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LOTRO Dev Talks About Bringing MMOs To Consoles
Posted by
Soulskill
on Mon Sep 01, 2008 09:36 PM
from the give-me-a-mouse-and-keyboard-or-give-me-death dept.
from the give-me-a-mouse-and-keyboard-or-give-me-death dept.
Jeffrey Steefel, executive producer for Lord of the Rings: Online recently spoke to Eurogamer about the game's upcoming expansion and its future in the MMO market. One thing he mentions is the challenge of designing an MMO for consoles, which have a larger player base than PC games. He admits that UI development would be a huge issue, but also thinks MMOs could benefit from splitting tasks between various devices.
"Long term, for me, the real exciting vision is ... thinking about a game, a franchise, as this centralised content. There's this thing called Lord of the Rings that sits on a bunch of servers ... and whether you're on your PC, your console, your mobile device, those are all just access points, and they're all good at different things. ... The console is great for fast action, immediate activities. Combat, raids, things like that could be a lot of fun sitting on your couch. And some things that are necessary but slightly rote and boring, like managing your inventory or setting up for a raid, or some elements of crafting — those are things that you can do instead of playing Bejeweled when you're sitting on the train or on a break or whatever it happens to be."
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uh (Score:2)
You know what's even more fun? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Punctuated entertainment that doesn't try to consume every second of every day of your life.
You're anthropomorphizing. How can a (your words) fucking videogame do anything other than sit there and wait to be played? How can it "try" to do anything?
Here's a novel idea: Play the same MMO everyone else plays, in moderation.
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Re:You know what's even more fun? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, pacman and space invaders used to piss me like that.
Parent
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MMO games are addiction machines. This article points out just one of the slippery slopes they try to grease to get you to invest so
Re:You know what's even more fun? (Score:4, Insightful)
"MMO games are addiction machines."
Guild Wars seems to have done OK without a permanent grind; I'm sure they haven't made as much money as WoW with its monthly fees, but I'm equally sure they've made a decent profit.
Parent
Re:You know what's even more fun? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't populate the game with enough BS to keep the 24/7 players happy, they will leave. If you do, you're forced to balance the time investment requirement to that standard. Thus forcing casual players to invest more of their time to keep up with the Joneses.
But while structuring reward systems to require as much time to complete as possible is good business. Taking up every moment of your free time to get those rewards is still your choice.
Parent
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It actually does have a grind. it's just much less annoying. People who want special titles for their characters have a lot of hard work to do.
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Guild Wars is not an MMORPG
http://www.guildwars.com/products/guildwars/features/default.php#details [guildwars.com]
Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs
[...]
Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game).
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Guild Wars has some similarities to existing MMORPGs [...] Rather than labeling Guild Wars an MMORPG, we prefer to call it a CORPG (Competitive Online Role-Playing Game).
Suppose that's better than Competitive Online Role-Playing System Entity.
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The game is built by a set of humans collectively organized into a business. They not only do try to do something besides sit there and ask you to play,
Certainly, they try. But there's only so much they can do. At the end of the day, there's still just the game, and it still just sits there until you do something about it.
You sound like you're an addict, just looking for someone else to blame for your own lack of self-control.
in the case of the majors, they have a legal requirement (to their public shareholders) to encourage you to become completely addicted to the game so that you keep playing and keep paying.
Actually, no, the most they would have is a legal requirement to make the most money they can. Keeping in mind that you can't keep paying if you're so addicted you're out of a job, I would imagine they'd much rather build a casual MMO
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Punctuated entertainment that doesn't try to consume every second of every day of your life.
Maybe what MMORPGs need is a "quick save" feature (how they implement it, is not my problem). A friend of mine has had countless arguments with his mom because he doesn't get on the dining table when he should. He always answers "I'll go when I can save".
Game designers need to understand that we weren't born to just play games.
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Are you serious? MMORPG's can't "Save" like a traditional game can (in reality they "save" every instant you're playing the game, as essentially what happens, happens. There is no returning to a previous save), nor can they be paused. The reasoning is simple: you're not playing alone. You can't pause the entirety of the game world in WoW every time some kid needs to run off to dinner. The game would literally never UNpause because some new kid would be running off. You also can't expect it to do so ev
Raids on your couch? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't played WoW very seriously, but from what I've seen, at least some classes need to be pretty focused, and have quite a lot of things to keep track of -- more buttons than exist on any console controller.
I guess I don't see how raids from your couch would be fun. After all, MMOs aren't the only genre that a keyboard and mouse is better for -- and especially if you're actually fighting other humans, why would you deliberately cripple yourself?
I can see exploration from the couch, or soloing.
