Purplefixer Goblin Squad Member |
This is so important, I had to make my own post for it. This is something I feel very strongly about, and has been far too overlooked in every game since StarWars: Galaxies.
MORE THAN JUST COMBAT! For crying out loud, please... please... please... Mini-games, even as transparent as a rail shooter mini-game, should be available to give us other interaction with the world. Look at puzzle-pirates and the way they handle crafting and ship building and... Let anyone click a button to make a sword. Let that sword take a full minute to be knocked out. And make sure there's a deep economy around that sword (iron and some generic 'flux' unless you want to get specific and leather strips/straps whatever) to make the player economy run. Then pound out the sword, which takes no input from the player at all... until he wants to make masterwork. Masterwork should be a mini-game all its own, and should be different for armor, weapons, and ANYTHING ELSE. Three different thematically themed games that are more than 'button one... button two... button one... button three... finish.' Bubble popping, logic puzzles, anything interesting with scalable challenge. Look how popular angry birds is! Want to make Cold Iron? Now you're looking at Difficulty #2. Mithril? Difficulty #4. Adamantine? Difficulty #10... which should be HARD. Give us bar games! Give us jousts and arena competitions! (With the appropriate buildings, of course) And give us bardic competitions! Make music playing and composition an ACTUAL THING. Make them stored client side, they don't have any game effects, and let the bards play them on demand and be able to trade them... These things would make this game INCREDIBLY long lived... they give people something more to do than grind. Any game I can play on an iPhone should be inspirational enough to get your attention here... This is a critically overlooked niche in MMOs that you shouldn't deny your fanbase.
I would love to hear people's opinions and suggestions for minigames, and really for anything other than combat that will engage you as a player and make the world more evocative and attention grabbing.
Mark Kalmes Goblin Squad Member |
Purplefixer Goblin Squad Member |
I personally like the simpler minigames of Fable. But I have no idea if we are going to go the minigame route.
Just consider that anything that helps to increase the immersion, and that includes IC games of chance and competitive events that can be engaged in outside of the typical tank n' spank help to break the monotony, ESPECIALLY if your sandbox contains a lot of grinding, will increase people's attention span. In the same way that studying students need 10min breaks during the hour, and black-jack dealers take 15min breaks each hour to keep their eyes and hands and attention fresh on the details.
Grinding materials for mining/crafting tends to be a SNOREFEST. Make a game out of it. Make it as interesting and in-depth as slaying rust monsters.
Even simple games are an improvement over -none-.
Mark Kalmes Goblin Squad Member |
Purplefixer Goblin Squad Member |
Oh absolutely.
If you want to be a dedicated crafter, mini-games should be your bread and butter. But they should be generally optional for everyone else.
"Dragon hand", "Knivesies", "Bloodpig", Darts, Nineball... there should be half a dozen games for taverns and inns that everyone should be able to access at their leisure to play and mess around.
And the ability for bardic players to compose their music on a single instrument (and then write the parts for the other instruments one by one...) and play and trade on demand is an -actual- iPad/phone/android app that takes up like 3 megs and would add huge smiles to a lot of the musically creative players. I want "The March of Lastwall" for my bard's inspire courage, and "Numerian Nights" for Inspire Competence... :p
EQII and SWG both had attatched cardgames in in-browser apps you could trade and play with, and they were huge. I know *I* spent about *check the make sure the wife isn't around* four HUNDRED dollars more than I should have on them... Even a java-based attatched music-writing applet that the game can run and play would be fantastic. Make it small and simplistic, just put them in at start so that your staff, or even the community, CAN improve on them as time goes by.
Drejk |
There were "tower" minigame in Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne Expansion while Blood Elves were fleeing prison and escaping through a portal while player killed, slowed and weakened pursuers with various towers. It was lovely.
WoW: Cataclysm included a few minigames - near the ruins of old Dalaran goblin farm where one plants magic plants that defend the farm from Undead hordes (a kind of tower-like game). Uldum region contained at least four: commanding a group of lions to fight against hyena packs, being a gunner on a plane pursued by Goblin Nazis and being mortar/catapult operator firing bombs on Nazis soldiers on another mountain. Last one I can remember was burning/crushing mad gnomes with great ball of flame. Oh, it was so much fun. Except phasing was crewed at that location and gnomes tended to vanish just before you squashed them.