The GOOD
I would like to suggest Voice Acting as much as is affordable :P
After Playing SWTOR I feel Voice Acting is a step closer to the evolution of the MMO.
Thank you
Goblin Squad Member
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THE GOOD
Final Fantasy XI (with Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 coming it at a very close Second and Third) had some of the best story writing I've ever seen in an MMO, and while I've admittedly not played very many of them, the ones I have played have been really bad. All three of these games have stories that revolve around you, you are the central point of the story and a driving force behind the narrative.
In Final Fantasy XI, you had a cast of well-developed and interesting characters that followed you in the narrative and you grew to care about each one of them and what happens to them. In addition, there's not a single storyline in FFXI that you can't experience. While two (off the top of my head, maybe more) require that you change your allegiance to a particular nation (an act that has no penalties aside from monetary), you're never locked out of experiencing some part of the game based on something like your class or your race.
In Star Wars: The Old Republic the only really memorable characters are your crew mates, but one of the biggest enjoyments of the narrative is not just how it changes to big decisions, but how it also changes based on the conversations options you pick. The crewmates are all very unique and have their own opinions and preferences about how things should be done and depending on how you act around them can influence how much they like you. A crew-mate that is very scientific and technologically oriented might prefer it if you prefer science and hard facts, but dislikes you if you're more spiritual and prefer using The Force to help you solve problems (which makes it kind of hilarious as this crew member is paired with the Jedi Consular, which is a very spiritual/"power of the force" class).
Guild Wars 2 is a mixed back of the above. You get to make big decisions that impact the overall story (including choices you make about your background) and you can kinda sometimes get different dialog options depending on your personality. You run into a number of characters that are interesting and memorable, but they tend to vanish from the spotlight pretty quickly, either because their stories continue elsewhere that's not the main quest or they die or they're just not needed in the story anymore and kind of forgotten. A strong enough mix of the good that it doesn't make the bad as bad as it could be.
THE BAD
DC Universe Online tries to have a story that's like the three examples above and really kinda falls flat with it (at least as far as I'd been able to play before the constant in-game advertisements to upgrade to a paid subscription drove me nuts, so for all I know, it gets better later on). You start out with a promising idea: your character is more-or-less important to the plot and you get one of the big-name DC super-heroes or villains to act as your mentor character. However, after you finish the starting area, this whole plot seems to vanish, and you're just stuck going off and helping other DC main characters with whatever random tasks they need help with.
THE UGLY
In World of Warcraft, your character could be pretty much replaced with a card-board cutout of you and the narrative wouldn't suffer in the least. With the exception of only a couple starting zones (only the Worgen and Goblin ones come to mind, and I've not cared enough about the game to renew my subscription and fork over the cash to play Pandaria), which do indeed put you in a plot-important role, any semblance of a narrative comes to a grinding halt as you're immediately supposed to shoot through the level-up process as fast as possible so you can get to the endgame and sit in dungeon queues all day so you can get gear to sit in raid queues all day, etc. etc. Each zone does have an overall story (some more than others), but so very little you do has any actual impact. The worst offender are the stories that take place in raids, where all of the hard work you do is instantly forgotten as some big-name NPC comes in to claim all the credit for the destruction of the bad guy for himself (case in point: Tirion Fordring, who does jack-s%%! for 90% of the fight against the Lich King, only to come it at the last 10% actually do something and is then given all the credit for the kill). "Random Adventurer" in a footnote about the event should not be the legacy you are given in a story.
But what does it all mean?
In an ideal situation, in the areas where Pathfinder Online does indeed have a story (aside from all the player-made content that is kind of the driving-force behind sandbox MMOs), it'd be really damned nice if the story was focused on you, you could alter the story reasonably with given decisions to make it more unique to you, and the cast of NPCs that are with you for the ride are all interesting, well-developed and memorable.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to do all the story stuff on your own, far from it; while FFXI, SWTOR, and GW2 all focused on you for the narrative, you could have allies along with you for the ride to experience your story along with you (in a few areas in SWTOR, your party members could even chip-in and influence the stories themselves, and in GW2, apparently if you and your ally were on the same part of the story, your allies could accept your version of the story as their own so they could progress along with you, though admittedly I've not seen that in action).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I couldn't really care less about "cartoony" graphics. World of Warcraft is pretty tame in "cartoony" graphics compared to, I dunno, about every other Anime MMO in existence. I believe the reason for said graphics is to appeal to the widest audience.