Good idea, though, with the "centralized content" -- not entirely original, but good to see it catching on.
Then again, I'm really not sure I want to see people inevitably logging in just to text... txtspk is even worse than 13-year-old WoW griefers, if that's possible.
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After all, MMOs aren't the only genre that a keyboard and mouse is better for --.
porn?
Re:Raids on your couch? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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12 or 16 buttons? Back when I still played WoW, I had 5 toolbars with 12 icons each showing on the screen at once, and one more that the bottom-left could be mapped to. I also had a sixth toolbar with another 12 slots, 10 of which were used (I was a mage, my teleport/portal spells were there).
While it's true some of these were shortcuts so I didn't have to go through the Skills interface to reach them, more than half of them were various spells/abilities/items I used on a regular basis.
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Where have you been since the year 2003? Ever hear of Everquest Online Adventures or Final Fantasy XI? The PS2 and PS3 have USB ports for a reason.
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I haven't played WoW very seriously, but from what I've seen, at least some classes need to be pretty focused, and have quite a lot of things to keep track of -- more buttons than exist on any console controller.
Funny, I've got a keyboard attached to my 360.
Secondarily, when I played WoW, I played it on my 50" HD panel while on the sofa with a wireless keyboard and mouse on the PC. This actually resulted in the play being more fun since I was able to use my primary surround system for listening to music, able to stretch out and relax while playing, and while waiting for groups to gather, I could simply go split screen and watch something on the Tivo.
At the time I had wished the game ran on the Xbox, primarily so ev
No Keyboard/Mouse support mention (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't played LotRO, but from what I hear its interface closely mirrors the WoW interface which would make it pretty much unplayable without a keyboard/mouse setup. Movement and using different skills are such a large part of both games and being unable to have precise control over both ends up making things ridiculously difficult in some PvE encounters and most PvP settings.
Entering text would be a complete pain in the ass and unless LotRO has built in voice support that everyone uses the console version would suffer due to a lack of Ventrilo or Team Speak support as voice communication is fairly vital in executing raid encounters. I suppose it could be included with the game, but that means getting it to work on both or either the PS3 and Xbox 360 and all the additional hassles that go along with that.
It'd probably work out decent for solo play where one joystick controls character movement, while the other moves the camera and cursor, and commonly used abilities are mapped to buttons. From my experience when I was grinding while playing WoW I never really used more than one or two abilities. There's probably a lot of other things that I'm overlooking, but as I haven't played this particular game, my knowledge is a little general.
It seems like something that won't draw a lot of additional subscribers and will probably end up costing more to develop and implement so that it works well than they'll see returned in increased revenue. I'm not saying that a console MMO couldn't be done, but it would need to either solve the problems I mentioned above by adding good voice chat functionality and allowing keyboard and mouse input or be designed from the group up with console controllers in mind.
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I haven't played LotRO, but from what I hear its interface closely mirrors the WoW interface which would make it pretty much unplayable without a keyboard/mouse setup
Uh, that's not a UI problem, it's a complexity "problem".
Imagine having a WoW game without 25 spells/attacks to use.
Just wouldn't work.
Been done. Was shallow. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes I've played Phantasy Star Online, and nowadays its successor, Phantasy Star Universe. It did that. It also had about as much depth as a mud puddle. It was just a glorified button masher.
Managing all those abilities and possibilities and synergies between them, is half the fun of WoW. It's basically like a puzzle game. You have all these pieces, and your team mates have some more, and you have to see what cool things you can build out of them. In real time.
PSO had two lists of 3 buttons each. One normal block of 3 (the fourth button was for a substitute limit break) and a shifted one. Considering that two of those are your normal attacks, it leaves very little room for depth in your abilities. It's also a mere half a WoW action bar.
But let's say you use both shoulder buttons as shifts, and all 4 buttons. That's 12 different icons, or the equivalent of one WoW action bar.
It might be enough for an over-simplified straight-up damage class like rogue or maybe warrior. A mage is already getting squeezed in there. But it would make hybrids utterly impossible. You can't play, say, a druid where the whole _point_ is that you get the skills of 3-4 other classes (if weaker than the pure classes equivalents of those powers), with barely enough buttons for _one_ such class.
Parent
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Maybe you should ask those who played the two console MMORPG's: EQOA and FFXI, how their games handled it, rather than discuss how a glorified Diablo clone did.
EQOA has three hot bars with five slots each, two of which are used for abilities. You never need ALL your abilities ALL the time so you put in what you need for what you're dong at that moment. you control the hotbar with the D-pad, flip between them with right and left d-pad, scroll up and down. You activate the abilities with the circle button.
