The wishing well is afk

The developers have no clue–what the fuck were they thinking? Such thoughts have clouded my mind plenty. I’ll be playing a game, enjoying myself and I stumble upon a mechanic that ends up sapping the glee and enjoyment from our connected veins spurring me to play armchair developer and critique my playing experience. It’s disheartening, I don’t want to be that guy; the jaded asshat curmudgeon with unyielding opinions who can’t enjoy themselves. I’ve worn such a hat many times in the past, enough to lead me to stop playing mmogs outright for many months at a time, which also explains my lack of motivation to update this past year.

Most players want to see the game world in their favor, not what the developers force them to see. What would you change?

Well, the rapscallions at AFK Gamer posted five wishes on what needs to be changed with the mmog genre. My initial impression is their wish list leans towards desired changes in World of Warcraft more than any other mmog because a lot of what they propose isn’t new, albeit there isn’t any recent mmog with all their listed tenets. Nonetheless, the post is compelling, so I’m responding with my general preferences. If you want to post any five changes for a specific mmog or your general preferences too, by all means please do.

I. Healing - I don’t envy healing classes, but the overall problem is not healing; it is the combat model, the numbers balance. Pull the curtain down and take away all those nifty spells and abilities classes use and they amount to three main roles: limiting damage, dealing damage and sustaining damage. Good developers deceive their playerbase by making classes feel powerful and unique. There is always one class that will be better at one of these roles than the other and at times they will dip into all three roles. The majority tend to break down in the dealing damage role; those dealing damage classes are distinguished with spells that do damage, powerful weapons that do damage, pets that do damage, etc. As for the class with the unfortunate main role of having to limit damage, they aren’t as readily available and playing a priest isn’t always very enjoyable making them a rare breed, or at least the good ones.

Getting rid of healing is not the panacea, it is not the answer; developers face a conundrum in any fantasy based mmog with healing because priests are a staple in most fantasy worlds. I also believe if you removed healing from a fantasy world players will want heal spells or the classes.

Alternatives include skill and hybrid based systems, allowing more classes the option to function as main healers, this is a temporary band-aid fix that also opens up other wounds.
I want healing to move away from playing the UI. No more staring at fifty fucking bars cluttering up the screen. I also believe classes need more class defining abilities that add more flavor. (ex: feign death, stealth, taunt, etc).

2. Travel - I prefer a middle ground. Long travel times is ridiculous, and it’s improbable to make long travel times interesting. I couldn’t stand the travel times in Eve, it’s the main reason why I washed out even though I was a member of Eve University, an outstanding beginner’s corporation. On the other hand, I can’t stand instant based travel, if your mmog is a world, and I enjoy it, I want those paths. I thought WoW did a fantastic job with flight paths, but still this takes too long for a lot of players. (Something I address in playstyles) Developers need to focus on more smaller worlds with more dynamics. It’s a shame to see some really great (and expensive) world design wasted so quickly as adventurers just fucking plow through their levels and head on to the next area only to return those areas later only to find it’s still the same shit; you have your levels, but nothing else has happened. Why? This is bullshit, environments should evolve so they offer strong replay values and don’t become trite.

3.Loot - Loot is a necessary evil in achievement based mmogs. I was blown away with Eve’s itemization, all the items I looked at were useful, drops were rare, but certainly meaningful. I liked EQ’s itemization at one time, items such as the fbss, gebs, epics, etc. You recognized players who had rarer items, players appreciated these items much more when they earned them, it was a uphill battle and the items weren’t taken for granted. Sure it was frustrating but also extremely rewarding. I enjoyed being spoiled by WoW’s itemization, too many carrots, I must be King even if a lot of it is crap. It’s a mixed bag, itemization systems all have their pros and cons. It really comes down to the game and what the developers want to do. I do have suggestions:

Guild and fellowship based rewards. (I guess EQ2 does this).
Don’t make the carrots all about items or experience-reward players with challenging encounters.
Loot drops should make more sense.
A visible item on an npc should have the same graphic when player equipped. (this includes any particle effects)
Minor restrictions on equipping loot. (not by levels, more class based stats)
More sentient items that level up.

4. Playstyles - Every game is a grind, it requires a time investment if you want progress and accomplishments. Players are selfish, some lead hectic lives and in turn want instant gratification in every mmog they play. They want a dumbed-down playing experience because they find everything tedious, they lack patience, and tend to use mods to become efficient as possible. Quests will tell players where to go, fuck it use a spoiler site anyway and shave off a few minutes, hell with reading the quest on top of that; just look at the reward and want the experience.

Players can’t invest the time farming gold so I’ll just buy it from a farmer instead. “I’m feeding the poor, it’s a good cause, if it wasn’t them, I’d be farming the gold anyway.” Fuck your logical fallacy arguments: If your actions in a game or part are resulting in chagrin or stressing your lifestyle move the fuck on. Stop kvetching like a wretched old woman on forums, to your friends and quit lying to yourself, just fucking stop playing that mmog already. There are plenty of great single and multi player games waiting to be played that will fit your playstyle. Stop pretending what you’re not.

Other (in game) playstyles need to be embraced and expanded on: explorers and gregarious.

5. Play sessions - The genre needs more accessible virtual worlds for all playstyles: Casual, extremely dedicated and moderate. (no more imports! haha) I’d like raid dungeons that can be saved at points and completed in chunks. More worlds focusing on five-to-ten man content and others that have massive world events for thousands.