I recently started playing again. This time I began a new character on the Elendilmir Server, because I found out a good gaming buddy was playing there.  I was invited to join a pretty nice guild, The Knights of Amon Sul. They seem like a good group of people, with a strong leadership team.  They have been helpful in answering so many questions. (Thanks Kin!)

LoTRO is a very well written game, that tries to be as true to the Lore of the Books, as much as possible in an MMO environment. (Actually sometimes to the detriment of the MMO genre - but I digress)

There is something magical, and fun about starting out as a new elf, only to meet up with Elrond!  If you are a Tolkien fan, it’s what dreams are made of.  The quests are actually pretty engaging. The solo instances for the Introduction allow you to immediately feel like you are in Middle Earth.

After the tutorial, you arrive at your home starting town. From there you can get quests, learn a craft, take a horse to other starting areas, or visit a trainer.  Most of the quests are the ‘kill 10′ or “fetch this”, but they often hide that within the lore and cutaway cinematics. I like when games take the time to hide that I am just killing 1000 more Orcs  to get a million more experience.

I decided to take up a couple of trade-skills, to earn some cash. There is a hard and fast rule to making money in any game like this.  If the server is new, camp sentient NPC’s like orcs, and sell the loot to other newbies needing gear. If the server is older and established, they don’t want your crummy level 10 drops.  Take up a tradeskill that collects items that high levels can use to skill up their trades.

So on one I chose the Profession of Explorer. (In Lord of the Rings you choose trades in groups of three)  The Explorer can gather wood, ores, and gems. They can also tan the leathers. My main chose farming. (No I don’t mean Chinese Gold farming, or BOTTING) I mean putting seeds in the ground, and growing Taters.  Farming is extremely tedious and boring, which is why high levels will pay others to grow the veggies!  For the most part, the tradeskills in LOTRO are nothing to write home about. They are auto-combines, ala WoW.  Nothing like Vanguard or EQ2.  I prefer a trade that requires I be engaged, but that is not the case.

After a week, I had enough to buy my house, and mounts for all three of my characters at 35. I also had 10 extra gold, so I can gear them up, and buy spells as I go. Now it was time to start leveling them.  I am one of those players that refuses to beg. I don’t expect anyone to gear me up, or hand me money just because I am low level.

I really could not decide which class to play.  None are really the class archetypes I prefer. There is no druid, or plate wearing cleric. There is no enchantress.

I created a Hunter, Rune Keeper, and Minstrel.  I am playing them all, to see which I like best.  I had hoped that I would know by the time they were all 20, but none are jumping out saying..YES.. I love this character.  (Maybe by 25) One of the best parts of the character advancement, is the ‘Virtues’ system.   As you do quests around the world, you gain many titles, but you often gain skills. They are called Virtues, and you may go to an NPC, and choose which ones you want to have on at the time. (Sort of like perma-buffs)  I like it, anytime a game tries to have ways to ‘customize’ your character build.  This one is nice because you have to earn each one, which again hides the grind of killing yet another 100 wolves. It reminds me of the Everquest AA system.  Still a grind, but with a purpose.

The world is very beautiful. From the pretty sky, right down to the last little Hobbit Hole.  There was no fault I could find with the artwork in the game.  It runs smoothly, and has very few bugs that I have found. The music is ok. It’s not amazing, but it’s not annoying either.

The player-base seems to be more mature than in some games.  The OOC chatter is helpful, or funny, or just friendly. I have never had to turn off any chat channels because they became too annoying. (Let’s just say, I survived the Barrens chat channel)  If I decide to stay in Middle Earth for a bit, it will be the players and not the game that keeps me there.

