Some bad ideas here.. no classes and an entirely skill based system like in UO leads to everyone being a TankMage which sounds great at first.. but in the long run gets boring really fast.

And yet another MMORPG article from a "veteran" of MMORPG's that thinks the genre started with UO.

And scaling raid encounters makes zero sense.. WHY would anyone bother taking more than the absolute minimum required for an encounter? Unless every person there gets loot it would only make sense to take the smallest amount of people required and simply make 10 groups then each getting loot rather than 1 big group.

While I wouldn't think that the genre started with UO, UO is really what made it viable, in my eyes. From UO, you got EQ, SWG, DAoC, FFXI, and on down the line to what we have now. If it wasn't for UO, I'm pretty sure MMOs would have wound up DoA.

Looking over the article, it seems like he's pushing an uncapped classless system, similar to UO. He doesn't want any loot, so there's an element from Planetside. All in all, it seems like he wants an MMO with the worst features of games that have gone before. Beyond that, he wanted to gripe about stupid people in MMOs.

As for my thoughts on the matter, I do like the so-called classless MMOs. SWG and the upcoming Tabula Rasa are both prime examples of this. SWG was a tree'd progression system originally, allowing you to mix and match classes and abilities to a point. Tabula Rasa is a tree progression system based on levels instead of total skill points.

As for loot, I think it's fairly essential that you have some system to reward players beyond leveling up. After all, carrot & stick approaches only work if there's a carrot. I don't think an MMO without some sort of carrot could be very successful.

Then again, I'd like to see the way the finances for for WoW when new subscribers drop off. Maybe it's best to have plot enemy leaders die, so that they can shut down the servers eventually.

Here's a thought: When I was young, we were all pretty torn up about Kurt Cobain's death. When Blizzard finally shuts down WoW, will the current generation act the same way?

From looking at the videos, I believe is taking on more of a "twitched" base play. Similar to DDO and Tabula Rasa.

As a player and resolutely non-twitch gamer I'm a little nervous about real-time combat. I can only think of "swoosh goes the sword!" mouse-based controls like in Morrowind and Thief. Auto-pilot combats can be boring, but it beats timed repetitions of button presses or

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I don't have a remedy. I thought, "Well, why are we fighting so much anyway?" and "Why is PvP becoming more prevalent?" That there should be combat in a (let's say) fantasy world is pretty much a given, and even I'll agree with that. I just think it's a cop-out to make that the center of the game.

As for skills, I'd like to pick and choose a little. Auto Assault took a Diablo 2 kind of approach, in which you had class-specific skills, and "general" skills that you shared with everybody or other classes. In essence you had two trees of three branches each. Level in your chosen class "unlocked" some skills.

Horizons made a neat twist on the class/profession thing. You could change your class, simple as that. If you're a monk today, you can start leveling as a fighter tomorrow, and someday come back and pick up monking where you left off.

You're completely correct that we've already covered this ground. However, I was simply covering this point not to recreate a useless argument from a previous thread, but to simply acknowledge that there does need to be some thought generated toward this. I'm pretty sure that I spoke in broad generalities about 'dynamic' and had no intention of producing anything other than the prevailing thoughts of those that love the MMORPG genre, but hate its current state.

That being said, your pessimism and abject contrary-ness that you thinly veil in 'being realistic' is getting quite tiresome as well, without really adding anything to this, or previous arguments. I'm not saying you should simply step off the bus on this at all; I do value your opinions 95% of the time, but I'm not quite sure why this particular issue among seemingly all the others, seems to stick in your craw so much.

As I've stated before, there are tons of ways that MMORPG games could break from their static natures and begin the process of rolling on their own into their own player-constructed futures. It doesn't have to happen with one big game, but with simple steps that lead to the next. Its not about 'dynamic' games (a phrase in which we've pretty much ruined) but more about creating a game that has, in some sense, a feeling of 'continual' completion for a player. We use dynamic to address that, but I don't know that the concepts surrounding that word and associated with that phrase necessarily are congruent with our arguments.

Bunny-hopping in MMORPGs would be the death of them.

