Rethinking the MMO: How I would do CoH2

Did they drop the price of story arcs to less than $10?

The complaints you wield are things that are either personal extrapolations of the model (no one ever said, for instance, that you would be able to 'turn off' ED), unrealistic exaggerations of it (OMG a million types of things! Anyone can make their own! Linux will never work as an OS!), easily solveable (the GM doesn't have to approve Chuck and you just to be 'impartial.' There are other metrics than "you both have characters" that can apply), or already part of CoH (a store-purchaseable item that increases drop rate?! Insane P2W!). Some of them are all of these things (I fight level 50s from Atlas Park all the time already in hero tips, and bring level 15 characters with me to do so. What's the problem with scalable enemies, again?).

There are two reasons the amount of energy you poured into these criticisms positively overwhelms me, though. First is that we already have a successful example of this but in a less-flexible fashion (Neverwinter Nights), and 'moddable multiplayer games with servers' goes well beyond that. You even mention some of those, and yet roll right on insisting this is impossible or horrible. Second is that we'll probably never see this game in this form.

Well, I'll tell you what I think of the Euro in another decade.

The tools Arcanaville and corinna proposed were never in use by Neverwinter, and Neverwinter has a higher degree of player modability than has been actually proposed. I think there would definitely be some fragmentation, but there's no reason that the essential character (starting from a 'vanilla' template) can't propagate across all played servers and exist in an identical fashion on several.

Considering the thread discussed DLC and other packs, that's a perfectly easy extrapolation based simply on a quick scan-through of a 1/2 dozen F2P models, not to mention other games out there, be it single player or multiplayer. Some multiplayer games had issues with DLC conflicts resulting in large sections of the player base unable to play with one another due to a few people having a DLC or a few people NOT having the DLC.

It's a fairly well known issue when you have DLC's across a multiplayer game, resulting in everything from player lockout to complaints of Pay 2 Win.

It was a suggestion. And seeing as there are plenty of people on the forums who would love to roll back ED, or even the tanker caps, you can BET that people would roll it back on their private servers. And what keeps those servers from becoming "trusted servers" despite the fact that they rolled back ED and defense caps and other servers didn't?
Wow, searching my own post, I found no instance of the word Unix or OS.

An operating system is a far cry different from a video game.

Most of my examples come from actual games, that actually came out, that developed fan-made servers, and the community was largely based on fan-servers. Notice how I used real world games, real world problems encountered by those games and those communities?

Unreal exaggerations when I merely pointed out problems that are already occurring with DLC multiplayer games (Homefront, anyone?) not to mention fan-created version of MMO's from basic games. (Fallout Forever? NWN Multiplayer?) Merging local single player games into large MMO style games has been a hideous prospect, extremely difficult, and when it was tried it often ran into the problems I already mentioned.

With the suggestion that community made content could be downloadable from iTunes and other sources for money we need to look at what would be produced, and how it would be used/abused. Since I've seen 200MB to 1.5GB downloads in order to play on private servers for other games, I have no doubt that since you can slap your patches and mods up and charge money for them we wouldn't quickly see that happen.
Sitting at the table, some will argue that the allowance of one out of game character makes Chuck's just as valid a character, and that's without getting into game design theory, player reward theory, shifting game baselines, and other industry arguments.

Remember, that's just two players. Think of how many dozens, or even hundreds, of characters would be in the queue. You can either have automated accept/reject systems that tools that toss the character back as "invalid" without an explanation (a fairly common occurrence on early life NWN MMO server) or perhaps one that highlights what is wrong, without telling you why (Second-Gen acc/rej automation problems), or each character can be looked over by a GM who's sole job it is to reject or accept characters.

