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Becoming the Hero
LibrarianThorne
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I figured this was the best forum for this question, so here goes:
How does one become a hero in an MMO?
Yes, technically, all the PCs are heroes through dint of levels and such, but I refer to something Campbellian. This question has plagued game designers, and for good reason. There's no way, yet, to make hundreds of thousands of people all feel like the hero of a story. Attaining the highest level can make you look like Aragorn or shoot a bow like Legolas but there's yet to be, I feel, a sense of heroism.
We've all played at least a little bit of the Metal Gear series. Solid Snake is a hero because his skillset sets him apart from the other characters that populate his world. In an MMO, even if you hit the level/skill cap, you're not developing unique skills. You're developing skills in a similar fashion to the hundreds that came before you, and the hundreds that come after you.
Master Chief, main protagonist of the Halo series, is posessed of armor that is quite simply superior to just about everything else and with superhuman speed and reflexes. In no MMO is there a single item that is by default better than everything else in its group. I don't refer to epic items, but to a single artifact within a gameworld, that cannot be replicated, that can add to a heroic (or villainous) mystique. Obviously, this can't be done for game balance reasons. Nor could one character be gifted with abilities that are unimmitatable by other characters, again for game balance reasons. No one wants to be a Marine when they could be Master Chief. No one wants to be a Stormtrooper when you could be Darth Vader.
So, I posit the question to the peoples of this fine forum. How would you make people feel and be heroic in an MMO?
How does one become a hero in an MMO?
Yes, technically, all the PCs are heroes through dint of levels and such, but I refer to something Campbellian. This question has plagued game designers, and for good reason. There's no way, yet, to make hundreds of thousands of people all feel like the hero of a story. Attaining the highest level can make you look like Aragorn or shoot a bow like Legolas but there's yet to be, I feel, a sense of heroism.
We've all played at least a little bit of the Metal Gear series. Solid Snake is a hero because his skillset sets him apart from the other characters that populate his world. In an MMO, even if you hit the level/skill cap, you're not developing unique skills. You're developing skills in a similar fashion to the hundreds that came before you, and the hundreds that come after you.
Master Chief, main protagonist of the Halo series, is posessed of armor that is quite simply superior to just about everything else and with superhuman speed and reflexes. In no MMO is there a single item that is by default better than everything else in its group. I don't refer to epic items, but to a single artifact within a gameworld, that cannot be replicated, that can add to a heroic (or villainous) mystique. Obviously, this can't be done for game balance reasons. Nor could one character be gifted with abilities that are unimmitatable by other characters, again for game balance reasons. No one wants to be a Marine when they could be Master Chief. No one wants to be a Stormtrooper when you could be Darth Vader.
So, I posit the question to the peoples of this fine forum. How would you make people feel and be heroic in an MMO?
LibrarianThorne on
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Same goes for heroes ~ to become a "hero" in a MMO you have to be made famous, otherwise you're just another player beating the dragon.
Btw, in this context it is important to remember City of Heroes, a MMO in which every player is (up to a level) unique.
I think instancing is a good solution. You don't have a line forming up to kill the evil overlord, who respawns every 5 minutes while you watch. You and your team can, on their own, fight their way through his base and defeat him themselves.
Also, in the CoX base raiding that may or may not ever get working, there's Items of Power that are the goal of raids. Most are generic +1% damage or +1% xp or whatever for your supergroup, but there's about half a dozen IoPs that would have much larger bonuses, and there could only be one per server. Having them getting passed around via PvP means everyone has a chance of having it, even if there's only one.
yippy.
Evil Thug is the scary ass leader of the Against All Authorities alliance. Hundreds of skilled players from Mercenary Coalition were en route to intervene in a war. With a word and positioning of his alliance, he prevented the intervention without a shot being fired. The mere threat of -A- being involved scared the a serious mercenary corp into abandoning a contract. (though they dispute it)
The main criteria is that there has to be a strong possibility of losing in order for there to be a heroic action. Both of these actions and tons of others like it are opportunities that only happen once. That Titan is gone, there won't be a raid on it tomorrow. That conflict is now long over, with those that MC wanted to intervene on behalf long pushed out of their space. They don't have an instance to reset and get their base back. That gives the people involved an actual reputation-- a history that no one else can achieve.
