technology in some of the later games is insane though. So walk up to a quest NPC with other players doing the same thing at the same time next to you. The lady quest NPC offers a quest and one player might say "Yes I will help" and another player might say "Fuck you lets fight". To all the people who accept the quest she bows, and only to the people who say fuck you, she turns into a demon and attacks. And someone standing right next to it doesn't see any of the reactions or even the fighting so there are no spoilers and no immersion breaking things. But they will still see other players coming and going and talking to this quest NPC lady. Sadly the modern games with this sort of technology are also the shallowest so choices you make in the game are usually pretty superficial.
The older the MMO the more interesting and amazing it is though. WoW basically invented 'instancing' which is to be mostly an open world game where everyone can see each other running around and doing stuff. But when you go into a dungeon you get a brief loading screen, and it loads a whole new unique version of that dungeon just for you or your group. So if another person shows up a few seconds after you run into a cave... they will not see you in there. They will get their own version. But it gives the devs a lot of freedom to do stuff like load one out of 2 or 3 different versions of a dungeon based on the player's previous choices in a quest, or their alignment, or how many steps have been completed before loading the dungeon. So you go into a cave and it is a cave. But if you do a quest first that gives you special ring that lets you see the illusion behind the cave, then it loads cave_b and the player gets a different dungeon.
Now for the good shit. EverQuest didn't like instances because it made it feel like a game, and they wanted it to feel like a real world, which it did. If you see someone running into a dungeon and you go in behind them, they will be on the other side. There may even be a raid of 100 people who would show up to a huge ice cavern to fight a massive dragon, and there may be some newbies killing wolves just inside the entrance who are like WTFFF! when they see an army come running past. And if the army fails, those newbies killing wolves might need to be ready to bail..! So EQ had no instances deliberately, but it made it feel like a consistent world in lots of other ways too. There was not much teleportation so the world had some sort of integrity which is hard to explain. It took a long time to run from town to town and areas were dangerous and you had to weigh up if you go the short dangerous route or the long boring easy route. Or you get help from someone. But the feeling of being in a real world was really strangely powerful that not many other games I've seen achieve. There are lots of things that went into achieving this, from the first person view and FOV they chose to basically force upon everyone, and the sound design etc. As well as the no instancing etc.
C&C
The two Brad McQuaid games are really the best, but he was just the name people knew, his small teams were really good people. Look up a guy called [fuck I forgot his name I'll edit it in], he has only worked on a few games I think, but with the best game ever made, EverQuest, he had one job which was the faction system. Basically every player, creature, and character in the game had a hard-coded faction system which changed based on your actions. Good and evil races tend to hate each other but it is realistic with lots of deals and truces and stuff going on. But then there are thousands of other smaller factions in the game too, the Western Antonica Guild of Blacksmiths or Gaboks Tribe of 5 Goblins or whatever. It may only be a small group or village but they may be allies with a huge city far away, so killing one of them as a newbie could get you killed in the future. You can usually fix it by making the right friends, killing the right enemies, etc. But it was a very detailed system and was only a backdrop to a lot of non-roleplayer type people. Like me. But even for me I appreciated it and paid attention because I was an evil Necromancer and sometimes felt like murdering a random farmer or something and such a thing could screw me down the line.
Besides the factions those two games are basically better than any other game ever made, at like 90% of things. Dungeon design, combat, itemization, encounter design, world design, balance, emergent gameplay, immersion and first person perspective design, reactive elements like backstabbing and mini teleports, etc... etc.... They were doing it all in the 1990s when hardly anyone even had a computer let alone the internet, and somehow what they came up with was really amazing.
I can't describe all of this stuff and some I've done in detail in other threads (combat mostly) but I'll explain a bit about the items because you asked and I never saw it done better anywhere so. Every item was hand created. The players start completely naked except for cosmetic panties. And all you got was a rusty sword or staff or whatever based on your class/race. The smart choice would be to kill creatures and animals and figure out which has the best value loot, and then kill that until you can buy a bag. And now your trips to town are with a bag full of loot and you start making some cash for food and spells and stuff. Players busted their balls to make experience and money and find items, partly because the sense of progression was amazing. For the first several levels the only loot you would see was rusty weapons like what you already had, and "cloth shoes" or a "cloth hat" or whatever. There were about 20 slots so you needed a lot of gear and you had nothing to start with, so getting something in a slot felt good. But the stats were so tiny it hardly did anything. A few levels later and there are some really interesting items, bronze armor, magic weapons, etc. but you have to find them and kill something to get it which was hard to do. So players went on adventures for hours just to 'hopefully' a single earring or bracer or weapon or whatever. The gear had memorable names that made sense but was interesting. Like jewelry was all called stuff like Copper/Silver/Gold/Platinum Emerald Earring or Diamond ring or whatever. Players could make it or you could loot stuff. There was 'standard' weapons and armor like that too, like a generic magical longsword or mace, or some Bronze armor or whatever. But there was special stuff that people knew the names of and would share stories about. Short Sword of the Ykesha, Flowing Black Silk Sash, etc. People can remember these items 20 years later because you might be hearing about it for months before you finally got your chance to reach the guy who has it and then you have to kill it.
