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Role Playing (Games)

Putting The RPG Back Into MMORPG 69

Posted by Zonk from the that'd-be-nice dept.
Garthilk writes "In the last two weeks since E3 I've read at least three gushing reviews about an upcoming game by Simutronics, called Hero's Journey. MMORPG.com gave it their E3 best of show award. CorpNews said it blew their pants off. IGN even had a good interview with the CEO of Simutronics. Warcry even goes so far as to say that it will turn gaming world upside down. The question still lingers though, can a company who has focused on text based roleplaying games cut it in the graphical world?" From the MMORPG.com article: "In a year full of big budget, big company titles, Hero's Journey offered graphics on par with all the major players and an extremely exciting look at their game play. E3 2005 marked a show where several high profile games were touting very similar features (state based combat), and in swept Hero's Journey with their innovative group combat, highly cinematic missions, interactive environments and hands down the best character creation ever put into an MMORPG."
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Putting The RPG Back Into MMORPG More

Putting The RPG Back Into MMORPG

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  • Role or Roll playing? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by subl33t ( 739983 )
    It sounds ambitious but I would really like to know how the method of character progression actually differs from any mmorpg already out there.
    Can the GMs award extra experience for clever solutions? Can they award a character extra experience for behaving as a particular character (priest, druid, etc) should? Can they subtract experience for a player acting out of character?
    Until/unless that happens the "R" in computer RPGs will stand for "roll".
    • 1. Any reward or penalty system has to be administered in a regulated fashion or else a game's fee paying subscribers will call foul. 2. Any regulated reward or penalty system will be analysed, broken down and details posted on every HJ fan site and forum. 3. Role playing goes out the window as in all MMORPGs (dedicated RPG servers apart) as people do whatever it takes to climb the ladder. Be a real geek - get a stack of rule books and a pound of dice if you want to roleplay.
    • Purists will never be happy, I guess. You don't need a GM giving you cookies to make it a "true" rpg. Especially when all quests are instanced, you can progress through things in your own manner, interjecting additional content as you see fit. You are still forced at some point to come back to the game design, but that's the tradeoff of a game that you, and everyone like you, can play with all of your friends.
    • Can the GMs award extra experience for clever solutions?

      You mean like this? [thenoobcomic.com]
    • I am a player of Simutronics's (Maker of Hero's Journey) MUD Gemstone IV. In my experience the GMs do reward you for "good role-playing". It can be for something as simple as staying in character or becoming involved in a GM run storyline (quest). These awards increase the rate at which you gain experience for a finite amount of time. They have always been fairly liberal with these role-playing awards but I've never heard of a player being penalized for being OOC other than a trip to the consultation loung
      • I do however, have concerns regarding the large influx of players that have no concept of "staying in character" or have names like joekiller34.

        I also played Gemstone IV (and Gemstone III before it). The GMs were very good at recognizing good roleplaying, and I never heard any complaints about GM favoritism or anything along those lines. I also share your concern -- when Gemstone III was linked up with the Zone [zone.com], they offered a free trial which drastically increased the number of players for a few months

  • A sure sign a character isn't in his proper role.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @06:43PM (#12741020) Homepage
    "Leeeeeroyyyyyyyyyy Jhhhenkhinsszzzzzz!!!"

  • Of course a text-based company can. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you've been doing text-based games here and now in the 21st century- then it's fairly obvious you're probably focusing ONLY on the core mechanics of what makes a *game* fun. That's unique and a skill in and of itself.

    3D engines OTOH, judging by the amount of shovelware on Gamespot these days, seem to be pretty much a dime a dozen.

    • No that wasn't a typo. I believe the base price is around $10/month, Premium $25/month and the Platinum service is $49.95. At that price you're pretty much guaranteed that you'll only be playing with mature adults and having played Dragon Realms for a few years with an ex girlfriend it was really rare to encounter a problem that actually required a GM.

      http://www.play.net/dr/platinum/ [play.net]

      • Hah! I remember Gemstone III at $6/hour. $25/hour during prime time (daytime). Yes, $25/hour. No, I didn't play during prime time. But other people did/ Mumble. Kids today with their "$50 a month is too high!". You should have seen some of the bills people used to rack up in Simutronics games. $600/month would be considered average.
  • I would think they'd have an advantage. After all, a text based game can't get by on pretty graphics, it has to actually be a great game.