Next, it was off to the Elven housing area. Time to get my own piece of Eriador.  I chose a small cottage on a stream. It has a dock in the back-yard where I can fish. I am not terribly impressed with the housing in the game. (read this and this for more about that)

There are some things that could be better.  Things that become tedious for no reason, are not fun. Games should not contain anything that becomes repetitive, unless they absolutely have to.  For example, and I know it’s a small thing, but the mail system in the game is awful.  You can not get any fancy UI add-on’s, like you could in WoW to fix it.  It’s a regular time sink!  If you have a bag full of items to send to a friend or alt, you could easily spend 10-15 minutes just at the mailbox..typing..clicking..confirming…repeat repeat.  There is no batch mailing.  There is no shared bank space, so you have to mail things to your Alts.

Another example is the Auction house. For some reason that eludes me, you can only list 30 items at a time for sale.  I could understand it, if it were per account… But it’s per character.  So it’s nothing to do with trying to control exploits, or gold sellers.  For me it’s just stupid..list half my produce with one character. Mail the other half –OH NO –back to the mailbox — to another character so she can list the rest.  The auction house is ‘Kludgy”, unrefined, more like the Bazaar in EQ 5 years ago.  Many of the UI features, that I have come to expect are lacking in the game. It’s playable, it does the job, but it’s not as customizable as I would want.  I hate that I can’t make notes on my map.

I really love the quests, the exploration, the virtue system, and the lore of the game.  Most important, I really like the player-base! (The only other time I have found a group of players this nice is in a closed Friends and Family Beta of EQ2)  It’s rare to find so many literate people in one game!  I can actually decipher what people are saying in chat.   That’s almost reason enough to play.

All-in-All the game is fun, but I am concerned I can’t find a character class that I like.  Our Avatar’s, in any game,  are the single most important thing. I can have fun, even if I don’t like the tradeskills.  I can enjoy it if  it has more raiding or PVP than I prefer.  I can even play games that do not have great epic quests, or fantastic lore.

I am not sure I can stay in a game, if I don’t somehow find a way to actually like one of my characters!

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

I met Ellery, back in 1999 in Everquest.  He was still a high school student, and very silly.  It’s now 10 years later, and he is still very silly, which is why I wanted to highlight him.

When Everquest first began, players were not very concerned about leveling to end-game. (which was a good thing, since I don’t think most of the end-game content was actually finished yet)  Most of us wandered around aimlessly.  It was not unusual to find us all in ‘the tunnel’  of the Commonlands.  We would be shouting to sell our bronze swords, dueling, teaching languages, dancing, and drinking.  That’s where Ellery comes in. He had a character named Twyl.

He was the guild leader of a band of nuts!  The guild name was “Drunkards of Norrath”, and they were dedicated to having fun, and passing out Ale to every person they met.  I belonged to an all dark elf guild. (We didn’t care that we would not have all the classes needed to raid. That didn’t even occur to us!)  Our guild spent time protecting Nektulos Forest. It was before the ‘play-nice’ policy, and we would train guards to any goodie human who stepped into the zone to hunt.

Twyl was always around the forest. He could be found passing out ale, weapons, or just joking around.  He was always willing to pass the time of day.

Fast forward a few years….

Now all of us have leveled. We have taken down Naggy and Vox.  We have visited the planes of Fear and Hate. No one is in Nek forest anymore.  No one is in the tunnel.  We are all out trying to level, and get more AA’s.  Along comes Twyl.

What is he is dropping on the sand near my feet?

Pick it up..oh of course..its ALE!!  (drink the ale - watch Twyl strip and do a dance - watch Twyl run off to give someone else a beer)

He never lost that desire to have fun. He would go from zone to zone, camp to camp, just dropping booze for everyone.  Don’t get me wrong. He leveled, he raided, he did all the things players do.  (He was honestly one of the best enchanters I ever met.) The difference is, he never forgot to have fun.

He never let leveling get in the way of a party.  He would show up for any roleplay wedding, or dueling in the Arena.

Fast forward again…

Twyl finished high-school and college.  He went on to be a quest designer for Everquest 2.  He has since left SOE, and joined a new company.

I recently ran into him on Facebook.  And I found a pleasant surprise…Twyl has not changed ONE BIT, and I hope he never does.

Twyl has his own blog.

If you want to see how truly silly he is…in real life, then check out his haircut here!

