Did WoW push the bounds of the MMOG genre?

#21 One additional thing. Blizzard did push the boundaries in one important area: Quality. That should not be dismissed. Indies could do far worse than emulate Blizzard's dedication to craftsmanship. Their design was well thought out and well executed.

#22 Me, personally, I prefer to see a genre perfected and polished before I want to see any big changes. Why? Well, to be direct, it's because I've grown quite cynical. Because of the ungodly high failure rate of any company trying anything new in terms of gameplay, I'd prefer to eschew an onslaught of new and broken gameplay paradigms for old working ones. All I tend to find nowadays is a bunch of new game designs which end up being both broken AND unpolished. Granted, every now and again we get something GREAT (last great innovative and polished game I've played was MGS for PS1), but how many new style games have I played since then that were letdowns? All of them. Every single game I've played since I got MGS which took a "bold" new direction in gameplay was crap. Granted, I don't play many games, but we're talking percentages here.

If I could have it my way, I'd worry about taking a good idea and polishing its gameplay, THEN pushing bouundaries. Otherwise, we end up with mediocre to bad gameplay paradigms that aren't even polished.

And it's unsatisfactory to me in my role as consumer.

#23 Blizzard had lots of money, time, and people... three things Indies more than often do not have.

Good points to those that point out that Blizzard polished the gameplay, or that polishing gameplay and perfecting a genre is important; however, I think the goal of this is to reference how Indies can push the boundaries and if not that at least how Indies can polish the gameplay. We all know Blizzard did WoW well, all the same we all know polishing a game is good... but how can Indies do this... how can Indies push the boundaries as well?

Not trying to be a nag, but trying to keep this on task because I think we all can come up with some very usefull Ideas... and even more usefull strategies (considering Ideas are worth next to nothing).


"Me, personally, I prefer to see a genre perfected and polished before I want to see any big changes."

I agree to a large extent, which is why I feel its time to push the boundaries... Too many games based of similiar systems are out and/or coming out, even if one system is more "polished" than the other..

btw... EQ 2 and all the voice overs are a huge aspect, really adds ambience to a game. I think the next generation of MMO's should do as close to this as possible... Indies on the other hand don't have the 20 million budget to do so. Then again an Indy MMO will probaby have less NPCs as well.

#24 I've been doing a lot of market research lately on MMOG's, specifically digging through fansite (and anti-fan site) forums to follow discussions about what people like and don't like about particular games and implementations, and one thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of "broken" systems that are still simply being polished--but as someone so eloquently put it, "you can gild, polish, and market a turd as much as you like--no matter how pretty it is or sounds, it's still a turd".

Areas that appear to need extensive "boundary pushing":

--class/level based systems that use "fighting exp" to increase all power, vs skill/classless based systems that make advancement appropriate for what tasks are accomplished (you swing your sword 10,000 times, you still aren't going to get any better at picking locks)
--Fully open "PvP" (otherwise known as no mechanics enforced consequences PvP) as opposed to structured PvP of any form--consentual duels, PvP "zones" and no PvP "zones", PvP flags, etc.
--interaction persistence, as defined earlier in the topic
--treadmill/endgame vs "fun along the way"
--content vs systems (log and involved topic, but basically do you enhance your game by simply providing new stuff to see/explore/kill/do, or do you focus on systems and game mechanics that allow the players to be your "content"

There are dozens of areas, but time and again these all pop up.

#25

Quote:class/level based systems that use "fighting exp" to increase all power, vs skill/classless based systems that make advancement appropriate for what tasks are accomplished (you swing your sword 10,000 times, you still aren't going to get any better at picking locks)

One of the things I'm doing is doing away with experience points altogether. Nobody is ever "Level 3" in real life, and all it means in an RPG is that you suddenly get this increase in power, and it leads to an intense level treadmill. I think that if you make the game more skill oriented, it would be a more natural procession. Setting up skills in families so that you don't have the monotony of picking 10,000 locks to get better, but you're not so generalized that swinging an axe makes you a better animal breeder. Smaller groups of skills, and a small percentage of "generalized" skill points that can be used anywhere can help the character both grow, and yet allow them to grow in the way that the character would have to in order to increase certain skills.

