Random (M)MORPG thoughts

[Xenich]

You know, the more I think about it... as it concerns "contested content" MMOs and the problems... One thing I think that would be a good solution (outside of instances) which would curb excessive farming and the like would be everything is "no drop" off world and dungeon mobs. Crafting then has its own items, which are less than dropped gear in terms of quality and power, and these items could be traded freely.

The twist, and this is based off the idea @Stack of Turtles mentioned about modifying gear, would be that a dropped item, even though "no drop" could then be taken to a crafter who could then through a special trade window for no-drop, could then modify, alter, upgrade that dropped item using both other "no drop" world items along with crafted items and the like to create more advanced pieces.

This would curb the "camping for money items" that people do to play the AH game, making world drops only sought after for those who actually need and use them. You would still have trade, but it would be specific to need (ie I need a crafter to upgrade my item) and of course standard crafted items would still be a part of the trade system.

It won't change all the other issues you run into with contested content, but... it removes the incentive for people to lock down mobs/camps just to farm high value items for trade. You would only seek a world/dungeon drop because you the player need it, not because it will fetch you a pretty penny on the market. If you want to play the trade game, you become a crafter and trade your goods and services.

Seems like it would solve a lot of the problems player trade has on a contested world system like that.

[DemoGraph]

it removes the incentive for people to lock down mobs/camps just to farm high value items for trade

Properly sized world and challenging encounters also solve this problem.

[Xenich]

it removes the incentive for people to lock down mobs/camps just to farm high value items for trade

Properly sized world and challenging encounters also solve this problem.

Not sure if this is true, do you have some examples where you have seen this?

I mean, take EQ for instance. Even during PoP in its prime, it was still extremely difficult to catch key important item camps. I mean, that was the main game + 4 full expansions, and yet... the FBSS was still heavily camped during PoP non-stop due to "twinking" being a major focus of a lot of players. If the item is valuable at that level, someone will be camping it... and in reality, you will NEVER have enough content to appeal to this concept from a starting company, it isn't a practical design focus.

As for challenging, nope.. there is always a gimmick, always a way to learn a fight and lock it down. Hell, I watched Necros do some serious solo camping of mobs I couldn't believe was possible to kill solo, and they were rough fights for a group. Not to mention, my guild specialized in trying to do raid mobs with the absolute minimum people and with the most ridiculous setups. I can't imagine the many players today wanting to deal with the level of difficulty EQ release and later expansions content was for raiding (they developers specifically tried to make some end content impossible to keep players busy for the next expansion, and even then... people still ended up finding ways).

So challenge and size honestly isn't enough to keep this problem in check.

[Sinfield]

How do you prevent bots and wikis in 2026?
... DO you need to prevent bots? Do current MMO players even care that they're 2nd class citizens?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

How do you prevent bots and wikis in 2026?
... DO you need to prevent bots? Do current MMO players even care that they're 2nd class citizens?

Bots:

1. Hard anti-cheat policy. Level botting via FATEs, questing, and dungeons would not be rampant in FF14 if the devs bothered to detect for it.

2. Economy needs to be designed so that players do not have a strong motivation to become an RMT customer and thus encourage some people to become bot farmers. You also do not want the easiest way to make a lot of money able to be easily RMTed. See FF14 where you have the lethal combination of players wanting to buy a house, but needing dozens of millions of gil to do so, but the easiest way to make gil is to have a bot manage a lot of different guild submarines for you. Hence why RMT is rampant in FF14 with severe inflation that makes it increasingly difficult for new players to get their foot in their door and people giving up and RMTing, and a game director who is asleep at the wheel and thinks that players putting in a LOT of effort to find a treasure cheat to only get 100k is supposed to be "rewarding".

3. Add in randomization that makes it difficult for bots to function competently without being detected. Ie mining minigames that require skill.

4. You need a support/GM team that is actually paid and is tasked to investigate tickets. It's no good if you see hundreds of nonsensically named boomkins running around the beach on Zuldazar casting moonfire on the mobs, or seeing a train of nonsensically named Lalafell port in and run in single file line, only for the GMs not to do anything about your report.

5th hard fallback: implementation of PLEX or WoW token that officializes RMT somewhat, with some markup. Because most people will just buy the safest and easiest version of gold for USD, this will kill off most RMT botters outside of people who live in extremely poor countries like Argentina.

Yes you need to prevent bots, otherwise there is massive gold inflation and people rationalize that it is more worth while to work a job and just spend some of their hourly wages on RMT rather than to actually play the game. Which causes people to engage less and less with the game, feel less immersed if people aren't crafting or participating in trades or the AH or forming farm groups, etc. Seeings lots of bots also demoralizes players and makes them lose trust in the developers.



Wikis

Randomization of basic aspects of the games such as the requirements to level up or obtaining a skill being unique per player, meaning that players can't just go consult a guide on where to get X. Asheron's Call dipped it's toes into this IIRC. The stats and formulas of items and abilities could also be randomized per player, preventing the community from arriving at a consensus meta strat or build that everybody copies. For some players, so and so build might actually be better for them than others, but with enough randomization and obfuscation, players will probably not thoroughly investigate on fully figuring this out and will just give up on that and play the game.