I only have one more thing to say, “Hey Ellery, is it true what they say about dark elves?”

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

Everquest 2

Ultima Online

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Lord of the Rings Online

Star Wars Galaxies

Many other popular games could not be included, because they don’t have player or guild housing.

I decided to write an accompanying blog about what designers could do to make housing more fun and useful in MMORPG’s. I also detailed the shortcomings of current housing. For now, lets get on with the award for the BEST, at the current state of gaming development!

LOTRO came in dead last. The housing isn’t worth the time they put into developing it.

Vanguard’s is nice, but more time and effort than many players would have. You have to actually build the house, after buying many many many many bricks. I don’t want to spend a lifetime building a home. I just want to have one, and put my treasures in it.

Ultima Online gets an honorable mention, for being the first to make housing viable.

That left a choice between EQ2 and SWG. It was a hard decision, because both of them are implemented quite well. Ultimately, I had to choose EQ2 because the housing is within the major cities, and therefore encourages more player interaction. It helps keep cities from becoming deserted. (For more about that read my Dear Designer article)

Here are just some of the reasons that EQ2 wins:

1. You can buy crafting machines and set them up in your home (you must earn the reputation to get good ones.)

2. You can set up items for sale, and access the bazaar right from your apartment. If a buyer makes the trip to your house to buy it, they can save money by not paying the Auction House fees.

3.There is additional storage in the apartments.

4. There are items that you earn in game that become trophies for your apartment, after you have outgrown them.

5. Special quest rewards, holiday decorations, and fun pets add to the fun in the game.

6. Crafters can make very nice displays to sell the items they make. If they place them in special sales containers, they save some of the auction fees. There are even Mannequin’s to display your designs. Using the simple Mannequin at the left, this player created a beautiful room to display her tailoring wares.

There is a nice mix of quest rewards, faction vendors and player made items. Each apartment becomes unique, and actually reflects the character’s travels and journey through the game. It’s actually like reading a character’s adventure journal. You can walk around and see the trophies, and other accomplishments.

Most important, and the reason that EQ2 wins this award, is they allow the players to have some creativity! You can move things around pretty much wherever you want. You can experiment with using items that are intended for one thing, to do another. You can stack items. If you put an item on a table, and remove the table, the item remains where it was. (floating in the air) This might sound crazy at first, but it lends itself to VERY creative things being done by players.

What can you do with these three items?
	You can make this …

Another player took these…	And made this…

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

Dear Designers,

Today I want to talk to you about player housing in MMORPG’s. Many developer’s have decided to ignore housing as unimportant, yet they spend thousands of dollars marketing to the female marketplace.

I will give you a hint. (some geeky programmers just don’t know how to get a girl) Give us a cute little apartment, complete with a way to do crafting. Throw in a few house pets, and a Christmas tree, and you will get the chicks!

All kidding aside, I keep paying for my EQ2 every month so I can log on now and then, and decorate my house for the right season. I keep a second cheap apartment from one of my alts, and store the seasonal items there. Even if I am not playing the game, I find time to switch out my Halloween decorations, for my Christmas trees and Stockings.

I also spent a lot of time collecting enough little kittens to represent all my grandkids, and named them after each one of them.

I never realized how much I enjoyed the apartments in EQ2, until I recently started playing LOTRO.  I began saving right away for a house. I bought one at level 14. (I took an entire week off from leveling and did nothing but grow vegetables to sell them, just to get a house) LOTRO is the case study of what NOT to do when designing housing!

I was very disappointed with the lack of usefulness and creativity. You can only place an item in designated spaces in the home. There is no way to do anything creative. They have very little when it comes to decorative accents, like chessboards, or playing cards. There is no way to get swords or other adventuring gear made into trophies for your home. (you can get a goldfish mounted…so of course every home has some kind of mounted fish.) There are vendors in the instance that sell crafting items, but no crafting area. Not sure who thought that was a good idea.