Think of what that will lead to. A small group who's whole job is to accept or reject characters. This was seen on more than a few NWNMMO, Ultima Online, and even some private WoW servers, and the ranting and butthurt and crying over these guys was truly epic, and eventually made it so more than a few servers no longer allowed the importation of characters from outside their server.
A drop rate increase doesn't really effect long term. So the percentage is marginally increased. Add in playtime, the fact that they aren't permanent, and the numbers do eventually balance out. But still, even those were met with criticism that it was in fact pay to win.

EDIT: All right, so you are using instore drop rate increases, so lets also add the extra damage, damage resistance, and accuracy buffs for purchase.

Those just add a marginal increase in tiny percentages. Measurable, but not ground breaking.

That is NOT "Countess Crey's Bordello of Purple Drops", where every kill of underpowered minions drops LT XP, purple recipes, purple pre-made IO's, Hami-O's, and a million XP.

And we've SEEN this for tickets and XP in AE. Fire Imp farms, Rikti Commo Officer Farms.

Now add in the ability to manipulate drop rates, loot reward tables, and enemy table usage, which would be available within the formatting and would just require someone to figure it out (which WOULD happen) and you'll see "Bob Barker's House of Lewt!" go up on iTunes for $2.99 quicker than you'll see "Supa Troll Panty Rave Incarnate Trial!" hit the market.

Guess which one would sell faster too.

Since we can create stuff to sell on iTunes or offer download to mesh into the servers, how long will it be before someone figures out how to make new IO sets, or maybe how to replace IO sets they feel are worthless with new ones, or upgrade the set bonuses or individual IO sets? How long before we see "Ultra-Man Manly Man IO Set for Manly Men (Brutes Only, Noobs!)" where it's nothing but IO sets with outrageous bonuses that completely break the game? How long until temporary powers come out that make those buffs on the Paragon Market seem like nothing. How much actual modding would it take to move the Freem Core from the Incarnate introduction mission to an actual buff available on the market for $1.99 and usable on a bunch of servers, renamed "Destructo-Man's Big Metal Unit!".

Then add in that since people have already requested, on these forums, vet rewards that would allow you to START a character at a higher level (Like level 20) and that some games actually implement it (DDO with Veteran Pack and 32/36 Point Buy packs), how many servers would have the "Please select desired character level" options somewhere in there. If you're running server-side software, this is a fairly easy thing to do, by just simply making it so that when someone starts the character they automatically receive the XP needed to be that level, the influence needed to fully slot, and hell, since we're being friendly, how about a bunch of AE tickets or Hero Merits to allow them to outfit themselves? That's not unreasonable, is it?

Now picture the problems inherent right there.

Then add in that undoubtedly some of the people running "trusted servers" will also be creating for pay "booster packs" available on iTunes.

What's going to happen then?
Reread my post.

Scalable enemies are not the same as sidekicking someone. And yes, you do go to Atlas and do level 50 tip missions, but when you arrive in Atlas at level 50 the Hellions aren't pulling off Incarnate Powers and the Skullz are whipping out high level darkness control/melee/armor powers. They're still low level, still able to be thumped, and still first level. Claiming that doing tip missions in Atlas is the same as entire zone scaling is like claiming because my fridge holds hamburgers my kitchen is made of hamburger.
So, what was the point of that? That I actually typed out a reason beyond: "This is bad, reeks of bad game design, reeks of bad community design, and is just plain bad." overwhelms you?

This is fairly abbreviated. For a true feasibility check/study into whether or not this would be a sustainable model that would provide...

You know what. Never mind.

Come on, we both know that in the modding community if they get the slightest bit of code the next thing you have is nude packs, super-weapon packs, character power creep packs, and so on and so on. Even before Fallout 3 released the G.E.C.K. there had been heavy mods created, just based on reverse engineering.

And when people are going to be running server software, it'll be cracked, modding tools produced, and mods built before you would believe it. A good example is both Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row the Third. Neither of those games had mod tools before modders had already figured out ways to fix bugs, give the player far more options than before, replay missions that weren't previously replayable, adjust the bodies, and everything else.