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Speak for your druid self. My paladin required 3 buttons in healbot mode, about 4-5 in tank mode, and dps mode wasn't much better. It's one of the reasons I quit.
I've played about 3 classes to any sort of depth, and they all used 3-4 buttons 80% of the time. The warlock was the most complex, as it needed about 30 buttons for the other 20%. But most of my time was spent hitting the same button sequence.
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For the record, LotRO does in fact have built-in voice chat, for better
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I know that both support using a keyboard and mouse, but so far there aren't a lot of games that actually allow you to use them. The only one that I've ever heard of is UT3 on the PS3. That's one out of the countless FPS games on the consoles. Most of these games have PC versions as well which means that somewhere along the way there's some code that handles this. How much would need to be changed in order to get it to work on either of the consoles, I honestly don't know, but it seems as though once it's d
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Any PS3 game that uses the standard PS3 text entry UI (the one also used in XMB) supports keyboard text entry, even if the game itself doesn't use it. PS2 games with online capability use the keyboard, mostly for text entry in setup forms or game chat, but in both of the PS2 MMORPG's it can also used for game control.
Pretty sure this has already been done. (Score:2)
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don't get it (Score:2, Funny)
Everything in LotR is set in stone. Your mary sue isn't going to save the day nor will the character be acknowledged by Gandalf or Sauron. The One Ring's going to be destroyed and everyone's going to live happily ever after once the elves cross over to the east.
It's not like Star Wars where there's a god damned retcon every time Lucas scratches himself.
And if the LotR takes place after The One Ring is destroyed, what will make it any different than a branded morepig other than mopping up remaining uruk-hai
Re:don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
And an ending to an MMO isn't a bad thing either- a Tale in the Desert does pretty well with a global EOG+reset every now and then
Parent
Anti-social (Score:4, Informative)
Part of the appeal to MMOGs is the social aspect. Especially that you can play with other poeple you know in RL at the same time. e.g. I play WoW with my husband and have had up to 6 people with their computers in our house playing at the same time. Not so easy to do if everyone needs their own console and TV (and sofa).
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Big question here... (Score:2)
Sure, Nintendo did something much like this with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, necessitating the use of a Gameboy Advance for each player, and both Sega and Sony had their Video Memory Units and Pocketstations-- but an MMO deve
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Unfortunately, with regards to keyboards, what makes a console attractive to a developer is the exact same feature that would discourage a developer from making a console game that requires a keyboard. Predictability - when you develop a game for a console, you know exactly what hardware the console has as standard. Keyboards and mice are far from standard on any console - would you spend the vast sums of money required to develop a modern game, if you know for a fact that 99.5% of your target audience does
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Requiring a keyboard for an MMORPG isn't a big deal. Everyone knows you'll need a keyboard for it. I encountered a few people in EQOA and FFXI who didn't have one, but would always say: "yeah I'm getting a keyboard soon."
No chance (Score:2)
It ain't happening. Console gamers like to play for half an hour to an hour in the evening maybe, not an eight hour raid and shitting in a sock. They also like games that are fun, not grinding.
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Haven't played many console games or know too many console gamers do you. Sure there's the "play Madden for a half an hour" crowd, but there's plenty of console games that people play for hours on end...grinding. God knows how many hours I put into EQOA and FFXI not counting all the single player games.
Lotro is a real mixed beast (Score:3, Informative)
Is Lotro the family friendly MMORPG, the game that doesn't require endless hours to achieve the smallest things OR is it a game that in many ways rivals WoW and even Everquest in the endless grind?
The answer is that Turbine just doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind what it wants Lotro to be.
Level 1-45 are fairly light, LOTS of quests that give good XP and rewards so you constantly feel you are doing new things, going to new places, getting new skills etc etc. Compared to WoW and other MMORPG's getting to the endgame is trivially easy. We are talking 5 days of game time and that is with normal playing for the first time with no grinding for xp.
A mount? Well if you have been a bit frugat, you get your horsey at the right level, np. No endless money grinding for this either.
Crafting, well that is an odd one. The thing is that in Lotro you can't craft for yourself unless you grind VERY HARDCORE. That is PURELY grind to gather resources without gaining XP, else by the time you are a master and can create the best items in a tier, you will be to high level to make any use of them. So does Turbine want people to grind resources OR is this a way to let people do crafting LATER, when they already levelled? Perhaps they just never intended for everyone to be a crafter and where hoping that 1/5 of a kin would craft and the rest would supply.
So far so good, you don't really need to craft early on as it makes no sense, you get better equipment from questing for your level. Later on, you can craft for new characters you create. New players? No, they won't be able to afford to buy crafted gear. But since you can casually quest for XP and items without having to commit for more then an hour for the longest fights it is, by MMORPG standards, a pretty casual game. You don't have to worry for instance about having to kill 100 beasts for 1 item, drop rates are high and often shared in a group meaning a mob drops a quest item for everyone.