Actual risk and unchangeable, unrepeatable events allows for heroism. Pretty much all MMORPGs are designed to eliminate risk and allow events to be repeated in order to maximize player exposure to content. There's no way to be a hero when a thousand other people are doing the same thing as you daily.
Usually it's just a question of being in the right place at the right time under the right circumstances....dumb luck if you will.
Both the Draenei and Blood Elf starting zones turn you into a "hero" during the duration of your stay there. Granted, there are hundreds of thousands of people doing the same quests with the same resolution, but a starting player is probably still going to "wow" at the reception he gets at the end of the Draenei area.
Further on though, it seems to be all about progression (either in the pvp with rankings, or pve with boss kills).
http://moeroshop.net/images/large/22-07_04_2007/DC-PSO_01_LRG.jpg
It just irks me in FFXI that I've saved the world (twice!), preempted a large scale war, become a top ranking official in my country, and have traveled to new lands and I'll still get the same greeting from NPCs as I did at level 10.
"Oh, hello <adventurer>! Welcome to <place>, I'm sure you'll like it here."
No, don't you adventure me, NPC, I've saved the world:evil:
A single world. No multiple servers with completely seperate player populations. Multiple instances are fine, so long as the players are still all playing in the same basic world and everyone can play with everyone. EVE runs on a single universe, with everyone playing the same game in the same world. Guild Wars does the same thing, although it solves player population issues with instancing, you're still all on the same server.
It's important to feeling like an important hero that your sea is actually big enough to be a decently sized fish in. It's not as much fun to be a big fish in a small pond (ie, level 70 on a RP server in WoW that none of your friends play on). Say you're talking with some person you just met, and you find out that you both play, say, WoW. The immediate question is next: "What server do you play on?" instead of "Who's your character?" because if you don't play on the same server, who gives a shit who your character is. You'll never meet in game or whatever unless one of you starts an alt on another's server. That's hells of lame. Whereas, if you both play EVE, the next question is "What corp/alliance are you a part of?" and current events of the big war between the Southern Coalition and the Alliance, a totally player-run war featuring player alliances and factions that every EVE player knows about and might be involved in.
Another thing MMORPGs need to do is get on board with open PvP and true PvP content. Making PvP a totally optional, completely un-necessary "side component" of the game and making grinding NPCs for phat lewtz and expees the primary part of it is the largest part of the problem with feeling like another schmoe. Quite frankly, I'm of the harsh opinion that if you're the sort of person who hates PvP and doesn't want to ever be at risk of being attacked by another player ever... you need to go play Oblivion or Mass Effect. I'm not saying turn a game into a rules-free gankfest, but follow the example of a game like EVE and have real consequences for player attacks and combat. If you're going to have an NPC law enforcement system, then actually allow people to play outlaws and bandits and killers, then. Let them make armies and go to war with each other.
MMORPGs also need to focus on player interaction more in general. Games like Saga of Ryzom allow players to truly generate their own content and quests and even zones. It doesn't need to be that drastic, but some mechanics need to be in place that in order to get the "most" out of the game, you need to interact with other players and work with them to mutual benefit. If you're the sort of player who hates that idea, again... why are you playing a MMORPG? If you don't want to fight other players, and you don't want to trade or do missions with them... go player a single-play game, dude. Quit paying a monthly fee to play with yourself.
And by player interaction, I am not talking about forcing you to group with a party in order to complete missions. I am talking about things like SWG's entertainers: If you're battle-fatigued, it's in your best interest to go relax and visit an entertainer in a city, which puts you in a position of true player interaction. The more the players interact, the more a community develops. The more developed a community is, the more it feels like a "world" instead of you all playing Diablo II on a massive scale. And the more it feels like a "world", the more you feel like a unique part of that world.
And where there is NPC interaction, that NPC interaction has to be more robust and more reflective of player deeds. NPCs should react to the player based on their factional scores, legal standing, reputation, etc.
I see this to a limited extent in City of Heroes sometimes: For example, random NPC passers-by will sometimes comment like "I heard Skydive stopped the Malta Group from activating the Cronos Titan!"