But there's a problem that this is linked to, and that's the problems of content. If you want to be a thief nowadays, most missions would have you killing your way in and out of an area to get something(if the game supported the mission type at all), which is completely antithetical to what a thief is. As an example, Anarchy Online has these missions where you're supposed to go "observe" someone for a certain amount of time in order to get your reward. Sounds like a covert surveillance job, right? Ordinarily, yes, except you have to enter a dungeon and kill your way to the room where the NPC is in order to "observe" it, which really means that you have to stand there while it paces around before you get your reward, and then you can kill it. That's just plain stupid.

It's easier to revamp the Skill/Experience mechanics than it is to address the issue of what those mechanics represent: the abilities that your character should be able to perform in the environment.

What's really needed is research into the telling of stories and the generation of missions and content at a procedural level. Using any MMO as an example(I feel bad using AO as my examples, haha), it takes all of five minutes to outline the story chunks for the missions they hand out procedurally now. I have a working story generator for retrieval tasks, which is what these missions usually are:

"Greetings, [player]. Can you help me out? It seems that [mobname] have started to eat my crops and I'm a lazy bastard. So, I can pay you [amount] money and train you in [skillname] for [amount] skillpoints if you kill at least [amount] [mobname] for me. Much appreciated!"

This is fine, for the 80's, but noone's paid attention to these mission layouts since, it seems. What we can do as Indies is expand the story arcs to including actual plots. Branching subplots within the context of the story that change depending on the players success or failure. Make failure an actual option, instead of a punishment. Generate or augment NPC's with generated scripts to allow them to take part in the story.

And now, as we dig deeper into this problem, we come to another problem: AI. In order for you to build up these generated stories, the NPC must take on a more prominent role. They need to do more than pace around or spew a single piece of dialog when right-clicked. They need to be more active. They need to seem more alive. And that's where Indies need to get into the NPC's head and create AI that goes beyond tactical combat and pathfinding to more complicated things like the simulation of emotion, and simulating accurate reactions to things.

And at that point, we'll be able to generate a much broader range of storytypes, with a deeper plot and more immersive characters. And at that point, the missions won't be so much about getting the points in the end as about doing the mission itself, which is at the core of why MMO's feel "hollow" now.

#26 @Ted: You brought up two points:

1) "Level" is a kludge. I agree with you completely, but there is one market driven "requirement/expectation" that is damned difficult to overcome, and that is a single unified measurement of progress. Players want to be able to not only measure their own progress, but have a mechanism to match their relative progress against others, and all other benefits aside, this is a pretty difficult metric to provide your players in a level-less system. I've been struggling with it for years myself.

2) AI--absolutely needs depth improvement. It didn't come up all that often in my reasearch, but it was mentioned several times overall from those with at least a bit of dev insight that this was one of the most limiting factors in not only MMOG's but SPG's as well. And, it's an extremely daunting task to accomplish without totally destroying performance too!

#27

Quote:--class/level based systems that use "fighting exp" to increase all power, vs skill/classless based systems that make advancement appropriate for what tasks are accomplished (you swing your sword 10,000 times, you still aren't going to get any better at picking locks)

I think they have gotten much much better at this, but need to add a new level of realism, there should be boundaries of skill based on specific training by either NPCs or preferably other players. I like the idea in SWG that others plays "Need" to help and train apprentices to get to a certain skill.. I think the implication needs a huge work, maybe a blend between basic skill systems and this, maybe making based around guild systems to be more appropriate... many ways to do this. I think it was a brilliant aspect.

Quote:--Fully open "PvP" (otherwise known as no mechanics enforced consequences PvP) as opposed to structured PvP of any form--consentual duels, PvP "zones" and no PvP "zones", PvP flags, etc.

When I beta tested EQ I played on the pvp servers, back then this was how it was, no rules at all. Anyone could kill anyone. The same was true for looting, if an orc killed you, a level 1 running by could loot your corpse.

The former was an interesting aspect (with mild moderation) the later was just annoying.

Quote:--interaction persistence, as defined earlier in the topic

I completely agree. I think it is a must for future MMO's. Plus a hugely fun factor.

Quote:--content vs systems (log and involved topic, but basically do you enhance your game by simply providing new stuff to see/explore/kill/do, or do you focus on systems and game mechanics that allow the players to be your "content"

As I'm sure my earlier posts speak, I am all for new systems. I beleive in high quality content as well, but I would love to see some new systems out there.


I think one way for Indies to approach these boundaries is to single out specific innovations. Maybe different Indies basing their MMO's around these rather than balancing all or acheiving all.

EDIT:

Quote:What's really needed is research into the telling of stories and the generation of missions and content at a procedural level.

