March 11, 2004

You know what I’d love to see in MMO games?

05:06 PM

I’d love to see aging in Massively Multiplayer Online games. Right now in most MMO games, you advance in levels until you reach the cap, when you’re among the most powerful players in the game. This takes a long time, it took me almost two years of casual play to reach level 60 in Everquest, and I didn’t reach the current cap (65) until I’d played for almost three years. But what happens next?

Right now, you just continue to spend your experience on alternate advancement points, which you can use to get new skills and further strengthen your character. There are a finite number of points that you can actually get though. With enough time and no further expansions, you eventually run out of things to spend points on, and everyone’s character ends up with about the same skillset again.

The problem is that these alternate advancement abilities have made many characters super-powerful. Casters can tank raid-level enemies, and that’s just not right.

What I’d love to see is an optional progression of four or five levels beyond the maximum cap. I’d call them ‘old age levels’ or something equally clever. Basically, the idea is that as you advance down these levels, you become worse at your generic skills, but your voluminous experience makes you much better at your primary duties. So, you’ll run slower and might not be able to carry as much, but you’ll be much better at your primary role. For example:

  • Tanks would be able to absorb damage and hold an enemies attention without fail, at the expense of damage output.
  • Casters would cast the spells they specialize in for much more effect and a lower mana cost. However, their manapool would get smaller non-specialty spells would cost more mana, and enemies would hit them for much more damage.
  • Melee characters would become adept at one particular type of weapon at the expense of all others. Non-tanks would lose the ability to tank in exchange for a huge DPS output.
  • Hybrid classes would be… tricky.

Anyway, it’s just a thought.

///Will | Games | TrackBack | Email this entry
Comments

And by "napalm an entire village," are you talking about the "Eve of Destruction" mod? you can find it here: http://www.eodmod.com/

Posted by: Tucker at March 13, 2004 05:00 PM

It's interesting that you bring up the Grey Havens idea Bryant. I'm not sure that people would actually sign up for that because they'd become spearated from their friends.

For that matter, I don't know if players would even go for 'aging' at all. At their peak, a person who plays a lot has a character that has very little to fear from 99% of the areas in Everquest. Even if you gave them a compelling skill in return, I don't know that most players would willing degrade their skillset.

Posted by: at March 13, 2004 10:28 AM

I've had it for a couple of weeks... Not many people to play with online though.

It's looking pretty good. Helicopter control is much easier than Desert Combat, but still pretty challenging.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about them letting you napalm an entire village though.

Posted by: ///Will at March 13, 2004 10:05 AM

WHy is BF:Vietnam on your list of "Games This Week"? It hasnt been released yet, or has it?

Posted by: Tucker at March 12, 2004 07:42 PM

Yeah, good ideas. Developers could also develop new worlds for high level characters to transition to, a la the end of the The Return of the King when several characters go to the Undying Lands. Then these former high-level characters would be as newly-born children in this strange new world. They could have even more adventures as well as paying for more content.

Posted by: bryantb at March 12, 2004 08:02 AM