It doesn't matter what tools are actually put out for a game, what will matter is what the modding community is able to figure out. And if the server software is going to be in the hands of people running the servers, modding tools will QUICKLY follow.

Pool of Radiance didn't having modding tools, but I know for a fact that it was modded within months of release. From mods that kept your characters from dying, to mods that maxed out hp at every level, to mods that just deciphered the code wheel for you, they were quickly developed, and even in the days of 300 baud modems, they quickly propagated.

What tools are intended to be released is one thing. What tools end up out there is another.

And since it was already suggested to make a form of AE to allow people to build mods so they could sell them on iTunes and the like, just what do you think is actually being proposed? If you're going to create a mod that can be used to build something that is worth money on the market, you're going to have to be able to mod the game at a pretty deep level.

Want new archetypes? Well, that'll quickly get out of hand. Want new powers? Well, that's going to get abused. Want new missions? I wonder which will be more popular for download? Lost Dog or FireFarmPurpleDrop? Want new costume pieces? Well, here comes the $1.99 nude pack and the download from a few places that allow you to use unpopular or rarely used costume pieces to recreate batman or superman or Aqua-Lad.

If you build it, someone will run you over with it.
And there's another thing that I figured would be fairly obvious but obviously needs to be said.

There's plenty of reasons why a vanilla character would not propagate across multiple servers in an identical fashion.

Summarize please. You may have good points but I can't get past the second sentence without feeling overwhelmed.

(FYI I just did a word count and you are at about 4575 words in 2 posts. Not accounting for paragraphs and using a favorable estimate of 300 words per page in the MLA style, you've just submitted a 15 and a half page essay.)

The same thing that keeps Google from deciding to accept .txt files that say "IT'S OKAY, GUYS" as security certificates.

You're riding this user-created-content-for-sale model that you have suggested pretty darn hard, but I don't really see the advantages. It looks an awful lot like someone else's scarecrow, to me.

Since I didn't claim that everything in the zone would scale (merely that having scalable content was not the overwhelming awfulness you initially caricatured it as), it's more like you claiming your fridge is made of hamburger and then discussing why that makes it a terrible refrigerator.

I don't know why you bought it either, dude, but it's not the one in my kitchen.

Summary: The whole thing is a terrible idea, and the additional suggestions that have been heaped on the original poor idea have made the whole thing even worse.

I'm not the one who suggested it. I don't see any advantages to it either. Glad to see we're on the same page on that part.

As to your part on scalable foes, I don't think you quite understood what I said in the first post. I might not have explained it quite well enough, which is my fault.

I was talking about scalable enemies, which would be part of the "Play in King's Row or wherever you want for your character's whole career and become the scourge of King's Row!" model, and you began talking about tip missions in Atlas and sidekicking. I think we were thinking of two separate things, which is just fine.

It's a terrible idea for CoH2 or in general? Whether it works for CoH2 or not is IMO a matter of taste. Whether it works in general is a different question.

What's being described is actually extremely close to what Torchlight 2 is doing. You have a core game, that is easily modifiable. There are "core" servers for this "real" game. Then there are unofficial side games that have been modded. The scale is different but the intent is the same.

IMO several of the things you present as issues aren't nearly as insurmountable as you make them out to be (as far as I was willing to read).

A small example.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

I would be careful using mobile gaming as an example of industry profitability. I have written a mobile game, and I also have friends who have done it. For the most part, we have not made back the money for the time put in. There are games that are more successful, of course, but a lot of the profit for the industry goes to Apple.

Which is why I think a successful model for a game involves being the Apple figure, i.e. being the broker between creatives and their audience. Amazon is doing pretty well at clobbering the print industry with the same strategy (Kindle Direct Publishing).

Have you looked at Pathfinder? They aim to solve a lot of the issues you bring up here. It's a hugely ambitious project, though, and the lengths to which the organization has had to go does bear consideration in this discussion.