Although what I'd like to see is little to no grinding, which as far as I know, they are clearly making sure PFO doesn't become a grindfest.
One example:
I feel like it's a sandbox trapped inside a P2W MMO.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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It's fully voiced by the players.There's a part of me that really wants to read this as confirmation that there will be integrated voice chat that allows players to be heard by other players nearby. That part of me is kind of weird :)
I shutter at the thought of a small female halfling with the voice of a 40 year old dude.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Harrison has pretty much said all that I wanted to say.
I want a character that feels like a character, not just Random Adventurer.
WoW had the most clearcut roles and a fastpaced combat system that kept you thinking.
DCUO had great gear customization in the "style" system. You could skin anything you have worn onto anything you are wearing. Much more user friendly than WoW's transmog system which is both clunky and a gold sink.
SWTOR focused on the experience and story and spent maybe 10 minutes on the mechanics and combat systems.
I agree that a player based "plot" should be the most important, but almost as important is the lore behind the world we live in. It helps immersion so we'll feel more comfortable creating that "plot" ourselves.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I shutter at the thought of a small female halfling with the voice of a 40 year old dude.It's fully voiced by the players.There's a part of me that really wants to read this as confirmation that there will be integrated voice chat that allows players to be heard by other players nearby. That part of me is kind of weird :)
^This
Please no in-game voices chat!!!!!!!!!! Talk about immersion killer...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I shutter at the thought of a small female halfling with the voice of a 40 year old dude.It's fully voiced by the players.There's a part of me that really wants to read this as confirmation that there will be integrated voice chat that allows players to be heard by other players nearby. That part of me is kind of weird :)
^This
Please no in-game voices chat!!!!!!!!!! Talk about immersion killer...
I will vote the opposite way, In the end 60% of players will wind up using voice chat anyway (It's too huge of an advantage for PVP, instances etc...). From my opinion in DDO and other games with built in voice chat, the only real change is the quality of PUGs goes way up. Namely because as long as one player in the group can call and direct the group, everyone else falls into line. That just dosn't work with text (as by the time he's finished typing "Don't touch the" someone's aleady touched it. When in guilds/groups etc... people will use it, but it isn't common to invite people you just met to a guild vent server (and walking them through connecting takes too darn long in many cases) so to a large degree, people avoid random groups whenever possible.
DDO on the other hand I loved joining groups of people I never met, talking with them etc... and for the cases of people who don't want to speak with voice... no biggie, I doubt chat is going to be removed. One leader in the group is really all that is critical to have. So the 40 year old man halfling, can talk in text, while the seat of the pants directions are called by someone who works better for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry Onishi but I disagree...
1. This is a Sanbox, no LFG Themepark WOW bank sitting waiting for pugs.
2. PvP will be one of two situations, either small groups of guild mates or a large organized group of settlement raiders.
Both of which will use ventrilo and will not be pugs.
3. When did installing ventrilo or Teamspeak become difficult?
4. In Game voice chat is rarely used, mostly from solo players and has nothing to do with organized game play.
5. Waste of resources and money! I rather have housing...
6. Just my opinion...
The Good
The character creation in City of Heroes/Villains and Champions Online - is a wonderfully engrossing online game in itself. There's something very satisfying about being able to tweak your online appearance just the way you want it or go wild trying to make a costume that would cause nausea and blindness in nearby viewers.
In-game conveniences like mailboxes, auction houses, banks, guild tools make WOW so painless, especially if you have a number of characters.
Open partying in Warhammer Online. In any of the game event quest locations you could just join anybody else doing the same quest without all the whispering and messing about with party interface.
The customizable interfaces of WOW.
The Bad
Faction reputation grinding in WOW. Please no more kill a mob for +1 reputation. Ever. I don't even remember what the end reward was anymore, but I do remember painfully those thousands of mobs and hundreds of quests to finish the reputation grind.