The stats on the items was basically higher than the enemy progression curve. In other words at the start of the game with no items it was hard to even kill 1 creature and survive. But later in the game if you could get a really good item in every slot, then you could kill several enemies at once. It didn't make the game too easy though because there was always something too hard for you, but basically the game really rewarded your hard work. And it also required it, if you didn't bust your balls then you fell behind those who were busy. The gear was well designed too, flexible but balanced so for example a Wizard could use daggers as well as staffs and magic totems or whatever, but they couldn't equip swords or heavy armor, etc. But there would be spell caster gear that was so good it let them do what they needed to do. And not just stats on the gear, but effects too. There was a famous item called Journeyman Boots which was a nuisance quest but it gave you pair of boots with no stats, but you click them and it cast the Spirit of Wolf spell on you to run faster. In a game where outrunning stuff is essential... Everyone wanted some of those boots! There was an invisibility cloak, underwater breathing rings, levitation pants, etc... All with famous names. The players were absolutely obsessed with this game, I've never seen anything like it. People would stay up 3 days straight because they were trying to do something, etc. They were hooked, and it was pretty addictive with that "just 5 more minutes!!! will get me 5 more gold and 5 more xp...." but it was also so fun and so good, that's what hooked people so hard. The nickname was EverCrack. The locations were super memorable by the way, really puts other games to shame.
Vanguard (the other Brad game that isn't Everquest) was worse with items but better with character development. The items were mostly procedurally generated. So even 20 years later people can remember getting the famous Mino Axe in EQ, but in Vanguard and most other MMOs, by level 3 you have a full set of items with sparklez and so many stats that it all becomes kind of meaningless. Every quest, every conversation, new boots, new hat, etc. Some people are ok with it but for EQ players it kinda sucks. But Vanguard improved a lot of stuff from EQ too. A main complaint in EQ was how grindy it felt, spending hours for 5% of a level in experience. You think shit I have to do this whole night 20 more times just to get one level... That could be a whole week depending how things go. And you didn't get new spells and stuff every level, it was every 4 levels. You still felt progression from levelling up because it automatically gave you more HP and stamina and stuff and you have gear to tweak too. But it was pretty ball busting. So in Vanguard they basically didn't give you much for free when you level, and instead gave you hundreds of attribute points to spend on your character. And then they split it up so you get a few points every 5 or 10% of a level. So basically every hour in the game you could do something that improved your character. Also all these improvements from some stat points or a new item or whatever, it usually felt a bit better, but if you got two or three big item upgrades, it felt much better. If you got 20 big upgrades... You felt godly.
Also you could spend those attribute points on anything you wanted and it significantly changed your character. So I had a Bard who I played quite tanky. He had heavy armor and I put all my points into hp/ac, stamina, agility, etc. But later on I started playing a Shaman at the same time with my Bard and the Shaman was just my healer. But someone told me they are better the other way around, so I redid all the points and the Bard became a very high damage character who could barely take a scratch, and the healing focused Shaman became a very tanky healer. The Shaman class could also pick a 'patron' of a bear, wolf, or eagle. Whichever one you chose gave you a pet of that type and some different spells. The bear shaman was really tanky and so was his bear pet, and he had good heals and buffs. The wolf was much better damage but couldn't take much of a beating, and you got I think more damage focused spells. And the Eagle was a support I think with improved invisibility and stuff. The class design in that game is the best in any game ever, and the way the player could develop them was amazing too. Unfortunately the enemies themselves were tuned a bit too easy imo so you very interesting combat mechanics that half the time were wasted on a group of enemies that get exploded in 5 seconds. One of the best things about EQ is that the fights lasted ages which made everything so important. You can't be inefficient with mana or you will run out. And go too slow and you fall behind on respawns and can be overrun. So battles could be really intense and tactical. The downside was that although some of the classes were amazing in EQ, some of them were basically just pressing 1 button to turn on auto attack. It let lots of different types of people play together which was good though, usually the less skilled characters in terms of combat mechanics, were the type of people who interested in reading maps and directions and stuff so tanks and rogues or whatever was quite easy to play, usually kept busy doing other stuff. But still, if you could put Vanguard's classes and character development in EQ, it would be... \o/
Last edited:
GW2 was frustrating because there was a lot of hype about YOU CAN CHAAANGE THE WORLD WITH YOUR AAACTIONNNSS! which hundreds of other games had been kind of pretending they could do, but loading zone_b instead of zone_a is hardly player freedom... You can change the world - as long as it is in way A or B....