The phrase "real-world handicap" is ironically appropriate to my point of view. I try to be at least a little egalitarian, and feel that escapism in moderate doses is a great gift to disabled gamers. Although making ludicrous shots is something no one should be able to do, everyone should be able to have that "I am big strong he-man" feeling now and again. Ritualized PvP that can't be "gamed" would be enough of that aspect to satisfy the Killer type of MMORPG player.

As for dynamism, it's interesting you mentioned weather effects and day/night cycles. The next step I thought was NPCs going about routines tied to the day/night cycles. Then it's a matter of NPCs having some notion of a player's reputation, a la CoH passers-by saying things like "I heard The Defenestrator sodomized some Hellions last night!" A nice advancement would be to have AI limited in what they do/can learn; people have complained about Oblivion NPCs being all, "Holy f*ck, you're that dude who stole a piece of toast on another continent five minutes ago!"

It seems to me that a great deal of the facts about MMO's in general come out of the common misunderstandings about games, gamers, and success. What we "˜believe' and "˜know' much of the time comes from forums like this one, which in general is populated by people who have a pre-conceived notion of the subject before they experience, if they do indeed experience it at all. To be fair that has been true since the days when forums were ten guys sitting around a hot convention hall discussing what Napoleon should have done at Waterloo. Also to be fair, it is almost impossible to not have some bias about a situation though most people are never upfront enough to let you know they may be biased before beginning their diatribes. So before I begin mine, I will be up front and say I think that while MMO's as a whole have been a wonderful innovation, they are not within themselves very innovative and I find the MMO industry to be an artistically sick dog.

MMO's are the current evolution of a strain that started when the first wargamer or monopoly player pointed to their playing piece and said "I wonder what it would be like to be this guy?" The next step was the pen and paper RPG. At some point, some D&D or Runequest player was playing Pitfall or some other arcade game and imagined, what if Pitfall guy had an armor class? At the same time the text adventures and early computer rpgs were beginning to cut their teeth. Almost in parallel the text based game and their visual brethren began to develop, with the text games seeming to hit new broad ground in terms of scope while the visual games focused on effects and visceral satisfaction.

Then came the MUDs and MUCKs on one side and multi-player on the other. Eventually the text based MMO's came with pictures. All along however, there has remained the question: "I wonder what it would be like to be this guy?" In my opinion that question has still to be answered. The MMO player is still pushing a piece around a board. The toons we create and dress up are still doing nothing more then gaining currency to buy property. The difference is that in Monopoly there is a point at which someone can be declared a winner and the game over, not a good thing for an MMO maybe but, and that the property in Monopoly is unique. Once owned it has to be pried out of the player's hand by the machinations of other players or in some cases, sheer dumb luck.

I think that is the unique and "˜dynamic' game experience many MMO players are seeking. When I kill a trog, I might get a sheepskin even though the toon for the trog might have carried a shield and an axe. Well, why do I not get his shield and axe? It has nothing to do with it being hard to program it has everything to do with "that's how it has always been done." Over and over many players publically complain about collection quests and yet, designers, experienced designers, keep making these quests. Why? "that's how it has always been done." What it comes down to is complacency. McDonald's could make their burgers tastier and for not much more money, why don't they? There is no need to. MMO designers could make unique spawns that, say once one hundred of them were killed in mountain X, that spawn point went dead and a new spawn point comes open in Mountain Y. They could also develop a system that does not involve classes and offers a fair and balanced progression of power for each player. The programming is not more difficult the companies apparently just do not see the need for such.

So MMO's do not provide us, yet, that unique experience of being "that guy". Of living "that guy's" life in some realistic way and making a real impact on "that guy's" world. In reality most of them are not doing anything different then putting a new coat of paint on the same old pen & paper clones that came after the initial rush of RPGs.

One last thing I wanted to address was the notion of success. I see quite a few people saying something like "UO failed"…" which to me seems odd. The game went on for quite a few years and is still well thought of. I am not sure how that could be construed a failure at least in a general sense. To measure every game against WOW would be unrealistic. Financially it is a fantastic success (one would think) but artistically I am not sure that it is. It could very well be that there are convenience factors (opportunity costs) that make WOW the most popular game even though artistically it is not the best game. So for anyone to want to copy WOW and think that will bring them "success" is probably ignoring the fact that Blizzard as a company does an excellent job of making their game accessible and easy to get into as well as marketing it, which I would imagine has a greater impact on the success of WOW then its gameplay.