The Ugly
The whole raid-to-upgrade and bind-on-pickup design philosophy of endgame WOW. I ran raids for two years as raid leader and am totally burnt out on the whole raiding experience and would not care to do it again.
The amount of people bashing on World of Warcraft makes me think they either could never afford it or just didn't know how to play.
You know what I hate? People who refuse to play good games solely because of graphics.
It's probably one of many reasons why I've failed to find interest but in only a handful of games after 2009.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If players start to feel burnt out on a game that was their daily hobby and social circle for many years then hate sets in quite often.
And WoW burnt out more people than most other games had players and yet is still going strong.
Back to topic:
The good
Partiing in Warhammer Online
Public Quests in Warhammer Online
Flying in Aion
Group oriented combat in DAoC
RvR in DAoC
The bad
Crafting in WoW, Aion and most other "sit and watch a bar" systems
The ugly
"Best loot for the best" system in Warhammer Online
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Goblin Squad Member
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On Auto-partying features.
It is a very mixed blessing in my eyes.
Yes it is absolutely convenient for quickly teaming up with others to take down a threat.
However, it removes a need to talk to people, and both Rift and GW2, whilst excellent games in their own right, kind of suffered because of it. Zerg monster parties where no-one says a word are quite common.
If people don't have to talk to each other, they often won't, and it seems counter-intuitive to the game style that Pathfinder is looking for. So I would suggest that you not implement that kind of feature.
The bad - mailboxes, auction houses, menial tasks (so called quests), click option stories, cut scenes, solo adventurer tuning, mini maps, quest markers, lack of engaging mechanics, excessively redundant voice acting. All games fall victim to many of these streamlined features that detract from immersion or my personal taste. A few would probably fall more into the ugly category for me.
The good - questing early on in everyquest, where you had to actually read, reason, and respond appropriately. Then you actually had to decipher the locale, form a group to travel and gather the items or complete the task. Trade zones with person to person interaction. Group adventurer tuning and mechanics that made soloing impossible or a serious setback.
The ugly - anything that takes away from long term character development, the multi-player aspect of adventuring, or invalidates risk vs reward. Guild wars 2 is a shining example of all 3. And my most hated aspect of fantasy mmos - cross genre contamination - like steam punk bleeding into pure fantasy settings.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The amount of people bashing on World of Warcraft makes me think they either could never afford it or just didn't know how to play.
I did, for about two years, and I was good at it (my raid's main healer [Holy Paladin, if you must know] before the guild jumped ship to a server with better raid progression). For a theme-park MMO, WoW did a lot of things right (how could it not have, as it's survived this long), but in terms of the presented narrative, it was terrible and I feel it's only gotten worse.
The most important plot in Pathfinder Online is the plot that emerges as the players meaningfully interact.
It's fully voiced by the players.
This is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I can definitely appreciate wanting to put the "story" in the hands of the players (naturally, as it's a sandbox MMO), though I'm more than a little skeptical that there won't be any narrative presented by the developers.
Are we never gonna see things like even just holiday events? Will the Pathfinder Iconics never appear for anything?
And my most hated aspect of fantasy mmos - cross genre contamination - like steam punk bleeding into pure fantasy settings.
Thankfully Golarion isn't pure fantasy setting so we don't have to worry about that.
This may have been mentioned here or on another thread so, apologies if I repeat a comment previously made.
Why I don't play WoW. Saw the game at walmarts for 60 $ only to realise that you can't use it on its own. To play you had to pay for a monthy fee.
Why I play Guildwars I : because, I pay 60$ for the software and can actually us it to play.
If I have to pay to play your game, don't charge me money to download the software or buy cd's.
What I liked less about Guildwars I was the level cap. I didn't do 1/2 of the missions I recieved befor I was maxed out.
Right now, my computer is to old, but I hope that if I buy a new one, it will be able to handle PFRPG online....
Goblinworks Founder
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I'm just currently eagerly awaiting whatever crumbs of information Ryan and his crew have to share with us. I don't want to list goods or bads of themepark MMOs because I don't really want this game to be anything like them.