Agreed

#28

Quote:Players want to be able to not only measure their own progress, but have a mechanism to match their relative progress against others, and all other benefits aside, this is a pretty difficult metric to provide your players in a level-less system.

Very true... Hard to trade the monotony for realism without losing the scale players can grade themselves against. Its harder for a player to realise they are good at something without a simplified unit of rererence... Hence the reason people still play the tired old EQ after nearly 6 years... they still feel that presence of worth, of superiority, or the desire to be so.

Though a lot of MMO players enjoy fun aspects of the games, the majority live off of that aspect, to gain worth from the game. To feel like they truly have earned something or gained something substancial... to rate themselves in comparisson to others and see that they do good or want to do good.



One aspect of MMO games I think would appeal more people, and keep attention, though not completely sure how one would accomplish this... but the thing I enjoyed most about most MMO games was getting items and/or aspects/skills etc that have a truly substancial effect... for example in EQ it was regeneration items... this truly changes Gameplay, not just an item that has 2 more strength and 20 more health etc.. but you instantly see its use... spells would be pet spells also, or creature taiming abilities... these bring significant gains and dynamics to gameplay... if somehow a system that brought many dynamic gameplay aspects to the table for the player to learn/gain I think it would really appeal a lot of people...

#29 Very interesting dicussion. My suggestion for those that have not...read Bartle's "Designing Virtual Worlds". That alone is a great resource in developing an understanding that you'll evetually use to change your current opinions on MMOs or to formulate new ones.

The quick and dirty fact here is that pusing boundaries means confronting the current Market, as Stephen pointed out. Players both want things changed, and they want the status quo protected. You can't do both.

There is a serious reason why Lineage I sold 4 million copies, and it has very little to do with the numbers of the market in Asia, it has more to do with the Market itself. Asians want to actually RP. They want the story. And they don't care about numbers as much or the contrived concepts of GIMP'd or it's evil brother, I OWNZ.

Pushing the boundaries in the US and European market means that you a) can't do it all at once. And b) you have to be willing to change the statous quo.

Examples:

1. True Persistence means that the world, as it turns, is infinitely interactive. That means that if I do something, it causes permanent change. You instantly open up the Griefer model. i.e. If a Druids "Earthquake" spell or "Grasping Thorns" spell actually caused a physical, persistent change in the environment, some Greffer (if not an entire griefing team) would then go all around the world and spread the evils of this new ground cover "Grasping Thorns" and the chasms of post "Earthquake" throughout the land and cities.

2. Levels are the only connection that the player really has to his/her character. This is not accidental. This can all be blamed on Gary Gygax (for those that don't know him...you should do some research...all modern games owe their Grandfathered Stupidy to him and his early games...even D&D owes it's self to his first table top tactical rules). Americans need levels in everything we do...even though we don't see it in real life. Side note...that is why the Japanese had a hard time exporting Karate...they had two belts...white...and black. Now most systems have more than 10...because Americans are vain...and need levels.

What that really means is that the primary source of the first major flanking attack on boundaries in MMO's is the holy level. There was hope with Wish...UO was very succesful and didn't have levels. But EQ returned that marked stupidy and now we are back to them. Take them away at your own risk.

3. Skills are the second major obstacle...without a serious skill system, one that is dymamic and pushing its own internal boundaries, you very much fall back into Template hell. And this boundary means taking on the players again by telling them that your system will not allow this. And yes, being honest and saying that it will be next to impossible to make the same character twice, much less copy the current fad.

4. Death is the last boundary...the last frontier. Without permadeath (oh yes...the evil word) there will be no real new boundaries crossed. Until there is permadeath...the last item of persistence...the player itself will not be crossed. Players don't want it, because the current Level Grind/Skill Model means they lose. Of course...who wants to spend another 20 days of chopping wood, kills X mob for the 20th time, etc...to build a character again. But without it there is no real challenge is there? There are no real heroes? There are no real consequences for your actions? Permadeath single handedly brings 75% of all MMO issues under control. If you can do it right...and more importantly can convince the players that their interest are still your main concern.

Rest continued in next post....

Chris Louviere

#30 Continued...

5. An honest Justice system. There is currently a lack of that. It is needed. When I played UO I realized quickly that 80% of the population were criminals. SB had atleast as high...but it felt more like 50/50. The point? The world needs to be able to defend itself form the players and itself. Civilization is required...you get a good social situation, a civiliazation some where in the world with a legal system (that works) and you can have a lot of other persistent things. i.e. Say the GrandClanofGriefers goes off and tries to kill all of species XX. Well, in Louisiana, we have limits on game...you break that limit, and you face the justice system. You get the idea.

