"Numberless" MMORPG

Talk about game designs and what goes behind designing games.
Post Reply
User avatar
Jackolantern
Posts: 10893
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:00 pm

"Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Jackolantern »

Do you think a "numberless", combat-centric MMORPG could be successful? And by "numberless", I mean an MMO where all stats are hidden from the player. Everything. You could get a small hint of the differences in weapon and armor power by maybe something simple like +, ++ or +++ being next to a general trait of the character, with + being normal, ++ being above normal, and +++ being somewhere between high above normal to godly. Beyond that, everything else the player has to figure out on their own in battle.

I guess this would be to combat the "bean-counting" play-style that has become common in modern MMORPGs like WoW and its dozens of imitators. We have talked about this before in other threads, where plugins even exist for most modern MMOs that read out exact-to-the-number stats of what is happening in a battle while it is going on, and then gives recaps after the battle. This way you can see if your DPS classes are slipping in the middle of combat, for example, and can chew them out for it.

Obviously I think many modern players are used to this and see the number-hording as a competitive aspect in the normally non-competitive sections of the game, and that drew in a larger playerbase than was previously into the genre. But the older games before this took hold seemed to have very different player communities that I think are missing in most games today.

But I have to wonder is: could a game even survive like this today?
The indelible lord of tl;dr
User avatar
hallsofvallhalla
Site Admin
Posts: 12031
Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:29 pm

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by hallsofvallhalla »

The whole world of MMOs need a change and the main ones are the 3D MMOs. They have gotten bad. I downloaded EQ2 for me and my daughter. 15 gigs per computer then another 3 gigs per PC updates. 36 gigs of downloading for what? I rat quest based game with very little options and pointless quests. Boring options and sticky game play and combat that turn the game into a puddle of oozing garbage. Anything to liven the world of MMOs would be a welcome change.
User avatar
Xaos
Posts: 946
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:01 am

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Xaos »

I think it could only exist on a small scale. I don't think a game like this would ever get millions of players, too many people want to play math games.
User avatar
Jackolantern
Posts: 10893
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:00 pm

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Jackolantern »

hallsofvallhalla wrote:The whole world of MMOs need a change and the main ones are the 3D MMOs. They have gotten bad. I downloaded EQ2 for me and my daughter. 15 gigs per computer then another 3 gigs per PC updates. 36 gigs of downloading for what? I rat quest based game with very little options and pointless quests. Boring options and sticky game play and combat that turn the game into a puddle of oozing garbage. Anything to liven the world of MMOs would be a welcome change.
What is sad is that install size has almost become a badge of honor among PC games. Players tend to think that a bigger install equals a bigger game. A 100mb install? A small, quick indie game. A 30gb install? Obviously this is a massive, AAA game. Of course as developers, we know that isn't the case, but many players still think this way. In fact, a couple of studios have been caught leaving massive amounts of unused or incomplete assets in the final install just to pump up the install size.

Back when EQ2 came out, 10gb was pretty much unheard of, and SOE reveled in it. I assume it has increased with expansions and updates since then.
Xaos wrote:I think it could only exist on a small scale. I don't think a game like this would ever get millions of players, too many people want to play math games.
Yeah, I definitely didn't think it would be a big, multi-million player game. That is, it wouldn't based on being numberless alone. Other concepts and mechanics could compliment the a numberless design to create something special.
The indelible lord of tl;dr
User avatar
Xaos
Posts: 946
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:01 am

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Xaos »

Yeah well screw those guys. That's what typically leads to no replay value at all, as I delete them once I finish story mode.
Cayle
Posts: 272
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2009 4:45 am

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Cayle »

Those of you who are professionally in the software industry have probably ran across the buzzword "gamification". Gamification is the act of designing software to guide the user by being a reward giving skinner box. You see it everywhere and it is one of the reasons why *everything* seems to have a "social" aspect these days. As an example, this is my profile on a site related to my work. Notice that I have a gold status, how many points I need for platinum and how many badges I have. That's gamification in a nutshell.

