MMOrpg game comparison

Just because @James had asked us the same about voxel games, here now the questions about MMOs you play/have played and how that may help the devs to make Oort Online to a even better gaming experience :wink:

So here are the Questions:

1.: What other MMO(s) do you play/have played?
2.: What do they right?
3.: What do they wrong?
4.: What can Oort Online learn from them?

Hope we can get some nice inspirations :wink:

2 Likes

1: Mabinogi, a personal favorite. Most people get turned off by the character models I think, but otherwise it is a superior MMO.

2: Combat is strategic and not smash all your skill buttons. Customization is insane, I guarantee you wonā€™t look like someone else unless you are a totally new player or you are doing it on purpose.

3: Itā€™s all about the micro transactions, seriously I buy something almost every 3 months.

4: Donā€™t make me pay anymore please, sell me a T-shirt or a 3d model of my own character, but please donā€™t encourage me to pay hundreds after Iā€™ve already bought the game.

2 Likes

For me, I have some mayor gaming experiences with MMOs. Here they are ā€¦

GUILD WARS 1

Right: Guildwars had only a limit of 8 Skills you can use at once. You could lern hundreds but have to chose 8 to take into your bar. On this way there where many different styles of gameplay. It also was very teambased through the limited skill use and the enviroment was made to be conquered in groups (you could take NSCs with you if you not got to 4-8 ppl). Enemies also had 4 or more skills (many of them the same that players can learn), used them smart and were acting mainly in mixed groups so then encounters were feeling like a real match of two parties fighting each other. Also, through the possibility to mix classes and change the second class freely, everyone could lern every skill (only few were only good for only the main-class of the character).
Special effects on items were nice, but not gamechanging (for example: The most loved effects on a weapon were 20% armor penetration on every 5th hit or +30 life (was about 5-7% of normal max life) . Also, everyone could get ā€œmaxedā€ items very quick, so skill was more important than equip.
And at last, GW was highly using conditons, interrupts and combinations of effects. So there were many players who had 2-4 of there skills with interrupts to lame down enemy healers or casters, which was important. Also the conditions were very strong, ranging from bleeding or burning damage over slowdowns, confusion (lower casting speed), poisoning, weakness (lower attack power), deep wounds (max health reduced) and blindness (+some others). Some skills were functioning better on special conditioned enemies, so if you took a heavy swing on an slowed enemy the skill could knock hin down or a bleeding enemy could get interrupted or slowed down. So if the group used good combinations there were many powerful ways of interaction.

Wrong: No open world outside of cities and outposts. It was good for the conzept, but so the game felt empty sometimes. Many people were overwhelmed by the number of skills to chose from

To learn from: Limited number of equipable skills at once (may be through item slots) but many different skills/items to chose from. let there be skills that interact (for example: One slows the enemy, another one stuns a slowed one or let them bleed. ā€¦ Let enemies have some skills to let them feel more versatile. 2 or 3 per Creature would be cool. ā€¦ Let item bonuses be good, but donā€™t let them get to powerful compaired to ā€œlowerā€ ones. This would lead to be good by being a skilled player. ā€¦ let there be some nice conditions or effects that we can put in enemies (or they to us) for enrich the combat experience. Let there be reduced armor through acid or weakening effects. Blindness would also be cool if it is a real visible effect. Also, let the effects not be only for some few seconds. ā€¦ May be skills have a using time of 0,5 - 1,5 seconds so that there is a way to interrupt or avoid them.

WILDSTAR

Right: skills used areas of effect, even melee skills, and you also saw that effect of incoming enemy attacks. The Housing was interesting, cuz furniture gave a bonus on the relexing-bonus (which was an ep+ bonus in the game). It also had spots for farming or partying ^^. There were items you could use on your equipment to give bonuses to them (slight ones). It also had only a limit of 7 skills to put on at the same time. Also, the enemies had nice skills, but only 1 or 2. REEEEAAL Cool Boss fights in dungeons or raids.

Wrong: To class based gameplay. Only 30 skills per class. Dead because they didnā€™t listened to the community (or just to late)

Learn from: The possibility to upgrade items (may be ā€œbetterā€ later equip has a slot for a special gem to add) ā€¦ The comfort bonus through good furniture, light in the home or other special circumstances at your beacon where you are logging off or stay for longer. What bonus we will get through it would be your choice, devs :wink: ā€¦ Also the enemies and their tactics are inspirational. The Bosses may be good examples for titans :wink:

WOW

Good: Masive World with a lot of lore. Home areas for the races and their own capitals. Nice sum of pets and mini pets. The rest is quite bad ^^

