Devices of MMOGs in General vs Spellborn
Let me lay out briefly the meat and potatoes of what drive the genre along. For those of you who don't indulge in MMOGs- your typical console or PC game either drags you on a story point (rescue princess, revenge, or a mystery of your hidden past etc.) or that of bragging rights (played X-days to capture a city, beat Z# of characters in duels, fragged Y people until end of life etc).
MMOGs go along combining a number of aspects from traditional games, only your character progress is saved in a remote database and has the debatable benefit of having continuous and new content. You also have a choice of teaming up or against other players without having to drag your computer to a LAN. The differnce between your PC game multiplayer option and the MMOG is the content doesn't end, and doesn't rely on the community to release new maps or realms like in an RTS like Warcraft, FPS like Unreal Tournament, or RP like Neverwinter Nights .
Common carrots- get to peak level, get best gear, be the best PVP'er, have the most powerful weapons/spells/powers/abilites, have maxed crafting ability, have X characters so have all the most powerful combinations in the game offering, have a mount, pet, house, be in Y top guild, participate in guild activities, be in Z important position in raids, uncover secret content/beat bosses that you can't do without W qualifications that involve any of the above to accomplish. That covers the majority and most common drivers.
Standard progress is to create your character model, choose a class, a starting point, and start following quests to level and gain gear or ignore the quests except when necessary to move to a new area and simply slaughter NPCs (non players-beasts/humanoids etc) that give the most expereince. There are subtlties in the flavors of each game, but most of these forms are what they have in common.
TCOS caught my attention when my husband said that they weren't going to have gear give you any character statistics. The only other game I've played EVER that didn't do that was City of Heroes, which I can only enjoy up to a point- the game suffers from lack of carrot to me.
Not having to stress over having equipment that has only +3 to my ability to cast spells/swing weapons/survive more hits when most people have +5, not having to worry about that is golden. Doesn't sound that bad until you realize that in most games this worry is extending to about eight plus body slots on your character. +24 versus +40 is a huge differnce in what you can do.
Eliminating that is a huge relief to the game. Much like in real life, skill determines a better martial artist, not if his gi has an ornamental badge or is of canvas or cotton. A non rusted piece of plate is going to be just steel, not make you move any faster or make you stronger. The better fighter is going to be the one who catches on to opponent weaknesses and has more experiences to take advantage of them. This also leads to the cedibility of a game- people are more facinated with subjects that can suspend their disbelief, if you bring in lessdebatable ojects or mechanics into the game it is more successful since they can base it on logical reasoning. For the person that says who would want to play an as-life MMOG, I must point out that integration of some aspects won't hurt most playable points and that the Sims is a very very successful game.
MMOGs go along combining a number of aspects from traditional games, only your character progress is saved in a remote database and has the debatable benefit of having continuous and new content. You also have a choice of teaming up or against other players without having to drag your computer to a LAN. The differnce between your PC game multiplayer option and the MMOG is the content doesn't end, and doesn't rely on the community to release new maps or realms like in an RTS like Warcraft, FPS like Unreal Tournament, or RP like Neverwinter Nights .
Common carrots- get to peak level, get best gear, be the best PVP'er, have the most powerful weapons/spells/powers/abilites, have maxed crafting ability, have X characters so have all the most powerful combinations in the game offering, have a mount, pet, house, be in Y top guild, participate in guild activities, be in Z important position in raids, uncover secret content/beat bosses that you can't do without W qualifications that involve any of the above to accomplish. That covers the majority and most common drivers.
Standard progress is to create your character model, choose a class, a starting point, and start following quests to level and gain gear or ignore the quests except when necessary to move to a new area and simply slaughter NPCs (non players-beasts/humanoids etc) that give the most expereince. There are subtlties in the flavors of each game, but most of these forms are what they have in common.
TCOS caught my attention when my husband said that they weren't going to have gear give you any character statistics. The only other game I've played EVER that didn't do that was City of Heroes, which I can only enjoy up to a point- the game suffers from lack of carrot to me.
Not having to stress over having equipment that has only +3 to my ability to cast spells/swing weapons/survive more hits when most people have +5, not having to worry about that is golden. Doesn't sound that bad until you realize that in most games this worry is extending to about eight plus body slots on your character. +24 versus +40 is a huge differnce in what you can do.
Eliminating that is a huge relief to the game. Much like in real life, skill determines a better martial artist, not if his gi has an ornamental badge or is of canvas or cotton. A non rusted piece of plate is going to be just steel, not make you move any faster or make you stronger. The better fighter is going to be the one who catches on to opponent weaknesses and has more experiences to take advantage of them. This also leads to the cedibility of a game- people are more facinated with subjects that can suspend their disbelief, if you bring in lessdebatable ojects or mechanics into the game it is more successful since they can base it on logical reasoning. For the person that says who would want to play an as-life MMOG, I must point out that integration of some aspects won't hurt most playable points and that the Sims is a very very successful game.
posted by Razorhoney at 11:40
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