Are you specifically referring to the Pathfinder Society? (as distinct from the Pathfinder RPG)

It's mostly doing things similarly to how RPGA did things. I used to play Living Greyhawk, back before it got axed due to 4E, and it was pretty similar to how PFS goes about business now.

I've made the "organized tabletop play is kind of like a distributed authority MMO" argument before, because I do think there's some merit to that comparison.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

The indie development scene is paved on the corpses of wasted time.

But how many of those games were freemium games? My point is not that anyone can make money on the mobile game scene. My point is that we have seen that people are very willing to pay money, in free games, bucket loads of money, for things you would never expect them to pay for outside of a controlled server environment.

Players have spent millions on Bejeweled Blitz, just on tiny cheats to climb up leaderboards!

Yes, there is a lot of stuff out there. There is a lot of competition and it's hard to be noticed. That's one of the reasons why it's Freemium games that are breaking it big: the barrier of entry is just a free download. They don't have to download a demo version and then restart from scratch by buying the premium version, they simply start tossing money at the game they already have in their device.

But yea, even that is getting harder. Great visuals and quality is now a must. Without them players may just pass up the game in the app listings, even if it was free.

Yes, that's what I meant. I've only played once, and that was the 2nd time I'd played a D&D variant since high school (which, without getting into specifics, was a *long* time ago) - so I'm no expert. But I was impressed by the organizational effort put into fighting imbalances due to GM laxity.

Ouch.

We agree on that point. I would just add that competition is fierce in large part because people are willing to write games for very low pay, just because they think it's fun. Game companies tend to weaponize that as an instrument of corporate profitability. That's true whether it's mobile, desktop, or console gaming.

That very factor may make this project feasible, though. There are lots of people who seem to be willing to put in limited amounts of time basically for nothing.

I'm not one of them, unfortunately. Tempting as it is, my corpse is still being steamrolled by my other indie game project.

EDIT: I'm actually writing the online multiplayer component right now. These discussions have definitely influenced (and thankfully, for the most part, confirmed) my thinking about how to structure it. No idea how well it will be received, though, and funding the server is definitely a concern.

BTW, look at my sig. I am talking from experience too. Like they say: "been there, done that, got punched in the face too."


I'd argue it's because many realized (or had no choice) early on that it was cheaper (or the only way) to compete on price than to fork money (they likely did not have) on marketing.

Many devs still have to realize how much they hurt the market by doing this. It's like attempting to do the harm Wal-Mart has done to local small economy, but managing to do that nationwide 20 year slow process compacted into a 1 year international one that was all about killing, not just pushing back, the profits of the competition.

But that's the world we live in now, players are no longer willing to spend money up-front. I think that's a huge part of what is hurting the MMO market too.

Same. I don't think anyone with the actual skills to save the game (via emulation or rewrite or whatever) is likely very busy trying to make money instead.

This is brilliant (though I expected nothing less).

I like the idea a lot. We create a new genre an OMMOG especially with the super-architect. It can become almost any MMO style you (a player wants within the CoH client framework). Think about it, if the super-architect could move from just missions to world creation you could create a Goth Horror based server and it is a whole new game for that character to explore.

--Rad

Wait... you street hunted in CoH???

But on the serious side, one idea that crosses my mind is... what if private servers got somehow had a centralized hub, like a register. Even single player games, as long as there is internet, may be able to communicate with this register and find out about other servers....

In theory, with a lot of work, a game may entirely in the background merge your game with another player's game. Another player may simply walk through and show up on the world. Depending on the player, he may just fly by and ignore you, he may stop and help, or he may just be rude. Who knows. But it would add an illusion of being in a big breathing world.

Maybe even take it further; a single player game does not need to have “private instances” as we know them. Perhaps the game can choose to toss other players into your own instances. Always giving the player a setting to entirely turning off multiplayer mode, though, but turned on by default.