I want a skill based game: Check
I want Pathfinder inspired art direction, game and world: Check
I want a true sandbox economy: Check
I want deep dark immersive dungeons, true labyrinths, a maze you can get lost in filled with traps, monsters and treasure to sell back at town (or get robbed trying to cart it all back)
I want a truly risk = reward fantasy environment where venturing into the wilderness might bestow wonderful treasures but those treasure and more could be lost in the process.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I want a true sandbox economy: Check
Yeah, as long as they don't make the same mistakes as EVE Online. I quit playing in 2009, things might have improved since but back then:
1- Implants could not be manufactured by players and only given as mission rewards. It resulted in solo mission grinders controlling the market. Implants were way overpriced.
2- Named loot was better than manufactured Tech 1 and way too easily available. Again there were too many solo "ratters" stock-piling and reselling named modules. In certain areas, it totally killed the Tech 1 market.
3- Tech 2 monopolies. It just sucked.
Speaking of sandbox economy, if the rules stay true to the tabletop, I don't know how I feel about magical items being only craftable by spellcasters. The best a Fighter can do are masterwork weapons and armor right? Enhancing a weapon to +1 requires Craft Magic Arms and Armor, which in turn requires Caster Level 5th.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Speaking of sandbox economy, if the rules stay true to the tabletop, I don't know how I feel about magical items being only craftable by spellcasters. The best a Fighter can do are masterwork weapons and armor right? Enhancing a weapon to +1 requires Craft Magic Arms and Armor, which in turn requires Caster Level 5th.
Per every description of the crafting and harvesting system, there is no intention to make it anything like the tabletop system, materials will need to be harvested, and need a seperate skill to refine, and the crafting and harvesting themselves will not be directly done by the PCs themselves, The skill the PCs train in is a skill to manage NPC workers, meaning that the PC himself's archtype etc... is irrelevant to what he/she can craft.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The most important plot in Pathfinder Online is the plot that emerges as the players meaningfully interact.
It's fully voiced by the players.
I really hope you consider using voice for whatever NPC interactions we do have though. Not professionally paid actors, but community submissions. I know for me having an NPC in PFO that is voiced by me would have me hopping to do it for free. I don't think I am alone in that sentiment, and running a Teamspeak, I can tell you there are some great voices in this community.
Nihimon is one that comes to mind.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The most important plot in Pathfinder Online is the plot that emerges as the players meaningfully interact.
It's fully voiced by the players.
I really hope you consider using voice for whatever NPC interactions we do have though. Not professionally paid actors, but community submissions. I know for me having an NPC in PFO that is voiced by me would have me hopping to do it for free. I don't think I am alone in that sentiment, and running a Teamspeak, I can tell you there are some great voices in this community.
Nihimon is one that comes to mind.
Fully voiced is tricky though. Nihimon could do a stellar job (and I agree having heard his voice on the video he could do it pretty well), but, opening it up to players creates it's own issues. Take me, if you haven't noticed by my posting times, I'm Australian. I would imagine most people would find an Australian accent somewhat jarring in a medieval fantasy world.
And if I did do it, and then stopped playing, and they needed to add dialogue to the character I had voiced, what do they do then? Get someone new to completely redo the character? Would that not also be a little off-putting when your friendly neighbourhood australian goblin suddenly becomes British? Or Russian?
Not that I am against the idea per se, I simply recognise that it's ongoing maintenance is something that can be difficult and I would understand if they would rather spend the resources and time on other avenues.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The big problem with community voicing is that it's hard to get professional quality audio from consumer grade recording setups. You can save money on talent by using people from the GW (or even Paizo) office, but you still need a recording studio to get decent recordings.
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMHO Fantasy online gaming is on a divergent timeline akin to Back to the Future Part 2. When I was playing NWN for a good 2-3 years in a closed, co-op, player generated setting I thought the future of gaming was going to be some sort of Nirvana. It was PnP gaming taken to the next level. But then powergamer- min/maxer Biff stole the sports almanac and here we are 10 years later with Biff's casino (World of Warcraft) in the center of the online fantasy world and a desolate waste of smaller imitations surrounding it for as far as the eye can see.
So while I can say there has been some good games that I have tried, there hasn't been any GREAT games. Pathfinder online has the makings of that but we will see.
