Critisms of the current gaming worlds.

This post first started out as yet another attempt to put to paper the concept and thoughts I have had on a fantasy sandbox mmo that I would like to see and play. In many respects it is heavily influenced by Eve Online and in others by my own experiences and things I personally enjoy.
However I'm not going to talk about this.
What the post turned into was a list of points which currently draw my ire and leave me feeling jaded or that they are all just rehashing the same old archetypes and concepts.
So without further ado that list.

1. Explore what's already been explored.
This is something that I think is best exemplified by Guild Wars 2, where there's an award or name given for having explored the entire game world. Except for your not truly exploring. Its all already been explored and mapped.
Its the same for almost all games. They players start out in a world already populated where everything has already been found and named by someone.This means you don't get the enjoyment of going somewhere which is unknown, the thrill of actually exploring something. In some ways game developers can ignore this as its new to you the player and your exploring it for the first time yourself.
Eve interestingly gets around this to a certain extent. First there's known space. where anyone can look at a star map, see the names of every system and what's in that system to a certain extent, as well as exactly how to get there, which system links to which and so on. but they also have randomly generated pve sites popping up all over the place, yes they're the same ones being spawned but they're never in the exact same place. But Eve also has wormhole space which is unmapped and un-mappable for any real length of time. Why? because the connections between the systems there are mostly random, shifting and changing on a very regular basis.

To me it would be great if a developer actually created a world in which there is no map but what you create yourself and what is chosen to be shared with you by others. Imagine if you will that you set out into the unknown wilderness and depending on your skill are able to draw a map or what you find and see, but it's not exact, you would be able to either make some of this publicly available either for free or for a fee. Or you can choose to withhold it and keep it to yourself or choose to share it with friends or your guild.

2. Walk around in places not of player creation, populated by cardboard cut-outs.
About the only current game that I would say that doesnt fall into this catagory is Skyrim simply because they have put alot of time and effort into their npc's to make them as unique as possible.
In so many mmo's you walk around towns and cities in which no player has any ownership over anything, they don't have a house there, the shops and buildings are just there to give a backdrop.
In a sandbox I would say this is acceptable in starter area's as there is some need to give players a starting block from which to learn and move off from.

Again I would like to point out how interesting and cool it would be to be able to walk around a town or village which has been built by your guild or friends or just other people.


3. Be a citizen of something which comes across as sterile and of little importance.
This comes back to the idea that you are essentially just a visitor or are attached to something which makes no difference to your actions or loyalties.

4. Being a hero in a world of heroes.
Any game that isn't single player which tries to make you out to be a hero is bullshitting you. As soon as your playing with others who have the same level of capabilities you lose the heroic feel. Your not a hero in Guild Wars 2, your one of thousands. Your not unique and I think that's possibly one of the things that defines being a hero. You manage to undertake and succeed in heroic actions and tasks which lesser mortals wouldn't or couldn't complete. Nothing you do in Guild Wars 2 is that as so many others can do exactly the same.

To be honest mmo's need to do away with this gimmick and leave it to the single player style of games.

5. Magic for all.
 Magic in story and legends and whatever else is enigmatic, mystical, something limited to a few exceptional people. Unfortunately it's been made mundane, common, known. Not something that mystical anymore.

I'm not against magic being in games, but in my idea of an mmo which I may go into at some later date there would be a major differentiation between two different types of magic. One being that of legends, which is so incredibly rare that its actually mind blowing to see. And at the other end of the scale the magic which is more common but still not something everyone can do is akin to small cantrips for example, creating flashes and sparks.

6. The four races.

I'm somewhat tired of seeing the same races used over and over. Either the common human, elf, dwarf, elf and halfling. or the other archetypes of the strong muscle, the intelligent yet weak of body, the agile quick thinkers and then the middle man.
Again and again we get these re-used in different universes or worlds or whatever and It gets boring to see.

Again going back to what I would like to see in my ideal game is that your choice of races makes no difference to your stats or talents. that there Isn't the stereotypical usual stuff. For example, dwarves being  generally the best engineers and craftsmen, tough douty and have a hatred of elves.
Elves being stuck up better than everyone else people because they live for centuries or are immortal, who have such great knowledge of magic that anyone else seems like insects crawling round in the mud trying to figure it out in comparison.

7. The holy trinity, classes.

Classes are limitations. One of the major things that I like about Eve and the Elder Scrolls games is the lack of classes. You can try anything out. However synergy still has its place. Being a tank who isn't that mobile and going into combat in light armour or just clothes doesn't mean your going to do as well as someone who goes in wearing heavy armour.
Remove them, let people choose for themselves what to do is the way forward instead of forcing choices upon people.
Those that want classes will define them themselves or stick to working synergies.

8. Players not being able to shape the world.
This point is specifically for mmo's. And I think can be most recently and possibly best shown by the Battle for Caldari Prime in Eve Online. Where a series of events led up to a bigger event which changes the storyline and ongoing lore and background of the game. The players were allowed to get involved but their actions were ultimately meaningless as the outcome had already been decided.
In a sandbox, which prides itself on player choices having consequences.

Being able to truly shape the world. Create and Destroy I think leads to the most exciting and griping gameplay. Rather than following a set path where all outcomes are preordained.

So yeah. I've a heck of a lot of gripes about what's out there.
Hopefully I will try putting into writing once more my concept for an mmo soon.

Eve Online Odyssey

Yeah, somewhat interesting news.

The nineteenth expansion for eve online has been announced and it has a launch date as well. (4th of June).
Eve Online Odyssey website 
Pax East 2013 Odyssey presentation. (Linky for the photos of those slides.)

