Comments on: Dissecting Awful MMO Mechanics – Part 1

By: scrusi

scrusi — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:54:36 +0000

Indeed, I’m actually quite grateful that Keen posted his series – even if I hardly agree with any of his points. He’s given me a lot to respond to, and even created a bit of doubt in my mind concerning game mechanics. Maybe mechanics can have a good effect even if they are awful. Punishing people who fall off the boat is a terrible way of making travel meaningful but maybe this shows us that we definitely should have a mechanic in place that does just that. One should make it more interesting though
scrusi´s last [type] ..Paying to Keep the Casuals Away

By: Longasc

Longasc — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:30:24 +0000

I will read your two other postings about old mechanics that were supposedly great (at least according to Keen) later.

So far I could only break it down to two aspects:

1. Bad things could happen to players in early MMOs. Nowadays if you fall from a cliff and die, it might be an achievement! Besides a very low repair bill it won’t hurt you.

2. There was danger and excitement. True, this is the same as point 1….

MMOs were new and exciting – but I doubt it was due to the mechanics. MMO mechanics were always crude and primitive, and nowadays I still wonder that 99% of all MMOs have not found any alternative to the flawed trinity concept of combat. As if it would be the only possible solution.

Regarding Item Weight vs Inventory Slots: the true issue is that MMOs reward you to loot and bring to the merchant as much as possible. To the very last stone of weight or the very last item slot.

We pick up everything to collect or sell it. We carry around a huge assortment of weapons and armors. Our resist X/Y/Z armors, our general armor, etc.

There are also hybrids. Diablo for instance has items that take up 2×3 fields of the grid instead of only one.

There is a fight between convenience, reducing player income and the almost mandatory need to pick up as much as possible to turn it into coin. It is also connected to mob drops: Should every mob have as loot what he visibly carries? Sword, armor, helmet, some coin?

Super large grid inventories turn us into loot sucking vacuum cleaners. Small inventories can be annoying, as they will be always filled.

It is hard to find the right, sweet spot here. Opinions can very greatly what a “meaningful travel time” is. Some say the instant travel in Guild Wars totally breaks their illusion. At the same time, they have no problem with the hearthstone and Mages being the kings of instant travel to many locations.

Seems Keen really stirred up a good discussion there. If he would only not always go for the extremes, his extreme hyping of games followed by instant damnation to hell a few weeks later is legendary by now.

By: We Fly Spitfires

We Fly Spitfires — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:52:14 +0000

Totally agree with your take on Darkness. For me, it’s not even about the day/night cycle but rather those areas that are so dark you can’t see 3 feet in front of you. It was incredibly annoying in the original EQ and had to be overcome by equipping items of getting Infra/Ultravision. Unfortunately it only really affected newbies too because most veterans had found ways to permanently negate it and thus make the whole mechanic pointless.

I’d be happy to see Darkness (pardon the pun) return as a device in high level dungeons to help increase immersion or make encounters more challenging and scary. It shouldn’t be used in the open world though.
.-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..How Do Developers Determine Class Balance? =-.

By: Belthil

Belthil — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:01:40 +0000

I think the item weight problem goes very well along with what you wrote about all the trash dropping. sure its annoying if you have to pick up 5 swords per enemy. If drops where rare but more meaningfull itemweight might be a good concept. Maybe one can build around it? its not ver immersing if you go gathering herb in westfall in full platemail
darkness usually annoys me. on my screen it usually fails since its set bright enough so that i can still see.
Falling of the boat… thats plain stupid and should be punished accordingly. as far as travel in general goes it would be nice if the way to the dungeon would be part of the adventure. The boats in world of warcraft wold also be ok if the travel itself meant something. if places would matter i mean but i think you wrote something about that as well.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:56:14 +0000

Time of day doesn’t bother me… unless it’s important for progress. Interesting events and quests that can only happen at certain times make a world more interesting, but they need to be tangential and optional, methinketh.

Oh, and on travel… if something is given meaning by how much it sucks, well, that’s meaning I’d rather live without.
.-= Tesh´s last blog ..Machine Solvable =-.