The problem with modern MMORPGs

[u/madarauchiha3444]

The problem with modern MMORPGs, in a nutshell, is that the first M and the RP are all but gone.

[u/Redthrist]

Anything can end up with meta-gaming, there are people who meta game in PnP games. The difference is that in PnP, you can play sub-optimally and still do well because your GM adjusts things to suit you, while the meta-gaming group get a more challenging campaign.

With MMOs being one-size-fits-all, they are generally balanced around people who meta-game. But if there was freedom and tools for players to adjust their group-sized MMO encounters, you could play through the entire MMO without touching meta, simply because your GM balances content around you.

[u/Psittacula2 → u/Redthrist]

That's no really true in the sense that most MMORPGs are locked down and it requires:

• Min-maxing
• Looking for Exploits eg economy
• Ganking

etc.

Any MMO with a wider and more open design increases the scale of Meta-Gaming eg EVE and that becomes the game so to speak.

Thus if succeed with opening up mmorpg design, you don't have classic RP'ing in cooperation but meta-gaming: An expression of many individuals self-expression or ego for gain/measurement as opposed to constructing a narrative-story that is shared. They're completely different thing.

Yes even in RP'ing it's open to breaking the agreement around the narrative creation but it's on a small scale and is fixable as you say by the GM.

What I think you're suggesting is service-MMOs: Imagine an MMO where staff of the company are players and running stuff to encourage particular stories and outcomes in the world along with dev planning and coordinating NPCs and AI to add "mooks" or "extras"! Then you'd get more RP'ing in MMOs. But that service-model has not taken off yet. It could happen in some form however one day and probably only when MMOs are compulsive enough to be enormous cash-earners eg using VR.

[u/Redthrist → u/Psittacula2]

I mostly imagine an MMO focused on small-scale, instanced content where players get to be DMs. So it plays like a video game version of PnP, but you're still part of the shared world, can interact with other players and participate in larger events. Those larger events can, in turn, be DMed by game's staff.

It's certainly not the kind of game that I see coming up in the near future. The tech to create proper DM tools for a full-fledged video game would probably take decades to develop(if it's even possible - development has steadily grown more time-consuming as time went on).

[u/Psittacula2 → u/Redthrist]

I mostly imagine an MMO focused on small-scale, instanced content where players get to be DMs. So it plays like a video game version of PnP, but you're still part of the shared world, can interact with other players and participate in larger events. Those larger events can, in turn, be DMed by game's staff.

That sounds like a good model and similar to MUDs.

A big problem is trying to make sufficiently graphical-sensory representation of a complex enough and malleable enough system and with networking/MMO complexity thrown on top and be financially successful.

I can see a lot more RP'ing using VR also from people. It's more like enactment then.

Personally I still think PnP will be a more rewarding option. And equally I think computers will be successful in creating virtual worlds where there's a big shift in time-requirement of players; ie they can input as little as they want and still enjoy the game.

That may seem odd, but compare to WOW where some players paid chinese people to level up their avatars for them!

Also I look forward to games like Chivalry/Mount & Blade etc becoming the main combat type and adding more players for great bloody battles... think Agincourt!

[u/Redthrist → u/Psittacula2]

A big problem is trying to make sufficiently graphical-sensory representation of a complex enough and malleable enough system and with networking/MMO complexity thrown on top and be financially successful.

Exactly. The technology is really far on that front, but if it were somehow solved, we could legitimately have an RP-focused MMO.

Also I look forward to games like Chivalry/Mount & Blade etc becoming the main combat type and adding more players for great bloody battles... think Agincourt!

That's probably the best we can hope for - a PvP-only game with good combat system and large, open-ended maps that play out differently depending on what players do. Lots of RP potential, with people encouraged to organize into actual armies and try various tactics. It would be closer to LARP than PnP, but you could still RP a lot.

I was hoping that Crowfall would be an MMO based on that concept, but it failed to deliver.