Pax East 2013 What do the next 10 years hold? IGN interview with John Lander.


I'm hopeful about this expansion, I like the words that come out of John Lander's mouth, I'm just playing the wait and see game as to whether he can make CCP do what he talks about wanting to do with Eve.
What's on the list for this expansion;

Discovery Scanner.
Using this new system, more pilots will reveal the hidden secrets of the EVE Universe. Beautiful new visuals, customizable controls and new functionality have been added to encourage the adventurer in everyone. There is now more among the stars, enticing even the most experienced veterans to explore.

I am somewhat confused as to why people think this is going to screw with the existing Directional Scanner. (guessing its because of the D).
To my mind this is actually going to be at least a rework of the base system scanner we all have, but ignore in favour of D-scan for much of the time. But it may also include a revamp or at least making scanning with probes that much better. Currently it feels a little bit faffy and time intensive to me at least, to experienced people its probably relatively quick.
To this and to the following section comes the anomalies, signatures and DED sites. I fully expect we can see all of these massively re-worked at the minimum. I'm going to also say it's likely that mini game/puzzles will be the method of hacking and analysing in the future. I seriously doubt they will do much if anything to salvaging. In my opinion we can expect them to make sure there's a full variety of scaled content in these sites for each faction and going from high to null-sec with them.
If anything I expect there to be a new gold rush much like with Incursions when they first came out to this newly revamped part of the game, where if you put the time in you can make some serious cash.
I will however say I think that CCP will barely touch on those sites within wormholes, maybe a little balancing but that would be it.
However I would love for them to add some new T3 tiers of ships (sub-capital) and build this into the wormhole sites and the industry which revolves around them as well.

A New "Spacescape".
A rebalance of major areas of space from highsec to nullsec include changes in exploration sites, industrial resources, some types of NPC loot and more…

Into this I'm expecting to see the newly revamped and added exploration sites being added.
There has been a little speculation that CCP may be adding some new systems to existing regions or possibly redefining the borders of some regions but I doubt this will be the case.
If anything I'm expecting CCP to add ring mining into all layers of eve, as well as moving around the R64 moons so that not all of the Technetium is situated in the north. I think this will be in an effort to remove the current stranglehold that the combined nullsec powers of the CFC and HBC (inc. PL) currently have upon these. Though it's not going to be enough to force any major changes.

Going out on a complete random limb here but it wouldn't surprise me to see CCP adding lesser style wormhole effects to entire regions of known space with the effects being able to be increased in low-sec possibly and definitely in null-sec. This would be a likely attempt to make more space seem different and add to the value of different regions of space, e.g. if your an alliance which primarily relies on shield doctrines your going to want to move to a region with bonuses to that.

Again people have been speculating that CCP is going to add incursion style events for each pirate faction. I however don't see the point at all. There isn't the lore background for it for the Serpentis nor the Gurista's or even the Blood Raiders. In one of the books the Angel Cartel did actually declare ownership of some Minmatar low-sec system after they got the local populace to all sign up to something or other. But even then I don't see a real reason why the Angel Cartel would.
 One interesting idea that springs from this is the pirate factions having more of a presence in low-sec with maybe gaining ownership of a constellation or two with missions available and so on.

The Little Things.
Continued development towards raising accessibility without removing functionality will bring dozens of changes to player-owned starbases, game UI and beyond.

To this section I'm attributing the new skill and ship tree's that we have seen some leaked screenshots of as well as personal hanger array's for POS's which have been confirmed as to exist on the Chaos test server. I will also guess that a revamp of corporation management and roles will be on the cards, but will be a slow burner item which will be updated on periodically as they untangle this mess and sort it out bit by bit.


The Warmachines.
Forged by the lessons learned from countless combat pilots, the four factions will issue forth with the latest tools of war and re-designs of old favorites - ships as awe-inspiring as they are deadly.

Rebalancing of all faction and navy ships. As well as the introduction of new faction and navy battlecruiser's and if were incredibly lucky some new T3's of some sort. I would also hope to see tier 1 industrials rebalanced as well during this as I doubt it would take much to do. As I think I have stated already on this blog, I completely agree with Jester Trek that these ships need some attention sooner than later.

The Storyline Continued.
The shared EVE Universe storyline continues to evolve following the Battle for Caldari Prime, with participatory events spawning unique player stories in two games at once.

On this I have little to say apart from I hope CCP listens to some of the criticism they received about the Battle for Caldari Prime event. To just quickly re-state the issues which rose from this.

1. There was a predetermined outcome to an event in the One Universe, Sandbox where each of us can supposedly make a difference.
2. System population cap. There shouldn't have been one. Its what I thought reinforced nodes were supposed to deal with, lots of people in a single system.
3. The timing of the event meant that not only were most of the North American playerbase unable to get in on it, but you had to be a quick Brit or Irish etc player to stand a chance of getting home from work to actually participate, (Not to mention most likely being locked out of the system by the population cap.)
4. Commentary on the live stream being at times poor.

However I do hope they release the artwork they produced for the background of the Dust 514 battles with the burning Leviathan wreckage in it.

As a final point I wouldn't put it past them to add in some new nexus stuff in the way of ship skins. With the probable two options being a one off use skin you can purchase or an infinity use ship skin, so you can select to have each and every one of your Drakes or Ravens appear to have the Navy colour scheme or your Oracle's to be dubbed with the rusty red markings of a Blood Raider forever more.

Still only time and fanfest will tell.