Wrong: Equip is to important for the power of a character ā€¦ Skill Spamming ā€¦ no variation in gameplay for different builds for the same (sub-)class. ā€¦ Enemies where uncreative (only some bosses were nice made). ā€¦ Being able to solo areas/dungeons/raids ment for lower players.

to learn from: NO SOLOING on titans and harsh dungeons (even for lower people). May be there is a adjustment for higher people visiting lower worlds. ā€¦ NO to powerful equipment. Let new equipment have new effects or skills, but only slightly better stats. ā€¦ NO Skillspaming ā€¦ NO dump Mobs. ā€¦ And now to the Pros ^^: May be there could be a home world for each race. ā€¦ Let their be a lot of lore about the lands and the history ā€¦ let there be many different animals not only for herding, but also tamable (with different attack skills on each one)

Finiiiiiished! :wink:

PS: Nearly forgotten: THE SECRET WORLD
right: Skill wheel with every character able to learn all the skills ingame (but with a lot of work ^^). Coool atmosphere, story and screenplay. 3 DIfferent factions with own aims (that were handled my faction based quests and missions.

wrong: Combat was to strafing intensive. Mobs where just ok. Ranged combat was nearly impossible if all was running up to you ^^

learn from: Everyone should be able to lern and master everything, but only with a lot of effort to do that. Factions are a good idea to think about (if it would fit into the lore and game mechanics). May be Dungeons (if there are some) can feel a bit creapy trhough fog, sounds and strange (and may be surprising) creatures :wink:

1 Like

Warning: The following post is a representation of this posterā€™s views, they are not stated facts, just opinions.
I donā€™t think I could list every MMO Iā€™ve played on this post.

  1. Runescape
  2. Before 2012, Runescape was literally the only MMO I played (On and off) besides Maplestory. The F2P was limiting but it didnā€™t truly feel like I had to pay the subscription just to enjoy the game. It was tedious to constantly grind to level up skills but it felt rewarding to do so after, plus I didnā€™t notice it much because of the community back then, Iā€™d be training a skill and more than likely see a friend there or end up walking away with a friend.(I played on a friendly world. :smile:) When I did end up paying the subscription it was an even better game, tons of quests that werenā€™t ā€œKill X amount of monsters, report to So-and-So, etc.ā€ they actually made you think sometimes, maybe they even challenged you with combat, and they were somehow connected with each other within the lore which I didnā€™t read even though I roleplayed.(Wellā€¦ I used quest guides online for 75% of the quests, but you get what I mean.) I remember when they introduced the Grand Exchange, that thing was like a work of God, you didnā€™t have to gather in a trading world in one spot and spam what you are selling and buying (And possibly get scammed if you donā€™t pay attention.), you could just go to the GE and look up or place an item then set your price and walk away and wait for someone to sell or buy the item.(I also remember being so scared of saying that I was selling something that Iā€™d just sit there and wait for someone to say they are buying.) When the EOC update came it made combat feel less RNG based since you could actually use abilities instead of click and wait.
  3. What didnā€™t they do wrong? The EOC update basically killed the game, there used to be at least 8-10 worlds full (2000 players) compared to the max of around 1200 players on just two worlds, some worlds floating between 200-300 players, and the rest being below or around 100 players. Iā€™ve literally seen every boss released in the game up-to-date soloed, I can even solo some of them and I probably have the worst stats and equipment out of anyone that has had an account as long as I have. The memberā€™s loyalty programme had itā€™s perks if you could cough up the subscription fee but the auras that you could buy with the points given kind of said ā€œHey there you non-sub plebs, look at the extra stuff we give our members on top of the content that we have you locked out of!ā€ The Solomonā€™s General Store was a cash grab but it didnā€™t make the game pay to win since it was cosmetics. Bonds, now they are good for players that have enough money in game because they donā€™t have to spend the real money to be a member or to get stuff from Solomonā€™s General Store but it was basically Jagexā€™s way of trying to defeat gold sellers, you pay Jagex $10, they give you a bond which you can sell to another player in game for gold or items.
    The Squeal of Fortune or as it is called now, Treasure Hunter, was another easy cash grab that Jagex put in the game, it had itā€™s perks by giving F2P players one reward each day the logged on (Two a day for members and you can buy more with bonds or real-life currency.) Please forgive me for saying this but when they got rid of the bots (not all bots) the economy went crazy, obviously the economy is better now but there are still items that arenā€™t even sold on the GE when they used to be sold when there were a bunch of bots. Also, Jagex recently increased the amount it costs to pay for members from $7 up to $10. (USD, and the original price might have been $8, I canā€™t remember, but they are just milking more money out of people.)
  4. Well if there is something to learn from Jagex, it would be to not change something unless it is broken unless you want to lose most of your playerbase (I say change because they didnā€™t fix anything, they just broke stuff.) to not milk money out of the players, or at least reduce the amount you milk out of us, and avoid creating pay to win methods. (I donā€™t see why Oort would even be close to resorting to introducing a pay to win method since we have to pay once just to play the game and there are discussions of how you guys could get money besides people purchasing the game.)