    IANAGame Programmer, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to slap some pretty front end on an existing good game than to create a good game to go with your pretty graphics.

    • Re:Text based company in a graphical world (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Read the fucking articles.

      They're not "slapping a GUI" on any MUD. They've spent 3 years developing a toolkit for their GMs to readily edit and update the world.

      My only complaint with their graphics engine is the lack of dramatic shadows. The terrain looks great, but the models look flat and boring.

    • I suspect you'll be proved right. I've played many games with flashy graphics and sound effects and given up halfway through. The best games, invariably, are those that require real strategy and/or provide real plot development.

      Graphics and sound effects can make or break a game with that kind of gameplay, but nothing can make a game without it.

    • I am a programmer, but not a game programmer.

      I have often wondered (and commented on slashdot on occasion) at why 3D MMOGs had not taken a leaf from the books of those for whom gameplay is, quite literally everything.
      The articles list features (e.g. the roleplaying GM) that I remember seeing 5 years ago in a MUD. I am sure they were around longer than that though.
      While this example us a lot fo work to implement, most other neat features of MUDs are a trivial extension to make 3D.
      One has to wonder why EQ an
    • That's like saying photography is easy, but writing the article is hard. Both are forms of communication, and both take real effort to do right.

      -Jeff

  • The Website...in case you needed it. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Marc_Hawke ( 130338 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @06:58PM (#12741188)
    http://www.play.net/hj/ [play.net]

  • Screenshots Here: (Score:4, Informative)

    by Trespass ( 225077 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @07:21PM (#12741425) Homepage
    http://www.play.net/hj/gallery/ [play.net]
    • Heh.
      Is it just me or does providing a link to screen shots of a game where what's being touted is the game play strike a bit of "missing the point"
  • REWARD

    Missing:

    One slightly worn pair of pants, last seen near CorpNews crew at E3.

    Return to the nearest half-naked person matching a CorpNews crew description...

  • The problem is the "masses" of "massive" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by snorklewacker ( 836663 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @07:33PM (#12741522)
    You can put all the thought and effort into writing intricate story, drama, and atmosphere into a world, make it as immersive as you can, fantastic or authentic, put life into your NPC's with detail, background, motivations, and aspirations, and create a world to enchant the player ...

    And he will have to share it with thousands of people who use the letter "u" as a pronoun.
    • Heh, not to mention the effect of group thinking. When you have a group of people the intelligence of the group is not determined by the smartest person in the group, it's determined by the dumbest. For example, in a recent MxO event players persisted in firing at a "boss", even though it was clear that bullets had no effect, for hours. It actually took the intervention of the live team for players to figure out that certain items dropped by mobs which spawned from the boss could be used as weapons again

    • Yeah, as everyone knows, MMORPGs are fun until someone else logs in =)

      However, I think actual roleplaying would be possible in MMORPGs if it was just more encouraged. Make clear where OOC chatter belongs, and such.

      As for "u", well, just tell people that you're supposed to properly spell things and make moderators carry big sticks.

      I've seen both things getting done, though they were all in small servers (role-playing stuff working wonderfully in NWN, chat monitoring and spelling policy working wonderfu

      • Roleplaying is possible even among massive populations of kiddie "hardcore" gamers. You just have to be patient, get into a lot of different groups. Note how you interact with them. Put the lamerz who use terms like 14m3Rz (or who act like jerks*) on your ignore list, put the mature players who play a character well on your list of friends. If there is a guild with a lot of your online friends in it, join that one, or start one with those on your friends list. Once you join or start your guild, remembe
    • So true!

      The best online RPG experiences I've had have been by and large lacking the "massive".

      Even impromptu Neverwinter Nights matches between strangers have garnered a better experience than the most elaborate WoW guild raid. Invariably, the desire for that next lvlup or that sack'o'lewt drives MMORPG players to abandon the game in favour of the dull strive for precious things, like so many lab rats flicking switches.