6. Lastly...it is time for game designers, Indies as well as large houses to treat games more seriously. Stop repeating the same mistakes. As Bartle says, figure out why game XX had that rule...why it is there...before you repeat that function. Games are a multi-billion dollar business...thus more than just a game. My day job requires the network and apps I admin to be up 99.999%. 100% is the goal...but my boss understand perfection doesn't exist. Game players...they do not understand this. They want perfection, or their perception of it.

My last comment: The ultimate boundary crossing experiment would be an actual MMOPRPG...read Role Playing game. Not just a glorified Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Slasher. Because that is what every MMORPG is today...a glorified First Person Slasher or Shooter. Role playing is something different. Even the RP-Nazi's should learn that.

Chris Louviere

#31 Going way back in the thread, it would be interesting to try to implement some of the implications of "clearing out" a dungeon or castle or ruins or whatever. What would a basic implementation require?

To try it in torque, perhaps you could build some terrain and stick in three dungeons or castles, each filled with a distinct faction (orcs, gnolls, humans, etc.). Then you would have some sort of tension between the three faction. By themselves, without player involvements, the three factions would send small skirmish groups against each other and slowly regenerate losses. With some tweaking, you could probably make it fairly stable, although I suppose sometimes one faction would wipe out another and take over their stronghold.

When you add in player interaction, the players can of course screw everything up. If they wipe out the orc stronghold, or even weaken it, then probably one of the other groups (say, humans) will be able to come in and take over. Perhaps this means that the human faction is now twice as strong. Or maybe it means that some charismatic human leader split off from the main human group, creating his own faction. So now you have two human factions, with the new human faction occupying the former orc stronghold.

Once all this works, I suppose you could scale up the system, with a few dozen strongholds scattered across the land. If a player visits a specific stronghold, he/she would get missions or quests to attack or spy on nearby enemy strongholds, and completion of these quests would then weaken or strengthen specific strongholds.

There are certainly a bunch of other cool concepts that would need to be added, but this seems like a reasonable place to try and start.

#32 >the thing I enjoyed most about most MMO games
>was getting ... that have a truly substancial effect...
>changes Gameplay... bring significant gains and
>dynamics to gameplay...

I would like to see a system of skills and items where each had a different purpose rather than a different value, as you seem to be getting at. An item or skill could have an absolutely awe inspiring effect, yet also lead to weaknesses in other areas.

For example, an assassin class might have an attack that allowed them to move very quickly for a short period of time, then deliver a powerful (probably lethal) short range attack at the end of that time. Perfect for an assassin's job of eliminating a single target. However, there is an equally appropriate weakness. He is now standing right where his dead (or, possibly, alive) is, and he is weakened by the energy he put into the attack. His life and energy are near 0, and he is unable to move for 2 seconds. Though he accomplished the mission, he will probably pay with his life.

There are two problems with such a system (obstacles worth overcoming I think). First, designing a bunch of unique skills or items is much more difficult than making one template item and just changing its strength (fireball 1, fireball 2... cap, wood helmet, bronze helmet...). Second, as the system becomes more complicated, balancing the system also becomes more complicated.

>Players want to be able to not only
>measure their own progress...

This seems to be the main issue in MMORPGs from my experience. My own preferences in this regard are far different than most players, I think. I used to play Zelda 1. When the game became too easy for me, I decided to restart and try playing without a sword (never picked it up), until I got to the final boss of the game who was vulnerable to nothing else. I feel like as I get better at the game my level needs to go DOWN in order to compensate and keep the game interesting.

I'm not sure if this is enough to make up for the player's level expectations, but here is my way of giving the player a source of pride:
"hey I just got this awesome spell that levels mountains, no one else can do that"
(but it takes significant energy and players on the mountain are only dazed, not killed)
"with these shoes, I can outrun a griffin"
(but I fall flat on my face if hit by a spitball)
In other words, give the players something fun to measure their progress by. Let them demonstrate their progress rather than talking about a number.

On the other hand, all these games that use a simple "kill x monsters get y experience add z to my power level" are extremely popular. Maybe your average player just likes it simple :p As a designer I will ignore that and make something awesome. I'm not trying to get rich. This is a hobby, and I will do something that I can be proud of and enjoy.

#33

Quote:I will ignore that and make something awesome. I'm not trying to get rich. This is a hobby, and I will do something that I can be proud of and enjoy.

wonderfully put...