There is a vendor that sells furniture and paint for your walls, in direct competition, with player crafters. I thought that was not well thought out. Basically, LoTRO did not create a particularly useful or fun player housing environment. They are instanced towns, with standalone houses. This pulls folks away from the major cities. The only reason I will keep a house in LOTRO is to have the shared storage for my alts. (It’s annoying having to mail things back and forth to yourself.) At least now I have a crate to put things in, but that could have been accomplished with a shared bank bag.

So what did EQ2 do different? Why is it more fun, useful, and creative?

I can sit and quietly read through the items for sale in the Auction. I can make notes, and even post new auctions right from my room. Visitors can make my pet kittens do tricks.

First, they made the apartments instanced within major cities. This might not sound any different than instanced housing areas, but it is. When accessing your home, you are in a city with other players. If players want to buy things from you, instead of paying the broker fees, they can go to your apartment and buy it directly. When you zone out of your apartment, you are in the city. All players end up back in the major cities, instead of some instanced zone. This leads to cities being alive with players of all levels. They do not become ‘ghost towns’, as they have in many other games. The crafting vendors, transportation, brokers, mailboxes and everything else are just a step outside your door.

Second, they made the apartments useful and affordable. In fact, you get one for free, when you finish the newbie tutorial. It offers additional storage, and a place to hang a cork board, and interact with the brokerage house. You can earn reputation with crafters guilds, and eventually buy crafting machines for your apartment. Your friends can come in, and get a bite to eat. (many of the decorative food accents like the eggnog bowl actually allow a player to take food and drink from it)

The paintings are all memories, the food is often able to be clicked on and used by visitors to get a snack. The music boxes and statues speak or play music.

Most important, they made them fun! (I know I have said this before, but I play games to have fun..first and foremost) The ability of a player to be creative, and display items that they have earned should not be overlooked by designers. (Please read my award post to see what other creative players have done) When I did a quest for some fabled boots with my friends, it was difficult. I loved the boots, and was proud to wear them! Sadly, eventually you outgrow those level 20 boots, and in most games they are sold to a vendor as yesterdays trash. But in EQ2, I could visit an NPC, and have them made into a trophy for my home. A pair of boots, proudly sitting next to my fireplace, to remind me of the raid my friends helped me with.

Likewise, I was given a painting when I first started EQ2, for being a previous EQ player. I was allowed to choose which one had memories for me. That painting of Lady Vox, is hung over the fireplace. It serves to remind me of many years, and many fun raids with great people. Many of the quest series in the game award trophies, statues or other memorabilia…and it becomes Bragging rights. If people enter your home, then they KNOW you completed that quest. There are even shrines, where I can choose to buff myself before going out to hunt.

So designers, take a good look at EQ2’s housing..then improve upon it.

Find a viable way to make guild houses have more usefulness. A place for all to meet and congregate.

Try to realize that players invest a lot of time in character building. The fun –  well it’s in the journey.

I like being able to have items from my travels displayed for all to see.

I prefer to have a talking statue recount my adventure to all who enter, than a title that says wolf slayer!

(Oh and in case you think this is just for us girls…)

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

I am a very political person.  I will not talk about that here.  Period.  End of Story.

I don’t think political statements should be part of any website that is related to gaming. We play games to get away from real life for an hour or two. I don’t want to go look up a quest, and have political ads and banners all over the page. I don’t want to read a gaming forum, and have to scroll through pages of “Vote for —insert names –”. I go to a technical support forum to find out if anyone else is having problems gating home. I really don’t care who you are voting for. I don’t know what makes you think I do.

I especially do not want to visit a gaming blog, and see nothing but political ads and commentary.

I have a political blog of my own, and I also have a list of favorite political blogs that I read. If I want to comment about politics I will do it there!

All I ask of my fellow gamers…is go start a political blog if you are really political like I am, but please keep your political beliefs to yourselves on the fansites for games.

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

I have often talked about what draws me back to EQ over the years, but today I want to talk about what draws me back to WoW.