And then, things changed.
The level 45 class quest, is the first time players will encounter the dreaded ONE ITEM PER BOSS quest. The class quests require you to collect a list of items from all over the place, there are two quests to do, so two lists, the end items come from one semi-long instance 2-3 hours and one super long instance but that can be done in sessions. The problem is that only one person in the group can get the item and a few of them are shared between classes. Most famous is Slime of Helcham, an easy enough item to obtain, 2 hours, 1 if you got keys. Oh yes keys. They also drop ONE per boss and of course the person who NEEDS them, isn't around next time. With three popular classes needing slime and the fight being, up to that point, one of the thoughest AND one of the most bugged, people easily have to do half a dozen runs just to get it. Then of course, they will also be called upon to aid others in their kin.
Rune winged of Dominance is another item, same instance, but several bosses onwards. If you got keys, it is easy to get to directly, but of course, those who absolutely need keys won't be around when the gates need to be opened. So either you go hardcore and designate people who are key carriers to be online at certain points for opening the doors OR you commit yourself to do it in one run so all the keys will be with the group.
Why does the above matter? Well, it is taking the casual out of the game. In itself there is nothing wrong with being hardcore but there is something wrong with a game that changes its stripes half-way through. You wouldn't want a civilian flight-sim to suddenly turn into a twitch shooter would you, or have your twitch shooter suddenly ask you to remember radio frequencies for every airport?
Another example is reputation grinding, this was added in one of the book updates and is a real mixed beast. Some repuation factions give rep just for killing enemies in certain areas and this is easily obtained, gain rep questing and gain the rewards. But for some there are no enemies
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I personally got broadband with PS2 online gaming in mind. But these days home networks are very very common so a lot of people have their consoles networked. Sure there's a lot of net connected PC's but a lot of them aren't capable of playing mu
Re:Lotro is a real mixed beast (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly, you've got a lot of WoW hate in that post. I've been playing the game since launch, as a rogue, and my current guild is on track to finish Sunwell (most difficult expansion instance) before Wrath of the Lich King hits. You could say I'm a pretty hardcore player.
However, I only play 4 hours a day, four days a week. In those sixteen hours a week, I manage to successfully raid the most difficult instance in the game, farm consumables for said instance (lots of them), and even spend some time leveling various other characters. I have another character at max level, a mage, and a paladin on the way.
Now, sixteen hours a week is a lot of time, but as I said, I'm a hardcore player in the top tier of progression. I choose to do it. A casual player can do an hour of battlegrounds or arena per day and end up with a full set of epic gear after a month or two.
However, that doesn't address GETTING to the level cap. Leveling to the cap is easily possible with zero grinding sessions - nothing but quests. Sure, sometimes the quest is "Kill X number of Y", but the reward is gear, gold, or lots of bonus experience. Blizzard has made many changes to make what was already a very easy leveling process even easier (compared to a game like EverQuest or FFXI). Experience needed per level was reduced by 15%, low-level quest rewards were reworked to have more optimized stats, mounts are now available at level 30, and so much more. There is no penalty for death other than a small amount of money and a short walk - no experience hit, no de-leveling. Heck, with a good guide, you can go from 1-70 in less than three days played time.
In conclusion, WoW is not a grind unless you want it to be. A player can be successful without devoting their life to it. It's easily the most casual MMO I've ever seen.
On top of that, it's FUN!
Parent
It should be hard for Turbine (Score:2)
What they deliver in UI usually is far worse than other companies. One thing I remembered from my LOTRO days was how their UI came off half finished. Parts of the UI would have an appropriate fantasy-rpg look while other parts looked liked a PDA from DOOM3.
I think it is interesting Turbine is looking towards consoles for success. With two of the biggest names ever in gaming titles you would think any competent company could hit a home run. I know, they don't publish their numbers and its rumored that LO
Console MMOs possible, is the market there though? (Score:2, Interesting)
People need to remember that MMORPG's aren't the only MMO games out there. Sure they are the dominant archetype among mmo's, but successes have been made of others too, many of which are more suitable for consoles.
An MMOFPS like Planetside would suit console's perfectly in my opinion - easy enough to control using a standard console controller, and a good mix of action / twitch and persistent elements. Some console games are halfway there, they provide persistent elements in having ranks / xp for characters
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I'll agree that FFXI could have benefitted from HD resolutions. Don't know why it doesn't support it, even 480p would have helped. It was also very grainy with a lot of shimmer, you know what I mean, compared with EQOA.