The game should explain itself well so that players do not need to constantly alt+tab out to get basic information such as droprates, ability interactions, how to unlock the ability to queue for why content, etc. WoWhead, Warcraft wiki gg, Icy Veins, etc, do a better job of explaining basic game mechanics than the actual game. That's bad. FF14 does a mildly better job but it's still not good, and worse the information is split across many different discords rather than a couple go-to websites. You also want to prevent this because people will be in for a bad experience if they have to look up information, join a discord that is controlled by freaks and has to deal with them, etc.

[rusty_shackleford]

devs do nothing to combat cheating, a lot of players would quit in protest if they knew

[Boontaker]

Did you know Guild Wars 2s is full of 40+ gamers? I didn't and it was a shock when I joined a public guild discord to go on an open world even. Nobody was talking about the game or strats or anything like that (far too easy to be necessary). Instead it was like a VOIP Facebook page in discord.

[Sinfield]

devs do nothing to combat cheating, a lot of players would quit in protest if they knew

I think smart players "quietly" leave as the game gets worse.
I've seen it happen personally in Star Trek Online. It took years, but the average player now is abysmal.
In Helldivers 2 a guy accidentally hit a few bullets on a ally and they decided to retaliate by killing him twice. Not something that happened often back when the game was better.

People who play MMOs might be able to attest, though I don't know how many people pay attention to this kind of stuff.

[Boontaker]

devs do nothing to combat cheating, a lot of players would quit in protest if they knew

I think smart players "quietly" leave as the game gets worse.
I've seen it happen personally in Star Trek Online. It took years, but the average player now is abysmal.
In Helldivers 2 a guy accidentally hit a few bullets on a ally and they decided to retaliate by killing him twice. Not something that happened often back when the game was better.

People who play MMOs might be able to attest, though I don't know how many people pay attention to this kind of stuff.

Players who take the time to learn the mechanics of the game, and how to fully utilize them see the cracks long before the average does. However developers tend to cater to the majority, adding brightly colored balloons and other cheap gimmicks while balance issues and game breaking bugs that only the top 10% notice get ignored for years. It's happened in nearly every multiplayer game I have played. Over time it has caused me to become very jaded when it comes to online games, there is always a meta because the devs never seem to figure out that bigger number better.

[DemoGraph]

it removes the incentive for people to lock down mobs/camps just to farm high value items for trade

Properly sized world and challenging encounters also solve this problem.

Not sure if this is true, do you have some examples where you have seen this?

Haven and Hearth.

So challenge and size honestly isn't enough to keep this problem in check.

If there's no challenge, if combat could be algorithmized, then mobs aren't randomized and challenging enough.

[Xenich]

Properly sized world and challenging encounters also solve this problem.

Not sure if this is true, do you have some examples where you have seen this?

Haven and Hearth.

So challenge and size honestly isn't enough to keep this problem in check.

If there's no challenge, if combat could be algorithmized, then mobs aren't randomized and challenging enough.

Never played it. That said, nothing is truly random, there is always a pattern in play. Even if there isn't a consistent pattern, there is a progression of patterns. Most people couldn't handle a complete random system of play that constantly adjusts without cycle (In the end, it is easy to develop a system that everyone fails at, the key is developing one they can defeat through an application of strategy developed by observation and skill, this is the essence of gaming).

My point is, if this is your goal, truly randomized and inconsistent patterns developed to force failure, you pretty much eliminated 90% of your gaming base (and no, I am not making this as an argument for the mainstream). The reality is, games are always made with solutions that are reasonable and practical to a means, if that wasn't the goal, most people wouldn't play them because they could not defeat them. Make no mistake, a developer will ALWAYS defeat the player if that is their true goal, but the point of a game in this is to push them to the limits of what is "reasonable" for them to achieve such.

The problem with modern games is everyone is viewed as a complete idiot and rather than applying "game challenge" concepts, they focus on "carrots" to lead them around.

Point is, "challenge", isn't a viable means to negate the problem we are discussing.

[anvi]

I was checking out RedGuides for the latest Macroquest for EQ. Shocked to see a bunch of them have pronouns in their profiles on discord. Wtf...

[Tweed]

Did you know Guild Wars 2s is full of 40+ gamers? I didn't and it was a shock when I joined a public guild discord to go on an open world even. Nobody was talking about the game or strats or anything like that (far too easy to be necessary). Instead it was like a VOIP Facebook page in discord.

I guess it's considered the de facto casual MMO. I wouldn't know, I never played it. All the officially branded casual MMOs like Free Realms are long since turned to dust.

[rusty_shackleford]

Maybe of interest to @Kalarion (it has browser play + looks to be turn-based)
https://retro-mmo.com/

[rusty_shackleford]

Monster Farm Online AKA Monster Rancher Online(2007), never let Japan, don't think it ever left beta.
Monster Farm Online
Monster Farm Online trial00

[rusty_shackleford]

rip

Selection_006.webp

[Val the Moofia Boss]

rip

DAOC was made in 18 months by 25 devs.

Camelot Unchained began in 2012 and had up to 55 devs working on it.

[Vaako]

rip

DAOC was made in 18 months by 25 devs.

Camelot Unchained began in 2012 and had up to 55 devs working on it.

And the graphics/artstyle also look worse. Was just a scam by Mark Jacobs.

[Xenich]

rip

DAOC was made in 18 months by 25 devs.

Camelot Unchained began in 2012 and had up to 55 devs working on it.

Yep, EQ was made with 11 devs and took 3 years and a million dollars. Everything was custom built, even innovating a way to handle the networking. Different times.