Life sometimes has a way of becoming unusually busy. At those times, I dread the thought of logging on to most MMO’s.  I just don’t have the time to get a group, or commit to raid schedules.  If I do have an hour, I would like to log on and actually get something done!  World of Warcraft is the perfect game for the one or two hour gamer.

I can log on and do 10 or more dailies in an hour.  I can scan the AH, and make 500 gold in an hour.  I can complete one of the new achievements, or kill the Headless Horseman 6 times in one hour.

Wow does not have some of the depth of other MMORPG’s, but they do have more for the busy player than any other game.  I don’t want to say they have more for the ‘casual player’, because I don’t like that term. It is widely used, and often misunderstood.  Arena players are usually anything but casual, but they can accomplish the weekly Arena goals in just one evening!   Players can do BG’s and earn honor toward very Uber gear with only an hour.  Most games require 4-5 hour commitments to do anything worthwhile.

So with life being so busy right now, and not likely to get any calmer before the holidays, you can expect to find me in Azeroth until 2009!

(and anyway..I can’t quit until I catch the fish I need for my new achievements)

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

Not all of the ideas work out as intended. Some are not fully implemented, the way they could have been. A few were not exactly a new, but the designers took the concept to a new level.

This award is more about the IDEA than the actual implementation.

Some of the ideas we considered:

• LOTRO’s playable instruments and the ability to form in-game bands.
• EQ2’s mentoring down.
• Horizons playable Dragons.
• DDO’s great dungeon traps.
• Vanguard’s Diplomacy Advancement Path.
• WoW’s fishing tournaments.
• EQ’s shrouds, and monster missions.
• Final Fantasy Moogles (sidekicks in your home that perform tasks for you. — Enhanced pets)
• Pirates of the Burning Sea - Real ship to ship combat.
• Pirates of the Caribbean - Digging for treasure, and playing poker for loot.

Well you get the idea… (there were dozens more)

This was another tough decision, but we give our Lark’s Choice Award - Best New Idea to:

Vanguard SOH for Diplomacy!

The reason we saw this as a good thing for MMORPG gaming, it was not only a game within a game, but was also a viable character advancement path. You can play Vanguard and never adventure! You could become just a diplomat, and play the subgame within the larger world.

In addition, you can impact the world and the adventuring and crafting players. When a diplomat goes into a town, they can play the card-game, to earn benefits for everyone in the region.

The concept of advancement beyond adventuring or tradeskills is a great idea. I would love to see other games use it. Perhaps a merchant class, to replace Auction Houses and vendors. A spy class, that does nothing but quest and spy for the adventurers.

The diplomacy game itself was very well designed. It was similar in concept to Magic the Gathering. It could easily have been a standalone game. The quests, and storyline for the Civic Diplomacy had depth.

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

He was to me, the ultimate gamer. He loved D&D, and was a very good Game Master. He knew all the rules, and was creative. He could weave a wonderful tale, and lead his groups into the best of adventures. The reason he was better than most, as a GM, was that he did not bring his Ego to the table. He didn’t flaunt that he was the GM, or want all the attention, or become the “Lord of the Rules”. So many GM’s get on a power trip, and ruin the game for the players. For him, the most important part was the players enjoying the story.

He was also an avid player of Magic the Gathering (MTG). He was not really a competitive player. He just liked the casual game. At the store, the Pro-tour players would all be playing the latest beat-down deck. They would be “preparing” for the next qualifier, or testing new combo’s with one another.

You would look over and see Don playing a big multi-player game, with all the kids that the Pro’s were ignoring. He would make some silly goblin deck, and have a blast.

He was famous in the Tampa Bay area. People would say, “Oh, the Kird Ape guy”! He collected original Arabian Nights Kird Apes. He would trade almost anything to add to the growing collection. Last count, he had over 30,000 of them! I think he enjoyed helping the younger kids, more than he actually liked collecting them. He used the collection as an excuse to make ‘bad trades’. He would often give the kids 10 good rares, for one silly ape. You would hear some kid off whispering, “Man he is so dumb, he just gave me all these cards for one stupid common.” Don would just smile, in the way only he could smile.