      If you really want to make a MMORPG awesome, make it great to play without any gold, x
    • Simutronics (and I, actually, since I used to be a GM for them) already have experience with this. When Gemstone and Dragonrealms were pretty much exclusively on GEnie, a "big crowd" would have been 50 people in the game at once. Then AOL joined. BOOM, all of a sudden you had thousands of clueless, insane, and downright antisocial newbies wandering around screwing everything up. The GEnie players were still paying BY THE HOUR (and were thus mostly adults) while AOL newbies were kids on flate rate plans

  • Realism vs. Fun..ism (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RaisinBread ( 315323 ) on Monday June 06, 2005 @08:06PM (#12741813) Homepage
    From one review:

    "For example, you may dress as a pirate, a knight in shining armor or any other of the amazing combinations they offer. The frilly pirate shirt will act just as well as the armor for protection. Obviously, this sacrifices realism, but it ensures that players get to look how they want and still effectively play the game."

    Somehow I think this thinking is a little flawed, especially if there is any sort of PVP... which isn't always 'fun.' For example, I want to look like a kick-butt world-owning mega warrior when I'm really a level nothing mage. Real is sometimes better, especially when real = believable.

    On the other hand, it really stinks to build up your super awesome frilly-pirate-shirt wearing character, only to have him permantly eliminated by the first baddie he happens to fall into. (which is probably more real)

    I think that the storytelling abilities text-based players have will aid this company but their who-cares-what-it-looks-like attitude probably comes from the same place.

    There's got to be a better balance, at least for me...

  • What's so innovative? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by timford ( 828049 )
    Maybe I'm missing something... what is so revolutionary and innovative about this game? What I've read about it offers almost no details about what makes the game so special. Instead all we get is the same vague promises spewed whenever ANY new MMORPG comes out. Amazing character creation, intriguing quests and adventures, wonderful GM-run NPC events, etc. Haven't we all heard it all before? I want some details before I buy into the usual hype.
    • If you want to know what this game is going to be like then go to play.net and sign up for a free 30 day trial of either Gemstone or Dragonrealms. Basically this game is going to be a graphics based version of the formentioned games. Simtronics has won gaming awards in the past including Computer Gaming World's online game of the year so they do know how to put a great game together. My personal experience with their MUD's tells me that this game will be much better than any other MMORPG out there. When th
  • I'm a long-time player of another of Simu's games (6 years in DragonRealms), and I think that they have a good chance if they don't alienate their customers (one example: thieves in DR have seen, at most, two significant developments in the past three years).

    Subscription costs on-par with other MMOs would be a good start (for those unaware: in their current games it's $15/mo for a single character slot [there's only one server], $3/mo per extra character slot, or 10 slots for "premium" accounts which are

  • Wake Me Up... (Score:2, Troll)

    by Shihar ( 153932 )
    ...when someone figures out what that R stands for in RPG.

    I'm sorry, but this doesn't sound even a little bit innovative. Perhaps I am a slow reader, but where in that entire article did it mention a new idea that isn't just a refinement of an old one? As far as I can see, this is just World of Warcraft part 2. Great, so they have refined the boring MMORPG formula a little more and have made that same shitty gameplay more refined. If you strip down the cosmetics, the game is same boring shit that we h
    • They've released maybe 10% of what's going to be in the game, if that. If you've read the interviews they really don't want to reveal everything all at once. The game is still in development and probably won't come out until sometime next year. If they told you everything now then your interest would be gone by the time the game came out. Now isn't the right time to release all the "good stuff" about the game. They'll wait until closer to the release date to really "hype the game up."

      If you've ever played

      • Re:Wake Me Up... (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by Shihar ( 153932 )
        HJ has not expressed some great new concept that is going to set it apart from all the other MMORPGs not because they are good company and don't want to hype. They have not done it because they don't have it. They will merrily tell you about the generic crap and promise it will be better (see interview), but they are certainly not holding back some great grand new style of gameplay that will set it apart from everyone else. Will there be features they unveil? Absolutely. Will some of those features may
        • Simu wouldn't even waste their time with this game if it wasn't going to be innovative. They were going to release a game with this same title a few years ago but scrapped the plan and started over because they knew it wouldn't work. Now they've come back with something that they know will be innovative. If Simu wanted to "cash in" as you say, then they would have done so a few years ago when there weren't so many MMORPG's out there. This project has been in the works for 3 years now. It isn't something the

          • Re:Wake Me Up... (Score:1, Flamebait)

            by Shihar ( 153932 )
            I hate to burst your bubble, but as a long time MUD player I know the record. I want to see Gemstone 3 with graphics roughly about as badly as I want to see someone make a sequal to Everquest... oh ... shit.