Iā€™ll just finish my post here because it seems pretty long, I can make more posts about other games Iā€™ve played if you guys want.

Edit: I shouldnā€™t call Jagex a bad word.

3 Likes

Or protectors people keep forgetting these :slight_smile:

1 Like

i can remember a ton and have played even more. i will write the long version when i get home.

but to mention what i am going to go around:

ESO
Wildstar
Trove
TSW
GW2
Tera

and some different others as i go around such as blade and soul which i dabbled in, and then a few others which i cannot remember atm.

1 Like

Actuall Iā€™ve played a lot of games in my short life already, and none of them really satisfied me ^^
Iā€™m very pick about a looot of things, thats because Iā€™m an ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  perfectionsit. So I canā€™t really tell what Oort can learn of other Games and I dont think tha a Game will ever satisfy me at all, not even if I would make an own ^^

But there are many cool things out there that could be implemented, I think Oort Online can learn from a lot of Games, I just cant name anything cause Iā€™m always just plying and not paying attention to such spesific Things. Good that others give good suggsestions :stuck_out_tongue:

Asheronā€™s Call, I & II
Done right: seamless world. Character progression and skill building Player housing with different options.
Done wrong: It became difficult after a few years to make things challenging without going to the nuclear option. PVPā€“it was all griefers. There was no point in starting a characterā€“youā€™d be dead and naked after two seconds on the PVP server. Lesson learned: a PVP system must have penalties for powerful characters who prey too far below their level. (That means instigateā€“if you want to attack someone +10, go right ahead.)

City of Heroes/Villains
Done right: Just about everything. Character progression wasnā€™t on railsā€“you could choose your own story. The replay value was huge because the powers and crafting were very well balanced.
Done wrong: End game, such as it was. Too repetitious and no clear sense of a goal.

Star Trek Online
Done right: Handling the intellectual property. Character progression.
Done wrong: End game is just DPS, DPS, DPS. The third owner is trying to monetize it to death after converting to F2P and the end-result is power-creep, leading to DPS, DPS, DPS. Me, I like exploring and building. Itā€™s nice that things explode, but Star Trek wasnā€™t about making things explode. Honor the property, I say.

Earth and Beyond
Done right: Explorationā€“it was a big galaxy and exploring it brought character advancement benefits.
Done wrong: Starbases too small. Not enough time spent on planetsā€“just space, space, space. Economy was never given time to develop. It died an early death by allowing too much pre-release advancement among the beta-testersā€“the galaxy couldnā€™t be made big enough fast enough to keep everyone engaged.

Dark Age of Camelot
Done right: Honestly, I donā€™t remember liking it enough to think anything was done right.
Done wrong: Entirely player-based economy. The world was too-obviously bounded. The first 50 levels were nothing but prelude to the end-gameā€“whatever it was, because I couldnā€™t stay interested enough to get there. I do remember that all the guilds I saw seemed to think they were either cults or the military, neither of which are particularly good models for in-game participation.

DC Universe Online
Done right: Graphics are very well done.
Done wrong: Character creation. Combat system. Itā€™s a console twitcher with extra people in it.

Champions Online
My grandma said if I couldnā€™t say something nice, not to say anything at all.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
Done right: Intellectual property. The graphics were phenomenal. It feels like the SW universe.
Done wrong: Character progression on rails on a per-class basis. Strange ā€œbossā€ episodes every 10 levels, some of which required the equivalent of ā€œclick a single pixelā€ solutions in story-based point-and-click adventures. Too many bugs (as in insects, not programming mistakes). (ā€œI donā€™t know, letā€™s just figure out a new kind of giant bug for them to fight.ā€)

1 Like

really? bad character customization in DC universe?

I think its one of the games that allows you to customize your character as much as you want.

Well, here we go:

The Secret World-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they do right:

  • Character customization is excellent.
  • All skills are available with enough dedication.
  • Lore system was fantastic and I hope something akin to it is used.
  • Fantastic community-dev interaction.
  • Cash-shop is mostly cosmetic.

What they do wrong:

  • Crafting is abysmal and pointless at higher tiers.
  • PVP is ignored by the developers for the most part.
  • Combat is clunky and often just involves spamming a builder for one other skill then the spamming repeats.