The Good:
Age of Conan. I entered the game when it was a year old so I didn't witness the legendarily awful release it had. Good graphics and sound really do go a long way when you are playing a game as much as you play an MMO. The mature setting was great, it was based on one of the best settings ever made. The PVP was very good, chopping another player's head off never got old and the sieges were a step forward even if they had technical failings. All in all i was entertained for a good year. But it had problems too. In the end it was just a better WoW. The dreaded endgame with mindless raiding, the button mashing and the overall concept that gave RP'ers very little to hang their hats on. And of course it was a tank/heal/dps game, another curse that WoW bestowed on the genre.
Guild wars 2. It's the bounce back girlfriend. The sex is boring and you know you will leave her soon, but in the meantime, she never pisses you off, is low maintenance, laid back and she has a pretty face. I'm perfectly happy playing it until something I really love comes along.
The bad
SWTOR Maybe it was the expectations. It was extremely engaging for exactly 3 months (the 4 man dungeons were really good)and then overnight it just felt like WoW and that is really how I gauge games nowadays, "How long before it fells like WoW?" If it didn't have a subscription fee or take up a ludicrous 45GB of space I might still be playing it every now and then, but it's a game that just isn't worth the commitment. The excessive VA was really, really not needed, save it for big events and dungeon story modes thank you.
The Ugly
DDO The graphics were really bad and a pure hack n slash co-op is just not up my alley. I played it for 3 days.
WoW When I say graphics are bad people have to understand I am not talking about in technical terms, I am talking artistically. WoW is not an eyesore because it is clunky it's an eyesore because it has absolutely no sense of beauty or taste. Add to that being the progenitor of everything wrongs with the genre today; monthly subscriptions to grind your brains out, endgame raiding and the tank/heal/dps trinity. WoW is not just an abomination of a bad game, it is a blight to online gaming history and people 20 years from now will laugh very hard at those who spent 6 years playing it.
Agreed, Micman. Tho I never played sw, in general it seems too much money is being spent on concepts borrowed from sp rpgs that actually detract from immersion in mmos. Story, cutscenes, cinimatics, vo, and in some cases music, are the worst offenders. If given the choice they will be muted or turned off / ignored entirely.
@Ryan: I'd much rather a 10th of that would be cost used to create a full and robust sound effects library. To me this is where the focus should be on improving the immersion quality of any game world. For a fraction of the cost, and far greater impact. It's weird running through game worlds hearing footsteps and little else. The same sword sound replayed over and over no matter which weapon type you use and so on. Even tho millions were spent on vo, the sounds that should matter fall flat usually.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going to chime in with two simple things that need to be in a pathfinder game.
Traps. DDO trap system was the best thing about it, rest of the game was a little clunky
/face and /stick. Present in EQ and DAOC they where left out of a majority of later games. These commands did what they sounded like, and were vastly useful. I suspect they where removed because of fear of botting and such, I suspect the crowd that will pick up pathfinder online will not really fall into that category (maturity level wise).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm going to chime in with two simple things that need to be in a pathfinder game.
Traps. DDO trap system was the best thing about it, rest of the game was a little clunky
While I like traps, and I've seen several quotes from Ryan making strong implications that they will indeed exist. Outside of modules I would not expect the same level of depth in traps as DDO had. Namely in that many of DDO's traps were clearly designed with the same dungeon in mind, which also lead to the huge flaw in DDO's traps. Namely that, in a party of 5, 95% of the time, at least one person in the group has run it before, and will shout out the trap location 5 minutes before you approach it.
PFO at least from my understanding, since dungeons will appear and disapear randomly... I find it highly probable that a good portion of their internal content will be randomized. Meaning good and bad things for traps. Good is that no players should know where they are before the start. Bad because the traps won't quite be as smoothly perfectly set for the instance in question.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Good
The character creation in City of Heroes/Villains and Champions Online - is a wonderfully engrossing online game in itself. There's something very satisfying about being able to tweak your online appearance just the way you want it or go wild trying to make a costume that would cause nausea and blindness in nearby viewers.
Absolutely agree with this statement. CoH/CoV were just incredible with the amount of detail you could choose when creating characters. The availability of a wide array of skills was also great.