            Maybe you and I were playing different games here, but I am pretty damned sure that their MUDs had the same hack and slash game play as nearly every other MUD out there. MUDs were not the holy grail of gaming. There were some great ones that turned the boring hack and slash crap on its head. Armaged
            • Have you read about the awards they got for their showing at E3? MMORPG's best in show. GamersInfo.net's Editor's Choice award. Not to mention great reviews by several other sites after seeing the game at E3. That stuff doesn't happen by accident and it doesn't happen if the game isn't any good. Maybe the best review that I've seen so far is at http://www.corpnews.com/node/36 [corpnews.com].

              I'm guessing that you've had a bad experience with MMORPG's. Hey, it happens. There isn't a perfect game out there and there will be
              • Apparently we are arguing the same thing. I have read all the reviews. I see a refined traditional MMORPG. You read the reviews and see a refined traditional MMORPG. The difference between you and me, is that I see another game obsessed with tactical combat and levels as squandering the potential of dragging together a few thousand people into an online world.

                Think of your wet dream game far into the future with full VR suits. Is it a game where you log in, go to a dungeon, and hunt down NPCs for expe
                • 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 tha
  • The difference between Hero's Journey and any other modern MMO is in Simutronics' most prized possessions: its GMs. Given a powerful suite of tools, these creative geniuses are given license to alter the game world in any way they choose to tell a tale.

    OK, so the difference is a promise to use GM's to make dynamic content and events? Like I haven't heard that before.

    It's all fun and games till the GM takes control of a level 12 troll to attack some lowbie village where the lowbies would love to band t
    • Only Simtronics has a history of coming through with their promises. If you've played any of their current games then you would know this but you haven't so you really aren't speaking with any knowledge. I am. Simtronics has won several online gaming awards and it's because of their great GM interaction that they have. Simu isn't making promises, they're stating fact. Trust me, I know. I've played their flagship game Gemstone and their GM interaction is unmatched in any MMORPG out there. When this game come
      • Everyone is "different". Everyone has a justification.
        No one has done it yet.

        Obviously you aren't speaking with any knowledge of MMORPGs. Don't tell me you are. You aren't. You might have played a ton of 'em. You might have been a DM for some piddly-esque crap mud. I don't care.

        It isn't that they wouldn't want to. It's that these things cost money. These things create issues themselves. These things take resources.

        Every fucking MMORPG that has come out has promised this shit and failed. And your li
  • from the gamespy article: "As an end result of such heavy focus on interactive storytelling, the player becomes attached to his or her character like never before--they'll want to keep exploring the constantly changing, continually evolving world and keep forging their character's unique story."

    This would be a perfect opportunity to implement a permadeath [slashdot.org], which for some reason people keep demanding as an essential element in a good online RPG.

    Personally, I'm of the opinion that the permadeath hardcore g
  • Hero's Journey Video [onlinewelten.com] I played Simutronics' DragonRealms for 8+ years and have since played most every major MMORPG to date. DragonRealms still holds the the crown for the best, most immersive, fun game I have ever played. This game has the potential to be the best mmorpg ever. I can't wait to play. If not for their high (too high) monthly charges for their existing games, I would still be playing.
  • ...why resort to the same D&D-style fantasy world again? In a packed market, it seems to me the last thing you'd want is to feature the same setting as the most popular MMOs out there.

    I see some nice steampunky elements in their screenshots... I wish they'd run with that rather than resorting to the same old elves and druids and rogues and blech.
    • Because that is Simu's trademark. If you know anything about Simu then you would know that they've been around since 1987. One of their games, Gemstone, was the game they launched with at that time. The world of Elanthia, the world that Hero's Journey is based in, is the same world used in Gemstone. That's what they've gone with for a long time and that's what's made them successful. Everyone wants to talk about Dungeons and Dragons but Simu and Gemstone were just as big in pioneering online gameplay, at le
  • How many of you posters have read the most recent interview about Hero's Journey on RPG Vault? I'm just wondering if you would have the same views then.

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