Comment Re:Wake Me Up... (Score 1) 69
I hear what you're saying. Some of what you're talking about does occur in Gemstone. They run live event storylines and sometimes a town(Wheinemer's Landing or however you spell it, comes to mind) will get burned down. The player characters will join together sometimes with a GM controlled NPC, to take out the leader of the evil forces. And when that leader is dead, he's dead for good. It used to be that there was permadeath in Gemstone for player characters. I don't remember why exactly they got rid of that, probably because it wasn't that popular. They even ran a storyline where player characters debated eachother to see which one of them would become mayor of the Landing. I don't remember exactly how it ended, I just know that a GM controlled NPC came in and killed them all and none of them became mayor. There are also player run stores now.
So there are a lot of events that you're referring to in their text based games. It's my understanding, and I could be wrong, but I believe that their goal is to do that in Hero's Journey too. Probably not to the extent that it happens in their text based games but certainly there will be live events in HJ. Of course there will be standard quests. If there is one complaint about live events it's that not everyone gets to fully participate in them and that leads to people feeling left out. It happens in their text based games where the players are more concerned with role play than just hack and slash, so if it happens there then it will happen in a graphics game where you have more hack and slash players than role players. Having standard quests allows everyone to say, "Hey, I was the one that destroyed that bridge and prevented the enemy army from crossing over and raiding our city." Is that unrealistic? Sure but this isn't a reality game, it's a fantasy game.
And just remember. There are a lot of companies that didn't get their MMOPRG's right the first time. WoW was popular when it came out but it still wasn't that great of a game. Guild Wars is their second attempt at an MMORPG and it's much better than WoW. FFXI sucks IMO and I'm not sure what SE's next one, Front Mission Online, is going to be like, but I gotta believe that it's going to be better than FFXI. It sure can't be any worse. I think Simtronics should be given a lot of credit for turning out this type of effort in their first attempt. And with the tools that they're using to make this game, they'll be able to add and update stuff on the fly. No need to create an expansion. Their tools should also allow them to do what other MMORPG's can't, or won't, which is burn down villages and stuff like that.
Unfortunately I don't expect it to be exactly the type of game that you are hoping for. I feel like we're in the minority when it comes to what all we want. The fact is that most players of these graphics games are kids that are just into hack and slash and that's who these companies target when they make these games. Gemstone has maybe 4-5000 people in their lone server while there are millions of people in the graphics RPG's. If there were more people like us then I think the population in text based games would be higher.
If Hero's Journey can attract enough "role players" then maybe the game will end up being what we would like it to be. But my guess is that there will still be plenty of hack and slash players so Simu will want to take the "lets make it something for everyone" type of game. What I'm hoping for is that the GM's will focus most of their attention on the role playing servers and that way those servers can be the "living, breathing" worlds that we'd like to see and the other servers can be the hack and slash servers that those players want to see.
So there are a lot of events that you're referring to in their text based games. It's my understanding, and I could be wrong, but I believe that their goal is to do that in Hero's Journey too. Probably not to the extent that it happens in their text based games but certainly there will be live events in HJ. Of course there will be standard quests. If there is one complaint about live events it's that not everyone gets to fully participate in them and that leads to people feeling left out. It happens in their text based games where the players are more concerned with role play than just hack and slash, so if it happens there then it will happen in a graphics game where you have more hack and slash players than role players. Having standard quests allows everyone to say, "Hey, I was the one that destroyed that bridge and prevented the enemy army from crossing over and raiding our city." Is that unrealistic? Sure but this isn't a reality game, it's a fantasy game.
And just remember. There are a lot of companies that didn't get their MMOPRG's right the first time. WoW was popular when it came out but it still wasn't that great of a game. Guild Wars is their second attempt at an MMORPG and it's much better than WoW. FFXI sucks IMO and I'm not sure what SE's next one, Front Mission Online, is going to be like, but I gotta believe that it's going to be better than FFXI. It sure can't be any worse. I think Simtronics should be given a lot of credit for turning out this type of effort in their first attempt. And with the tools that they're using to make this game, they'll be able to add and update stuff on the fly. No need to create an expansion. Their tools should also allow them to do what other MMORPG's can't, or won't, which is burn down villages and stuff like that.
Unfortunately I don't expect it to be exactly the type of game that you are hoping for. I feel like we're in the minority when it comes to what all we want. The fact is that most players of these graphics games are kids that are just into hack and slash and that's who these companies target when they make these games. Gemstone has maybe 4-5000 people in their lone server while there are millions of people in the graphics RPG's. If there were more people like us then I think the population in text based games would be higher.
If Hero's Journey can attract enough "role players" then maybe the game will end up being what we would like it to be. But my guess is that there will still be plenty of hack and slash players so Simu will want to take the "lets make it something for everyone" type of game. What I'm hoping for is that the GM's will focus most of their attention on the role playing servers and that way those servers can be the "living, breathing" worlds that we'd like to see and the other servers can be the hack and slash servers that those players want to see.