On his Yahoo 360 profile, I gleaned a few of his thoughts:

My friends call me bear . I come from a time past . Simple things make me happy , a good cup of coffee and conversation with friends after dinner is heaven to me .

Hi, its me Don . I don’t have a lot, but my name and honor and my Heart .

He was a tender man, a romantic who never found a wife. He would have been a great dad I think. He never raised his voice. One of his final posts was:

“Why can we never go back . Never reach that perfect moment in time . Never capture again that split second where we were happiest . Our feet keep leading us down the path of life . Along the rocky road we must travel . From time to time, our road leads us to a Green Pasture next to a gentle brook where we can dip our feet in the cool waters . We must learn to savor these moments to lay back and feel the grass under our backs to smell the flowers near by to hear the birds singing in the trees . For all to soon our feel must start back down the path and who knows what lies around the next bend in the road . Heaven or Hell or just a long long road ahead .”

The St. Petersburg times said this of him:

Spatafora, Donald Paul, 45, of St. Petersburg, died Tuesday (April 17, 2007) at home.
A native of St. Petersburg, he worked in theatrical lighting and was a merchant. He graduated from American Heritage Academy in Fort Lauderdale and was Catholic.

Forty five years, and that’s how they sum him up!

They don’t say that he was a loyal friend. A good and honest worker. An imaginative story teller. They don’t tell you of his kind heart. His simple enjoyments.

It didn’t say that he always had a kind word for everyone, or that his character meant more to him than riches. It didn’t tell you he was a giant teddy bear. A gentle Ben.

And it didn’t tell you how many people will miss him, and his silly Kird Apes!

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

At first it was kind of fun. I didn’t get into it as much as she did, but I would log on every day and buy more territory, do a few missions, and add people to my Mob.

When you add them, they become a friend. Soon my real friends, were being blasted by 100 new mobster friends to join the game. They didn’t just ask once. Oh no! They asked one of my favorite Catholic priests 1000’s of times. I actually had two people remove themselves from my friends list because the Mobsters would not leave them alone.

Next all the Mobster players started BLASTING the bulletin area. Now usually I love to log on and read my friends bulletins. They might tell of an upcoming trip, or some new blog they wrote. But not anymore! Now I see this crap:

From:
SLIM

Date:
Jul 27, 2008 2:38 AM

Subject:
TO ALL THE FINE LADIES ON HERE

Body:
GIVE ME A CALL….781-382-3478

And he doesn’t leave it at that. Oh no! He continues to spam things. That mixed with all the people spamming for you to join their friends groups…and pretty soon you just turn off all the Bulletins from friends.

Now as if having creepy old stalkers spamming you with phone numbers isn’t enough, you go to read your comments. You no longer have any REAL comments. You just have page after page of:

This comment was sent by your friend via the Mobsters app.
To block this app and all communications from it, click Here.

——————————————-

— wants you to join their mob in Mobsters, a Mafia-style combat game played on MySpace.
Start out as a petty thief and work your way up to become a Mob Don!

I no longer know that my friend had a baby. I don’t know that another friend is playing LOTRO. I didn’t hear the news, that a friend of mine got transferred in the Army. There are too many pages and pages of Mobster comments to actually read my comments page.

The worst part is watching what has happened to Gabs. She has been inundated with Myspace requests. (Lil Ravey Babe has 1128 friends.) She is a nice person, that can’t say no to anyone.

People were sending her questions about the game. She couldn’t just ignore them, but answering 700 private messages a day with the same questions wasn’t going to work either.

So she wrote a few blogs, to answer some of the questions she gets. Now she is getting hate mail, nasty posts on Myspace, and one person even found her work email, and sent her nasty comments there.

These people need to get a life. I have seen people in MMORPG’s get this involved in the drama of a game. I can almost understand it, when you have years into building a character. But this is a javascript app on myspace. It’s only been around a couple of weeks, and is a lame game at best.