Legal and factional standing should play more into the games that have such things. Characters' stats and abilities and class should also play into how NPCs interact with them. Lots of games do stuff like this, but it needs to be integrated more fully.
There's a bunch of other ideas I have, but that's just some of them for now. I find MMORPGs really frustrating because there's lots of really simple, small things they could do that could make them a lot better, and they just don't do them for the sake of the status quo and the guarenteed bottom line.
This. Also, there needs to be some sort of historic significance to the event; some reason for people to remember that particular occurence.
The only "heroic" things that happen in WoW are server- or world- firsts, which are gone in a month or two when someone else does it and which aren't really that significant anyway. Aside from that, death doesn't have any particular consequences and there are no challenges that can't be solved by indefinitely beating your head against them. The first ever opening of the AQ gate is maybe the best example of a heroic event in WoW in this context, but even that was devalued because every server could do it themselves two weeks later.
Doesn't make it a bad game, but that's the nut of it. EVE is the opposite, for reasons that have been explained.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I'm looking forward to Darkfall.
As has been stated above, Heroism involves a severe risk of loss - of life, limb, or anything else that is considered important to the hero.
How can MMORPGs make the risk of death more frightening than "Oh noes, I'm ded, time to find my body and have no real consequences other than my lost time, or I can just res now, and take a small hit to my equipment durability...hm, I'll flip a coin." I mean, back in the day when I played EQ (I was something like 14 or 15 at the time), I would hate to die because not only would I lose experience, and possibly a level, but I would have to find my body and get my stuff back! I found myself seeking games that would make that a non-issue, but what I didn't realize is that I sacrificed a greater sense of accomplishment.
For example, I was a healer class, and some asshat trained a bunch of mid-end monsters into the newbie zone, and the mayhem and slaughter ensued. However, I managed to use my heal spells to save enough lives that day that people actually recognized me later. In fact, a higher level character took notice of my evacuation efforts, and ended up being a highly useful contact, mentor, and benefactor later on in that character's life.
Later on, with that same character, I managed to complete a quest that was a little too hard for my level. Sure, I used the old "OH SHIT RUN THROUGH THE HIGH LEVEL ZONE" tactic, and I was lucky enough to end up in that zone during a guild raid, so the monsters were distracted, but I managed to complete the quest, and get a badass magic hammer out of the deal.
This was all within the first 10 levels of the character.
This was like, 8 years ago. I remember these events really well. I don't remember names, but I think I have them written down somewhere.
I played WoW for a few months last fall. I honestly couldn't tell you anything cool that I did. I, uh, turned a monster into a sheep when I was a mage? Woohoo?
So yeah, maybe bring back exp penalties or something with death. Make death suck again. Make me really NOT want to die. Reputations can be made and broken when players take death seriously - like "Hey that guy pussies out and runs as soon as he has half health!" or "Oh man, that's the guy who'll just go nuts and fight until he dies! He's HARDCORE!" Or even "Hey...that's that healer who spends his time passing out free heals to newbies in need...yanno I hear he evacuated a newb zone during a really bad train?"
A death system like that would suck in WoW, in the endgame at least, because some of the encounters are hard/complicated enough that you have to die any number of times figuring them out. But I don't think the sense of accomplishment is less, say, the first time your raid kills Magtheridon. It's gratifying doing something like that, especially when you get to know the people you play with pretty well.
I think EVE has the death balance thing pretty right; you don't ultimately loose anything when you "die," because you've got a clone ready to go and you can buy any ingame item with money that's obtained easily enough by grinding, but you still lose the ship that you've probably gotten fairly attached to, and you're left with your insignificant little pod.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
In most MMOs, you are simply a hero in the eyes of the NPCs. And escort quests have shown me that I am quite heroic compared to my practically brain-damaged NPC compatriots.
UO's death penalty was harsh too. Talk about a broken system. There was absolutely no incentive to be the good guys and every incentive to zerg/suicide targets and take their stuff. They would need to come up with a system that encouraged people and rewarded them just as much if not more for being the 'good' guys or else restrict looting your opponents to opposing factions/certain zones only. That free for all crap got old after awhile, especially considering the number of bugs and cheats people exploited to get their kills.