So GW2 had more advanced stuff like you could see a farmer trying to take his wagon somewhere and he gets ambushed by some goblins. If you help and kill the goblins, you can go with the farmer to the town down the road and he becomes a merchant NPC or something as a reward. If you don't help him, he dies.
So either way you had an impact on the world. But either way... he respawns 5 minutes later anyway and walks into the exact same scripted ambush again for some other player to decide if they want to help or not. So yeah they gave the player some impact but it kind of sucks if we're honest.
EverQuest was a lot more primitive technology wise, but it was 1000 times more C&C-ish than anything else. I remember as a newbie I was on the phone to my friend who was playing it with me, and he said woooaaa look behind you! So I turned around there was a guy floating with a steel helmet and shiny armor and stuff. Me and everyone I saw so far was in tattered rags and even some accomplished looking people I had seen were only in a dirty robe with a mediocre staff or something. But there were races from the other side of the world and you may get players who are an Ogre or something who have amazing gear, and come all the way to my little newbie island to buy something. You never know what you were gonna see, the sense of wonder and progression was massive. And best of all, every bit of effort you put in to get something would reward you with something that you really liked having, and it also made you who you are. There may only be a few thousand items and a few thousand players but it gave millions of different combinations. I was a Bard in Everquest as well and most of them would play in a blue armor and would focus on the instruments. But I played in steel plate and focused on doing damage. Then later on when I got better gear (and better friends), I switched and became more focused on buffing the others.
tl-dr- You can do fancy shit with tech but based on what I've seen so far, this old school P&P / MUD inspired design is sooo much better to play.
So GW2 had more advanced stuff like you could see a farmer trying to take his wagon somewhere and he gets ambushed by some goblins. If you help and kill the goblins, you can go with the farmer to the town down the road and he becomes a merchant NPC or something as a reward. If you don't help him, he dies.
So either way you had an impact on the world. But either way... he respawns 5 minutes later anyway and walks into the exact same scripted ambush again for some other player to decide if they want to help or not. So yeah they gave the player some impact but it kind of sucks if we're honest.
EverQuest was a lot more primitive technology wise, but it was 1000 times more C&C-ish than anything else. I remember as a newbie I was on the phone to my friend who was playing it with me, and he said woooaaa look behind you! So I turned around there was a guy floating with a steel helmet and shiny armor and stuff. Me and everyone I saw so far was in tattered rags and even some accomplished looking people I had seen were only in a dirty robe with a mediocre staff or something. But there were races from the other side of the world and you may get players who are an Ogre or something who have amazing gear, and come all the way to my little newbie island to buy something. You never know what you were gonna see, the sense of wonder and progression was massive. And best of all, every bit of effort you put in to get something would reward you with something that you really liked having, and it also made you who you are. There may only be a few thousand items and a few thousand players but it gave millions of different combinations. I was a Bard in Everquest as well and most of them would play in a blue armor and would focus on the instruments. But I played in steel plate and focused on doing damage. Then later on when I got better gear (and better friends), I switched and became more focused on buffing the others.
tl-dr- You can do fancy shit with tech but based on what I've seen so far, this old school P&P / MUD inspired design is sooo much better to play.
Papa Môlé
Arcane
Persistent worlds on the original NWN were the only thing I've ever seen that was close to an MMORPG with CnC.
KeighnMcDeath
RPG Codex Boomer
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2016
- Messages
- 13,008
C&C?
Combat & Character development??
Command & Conquer??
Choices & Consequences?
Cocks & Cucks?
?????
Combat & Character development??
Command & Conquer??
Choices & Consequences?
Cocks & Cucks?
?????
That's the one. C&C is something the Codex desires most, just like incline.
Sergiu64
Arcane
Think you can have some C&C with your companions and non-essential NPCs.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.