Now, we see the introduction of the personal story in GW2 to accompany the great character creation. This is one of the aspects I really enjoy about the game and will keep me playing a little while longer.
I also like the World v World in GW2 (and RvR in DaoC).
The bad
Gear treadmill.
Please do not introduce better gear with better stats every quarter/half year. This is one of my biggesy pet hates in online games. I don't mind long term goals, and I don't mind some grinding, but 'new' stuff appearing every few months that makes all your current gear redundant is just a game killer ihmo.
The Good
EQ -
1) JBoots (run speed buff), Orb of Shadows (invisibility), etc... non-stat items that add utility. Granted, the nerfed versions were probably better for game balance. (pre-nerfinstant cast on click vs nerfedshort cast time)
2) Random buff timers for strong utility buffs. Invis vs undead in LGuk brings back fond memories. Charm spells included. It added variance. I'm sure many would disagree on this one. ;)
3) Armor/equipment sidegrades. Click abilities or utility uses for some armor pieces. I used my darkness snare leggings(?) long after the stats no longer mattered on my necro. Swapped out gear depending on the situation due to alternative on wear utility. Even old gear could take forever to get outdated.
4) Keyrings! Even No Rent ones (disappear after logged out for 15 min). Tower of Frozen Shadows comes to mind. (Velious era)
5) East commons tunnel bazaar. (Player driven economy in a not so player friendly economy world. This is a "good" in spite of the game, not because of.
DAOC -
1) Siege Engines. While their implementation left much to be desired, I'd love to see them again.
2) Dyes. Minor gold sink, but allowed a certain amount of freedom in your look.
3) Abilities that triggered off effects. You dodged? This ability is available to use for 5 seconds. Parry? Block? Same concept. Hit ability A, abilities B and C are now usable. More dynamic melee combat. B or C could be anything from a snare, stun, cleave, increased damage, debuff...etc. Less about a "rotation" and more about utility/situational awareness.
SW:Galaxies -
1) Player driven economy.
2) Houses
Eve -
1) Risk vs reward. Encouraged smart(er) play. You learned very quickly to only fly what you could afford to lose.
2) Player driven economy. With the exceptions CaptnB mentioned.
3) Character creation, although it really didn't mean much in game play as you're hardwired into a ship for nearly everything. More detail can lend more "bonding" with your character. That said, it frustrated the heck out of some people... Many a lopsided newbie face. :D
WoW -
1) Transmorg (yes, like many of these, it's not specifically wow's, but I'm only commenting on games I played.) I think I would have liked the DCUO version better...
The Bad
I'll just second what Jiminy said.... Extreme Gear inflation seems to be a leading cause of the arms race between players and developers. I don't have to have an extra 1600 agility on a trinket... That way the boss doesn't need 2 billion more HP, the armor of a sherman tank, but is a caster... Mechanics/options > straight stats.
The Ugly
Pick 83 berries, collect 32856723 fangs off the rare leopard (that there is a whole valley of), and 1 white bunny foot (8 hour rare spawn drop, shares loot table with 8 other items. White foot is 1% drop rate)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I tried to get into WoW three times, but frankly, by level 25ish I was so bored I just ended up not logging in again. Also, the number of people that treat WOW like it's a job or a chore "I can't come out tonight, I have a raid" or "i have to leave by 4, got a raid on" - it seemed to stop being a game and started being a necessary task. All because they needed the right stuff from the right place to do something else they actually wanted to do.
In an mmo I don't like to be the centre of attention, I don't think the players should be the main character in the world. It's kind of like reading a version of lord of the rings where every single person is the legendary Aragon.
Story is nice, it's nice to feel like you're contributing to the world, but to have the world revolve around you? While simultaneously revolving around everyone else? I find it very difficult for rp. You essentially have to ignore the storyline because of the awkward fact that everyone you meet has a nearly identical history.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The Good - Investigation quests from The Secret World. These were essentially puzzle/adventure game quests that would have you deciphering clues, cracking codes or googling ISBN # for books etc. While some were sometimes very obtuse, they were an excellent change of pace from all the other combat oriented quests.