Now think for a minute. Gamification takes one aspect of games - the skinner box - and uses that to define a widely used term. That should tell us that games have become the skinner box. So going back to the MOOs of yore and going numberless... well that's downright radical.
Xaos wrote:I think it could only exist on a small scale. I don't think a game like this would ever get millions of players, too many people want to play math games.
Not millions, but enough. This research is nearly ten years old; which means that it might tell us something. ;) In the era before WoW skewed the user base to basically being 99% achievers (or one could say, grew the player base the size it is today by adding so many achievers), immersion was actually a significant motivator and numberless is all about immersion. I think it could be profitable for an indie studio to go after the immersion market. No AAA house would chase this market as its too small, but you could probably take in 100k subscribing players (assertion: micropayments and immersion probably don't mix) and a run a very profitable operation. This means stylized art, but just as sandbox crafters happily accept Minecraft's art style, you could probably foist highly stylized artwork (e.g. solid colors and outline shaders) on willing players if you gave them numberless and enough other immersion helping design choices.
User avatar
Callan S.
Posts: 2043
Joined: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:43 am

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Callan S. »

I think it'd have to include methods of non lethal advancement (maybe XP from crafting - amounts equivalent to the amount you'd get from killing monsters for the time it took to craft the object)

When you force players into combat as the only real advancement option, then you're sending a mixed message 'Hey, get into combat - no, don't try and get into combat (by figuring the numbers)!!!'

On a side note, some players would figure the numbers anyway. It'd just take time - at first they'd figure the average number of hits it takes to kill a certain monster with a base weapon (heck, that's what 'hit points' originally refered to - how often you could get hit and still live), then release that info. But that number crunching would be less prevelent in hidden numbers play.
User avatar
Jackolantern
Posts: 10893
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:00 pm

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Jackolantern »

Very nice insight there, Cayle! I guess that concept I felt but couldn't quite spell out was immersion.

Definitely something for me to think about.
The indelible lord of tl;dr
User avatar
Renavoid
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2013 7:48 pm

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Renavoid »

tl;dr I like the idea and am working on something very similar.

Sorry to be responding so late, Jack. I forgot all about this forum until just recently. This idea you speak of is nearly identical to the idea a coworker and myself just started working on two weeks ago. In general, I agree with everyone here. There are a lot of people who want to play with numbers - and will find a way to get around it eventually. As Halls said, the current games are somewhat stagnant and in serious need of revamping.

There are a few things I've come up with to help address the issues. Perhaps these ideas can help you along as well.

The very first thing I did was come up with a new way to handle skills (and consequently got rid of player levels, but that's a different issue). You aren't a level 80 Sorcerer who spent all of your points in a Fire Mage tree of skills to get the best DPS spells. Instead, you can learn any skill in the game, and using a skill increases your proficiency with it. Not using a skill causes you to lose proficiency with it over time. There are a lot more details behind it to address things like players leaving the game for a week on vacation and now all their skills are back to "level 1" but that's not important here.

Next, I devised some skills surrounding a crafting system with the thought in my head "I want to be able to craft Unique items which are better than what a player can grind out of a boss fight." The crafting system was (and still is) crude and too complex to be the finished project, but it pushed the ideas along. It basically took the same idea of proficiency and applied it to specific types of crafting - so a player could be SO specialized in their gameplay that they literally make the best Helmets in the game, but are completely useless elsewhere. (This happens to be right along the same lines of thought as what Callan said as well)

Next, I had to consider a combat system which would be able to make use of the sort of stats that would need to take place for that specialization. I couldn't have things like "This longsword deals 10-30 damage" because there would be no reason to learn how to make better longswords other than to get the buffs which enable you to make it deal 50-70 damage. So instead, weapons don't have specific damage ratios. Now, they have stats such as weight, sharpness, length, etc.

Now, skills can be used dynamically to determine damage on a per-weapon basis. So, your dagger might be fantastic at dealing damage with a Thrust type skill, but it's simply too short to be useful in AoE spin attacks. Now the best item at least depends on the particular player's play style and skill proficiencies.

There are more things I did after that to take it a bit further - such as making combat a bit more Mortal Combat-esque so that even if you have the "strongest weapon" another player can still beat you with better tactics.

Do I think it's a million-player idea? Nah. For one thing, it's way too complex for a casual MMO player without dumbing-down considerations. We'd also need some mad art asset skills to get a lot of players to even consider playing it. Is the system perfect? HARDLY! I can't tell you how many times I've revised all these things. I changed how combat itself works just last week! (Originally it was more like DragonNest or Vindictus).

If you continue having ideas though, I'd love to hear more about them (if you're willing to share ;)).
The winds of change are blowing; will you heed their call?
User avatar
Jackolantern
Posts: 10893
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:00 pm

Re: "Numberless" MMORPG

Post by Jackolantern »

Sounds cool! I will keep thinking on any additional idea for it :D
The indelible lord of tl;dr
Post Reply

Return to “Game Design”