A good game that handles balancing of significant features decently is Planetside... though it lacks some major aspects to back it up...

You can get certified and fly the huge dropship, except your stuck as the pilot, need allies to assist and be dropped.

you can be in a smaller mech suit with decent run speed, but you need to choose anti vehicle, air or soldier weapons to use, so your really good against one, but not the other... etc etc... I found some huge weakness' in the balancing system to, but overall the idea was nice... something like that in an MMORPG would be amazing...

giving you the thrill constantly that you can do something thats powerful, though at a great weakness

#34 @Chris

4 or 5 years ago I dreamed about making and MMO with true persistance. Your first point was of great concern to me. After much thought I decided that the easiest way to deal with that problem was to either eliminate magic altogether or make it incredibly weak. If it took weeks to cast a spell like the 'Earthquake' spell you mentioned or perhaps you had to have dozens of people supporting you (perhaps via suicide or some other such extreme method) then it might not be worth it for the griefers to do so. Ideally they would never get the chance to cast such a spell in a well developed part of the world unless they were part of an army (even if it was an army of griefers at least it would be a somewhat more realistic world if it took an army to do these kinds of things).

In my dream MMO there would have been well developed cities where the rule of law was enforced so that if you commited a crime you would most likely be caught. I could never quite figure out how this would have worked, except with massive amounts of NPC's (which I was hoping to avoid). In contrast to these cities there would the great unexplored mass of the world/continent that would have allowed room for the griefers and pvp's to run wild. I always hoped to find a way to allow players to create their own little societies (I imagined a bunch of little tribes and clans that would be constantly fighting against each other) so that everyone would have their needs met. If enough people wanted to live civilized and in cities they could expand and build new one, but if there were more people who wanted to fight and destroy they would be a threat to the civilized cities and so on and so forth.

Ahhh, it's nice to dream isn't it....much easier then actually doing something about it.

Peter Eberle

#35

Quote:Going way back in the thread, it would be interesting to try to implement some of the implications of "clearing out" a dungeon or castle or ruins or whatever. What would a basic implementation require?

Just as an FYI, this is milestone 4 in our project (months and months down the road however, we have quite a ways to go yet). We will probably prototype the idea as you suggest before then, but it is specifically in the project plan.

#36 Progress monitoring is one of Puzzle Pirates largest weaknesses. It's rather easy to advance and attain the higher levels without actually doing a whole lot. This makes the competition out of advancement, which is a strong reason that some gamers play MMO games. They like to see their names at the top of ladders. I don't necessarily see it as a problem as the developers were more focused on creating a community and developing a different type of MMO game. Unfortunately, I think they missed the mark somewhat in that the people who play puzzle games are often extremely competative. Especially if the puzzle game in question is a multiplayer game. In a single-player game, they're challenging themselves and a simple high-score list is effective. In a multiplayer game, they need some sense of affirmation that they are actively competing against another play through a rewards system. Since the advancement system is scaled so low, there's little indication of player skillsets.

I think that NPC interaction could be modeled after games like Animal Crossing. The game makes a series of choices for the NPC's regardless of when you're playing it or not. This simulates a real-world NPC much better than any RPG system that I've played (though NPC's in the Ultimas kept schedules pretty well...especialyl if you needed Skeleton Keys). I'm not sure exactly what kind of AI lists are parsed at startup in AC, but it at least gives the impression that the world is carrying on without you. It's interesting to see that characters move and talk about things that have happened in your absence. AC was designed with this concept in mind, but I don't think that any MMO game puts a second thought into NPC's other than how they fit into the quest system, and then only tangentally. Since their targets are actual players (who pay money), there's little reason to work on NPC AI. While I can understand the decision, I can't say that I agree with it since it kills the immersion factor of having a world where the players' actions are supposed to have an effect. Not only are NPC's not aware of what the players are doing in most MMORPG's, they mostly aren't aware of ANYTHING going on in the world other than their particular quest. Integrating smarter NPC's would be easier than attempting to create story arcs in a MMO game, though. Especially because you have to accomodate n number of players trying to play out your storylines. Which I think is one of the reasons that stories are so weak and the quest systems so limited in the current MMO landscape (aside from the fact that writing quality stories is hard work).