It's funny though...I remember events from UO and EQ a lot more vividly due to the harsh penalties. It made the game very painful but also memorable. One thing I do miss are mob trains from EQ. There were times when it was annoying but oh man, nothing like a Guk train from hell when the entire dungeon got riled up and swept through from end to end clearing everybody out.
Of course the CoH script was ridicilous and going off every 5 seconds with a pool of 3 lines, but that's just programming lazyness/no money.
In WoW, 99% of the NPC's have a purpose to NPC's, and less then 1% responds in any way to what you have done, besides questgivers saying "thanks for helping me" if you click on them. The guy standing next to him? No clue what you've done.
Stuff like putting Ony's or Nef's head up in Stormwind, that makes you feel proud though.
But the real nice thing was that due to anyone could kill anyone almost anytime, you had a player based politics going on. Obviously there were asshats, but there were also good people. And typically if you wanted to survive, you banded together with someone. It was fun when a town could be "owned" by a guild simply by them being there, and could be "taken over" by others being there and surviving more/not losing the majority of thier inventory.
Sure it could suck to loose all your items and was VERY daunting. Or it would suck to be a newbie and get reamed by higher level people. But when you actually came out on top, or were one of those people who never died, it gave a huge sense of accomplishment I have yet to see anything come even CLOSE to nowadays.
As pointed out above, when a Penny Arcade member Hrin caught Shrike (one of fewer than ten Titan pilots in Eve Online), not just man-hours, but man-years, of work went down the toilet. That's loss.
And on the other side of the coin, when epic faggot Remedial stole 30 billion ISK ("interstellar credits" i.e. gold) from the Something Awful-affiliated alliance Goonswarm during a ham-induced hissyfit, the loss was astonishing and it was real, though nobody died.
Eve has a Trammel equivalent (Empire space), but it isn't where the money is. To get around in it you have to detour through the scary neighborhoods, and you can be killed and lose everything even in Empire. You can go from billionaire to pauper in a minute. And it's a single server game. If you do something to make yourself famous, or infamous, you will be remembered as long as the game lasts, everywhere. For instance, taking the example of Remedial, if he ever logs into the game with that character again, he will be hounded and blown up anywhere he goes, because he pissed off many powerful alliances years ago, and as for his former (and very powerful) alliance, he stole their precious.
THIEF! THIEF! REMEDIAL! WE HATES IT! WE HATES IT FOREVER!!!
I doubt that he'd have as much trouble from Goons, beyond harassment, as you think. Maybe a shitton of EVEmails saying "FOFOFO," but that's it.
Oh lots of Goons still like him. But they'd shoot him for fun. After all, the only thing more fun than shooting pubbies is shooting Goons. And the only thing more fun than shooting Goons is shooting ex-Goons.
Especially slow-moving ex-Goons with a high signature radius.
Obviously a game using this would have to have a different philosophy about loot and endgame content, but I'd love to see it done.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
A game that used this system, assuming that it was pve-focused, would require random/dynamic content generation if it wished to survive on subscription fees.
Otherwise it would be Guild Wars.
The idea of there being an endgame and developing endgame content is a troublesome mindset and WoW is the biggest offender for it.
This. If the whole point of the game is to get to the end so you can start the cool shit, it's not worth playing.
The idea of endgame content is the natural conclusion when faced with the problem that people have already played through all the other content and are about to unsubscribe if you don't give them something else to do. It's not an actual decision for the rest of the game to just be a precursor to the endgame, but players tend to see it that way, and it's their own fault.
I think that only the people who already have high level raiding characters (or who hang out with mostly those people) believe this. I mean, I'm not having a ton of fun with the Azeroth grind on my alt, either, but I remember having a great time playing through it the first couple times I saw things.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Much of it comes out of being able to distinguish yourself, which can be done through in-game action, or, in an RP-heavy game, in-character action. PR is also very important. You have to not only do something unique, but people have to KNOW about it. In WoW, you can be a hero all the time, just facing crazy odds in PVP. But unless what you do is -amazing-, and unless people actually have a reason to -reflect- on it... it's just another occurrence that will be forgotten.