Note: when I say "artistically / art/ etc"…" I mean the broad term for the art form that is MMO's and not specific graphics or such

I call dibs on tagging you the "Nutty Professor".

I can respect that point of view, and enjoy cooperative gameplay; but I still can't shake the feeling that I, the player, should be doing something instead of just watching my character wave his weapon around. That's cool that your kind of MMO's are popular. What makes me wish for a genre kick in the balls is how the entire frikkin' catalog of MMO's cater to your tastes and zero cater to mine.

Just to be clear, my tastes do not include bunny-hopping, which is a consequence of poor game design and not an unavoidable fault of action games.

For the record, I heartily disagree with PVB's well written post. These forums are of a different breed. Sure, we make assumptions, but our assumptions are based on informed opinions from lengthy experience with MMO's. We further refine our positions, as I dont think anyone here would maintain a position in the face of others experiences if we had refused personal experiences of our own. We also definitely dont fit one mold of thought here.

Current MMO mechanics arent derived from the way its always been done. They are derived from what has worked from as far back as MUD's. The limitations of how many people a server can handle caused the invention of the autoattack combat we see today. If I only sample a player character's position and actions every second or two I can sample more characters at once than if I sampled them multiple times a second. The reason autoattack hasnt gone away is that while connections and server technology have vastly improved, developers chose to apply that technology into making the world more living by being able to handle more player controlled characters on screen rather than giving more action based control to fewer characters.

Lastly, for me, the RP is about the growth of my character. I dont want to barely kill rats with a bent twig at the start and I dont want everything handed to me either. Likewise I want there to be challenges at the highest levels but I dont want a second job, er I mean raiding.

An exploration of an extension of me. Do I have to experiment with different personalities in order to role play?

I'm not sure I understand.

I'd like to read the Danjo ideal of what an ideal role-playing online game would be, so I have a baseline for where you're coming from.

I hope these forums are a different breed although you do fine nuggets of true gold in some forums from time to time. That does not make them any less forumy... Again though to be perfectly honest I am a bit jaded on forums

Your point about mechanics is well stated but it is not entirely what I was getting at. To answer it specifically I will just say that Planetside required you to pull a trigger as do many muti-player games so although yes, for a game like WOW or EQ, the auto attack feature seems to do very well. What I was referring to and what I think most people are referring to when speaking of "˜dynamic' is content. You are right, we have been doing the same thing since MUDs and that includes killing rats etc"… We go to an appropriate zone and fight appropriately skilled enemies. It does not have to be that way because designing a zone or area is a design choice not entirely governed by the mathematics of server mechanics.

A couple things I wanted to comment on here:

#1&#2 I think is really a battle over nomenclature. In a pen & paper RPG there is difference in game play there is a difference in game play between the class and non-class oriented games, but you are still dealing with the mathematical realities of random die rolls. Progression of strength etc"… can be represented any way we wish, but it still comes down to all those invisible variables. Where the author is headed, I think, is towards a system which does not represent power via a class level. There is something limiting about being or seeing a Level 42 Paladin as opposed being or seeing Joe X. In a PvP area if you came upon Joe X, he might be shabbily dressed but be pretty bad axe with his zweihander and you suddenly find yourself ganked by a hobo. Your point is well taken though that it is a matter of personal preference. What is being expressed is that: people tired of playing in Class systems. Mechanically I am not sure the class vs. skill debate really changes much.

#5 - This I do have a bit of a problem with. I agree that a more personalized or unique set of content would be more difficult to implement but not impossible to do so. Again, most what goes on is governed by simple programming (when you get down to it) If X, then Y. If mob x dies, respawn mob x in 230 seconds. How hard would it be to have that once mob x dies y number of times, then spawn point a shuts down and spawn point b opens up. A server message goes out "Mob X trogs have been driven from the east swamp. A new tribe is forming in the eastern badlands!" True dynamic content may be a ways off but an interim step would be some dynamic illusionism of the sort I just described. For unique encounters, a dragon appears in the Dwarfale Valley. Some players kill it. Next patch day a new dragon with different skills and a different name spawns. So while in the game as a whole, the uniqueness might not be present, on a server basis steps could be taken in that direction.