I think it would be interesting to attempt to create a multiplayer adventure game. Not necessarily anything of the size necessary for a MMO game, but something like a cross between King's Quest and Zelda: The Four Swords. That way the development team could work on focusing on NPC AI and the idea of semi-non-linear story arcs (the problem being that an arc is a linear term, so something akin to spider graphs/plots may be more appropriate). Something like 253 could act as a basic guide to non-linear narrative or something on the scale of Dragon's Inn for interactive storylines. MUD and MUSH communities where interactive storytelling is key are also a great research point. The scale, being much smaller than a MMO game would also help break down the problems into consumable chunks. Whether or not it's worth indie R&D time is a completely different issue.

#37

Quote:One of the things I'm doing is doing away with experience points altogether. Nobody is ever "Level 3" in real life, and all it means in an RPG is that you suddenly get this increase in power, and it leads to an intense level treadmill. I think that if you make the game more skill oriented, it would be a more natural procession. Setting up skills in families so that you don't have the monotony of picking 10,000 locks to get better, but you're not so generalized that swinging an axe makes you a better animal breeder.

Quote:Players want to be able to not only measure their own progress, but have a mechanism to match their relative progress against others, and all other benefits aside, this is a pretty difficult metric to provide your players in a level-less system.

Best of both worlds: let no character "level up" in the general, all-stat sense, but instead get better at the job or class that he persues, but at the same time, he can still have a level that is calculated from his stats (versus stats calculated from level) to represent his overall power/skill in comparison to that class or race's potential (lv 1-100 would be 1-100% of full potential)

Quote:There are two problems with such a system (obstacles worth overcoming I think). First, designing a bunch of unique skills or items is much more difficult than making one template item and just changing its strength (fireball 1, fireball 2... cap, wood helmet, bronze helmet...). Second, as the system becomes more complicated, balancing the system also becomes more complicated.

Yes...I've been very tired of the repeat "special abilities" that appear in single RPG and MMORPG alike, example: Mr. Paladin-45 has an attack called 'Holy Punishment'....Lil Jack-Thief-51 has 'Assassin's Blade'...the former does roughly 100 damage, the latter 120 to the same monster...with no effect elsewhere. This means that they are doing the same thing, but the developers (oh, them and their creativity!) decided that they'd give two names for the same attack, just changing the stats a little bit. What I'd rather have (and use in my own) is unique abilities, skills and spells that each do different things, all with strengths and weaknesses. Add that to a simplified 'combo' system (input a sequence of 'horizontal-left-slash' and 'vertical-chin-punch' type moves to create a larger attack) and you can actually have unique characters, if each combo requires the player to gain AP to purchase them and that the AP is not gained simply through the trite 'kill-and-level' methods, but through actually showing skill as a melee or magic user, by sequencing long series of combos that further damage because you actually understand each enemies weak point (each type of hit could be for a different body part, horizontal for chest, upper-cut for head, etc).

#38 **continued

Quote:As a designer I will ignore that and make something awesome. I'm not trying to get rich. This is a hobby, and I will do something that I can be proud of and enjoy.

Exactly. The best advice given to me by a developer (it was in an interview, not to me personally ^^) was Miyamoto. He said to not develope games that you think everyone or even anyone would like (you can see this in his 'I dont care what you think about it' Pikmin), but instead make sure the game is your favorite game, the game you would nearly worship if it was already made. That has become my philosophy - my game, and all the aspects of it, are what I, not the paying customers (although nothing wrong with appreciating fans, thats different), love.

Hate me or love me for saying this..(I don't like to plug my stuff, but this the only way I can really express information about my own game - in specific areas - talking about it in general-terms is too wide-range), but I can honestly say that nearly all these issues that are being discussed are things that I have thought about and fixed in my own game, and when people come up with solutions, its usually similar to mine. This is not saying much, since it is only in concept, but I still feel much better (better than I did when I had only told my ideas to about 3 people) when I see my ideas, although indirectly, liked and even used as positive opinions by others.

#39 @Alan: that's mostly what this thread was all about actually! Our vision and design documents cover most of this as well, but as you said it's always good to get feedback from the player base, and it's even better to get feedback/suggestions from other developers...and in the Indy world, we can do that much more easily than you can in the commercial world. Sony is never going to walk over to EA and say, "hey, what do you think about this idea to make MMOG's better?"

Of course, if they have anyone actually doing market management and tracking, I would bet at least one of you is a shill!

Nah, nevermind, they've proven they have no clue, or even desire for innovation!

#40 I'll just say that an MMO pack needs added to Torque. Modify the RTS engine so that the objects can be controlled by user input. Remove the 64 player lid.