The Elder Scrolls Online-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they do right:

  • Deep, intriguing lore.
  • Very nice combat mechanics.
  • Character creation is top-notch.
  • Multi-guild memberships.

What they do wrong:

  • Community-dev interaction is rather poor and they backpedal on what they say very often.
  • Locking races to a particular faction.
  • No personal housing or connection.
  • Started with a subscription for an initial cash-grab.
  • Timesink crafting research.

Guild Wars 1&2-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they did right:

  • Inventory conservation of materials.
  • Learning the abilities of your weapon by using it was neat. (GW2)
  • Very nicely done worlds.

What they did wrong:

  • That shop.
  • Story was rather meh.

Tera----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they did right:

  • Beautiful character models and animations.
  • Beautiful worlds.
  • Very nice soundtrack.

What they did wrong:

  • Elin.
  • That shop.
  • One race better than all others in terms of combat for all classes.

WOW---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they did right:

  • Establish the genre.
  • Captures that addictive game phenomenon.

What they did wrong:

  • Subscription is not worth what you now get.
  • Punishes new players who want to know the whole story.
  • Events do not repeat.

Champions Online---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they did right:

  • No.

What they did wrong:

  • Exist.

=====================================================================================

What to learn from them all:

  • Keep involved with the community post-launch and stay honest.
  • Keep any form of cash shop mostly cosmetic, avoid pay to win at all costs.
  • Encourage and grow lore as much as possible.
  • Have a story, even if it is a backdrop.
  • Have skill progression based on use of skills.
  • If possible, avoid levels. Let gear and skills and player ability dominate.
  • If possible, avoid classes or let us make our own classes from skill sets.
  • If you need a subscription, better utilize it well.
  • Do not punish players in the future just getting into the game.
5 Likes

I liked the combat in Tera, but nothing else. I am so surprised they are still around.

The hate is strong in this on :slight_smile:
I have a strong feeling i should not try that game.

I am unsure what you mean with this?

Oh come on man, THE ELIN FOR TERA? IS THAT YOUR BAD POINT.

Elins are the best! running around as little girl killing people with a 2 meter axe, its only slightly pedophilic

Champions is just really clunky and in no way does anything fluidly.

With WOW you can miss out on an event or storyline and you will never be able to go back to it. They have somewhat tried to rectify this with shards of past dungeons/events but they are very abstract from the game as a whole. Altogether it is just rather immersion breaking and another reason it seems punishing to new players.

1 Like

Elin in Tera are what make me wary of RP servers. Also, that hilarious advantage they had over any other race because their hitbox was 75% of their actual size, which is already smaller than almost every other race was rather ridiculous, if not humorous.

All in all, fun, but so one-sided.

1 Like

Then you must have a better copy than I have, because the character options pale beside those of City of Heroes or even Champions Online. For example, it seems to me like thereā€™s very few facial choices of basic faces or facial features. I donā€™t recall there being much variety in chest emblems or patterns, and what there are seem to owe a lot to Jack Kirby. Perhaps theyā€™ve done a better job of it since I stopped looking, but Iā€™m betting that if I go back in today and start a character Iā€™m going to be disappointed. The power choices are alsoā€¦well, lacking. I suppose itā€™s all in the DLCs, and honestly, I donā€™t like it enough to invest real money.

Huh? I rather like like that kind of events if just the story is written down somewhere telling what happened. Guild wars 2 have the same kind of events by the way.

I suppose it might come down to the fact that I am a bit of a completionist so it sometimes irks me greatly if I miss out on something. Those events do have their place, I am just not a fan of them.

1 Like

GW2ā€™s living story could be gotten for free the first 2 weeks and then be bought for a few dollars a piece after those 2 weeks were over. i would like something like it in oort, to have events that would make a difference.

i discussed it in ā€˜ā€˜destrucion of worldsā€™ā€™ or whatever i called it, overkill example but in the end it would be nice to have something like a world where the titans are killing everything around them and if you dont stop them then you have a huge area which is just dead.

but the biggest problem people have with that system is like you, they feel like they miss out. which can also really suck, but i like the incentive to be active and to know you participated in something historic rather than it being repeated every few days >.<

1 Like

It seems like I may be the only one thinking so, but I always found it more fun to have class-exclusive skills, for example, I like to give a high priority to survivability over damage output (I played something like that in ā€œChampions of Regnumā€, ā€œAIONā€, ā€œTERAā€ and ā€œGuild Wars 2ā€). If all skills are available to everyone I often feel unindividual, especially at higher levels. Just my opinion though, maybe I have just never played a game which did such a system the right way (I never played ā€œThe Secret Worldā€, is it good?).