For me, I am deleting all my mobs. Issuing a public apology to my real friends for all the spam. I am deleting all the mobster friends. (and I am sure that some of them are really nice people that I would want on my friends list)

As far as poor Lil Ravey babe, it’s like watching the Grinch who stole Christmas. All the joy of Myspace is gone. She dreads logging on. I won’t be surprised if she just deletes her account.

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.

Dear Game Designers,

Please fix the current issues, with grouping in MMORPG’s.

It used to be, that grouping was something we naturally did. It was difficult to be in a world, wandering around getting jumped by orcs. We would form groups, and hunt together for the day.

Now, games are designed to guide us through the content, and level. People will come up and ask for a group because they need a certain kill, for a particular quest. They join, we kill the mob, and they leave.

There is no community being built. There is no real grouping. You are just forming a momentary alliance, to kill some NPC. Rob, at MMOcrunch recently expounded that many games have become like standalone RPG’s with chat rooms.

Once you get off the island however… nothing changes. Age of Conan is an MMORPG where you can pretty much make it to Level 80 without ever grouping. Now, pardon me for this next outlandish thought… but isn’t grouping one of the key reasons we wanted to play MMORPGs instead of RPGs in the first place? I thought it was!

One of the comments, from Ryan, had some very insightful thoughts:

I love soloing. I love grouping sometimes too. What I like to see is encouraged grouping, not forced grouping or discouraged grouping.

World of Warcraft actively discourages grouping during normal play by making it less efficient than soloing. That’s dumb.

Dungeons & Dragons essentially forced grouping, and I hate that even more than discouraging grouping.

Something in-between is what I like. EverQuest II did an okay job of encouraging grouping by making it more efficient to do so.

I think there’s a happy place for “encouraged grouping” that hasn’t been introduced in any MMO I’ve played to this point, which would include absolute solo viability but increased reward for being social.

I would like to see a game that does not have a leash on the players. One that doesn’t have the ‘newbie island’ and tutorial that lasts until end game. (right now all the games have NPC’s and quests, that pretty much tell you to move on to the next area.) LOTRO included.

I want to get in, have a tutorial that teaches me the controls and basics of combat. Perhaps a solo instance for just level 1-3. Then just dump me in the world. Have a few quests to let me get some tattered armor and a rusty weapon, but for the love of god…don’t tell me where to go next. Let me wander the world looking for things to do. If I get in trouble, maybe I will think to ask others for help! (there are other players in an MMO to ask..right?)

Try to make the quests more group friendly. If you give me a quest to kill 10 of something, then I will go near the somethings, ask for a group, kill 10 and leave. (then of course I have to go back to town to get another quest to kill 10 somethingelse)

If the quests were more creative, perhaps the players could stay grouped for longer than 10 minutes. Community could be built, and I wouldn’t have to keep running back to town to get another dumb quest.

Encourage grouping, by giving a NOTICIBLE bonus in loot or experience. A persistant world may exist for a long time, and even have many players, but it will not flourish if the players do not have to depend on each other.

When I play WoW, I play it like I am playing Diablo2 with an auction house. I could just as easily play WoW as a single player version, and be content. I like to solo. I don’t want games to remove that option. But I would like the group dynamic to be better. I don’t like that half the grouping, for low-levels in WoW, involve older players just running people through Stockades. Players paying higher levels to run them through instances is NOT GROUPING!

Another problem is players joining a game later than friends did, and not being able to group. I liked the idea that EQ2 had for mentoring down. I would like to see games expand on the idea. Maybe mentoring up? EQ has added the monster missions, so players of different levels can group together. (But I like to group with my own character.) I don’t want to drop what I am doing to go get shrouds, just because a younger friend logged on.

Certainly the designers need to start addressing the current state of grouping in MMORPG’s. The early games like EQ, and DAOC seemed to build more community. They were more group friendly.

There has to be a way to make games solo friendly, and still keep the incentive to group.

©2012 Morninglark. All Rights Reserved.